Do you remember your very first bicycle? One year, when I was very young, my grandfather got my brother and me matching John Deere three-wheeled green tractors to race around the pool. When I graduated to a two-wheeler, I had to have training wheels, but only for a little while.
A few years later my parents got me my dream bike; a Schwinn “Fair Lady” Sting-Ray style bike with a banana seat and a basket on the front. It cost $49.95 brand new at the bike shop. In college I bought a cheap 10-speed from J.C. Penney that met my budget constraints and used it to pedal myself around campus. I didn’t ride bikes again until years later.
I work with many folks buying and selling homes who are downright fiends when it comes to all things bicycles! They hunt for homes with workshops, places with high ceilings to hang bikes, and they have educated me about the money you can spend on frames, tires, seats and such.
Holy banana peels, Batman! Bikes these days can costs thousands, nay, tens of thousands of dollars depending on the materials used to build them.
Utahns should be thrilled to learn that the North American Handmade Bicycle Show has chosen Salt Lake City for its annual conference this March 10th thru 12th at the Salt Palace. It’s such a big show that over 8,000 folks attended the convention in Sacramento.
Included in the show is a competition sponsored by the high end Italian bicycle component manufacturer, Campagnolo, for aspiring bike frame builders. This is such a wonderfully geeky show that the vocabulary alone knocks me out: fillet brazed steel frames, carbon fiber mini velo’s, head tubes, seat stays, skewers, bottle cages and disc gravel grinders.
Bicycles will be created by men and women, young and old, artists and manufacturers and 180-plus exhibitors. This event will do for bike aficionados what a craft beer festival does for beer lovers—give folks a chance to see products they’d only be able to see online or luck into at an eclectic shop. Bike-related vendors will be “pedaling” their wares because cycling-related gizmos are practically endless.
The show is looking for local volunteers. You can get online tickets, enter your bicycle into competition, or get more information at handmadebicycleshow. Three-day passes are $56 with options for one-day admissions and kid’s tickets.
Babs De Lay is a broker with Urban Utah Homes & Estates
