It's always nice to go to the North American Handmade Bike Show when it makes its way out west to Sacramento. Smaller builders, some quirky and esoteric stuff on the floor, and interesting people to talk to. This year I was particularly pleased to see that Roland Della Santa had more than his usual line up of pretty frames, but also had a few built bikes that demonstrated a bit more range (a touring bike....shhhhhhh), as well a nice banner signed by a young Greg LeMond. Other than that, I was looking to see if there were any bamboo fat bikes....because where else are you going to see that, came across even more wood bikes, a pretty city bike made by Porter Cycles and a few other odds and ends. Not surprisingly (yawn) it felt like 80 percent of the bikes disk braked road bikes that you could fit a wider tire in. Not a bad thing...but it felt like I was looking at the same bike with a different paint job too much of the time.
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Friend and fellow Rambler, Jake, unveiled his new Della Santa at the club dinner last night and this is definitely a situation where the pictures are going to say more than my words. Be that as it may, the bike is built up for riding L'Eroica with this parts spec and has room for 32s (or perhaps bigger?) on it. The Molteni paint scheme, the fork crown, those lugs...just lovely! Sorry the photos are a bit dark but it was...dark outside at night. Go figure.
Finally got a chance to stop by the Marin Museum of Bicycling this past weekend. A solid collection on display. And while I appreciated the examples from the history of mountain biking, of far more interest were the exquisite exhibits from the history, or beginnings of the past-time of bicycling. Between the penny farthing, trikes, dandy-horse, and safety bicycles, they were some of the best maintained examples I've seen of those particular velocipedes. I became a member to show my support for their mission of preserving and honoring mountain bike history and cycling in general.
Truth be told, the mountain bikes, while interesting, were not even quite as nice in some instances as examples I've seen at places like the Monkey Wrench Bicycle Shop in Lincoln, Nebraska. But the photos speak for themselves. Beautiful bikes!
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AuthorFor over 12 Years I wrote the Reno Rambler Blog covering everything from Bicycle Advocacy, Reno Politics, Popular Culture, and my experiences as a long-time cyclist. Archives
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