I love the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Love the idea. Love what it started as, and has become. I love that it has started to change the bicycle industry, with large companies copying the aesthetic they see at that show. I love that it builds a market for these pieces of art. Because that is really what many of these are. Sculpture. I've talked about this here before.
But there's a dark side to this culture. Not to the builders, because they should bring the best they can do. That's their right and their privilege. But with the internet's voyeuristic power, coinciding with the show's rise, there can be a tendency to look at these perfectly powdercoated, carefully sanded-and-polyurethaned pieces of perfection, with their 500 dollar leather and titanium saddles, and perfectly color-matched fenders, racks, stems, and leather bags.... Whew! What a sentence. There can be a tendency to compare your own townie bike to these "townie bikes" and think, 'Man, what a pile of crap I commute on'. I don't think any of those builders would ever intend that. I really believe that.
As we're encased in snow, at least in the northeast, it is probably a good time to mention this- riding your bike is ALWAYS more important than the bike that you ride. A person who rides will always beat a person who spends. They can be one and the same, but someone who rides a low-end bike every day is still a better (more experienced) cyclist than one who buys the highest-end a manufacturer offers and rides it once a month. Remember that.
I have always loved Bike magazine for running photos of their test bikes dirty, the way they look as they are being tested. The best looking bike is a bike that's being used. Otherwise, it's not a bike- it IS just a piece of art.
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