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.

A gasp...touring bike from Roland Della Santa...shhhhhhh!

What are you looking?  Something quite rare.

Not the usual color combo but it works

It's the little touches

A crowd looking at the Della Santa entered in the best Campagnolo built bike competition

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Suspension...

Returning to their roots

This Porter had the most style points for the show but I don't know where you use it.  I wouldn't lock it up outside and it's not really a tourer.  Still, I'm a sucker for the Deco look

One of many disk braked fattish tire road bikes...nice paint though!

Devising a way to get a Brooks saddle in every color.  How many bikes do I need for that?

Is it bad that the thing I most desired from the show was this cute Mini?

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.

There will be a talk/presentation given later this month on Major Taylor, one of the most amazing athletes in the history of the sport.

Rear suspension that's over 100 years old.

The Pierce bicycle was a particularly amazing historical example of a bicycle