Resolved media issues aside, here are the good parts of the show:
The bikes. Also pals I had not seen in years. Also Pals I only knew from the internet, also new people I met. Anyhow, the show was much bigger and much better organized than I expected. Not sure on how many builders were actually there, but it was many. I am out of the loop enough I have not heard of many of the newish builders and possibly some of the semi-established ones, so there was plenty to see. There were are fair bit of weird booths for clothing, hat and bag makers, some larger component people had pretty large presence, to go along with a bunch of the smaller Paul Component, White Industry types. Kind of a weird mix, but pretty satisfying. It also was a consumer show, which was not connected to a race, which I have only been to a few of its kind, none remotely as big or as organized as this. So anyhow, some pics and some words:
Best thing at the show, Rick Hunter Semi-long superfat bike, also my best picture for the show. I think he calls this his fat high plains drifter, he made it for Scott of Porcelain Rocket, who makes really nice frame bags for bikes. He outfitted the bike completely with white super Xpac fabric with some glowing green interiors. Very nice. Clearance for 4.7 big fat larry tires, 170mm hubs front and rear, fillet brazed frame, removable rack, semilongtail, Aida approved, that is Rick Hunter smiling behind the bike:
I like that the rear rack is removable, I like that it looks like you could, with a few changes, retrofit a rack like that on a pugsley.
The semi long tail fat bike with either 29x3 or 26x4 or 5 tires was a thing, there were three of em that I saw and liked. This was my second favorite bike at the show, this was a really utilitarian show bike:
Moots IMBA "chainsaw" bike
I have this saw, therefore the bike should be rightfully mines
While the saw part was awesome, the demountable Ti-handled work tools up front were pretty keen too. I am sure there are a million photos on Google under "moots imba" go forth and seek. Other really notable things were the insanely wide Ti handlebars and another Porcelain Rocket bag. Scott had bags on the two best bikes at the show. Well done pal. Here is what he looks like, if you, like me, are a flickr follower of his but had no idea what he actually looks like:
The third bike along this line was this very sweet shorter tailed well racked Ti-Black sheep:
and without child
Note the cool fat tired tandem back there. That was thing too. There was that one, this nice SNS coupled Engin one:
and ludicrously awesome AMPierce Tandem that I did not take a photo of. I am not a tandem person (yet of course) but 29x3.0 Tandems seem like a great idea.
Finally, I wanted to add a few grainy photos of another 29x3.0 bike that I really loved. This Retrotech.
Curtis and I think the new owner and the bike with the best MTB in show prize
Aida and I checking out the bike earlier
The split top tubes, the cross bar, the paint and the tire clearance were all perfect. Curtis is also one of the undeniable nicest guys in the framebuilding game. Great stuff and a well deserved best mountain bike prize.
OK more in the next day or two. The rest of my somewhat limited photos here: 2013 NAHBS on flickr, if you want to want to get a sneak peek or see em all large.
So since that last post went mini-viral, I wanted to kind of reiterate what went into that getting posted in the first place and how Paul Skilbeck and I came to a resolution. After a couple unproductive email exchanges after I put up the post initially, Paul called me and we got down to some resolution on where things went sideways and some legit apologies.
So I think I have been clear that I was not pissed at getting rejected for the media pass, but more because someone was walking around with my name and blog on their media pass. I do acknowledge that stuff like this happens often at shows, and I was expecting a quick apology and resolution when I went to talk to Paul in the press office. The fellows at the desk sent me back to talk to Paul, which I don't think he was expecting as he was dealing with resolving a pretty time sensitive crises. He probably did not have a full grasp of exactly what the issue was at the time and basically acted in a way that I misinterpreted as a complete blow-off which truly angered me and spurred me to write that post. I was with my daughter and did not really want to stick around beyond a quick resolution so I bailed out quickly as well. There were some other extenuating misinterpretations that probably exacerbated the situation in the Media room Saturday morning. I think we got to a point where Paul genuinely apologized for the error in the media pass and I certainly apologize for getting that spun up. I am not sure that my original post is that inflammatory, but certainly combined with some blog comment name calling and I suspect a fair bit of impolite direct email, and massive traffic, it did get out of hand this afternoon. Combine that with me not being able to moderate comments or monitor page views and that leads to me getting a pretty interesting phone call from Paul tonight, that ultimately lead to understanding, apology and resolution. I think we both are at the point we should have been quickly Saturday morning in the media room, but with a much more interesting journey between than we intended. That is pretty much all I will say on the matter anymore, feel free to comment, I will close em up if it goes all sideways again. Thanks for reading. Tomorrow some pictures, really...
Update: After this got blown up on the reddit and the twitters and such to an unprecedented level (at least for this blog), I talked to Paul the communications director for a while tonight on the phone, I think we are good now. Some simultaneous time crunches and misunderstandings led to this not getting resolved as we both probably wish it did Saturday morning. I am good with Paul, I will write a bit more about this in another post tonight with the photos and such from the show...
I went to the 2013 North American Handmade Bike Show in Denver this weekend and had mostly a good time. The people running the media credentials were not a part of that good time, they pretty much invited me to use my tiny angry pen to give em some bad press, and since I am a blogger, I am contractually obligated to come through, so here it is:
A week before the show started I applied for media credentials for the show. I was not super optimistic that they would give them to me, but they did have a blog category on their media credentials page, and I blog and I know from handmade bikes, so I applied. A few days later I got a very polite yet somewhat oddly written email denying me my credentials that read more or less in full:
Tarik, thank you for your NAHBS media credential application. Sadly this year I am unable to offer you a credential. Build up your readership and we can revisit next time you apply.
Best regards and every success with the growth of your blog.
Paul the Communications Consultant
North American Handmade Bicycle Show
I am fine with that. As awesome as my blog is, I don't have enormous readership, the value is really only seen in the advanced metrics like VORB* and RIPV**, which, frankly, I don't expect everyone to appreciate. I also understand that NAHBS is a "big deal" now. I thanked them for the quick response and went on with my plans to attend the show. I had intended to try to set up a couple interviews with some framebuilders I know from way back, and try to get some high quality pictures during the Friday morning media hours for blog gold purposes, but I am pretty flexible and planned on going and seeing what I got.
So I was walking around the show, waiting in front of a pal's booth to check out his bikes and I spot someone talking to the builder while wearing a badge with some familiar words on it:
Hey look, someone is wearing a three day media pass with the words "Tarik Saleh, Moscaline". And yet they are not me. I was more than slightly taken aback at this and was not sure quite what to do. I decided not to push them down and take the pass, but instead find out what was going on. So I talked to them for a bit. Turns out their spouse is working in some press capacity for NAHBS and they gave them a badge from someone who the media people said is not coming to the show. This actually is not really that unreasonable, I have been to many big trade shows and there is all manner of badge swapping, borrowing and the like that goes on. The fact that they gave the spouse of someone working for the show a badge that was lying around is pretty typical. What is a bigger deal is that they denied me a press pass and then printed one out and gave it to someone who is not me.
I was kind of disgruntled at the media folks, but not that angry. But over the course of the day at least 4 people (all of whom had booths at the show) asked me who was wearing the badge with my name on it, which does not really reflect well on me or my blog (Moscaline is a "really big deal"), and after telling my story over and over again, reflects badly on the show. I was pretty prepared to let it go, but after other people noticed too, it kind of lead to my resolve to go and ask for my media pass the next morning.
So the next morning I go down to the media room to get my pass, the nice people volunteering have no trouble finding my name on the pass list, but they can't find my badge. So I tell them, look here is the deal, and explain that I was denied a pass, yet there is someone on the show floor walking around with my name on their badge, could I please have my media pass. They go back and talk to someone named Paul (could not see if it was the same guy who sent me the email or not) and they come back and say, sorry, we can't give you a press pass. Ok, can I talk to Paul? Sure they say, so I walk back there (with my daughter in tow) to go talk to Paul the decider.
I explain to him again what happened and he clearly does not want to talk to me as he refuses to meet my gaze as I am talking to him. He mutters a non-apology along the lines of "that should not have happened, we will look into it". I reiterate to him that I am not pleased that there is someone walking around the show with my name and blog on their credentials and I ask him to please issue me the media pass in my name he has already given to someone else. He refuses. I ask him if he realizes that this is going to result in bad press. He avoids eye contact and does not respond. So I ask him two more times much more directly if he understands that this causes bad press, until he finally looks at me and answers "yes". I tell him, OK you got it, and walk out. Hence the bad press you are reading now.
I don't like to tell people how to do their job, but let me go ahead and make a few suggestions: The only possible correct response to the above screw up is to say something like:
" I am very sorry this happened, we made a mistake, here, let me print out a press pass for you"
That would have instantly made this go from a bad review, to a humorous aside in a positive article. It would not have cost the show anything, except possibly $22 bucks in lost revenue for that day. My daughter wanted more stickers, so I happily went and paid an entry fee so we could go sticker hunting. I don't care about the money I spent on attending the show, but I do care that the media people were unable to enact a simple fix for a pretty embarrassing error. Cross the mighty bloggers at your peril I always say. Finally, let me further go ahead and make one more suggestion, I recommend you media folks stash a few credentials for "John (or Joann) Smith, Monthly Biking Publication" to give to those people who show up without credentials but need some in a hurry. That way you won't have small blondes walking around with badges that say "Tarik Saleh" on them, or worse, having innocent spouses of show employees having to be associated with Moscaline.
For those of you wanting actual NAHBS coverage, I probably will post some nice photos of the show tomorrow, while I am not currently a big fan of the media arm of the NAHBS, the show does fill a gap in the bike world and is pretty good for the framebuilders and the public, also there were lots of cool bikes there.
Some of this is local oriented, but it should be interesting for all. Just look at the photos if you are not interested. So here goes:
1. Should be in Denver for the North American Handbuild Bike Show, NAHBS next weekend. Hoping for some blog gold resulting, maybe some brief interviews if I get media credentials. If you see me say hi, I will have some TSBC pins for give away and trade...
2. Speaking of pins, the Tarik Saleh Bike Club is loaded with pins again, now would be a good time to join! tariksaleh.com/tsbc, I got some good ideas for future TSBC stuff, but need to get some pins moving...
Pin city!
3. Hey! Did you know the South West Nordic Ski Club is a non profit and you can claim tax deductions on your membership AND your donation? Did you know we finally got permission to groom into the caldera portion of the Canada Bonita? And it is groomed right now? Electronic (and traditional) donation available at http://swnordicski.org/. If you live in town and use the trails, please join up and consider donating to support our spectacular trails and volunteer groomers. If you don't live in town, we are still a 501C3 non profit and we welcome any donations!
Mustaches gone by at the top of Canada Bonita
4. Speaking of Beer, Los Alamos has a beer co-op happening, they are having a membership drive - Los Alamos Beer Co-op - I finally got off my butt and threw in for a lifetime membership. I think this is the kind of thing that we need in town to make it livable. So local peeps, please consider it!
Ooof, in town trails are in great shape but disturbingly devoid of snow for Feb. Dammit.
5. Speaking of Trails, our sweet trails are one reason everyone who moves here stays. Consider joining IMBA which is an international non-profit trail organization. http://www.imba.com/. Membership includes membership in your local IMBA club, Los Alamos Singletrack Association for Los Alamos people, you may have your own elsewhere. IMBA does great work on creating and maintaining trails and access for mountainbikers and all trail users. I have been a member for 10+ years now, and have seen great things from the organization all over the country. The IMBA and LASA crew has recently been involved (with the county, forest service and other stakeholders) in both post-fire trail reparation and in some significant plans for improvements and sustainability of our awesome trails. So join them too. If you want...
Looking down the cold cold canyons yesterday morning on the fat bike burrito run
Well that is pretty much it, hope to meet some of you and see old friends at NAHBS, I will be back next week with some race reports, including where I finally win a race, and the week after that with some NAHBS goodies.
Gratuitous Burrito Shot, the other reason everyone stays here
Wink256 has an unusual keenness for pro cycling and is a student of doping lore and history. He let me know, in between his many feedings, that he wanted a chance to weigh in publicly on the Lance Armstrong "crisis".
Wink, what did you think of the big Oprah extravaganza:
Huh... What do you think is next step for the Armstrong to control the damage:
Well there you have it. I am sure Wink256 will be back soon enough to weigh with prediction for the spring classics.
I wrote most of this post last month and never finished it, but in honor of Jonathan Page's national championship victory and the impending world champs in Kentucky, I cleaned it up and added a million photos. I have been a big fan of Page since 2001 nationals and supercup in Baltimore when I watched him win the Supercup race (on a Richard Sachs cross bike) by sprinting full speed around Todd Wells into the last set of barriers, barely holding it together as he tripped/ran/fell across the barriers and holding on to the finish for the win. So congrats to Page for his 4th national championship and read on if you got some minutes.
Jacob Van Artevelde discovers Gent's Socialists Dwelling
So there I was in Gent for a meeting a back in early November, I cleverly had built in two days at the end of the trip for bicycle based shenanigans, fortunately my long lost pal Jeff was living in nearby Antwerp and up for said shenanigans. On Saturday I planned on hitting the Soudal Classic Jaarmarktcross Cyclocross race in Niel Belgium. I hopped on on my fixie bike friday early saturday morning and rode 5 rainy kilometers to Gent Sint Peeters station and hopped on a train to Antwerp.
Excellent train murals in Sint Peeters Station
Once in Antwerp I hopped on the bike and rode a couple of km to Jeff's abode. Where I discovered he secretly is the man behind the evil society of the Ned Van Vlanders Flag. We talked bikes and stuff and set up a road bike for me for the next day's cobbly adventure on the RVV course. Finally, due to a cancelled ride, Jeff graciously offered to accompany me down to Niel to watch the race.
Flag of the free state of Ned diddily Van Flaandersen
We rode down on a very confusing yet well marked bike routes down toward the race. I am glad Jeff had some local knowledge and was able to steer us more or less directly down to the race. The routes varied from separated bike lanes, to sidewalk routes, to suburbs then on to skinny farm roads that eventually dumped us in Niel. The ride down featured varying levels of driving mist and rain. It was clear that it was getting increasingly crossy out there. Once in Niel, we followed the trail of welly wearing superfans, paid our fee and got into the race site just before the start of the women's race. We immediately got tiny beers in plastic cups and frites.
Frites with Diablo Sauce and tiny Primus beers
Jeff watches the women's race from the special vantage place...
The atmosphere was a bit sparse at the Start-finish line, so fortified with more beers, we went in search of mud. It was found. The course was pretty flat with one impressive off camber muddy chicane. Some of the flat sections were more or less unridable. There were sections where the mens field were running for what appeared to be 1/4 mile or more on pancake flat ground. Impressively mucky.
My feets
Deep ruts even for flyweight riders
Manual assist on the crowd barrier
Jeff and I set up camp at an area with a great view of the muddy chicane and with a turn of the head, we could watch the big screen following the race. We watched the end of the women's race, went on a dangerous mud mission to get more beer and returned to our original watching spot to watch the rider's introductions on the big screen. Sven Nys got the biggest cheer. Niels Albert got boos. Jeff and I were probably the only people at the race who cheered for Jonathan Page. The vinyl jacket wearing superclub supporters (Vantourenhout, Nys and Pauls) in front of us, smirked at our homerism.
Me and Jeff and the Bald Superfans, best photo of my whole trip really...
More superclub fans, Klaas Vantourenhout, Sven Nys and Kevin Pauwels
I really enjoyed watching the top Euro's fight it out. There was a pretty big pack at the front initially with a couple guys turning themselves inside out to stay with Nys, Albert, Aeronauts and the reanimated corpse of Bart Wellens. As the race progressed and the field split up we had ample opportunity to cheer on Jonathan Page and watch the big four duke it out. Some mild gamesmanship occured throughout the race, often playing out on the slick climb right in front of us.
Nys cleans it
Chicaney Goodness, I think Albert with Nys behind him
I know you wanted to see the giant umbrella again, note the freshly trimmed tree for TV coverage..
We spent the race cheering Page on as he slowly moved his way from a position in the 20's up to his final position of 18th. The battle between the top four guys spread out over the mud in front of us and the big screen behind us was pretty cool. At the end, much to the disappointment of nearly everyone there, Albert just plain old ran away from Nys and Aeronauts on the long muddy flat run. He opened a 20 second gap there and finished easily ahead of the rest at the line. Aeronauts jumped Nys on the finishing stretch and Wellens tailed in for fourth.
Field blows on by in the beginning
Page wings on by
Page again
Yu Takenouchi was riding a sweet steel Toyo frame with extra cool downtube
Nys hisself
After the race ended, Jeff and I wandered around the pits and checked out the mechanics cleaning the bikes, the cool giant buses and the riders warming down. Nys had a giant personal camper, a big tour bus for VIP's to drink and meet people and a small camper selling Nys branded crap. I bought an ugly ass Nys hat. Other highlights were checking out the Toyo bike and the amazing multi team battle jitney.
Only steel bike in the race
Check that Downtube
The multi team cyclocross battle jitney
Washy wash
washy washy wash
Totally typical mechanic guy
Finally, if you are still reading and are trying to figure out where the title comes from, Jeff and I left the circus of Neil and started riding home on the bike path out of town. Right at the edge of town a camper van passed us and as we looked over at it, Jonathan Page stuck his head out of the passenger window and gave us a hearty heckle or cheer. It was pretty cool that he not only heard us, but recognized us, especially given his intense focus during the race. I am pretty sure there was no one else on the course cheering for Page that day, but it was still pretty cool. Later, Jeff forwarded me this twitter exchange:
I was smiling about this for at least a week. After getting the cheers, we then rolled back through the fields and dales back into antwerp and shared some road beers on the way among the cows and misty fields. Rolled in to Antwerp, grabbed some dinner and then I folded up the mud and cowshit smeared bike and headed back to Gent. A perfect bike adventure, even including the extra few miles I rode in Gent in the dark and rain as I got pretty lost on the way back to my hotel from the train station.
Road beer on a road, covered in mud and cow shit, but it was a road
Trusty steed on the way back
Dinner in Antwerp, beef stew, more frites and beers
The crapulous bike folded up back on the train
So I recommend going to watch some cross somewhere big, whether it is Nationals or a Supercup like event or pretty much any race in belgium or upcoming worlds or something else. It is awesome. More photos from the race here. The entire set from belgium is here
I think we had 17 total people participate and most self reporting an achievement, which is about 3 times the number I expected. I would guess about 6 or 7 people did the full 100, most everyone rode more than they would have otherwise. I was going to list everyone and how many miles, etc, but decided that doing so would more or less be counter the aims of the inclusivity of the challenge. If you participated and met one of the three achievements, and would like a pin for doing so, please email me what you did to earn it, and your address, tas at tariksaleh dot com. If you want to have a public reckoning of your achievements, please leave em in the comments.
Mr.J, MikeR, StevenS, JohnL, your pin is in the mail, JerryM if you ever ride to work, i will leave a pin on your bike. I am hugely pleased that so many people decided to take part, I certainly will do it again next year and also will certainly announce it a bit earlier. It will help get me off my butt and blog a bit more too. Anyhow, may you all have a great 2013, and ride bikes, and try not to be asses.
Super flipsy tiny bike riding on the last day of the challenge
Got up early and snuck out for a little coffee ride on my Mom's bike again. It was actually just below 40 and I had neglected my gloves. Epic suffering ensued. I basically looped around Goleta and stopped and got coffee at a shop in a stripmall.
The suffering...
The shop had a steady streams of contractors coming in for their morning fix, I watched most of them check out the pink folding bike. I then rode over toward campus and checkout out the excellent bike repair stands with attached tools and pump.
And the wonderful views across the acres of bike parking attached to some of the larger student housing blocks.
Also spied this chevoid mid restoration
I got a solid 6.5 miles in which put me at 101.5 for the week. Hurrah! I did it, rode everyday and hit 100 for the week, and certainly rode much more than I usually would have! The total count for me was 11.5 on the single speed Pugsley in snow in Los Alamos, 17 on my Mom's 3 speed folding bike and 73 on the fixie friday. No deraillers were involved in the challenge for me. I think there were 14 or 15 participants in the end. I am going to let you all self select on whether you achieved any or all of the three parts of the challenge. Remember though, the bar is low intentionally, so even if you did not do what you wanted to, you probably did ride more than normal this week, right? Please email me what you did and your mailing address and I will get a pin or two out to you. If you already have some pins and don't need any more that is fine too. Los Alamos Jerry, I will leave one on your bike at work. I will try to collate a summary of everyone by this weekend...
The family and I left Santa Barbara late in the afternoon, got delayed in pheonix airport for a bit and then made it back to Albuquerque around 10:30. We drove up home in light to heavy snow and increasingly snow packed roads and got back just before 1am in the new year. Huzzah, happy new year on the road!
Pheonix Airport had bathrooms for everyone
So happy new year everyone and I will almost certainly try this again next year!
Day 6 was busy with measly riding right at the end. I started with fresh fish market and farmers market buying of stuff for a combined family birthday party.
Vermilion Rockfish, got it and eated it
Then some shopping and walking around downtown with the wife. Saw a plating shop on state street, right downtown, looks like they do lots of bike parts. Joes plating on lower state:
And snapped a photo of this old welding shop sign, and grills!
Did some massive and fun eating of scallops, thresher shark, rockfish, crab legs and such and then went home with the family. Nearly did not ride, but my wife needed some stuff from the store, so I lit out at night for a 7 mile round trip to the supermarket. These days, most if not nearly all my rides are utilitarian, usually replacing a car trip. Going to work, going to the store, getting some take out, going to the PO. Many longer rides are just taking the long way (or the super long way) on an errand. This was my first utilitarian trip of the week, might be the only one, I have nothing against riding for riding sake, but I have not really had time to do this much in the last couple years, so big thanks to my wife and family for indulging me this week. The 7 miles put me at 74 for the week.
Day seven started with my brother and mom and I shepparding the kids on a ride around campus. The cousins on big kid bikes, Aida on a way too small balance bike, the adults on foot. It was great fun and Aida went much further than ever before on a balance bike.
Later in the afternoon I road the long low route to the harbor and met the family for a walk through the marina and dinner.
A bike rack air station on campus
Good car action
the Friday fits well in old style bike racks
After dinner my Brother, his wife, Elena and I went to see the Hobbit. It was pretty good. Not brilliant, but worth watching. My bro and I started with some severe conversation, then transitioned to the dream world of middle earth and stuff I put in a total of 21 miles on the day, which puts me at 95 for the week. The last day is a travel day, but I should be able to sneak a 5 mile short ride in in the morning to get the 100 on the week, barely. I am not convinced I will make it home before midnight to get any riding in Los Alamos before the new year, but any which way I am satisfied with the week.
Seems like we have a bunch more participants, Scott from Spokane, Mindful Mule, and SeanM. That takes it to about 13 participants, plus 14 for me. Awesome. Or as my brother says, who are all these people again? CycloTourist seems to be trying to say he is DNF as he is sick, but I am not sure if it is possible to DNF the challenge. He put a nice comment in with a SB bike trailer pic. I accidentally deleted it, but here is his photo:
For some reason the comments have been coming through in bunches and doubles, let me know if your comment never appeared or some such.
