The sixth annual installment of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show opens in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday and runs through Sunday.
The showcase for those wonderfully crafted hand-built bicycles will feature 131 exhibitors at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
Show times 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The Richmond Convention Center is at 403 N. Third Street, Richmond.
Show owner Don Walker has found success in keeping the show on the road; last year it was Indianapolis and the year before that, Portland. It enables more local bike builders to enjoy the show and new handmade bicycle enthusiasts to see it.
Popular location
The popularity of this East Coast location is demonstrated by an increase in pre-show ticket sales of more than 100% over previous shows. In fact, the server for the NAHBS website crashed on Thursday from the traffic, but was up and running Friday morning. [Online tickets sales are closed, but tickets are available at the door.]
Indianapolis saw 115 exhibitors last year and 6,428 attendees, down about 1,000 from Portland in 2008. No announcement yet on the venue for 2011.
One of the highlights of the show, aside from the joy of just walking around admiring all the two-wheeled works of art, is Sunday's announcement of the Best of Show and about a dozen other awards.
Cicli Polito, owned by Cleveland's Dan Polito, won best of show last year.
Coverage
CyclingNews.com and BikeRadar.com are the official media sponsors of the show (oddly, couldn't find anything about the show on either website's front page on Thursday). It will surely be widely covered in the bicycling blogosphere. Bike Virginia, Cycle-licious and Commute by Bike are just a few of the blogs that will be filing from the event. Surlyrider.com has a good list of some upcoming events there.
Unforunately, the East Coast correspondent for Biking Bis won't be attending as he hasn't been heard from since he rode off in the last snowstorm to test zip ties for use as bike snow tires.
The Twitter feed from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (#NAHBS) will be posted in the right column.
The biggest early news is the theft of exhibitor Mike Flanagan's blue folder from right in front of the Richmond Marriott. Flanagan is owner of Alternative Needs Transportation (ANT) bike shop in Hollister, Massachusetts. I hope he gets his bike back.
Photo above from 2009 NAHBS by twotoneatl at flickr.com.
Recent Comments