$18. Thats how much it apparently cost to get into the bike show. I love Ira. I love Natale. I love keeping my money in my own pocket. Therefore I snuck into the show on Friday during the media pre-event. It was a simple matter of looking like I was supposed to be there and having a believable cover of delivering my fancy Ira Ryan bike to the fancy show. Going in the loading dock probably helped too.
True to all the hype there were a lot of very pretty bikes. Racks, retro looks, and wood are very in again this year. To be honest though I didn’t stick around long. Bike nerds make me nervous and Ira and Natale were too busy to hang out. It was fun though and I heard the crowds got out of control later despite the ridiculously overpriced cover charge. I’ll stick to Portland’s home grown show next year. I’m more into seeing what my friends are up to and the fruits of their hard work. The out of town builder’s bikes were cool but I like to keep my money and sweat equity in the family. Without the generosity of Ira, Cool Breeze, Meagan, Claire and others I wouldn’t have the cool crap I do. I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.
The real action was Saturday night at the Rapha sponsored roller races. Again the organizers were charging a fat cover to get into their event that was sponsored by the makers of the most expensive cycling clothing known to man (not women, they don’t even make women’s clothing.) the event was put on along side the Teams of Portland show over at W+K. Each Portland team put three of their riders up on rollers against all the other teams and who ever could peddle the fastest won. There was one wild card team that just happened to be made up entirely of bike messengers who had dominated the open qualifiers on Friday. So the PÜMA was made up of Eric (Sharky), Damion (Corndog), and Nerf. the wild card team was Chaz, Will, and some messenger from SF. Sharky, Damion, and Will were eliminated in the first round. Nerf was beaten by his own hair in the second round.
I don’t know when the SF kid went down. It was at least the second round. Chaz took the whole thing. I’m sure someone can do a play by play better than me. The gist of it is that it was one of those sports underdog stories of the working messenger against a semi-pro Spandor. Chaz was cool under pressure, peddled really fast, and was a good sport about the whole thing. It all paid ofF with a set of custom pink rollers and a custom Ira Ryan frame.
Tags: NAHBS, Rapha, Roller Races
