in Portland Bike Show
last June]
The PDC wants to bring the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) to Portland. Reps from the PDC, Commissioner Sam’s office and the Portland Oregon Visitor’s Association met with the founder and director of the show, Don Walker at Interbike in Las Vegas last week.
The fledgling show features the nation’s most sought-after artisan and custom bike builders and in just two years it has become an established and successful event within the national bike scene. The show is currently based in San Jose but Walker is apparently open to the idea of making it a travelling show.
At Interbike the Portland contingent presented Walker with a proposal but so far there’s no official word on a decision by Walker.
Best of Show in 2006]
I think having this show in Portland is a no-brainer, since Portland and Oregon already have a vast amount of bike building talent. From Jeff Jones and John Slawta in Southern Oregon to the well–known talent right here in Portland.
Sacha White of Vanilla Bicycles has won “Best in Show” at the NAHBS each of the last two years.
Back in June, the Made in Portland Bicycle Show was a monumental success. I suggested to the PDC that while they woo Don Walker I’d be happy to work with them on a repeat of that show. Last year I put it together in just a few weeks with no budget, and I think a Portland regional bike builders show would draw a big response from both exhibitors and from the public.
Stay tuned for more developments on this and other news from the Portland delegation’s trip to Interbike…
Thanks for reading.
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Cool. That would make it easy for the myriad of framebuilders in town. I will be so bold as to suggest a Freakbike builder’s show in conjunction. We can’t afford to travel.
And then we could have the fancy bikes joust the freak bikes and the freakbikes race at alpenrose. Yay for solidiarity!
I agree–this is a total no-brainer. Portland (and the rest of Oregon) has the most robust framebuilding scene of any place in the counrty. There are at least 11 full-time builders in Portland:
Pereira Cycles
Strawberry Cycles
Vanilla Bicycles
Ira Ryan
Paquini
Dave Levy
Sweetpea
Joseph Ahearne
Matt Schware
Bill Stites
Tonic Fab
Elsewhere in Oregon there are several others:
Vendetta
Co-Motion
Landshark
DeSalvo
Jeff Jones
I’m surely missing a few.
In Ashland there is a highly regarded frame-building school, the likes of which does not exist anywhere else in the world.
Like sweet, sweet icing on the cake we also have the fine folks at Chris King who make the very best headsets and hubs (and also bring free coffee to the cross races!).
Great effort on behalf of the PDC. Thanks!
Walker put up a poll at the Frame Builders Forum, to capture gauge frame builder opinions about where to site the show in 2008/09. Portland is currently in the lead with 10 votes, followed by Boston with 7.
http://www.frameforum.net/forum2/index.php?showtopic=2143
The key isn’t so much the number of builders already here; it is the city’s ability to attract qualified buyers. A main attraction of Silicon Valley is the socioeconomics of the region:lots of wealthy cyclists who can afford a custom frame and custom components. Another is the california weather – which provides his east-coast contingent some much needed relief from the winter weather in March.
I spoke with one east coast based, well-known frame builder at Interbike last week, and he said that while he can trace four sales to his NAHBS exhibit, he isn’t certain he will return in 2007 – since that’s just about a break-even on his total expense.
For Don to move the Show to Portland, he will have to build consensus among his exhibitor base, and prove that coming here will at least sustain – and hopefully expand – their current level of show-related sales. In that regard, the relatively large number of local builders here could be a detractor, since they may be the ultimate beneficiary of the event, and not his exhibitors.
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