San Diego Redux

Flame job by the master: Joe Bell

For the last week I’ve been trying to put together a massive image dump of a goodly portion of my 200 or so images I shot at the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show. As it turns out, there can be too much of a good thing. I crashed WordPress on three occasions by uploading too many images; I was too impatient to try to do another three or four posts.

What follows is a further edited group of favorite shots/bikes/cool stuff.

Vendetta showed off this Columbus Max-tubed track bike. Seems the perfect use for Max to me.

 

You can see the ovalized tube profiles clearly at the bottom bracket. The emerald green paint candied the bike to the point of delicious.

The hand-painted details on this bike were stunning and the guys at Vendetta have an exclusive agreement with the painter. Want something this gorgeous? Order a Vendetta.

 

This bike by Mark Nobilette features hand-cut lugs that evoke one of my favorite superheroes: Spider Man.

 

This Bohemian has some of the most elaborate lug work I saw at the show.

 

This bike would be much less interesting were it not for the lugs being painted a third color to add contrast to the two colors already used on the tubes and in the windows.

 

This Soulcraft Randonneur bike enjoyed a really clean brake setup that used a Paul Components U-Brake to supply great stopping power while clearing the fender.

Builder Greg Townsend shows a lug with a piece of cut tubing that he will braze in place so that he can cut a new point for this lug. It’s time consuming work, but offers a great opportunity to make a fresh statement with a lug.

 

More trick work from Townsend. Note the small fillet he added to the lug at the top and bottom to smooth the transitions to the points and spoons.

 

This frame features a Pacenti seat lug he reworked with a longer lower point.

Jeff of Monkey Like Shiny showed off this insanely tall high-wheeler. Call it a half-dollar farthing.

 

The Monkey Like Shiny gravity bike featured a mono-arm fork as well as mono stays.

 

 

Dave Ybarrola showed off this Pereschini with classic lug work and from the look of it, some added fillets.

 

Winter’s Eric Estlund’s taste for bi-laminate building resulted in this subtle half lug for the seat clamp.

 

Bruce Gordon’s work in titanium rivals what many builders struggle to do in steel. Off. The. Hook.

 

Santana Cycles has been perfecting a foam cutout packing system for tandems for some 10 years now. They seem to have it down. The system not only packs the tandem safely, it makes the process nearly foolproof.

 

Mark DiNucci’s city bike was one of my favorites at the show thanks to this lug work.

 

DiNucci crafted this adjustable aluminum chain guide from scratch. The bolts that secure the clamp also pinch the arm in place to keep the guide from moving. Ultra clean.

The San Diego Custom Bicycle Show

This mid-’90s Bohemian may be the first example of brazed-on metalwork taking the place of a decal.

The San Diego Custom Bicycle Show took place this past weekend, still in San Diego (might explain the name) but in a new location, historic Golden Hall, which has been played by the likes of The Who, The Rolling Stones and even The Clash. Nearly 40 different builders attended, joined by another 26 industry exhibitors. With the new location the extra space created an impression that the show was a bit smaller than years past, even though the overall number of exhibitors was up.

I attended Friday and Saturday and while I expected overall attendance to be thin on Friday, I was shocked that foot traffic didn’t increase a lot on Saturday. I like this show a lot. It has a loose, relaxed feel to it, compared to the frenetic pace of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, which is really just due to the increased number of exhibitors and attendees—nothing wrong with that. The thing about the San Diego show is that it’s possible to have a half-hour conversation with a personal frame building hero. Of course, if more people attended, those conversation would be shorter, but if that’s what’s necessary to keep the thing going, I’m okay with that.

Greg Townsend of Townsend Cycles is a Los Angeles-based builder who is doing some terrific work. I loved these half lugs on this track bike. He’s got a great sense of the history and tradition of frame building.

NAHBS is expensive enough now that some builders told me they flat-out can’t afford to attend, which is a shame. The upshot is that there were builders, many very fine ones, in fact, who exhibited at SDCBS who didn’t go to NAHBS, which took care of the one criticism I heard from friends who had decided not to go—they were afraid they’d see stuff they had already seen in Austin. The overlap in bikes was tiny.

The SDCBS gave me an opportunity to spend some quality time talking with builders not only about building, but family, where cycling fits in their world and what they do when they aren’t either building or riding bikes.

Jeff Tiedeken of Monkey Likes Shiny was the most original thinker present and knows how to start a party. Jeff doesn’t work with bikes too often; most of his work is for outfits like NASA, that like to keep him quiet about his contributions.

The Roundtail from Tortola fascinated me. The claim is it offers real-world rear suspension. I can’t verify the claim yet, but it’s interesting work. I want to ride one.

Eric Estlund of Winter Bicycles is fond of bi-laminate work. This head-tube cutout was gorgeous. The bi-laminate approach gives him the opportunity to show off his fillet brazing as well as his ability to cut lugs.

Brent Steelman is probably best known for his welding, but his lug work is outstanding, as seen in these arrow point lugs. The windows he cut in each of the lugs reflected the shapes of the points.

Mo Rebolledo showed this gorgeous randonneur bike; it looked like he’d been doing this work for decades.

This bottom bracket shell on one of Mark Nobilette’s frames was one of the most intricate at the show. Nobilette made each lug, including the BB shell, by hand.

 

Last year Bruce Gordon showed off a carbon bike with ti lugs he built with Mike Lopez. This is #2 of 2. I dare anyone to try to find prettier work that has been performed in titanium. The tapered point kills me.

 

Mark Dinucci designed the lugs used on this frame close to 20 years ago. You’ve seen them countless times … on the steel Specialized Allez. I love the way he thinned the points here.

I shot hundreds of images. I’ll add a photo gallery soon.

 

The San Diego Custom Bicycle Show

The second annual San Diego Custom Bicycle show took place this past weekend at the Town and Country Resort north of downtown San Diego. The show was a bit bigger this year, with more exhibitors overall and the organizers (builders Dave Ybarrola, Chuck Schlesinger and Brian Baylis) sold out the available booth spaces. All good things, but for the devoted, there was a detail that made the show much, much cooler this year. More builders.

The number of builders in attendance jumped noticeably and there were more builders who you couldn’t call local by any means. Brent Steelman, Sean Walling of Soulcraft, Mike DeSalvo and many others made the trek down from NorCal and Oregon. Mark Nobilette made it out from Colorado. Dave Bohm of Bohemian came in from Arizona and Serotta and Bilenky helped represent for the East Coast.

Dave Ybarrola says next year’s event will have to be held in a larger facility to accept its growth. No matter. This year’s show was terrific. It reminded me of the second year of NAHBS, when it was held in Palo Alto and the attendees were by and large custom bike fans.

In this and another post I’ll present some of the show’s highlights.

This shot and the one above are from a frame built by the super-talented and little-known builder Peter Johnson. He’s known for ultra-thin points and fillets that bring a gentle sweep to his lugs.

Paul Sadoff of Rock Lobster showed this single-speed ‘cross bike with beautifully cut lugs and a killer head tube badge.

The rear triangle on this Rock Lobster features these very trick adjusters to make proper chain tension easy no matter what gear you run.

Sadoff is not without a sense of humor.

Funniest bike of the show award goes to Keith Anders for his satirical take on a classic Eddy Merckx.

Not the Cannibal, but the neighbor.

Anderson made this amazing boy’s bike with disc brakes, wood fenders and chain guard.

Yes, Virginia, that’s mother-of-pearl inlay.

Most furniture stores I go to don’t feature woodwork this nice.

Not everything was handmade bikes, though. This cabinet was stuffed with NOS parts, and plenty of it was Campy.

Custom, lugged stems are becoming more common and this chromed unit from Greg Townsend was one of the prettiest examples at the show.