I was there more on business than pleasure so I attended a few seminars, the 1st one was Carl Strong's "don't quit your day job, and other myths of becoming a professional builder" it was very informative and he kept it light and easy to follow.
He did asnwer some great questions which I already had a good idea of how I want things to go... it seems I am on the same path as he was 16 years ago.
I also attended a Reynolds "stength vs stiffness" seminar... it wasn't bad if you are into statistical information... which I am.
The last one I attended was "so you wanna instal decals...?" I was very pleased with this one as it gave me a much better understanding of logo's and installing them on frames. It is much easier than I thought and not as expensive as I expected.
I hope to work something out for my logo soon so I can get an order together before I finish my next frame.
Here are a few shots I took of the show and some interesting styles that caught my eye....they are hi-res photo's so click on them for close up views.
That's Dave Wages of Ellis Cycles on the left in the tie, I really like his style and eye for detail. He had an outstanding Stainless rear triangle on the bike on top in front, I didn't get a chance to get a close up.
He was sitting next to me at the Carl Strong Seminar... I think he was making Carl nervous.
The entrance into wonderland...
The main Isle, that is the SRAM booth on the left with a cross bike from Richard Sachs and then Sachs booth is the next one over.
These are the super cool Ereksen seat posts that are all Ti and unubtainably expensive! but I have seen a design lug builders that uses the same clamp and looks just as good.
Nice urban commuter set up.
There were a few people that braved the 30 something temps, it was actually so warm in the convention hall it felt good to walk outside for a little bit.
I have been a long time fan of curved seat stays and top tubes, this Retrotec frame does a good job if keeping to a nice clean line from head tube to rear drops. I would like to play around with this style frame build someday
That's a really nice arc... it just looks fast and agile to me.
Nother Retrotec with a coupler and I am digging the colors.
Carl Strong's booth... it says a lot when he can display a Ti frame completely unpainted and Raw right next to a hot Black piece of steel.
I noticed a few more people rode their bikes to the show as I was going to lunch... I would guess this whole hall way was full on Saturday and Sunday.
This is a nice display of some nic nacs from Paragon Machine, I was interested in the bottle openers but those breezer style drops sure are making me interested in trying those on for size.
I wanted to get alot more pics but I ran out of time and it was hard to get good shots, I noticed this by walking in and out of many other people's shot (purely by accident)
I look forward to the day I display my wares at these shows (if they even exist when I finally "go pro")
Well I will probably start on my next road frame this weekend so I will start posting pictures of that process soon but I have to go to Taipei later this month for a week (The Taipei Bike Show) so it will a slow process getting this next frame started.
