NAHBS – Photos from the Handbuilt Show Pt1

We have literally hundreds of photos from the 2011 North American HandBuilt Show in Austin, Texas, thanks to super-contributor Dr Jon. Here’s the first batch. We’ve skipped detailed captions in favour of sheer quantity. We hope you enjoy!

“The 2011 North American Handmade Bike Show is back in Austin, Texas this year. Although Austin is famous for Lance Armstrong, music festivals such as South by South West and superb BBQ food, we are here to see what the custom bike fabricators have to offer. In past years, there have been some raised eyebrows at the $4,000 commuting bikes, but this year it seems to be all business, with countless lightweight and beautiful road racing bikes, some stout looking trail bikes, singlespeeds in every imaginable material and a slew of ‘adventure’ bikes – basically cross bikes with slacker geometry and space for mudguards and rack mounts.

Close up, the level of craftsmanship is eye watering. Yes, there are some aesthetically over the top paint jobs, but clearly a lot of time has been spent on the details, fit and fabrication that mass production cannot achieve.

There are some old school custom shops, new micro-brands and some industry heavy hitters, even the frame building schools are represented (all with full classes for the near future reportedly) – all showing that the United States bicycle industry is alive and kicking and indeed thriving.
More from day 2 and 3 soon.

You can check out part 2 HERE…

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

Comments (7)

AlexSimonAlexSimon February 28, 2011 at 4:36 pm

I love this show. I’d love to go one day.
It’s the combination of bleeding-edge tech and timeless craft.
Beautiful.

What’s the story with that internal hydraulic routing about halfway down – is it a Moots?

kimberskimbers February 28, 2011 at 4:42 pm

are mrp guides handbuilt?

mk1fanmk1fan February 28, 2011 at 5:46 pm

I’m liking the rear calliper post mount and internal plumbing.

bullandbladderbullandbladder February 28, 2011 at 6:19 pm

WTF is going on with that Funk in the bottom picture? The front end looks like one of those ‘bikes’ you can buy from Asda.

scantscant February 28, 2011 at 6:59 pm

lets hope the UK version in Bath is as good..

dRjOndRjOn February 28, 2011 at 7:21 pm

the internal hydro routing is on a Vertigo Cycles ti 29er. it is welded in ti tubing. the process if getting it fitted (it routes around the bb axle, inside the shell – with 0.5mm clearance no less!) is complicated and requires some precision work but it gives an uber clean look.

tangtang February 28, 2011 at 9:12 pm

There is a Jon from Scotland with a vertigo on order according to Sean cheney’s blog. Is that you?

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