wheelin
biked over to the seattle bike expo today. here's the long and short of it:
pros:
- got there just in time to see some guy doing a trials riding demo, which was pretty cool
- right after that got to hear a Willie Wier talk. the guy is pretty entertaining even if he's a little too hammy for me to really get into his style. ironically his stories are more often about human interactions and such than they are about biking all over the wold
- right before I left i wandered into a "shop" on a whim, and by luck scored a sweet set of $30 cranks in the size I had been looking around for a while. literally I almost walked away and then decided to read the sign next to them.
- saw some cool oregon handbuilt stuff. in particular, a handlebar bag/rack combo that was pretty nice from MAP bicycles
- saw some bamboo bikes from Renovo. and holy shit, they weigh basically nothing. rrrreallly interested in the long term viability of their materials.
- got a free water bottle
- biking there and saving $5 on parking
cons:
- even though the route I took is basically the same way I would go to work with a couple miles of flat thrown in on top (i.e. its not really that much harder) I feel like my ass has been kicked. Obviously have not spent nearly enough time riding this winter. (to my credit I was riding into the wind a lot, which pretty much sucks worse than hills IMO)
- lots of stuff at the bike expo was pretty corporate. its funny to realize in something as niche as bicycling that I am in fact in part of the fringe of that culture. it's not surprising that so much stuff there was of no interest to me because i'm obviously not the market they are targeting, mostly because I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on bike stuff.
- everyone kissing the ass of the cascade bike club. I'm not one of these people who is vehemently against them, but christ, events like this would have you believe you are doing a disservice to cyclists everywhere if you don't join. I've read what they do and it's just not my scene, plain and simple, and I have no problem with respectfully disagreeing. am I glad they organize events such as this? Yes. Would I want to put money and effort into doing an event exactly how they are doing it? No.
- free water bottle is probably full of BPA
- paying $2 for bike parking
my conclusion is that I should probably skip events like this in the future, and probably should not skip things like the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show.
pros:
- got there just in time to see some guy doing a trials riding demo, which was pretty cool
- right after that got to hear a Willie Wier talk. the guy is pretty entertaining even if he's a little too hammy for me to really get into his style. ironically his stories are more often about human interactions and such than they are about biking all over the wold
- right before I left i wandered into a "shop" on a whim, and by luck scored a sweet set of $30 cranks in the size I had been looking around for a while. literally I almost walked away and then decided to read the sign next to them.
- saw some cool oregon handbuilt stuff. in particular, a handlebar bag/rack combo that was pretty nice from MAP bicycles
- saw some bamboo bikes from Renovo. and holy shit, they weigh basically nothing. rrrreallly interested in the long term viability of their materials.
- got a free water bottle
- biking there and saving $5 on parking
cons:
- even though the route I took is basically the same way I would go to work with a couple miles of flat thrown in on top (i.e. its not really that much harder) I feel like my ass has been kicked. Obviously have not spent nearly enough time riding this winter. (to my credit I was riding into the wind a lot, which pretty much sucks worse than hills IMO)
- lots of stuff at the bike expo was pretty corporate. its funny to realize in something as niche as bicycling that I am in fact in part of the fringe of that culture. it's not surprising that so much stuff there was of no interest to me because i'm obviously not the market they are targeting, mostly because I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on bike stuff.
- everyone kissing the ass of the cascade bike club. I'm not one of these people who is vehemently against them, but christ, events like this would have you believe you are doing a disservice to cyclists everywhere if you don't join. I've read what they do and it's just not my scene, plain and simple, and I have no problem with respectfully disagreeing. am I glad they organize events such as this? Yes. Would I want to put money and effort into doing an event exactly how they are doing it? No.
- free water bottle is probably full of BPA
- paying $2 for bike parking
my conclusion is that I should probably skip events like this in the future, and probably should not skip things like the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show.