NAHBS day zero

So I can't post any pictures yet, but I promise I will tomorrow. I'm bumming the computer at Jordan Hufnagel's dad's place where we are staying. Today Nate and I spent the day recycling our crate into the backdrop for our booth. We put up wallpaper and some pictures that we grabbed from each of our houses. It looks really good, but as the theme for the cardinals seems to be going, we have a really crappy spot. We're kind of in the back alley of the main hall. I hope people find us where we are. I was thinking about setting up Nate with a sandwich board to draw the crowd. We'll see how it goes. Jordan Hufnagel and Aaron Hayes from Courage both have really good spots. It seems like the Portland crew is really representing well. Map and Ahearne have a rad booth, Mike Music was helping out, Oh and somehow I told Jay from Chris King that we were done with our drill when we actually were just getting started. I thought he was just going to borrow it for a minute and he ended taking it back to his hotel room. So we had to beg/ borrow drills from other people. My bad. Any how we wrapped up the booth building at 10:00 and headed back to the house where we ate vegan tacos with Jordan, Aaron, Jeremy, Eric, Molly C., and Jen. Tomorrow is going to be interesting. I WILL post pictures and stories. Promise.

echo red to red

Went out there to camp and race, didn't do either. When we pulled up to the sandy beach camp site and saw the trailer living that was going on there as well as the dead birds under a rock, as well as the frosty wind blowing off the columbia river. We decided that a hotel sounded better. I got to pre-ride for about an hour and the trails were really fun. Sweeping turns with burms and a lot of open hillside. The dirt was perfect, nice and tacky, but not muddy at all. It was possible to see a lot of the course in any given spot. We headed to our hotel to eat some dinner and soak in the hot tub (!)

The next morning we woke up and it was raining hard. I walked outside and it was freezing! There were little icilces hanging off of the car so it was easy to convince myself that the cold I'd been fighting for the past couple weeks wouldn't be helped by riding around in the freezing rain for a few hours. And then standing around in Indianapolis with a full blown cold wouldn't be much fun. So I didn't race. That's my excuse.

John and Tommy did the single speed race and said they had a good time. Tommy won, so I guess he might have been having fun, but John had a bad fall and thought he broke his collar bone (turned out to be a bad sprain and brusing) so I'm not sure that he really had fun.

Anyway, It was nice to get out of town and see some of the other part of the state. Hanging out with John, Tommy and Scarlett was pretty rad too. We stopped at Double mountain brewery in Hood River on the way home. That's getting to be a regular stop whenever I'm going by Hood River. Good beer, good pizza. mmm.

Two days till we get on the plane to Indy. I think we're ready, we'll find out soon enough!

crate

The truck pulled up today and we loaded our big wooden crate into the back. The driver said he was picking up Courage, Hufnagel, Vanilla, Ahearne, and King Cycle Group after getting our stuff. That's one truck trailer that a lot of bike geeks might want to hijack! We thought it was a good move to buy the insurance. Getting all the bikes and support stuff into the box was tough. Everything always takes twice as long as you think it's going to. Nate and I spent the day driving around to pick up last minute items that we need for the booth, carpet, light bulbs, stools, picture frames, things from the shop that might be interesting to look at. Then we spent the rest of the day finishing up our tables and making the crate that would carry the bikes. We got most of it loaded up and I had to leave to meet friends for dinner. After 10 hours of fretting details, my brain was mush and I don't think I made very good dinner conversation. Nate had to finish up without me. It's times like this that I realize how lucky I am that I've got a partner like Nate. I wonder how a lot of one man shops do it. How can you make something like this happen when you are only one person? I guess a lot of builders rely on friends to get the big jobs done. So now that the big stress is done I'm going to head out to Echo and do a mountain bike race tomorrow. It's been two solid weeks of NAHBS prep and zero bike riding. I'm ready to go out and camp, then ride for a few hours. I'll take a few cameras and try to post some pictures when I get back.

Thanks for reading.

Wow!! Hourglass is in effect.

So along with getting Cameron's bike to paint tomorrow, or I should say this morning, we are rolling with what we hope are kinda the last big steps before we get to the small steps leading to NAHBS. Maybe I'm missing some steps. All I can say is, wallpaper. Wallpaper is hard to find these days, or at least the type you would want to decorate a bike display with. When it comes to designing our NAHBS display, it seems Matt and I tend to go with something that is "home-like." Like last year, I convinced Emily to let us use our rug from home for our booth telling her that Matt and I really needed something besides concrete to stand on all day. But really, we just needed something that "tied the room together." Long live the dude. Some of you know of whom I speak. I think the booth again is becoming like a domestic tableau, like something comfortable; house shoes, maybe. I have a tan pair with leather soles. Anyways, this is the point were I want to show you something special, something that is to come, something that makes you excited. But which one thing? Oh wait, I'm not supposed to show you what I'm about to show you. That's the concept of suspense, I guess. I never was much for mystery type stuff so instead I'll show you a drawing. This drawing was the start of a project that might be solved in the next 738 days. What you see here is a first step towards what you'll see on 2/28ish/09. Enjoy.

Less than 2 weeks

The bike show is coming up and we are busy in the signal shop. It looks like we are going to be building a crate to ship our four bikes to the show. After a talk with a friend who recently learned a lot about shipping heavy things, the value of the crate was confirmed. Today Nate and I spent almost the whole day figuring out our display and our crate. It looks like we're going to combine the two. We made some cool tables that will hold bikes and after hours with the table saw and wood, we closed up the garage doors, turned the heater on and started working on metal. I was telling Nate tonight that I've really grown to love working with metal. It's a realization that has kind of snuck up on me. I've always liked it, but now it just seems so "right." A file, or saw blade, or even 80 grit paper on steel is feeling so good right now. My thumb tips grumble, but looking at a finely sanded fillet makes up for all that.
For our display we are also working on a fork/rack/fender/head tube/stem/handlebar that we will show unpainted. I love looking at peoples unpainted bikes and hopefully people will enjoy this work too. It's a plate crown fork featuring stainless rack ends by EVT and integrated fender mounts (the rack ends are the things in the picture). The rack is a lowrider style with a special drink carrier. I'd say more, but I think Nate might punch me. We've got to keep some secrets...

February!

And we're counting down the days until we are standing on the Indiana terra-firma. There is a lot to do. Deciding which bikes we're going to take, figuring out how to make the best impression we can in a 10x10 space. It's going to be a busy month.

We will be showing off Tyler's white touring bike, Michael Jordan's Mountain bike (it's still at paint), Nate's commuter with newly painted fenders and rack, and one other bike that is still being decided on.

I'll post updates as they happen.

Stay tuned to signalcycles for your connection to NAHBS 2009!