"The Real Bike Show" - BLUE LUG BLOG

Have you watched this video?

MADE is basically the Tenkaichi Budokai of bicycle frame builders. We dived into the bike parking space of the event and nerded out on the bikes that were parked.

As some of the people said even said in the video, that place was “the real bike show”.

There were well ridden bikes that were beautifully beat-up, or gorgeous builds that were unreal and looked like actual show bikes.

We saw bikes from Merckx track to road, MTB, gravel, cargo bikes and even bike polo bikes

Genre, generation, new, old…it had it all.

This place maybe the only bike parking that we can call a genre-less bike parking.

I’ve worked as a mechanic staff for Blue Lug for many years, and I’ve seen many bikes, but this level of genre-less was just fascinating to see. I wish the Japanese bike scene would be like this.

There were a many of bikes made by companies who are based in Portland as last year.

The Ahearne Cycle Truck stood out a lot. I love the little chicken plushy on the front.

I remember seeing the metallic Bantam last year. The one-off rack made to fit the Wald Giant Delivery Basket was nuts.

The Ira Ryan (ex Breadwinner builder) medium reach road was very cool to see.

They had mechanical shifters with rim brakes, which is basically going the opposite way from today’s standards, but these types of builds are possible thanks to handmade bikes.

(People really seem to like the Molteni Orange Road)

Speaking of Molteni Orange, we saw some older Black Mountain Cycles bikes too

We saw the molteni orange Black Mountain Cycles

One thing I noticed is that there were many Ritchey Bikes this year since the legend himself was showing up to the show.

I thought this was pretty cool since riding their bike is the best way to pay respects to Tom Ritchey.

A few of the Ritchey bikes were even had the break-away system.

America is a huge country so I guess it makes sense to produce bikes that makes flying with a bike easy.

We got to see a few Rock Lobster bikes, another legend in the game, who unfortunately didn’t make the last event due to an injury, but it was great to see him this year.

The owners of the last two CX builds looked almost identical. Not entirely sure, but the builds looked almost identical.

The mixture of different components of these builds show that the parts used in the builds are probably used for the sake of building the bike, and swapped when they break something or feel something is kind of off about the set up.

However, there is art in each of the parts in the builds. These bikes are built to be ridden, to be used as a tool, but the riders pay attention to details within the parts they use, instead of just using random parts.

…Well, at least that is how I felt when looking at all the builds.

I think that is one of the main reasons that all these old bikes look beautiful.

The single speed converted Land Shark, dirt bikes that has replaced fork from handmade builders or from existing companies and so on…

The bikes that had the latest technologies back then, once got abandoned but, getting repurposed with modern components.

All were so inspiring to me.

Surly is one of those companies who make bikes that are almost perfect for a tool bike.

I saw a lot of Surly bikes and All-City bikes at the parking. It wouldn’t be a surprise if someone told me that bikes from those companies were the top two bikes seen at the parking space.

Many of the bikes were kitted with full fenders for riding everyday in all weather.