I made my annual trip to the Boston Bike Show last night, and must say I was disapointed. There were about half the number of exhibitors as last year and there where no freebies (I usually get my year's supply of bottles there).
Highlights:
Harpoon Brewery and their Munich style dark beer.
Ted Wojcik (sp?) of CT was there displaying a couple sweet handmade classic lugged steel frames.
Independent Fabrications had two drop-dead-gorgeous XS Frames (Ti/Carbon) decked out with both DA 10 and Campy Record. The Campy bike had Ksyrium ES Wheels. The ES's are real beauties in person.
The Specialized Tarmac SL looks far more impressive in real life than in the magazines. It is very light, stiff and fast looking.
The buzz word for the night was definitely carbon fiber. Pinarello/Opera had a few on display courtesey of International Bicycle. I love Pinarello's (I have 3), but I think it's time for the "Onda" fork and stays to be retired, and the Merckx frames, appear to go overboard with the reinforced carbon bb shell and headtube. Cervelo had the Soloist Carbon on display, but sadly missing was the R3. Unfortunately, Serotta (I really wanted to check out the Meiveici) Time and local builder Parlee were no-shows.
My favorite bike from the show (after the IF XS of course) was the classic chrome lugged steel Colnago Master X Light. Sure the paint scheme looked like someoday broke open a bag of Skittles (hmmmm..), but I admire Ernesto's bold paint schemes especially amongst some really ugly Trek's and Cannondales (Drew, yours is classy looking, but you should have seen the awful looking blue and white Six-13).
I understand that bike shops need to sell bikes with refectors (Lawyers...sorry Chris), but why display a $6,000 bike with refectors, spoke guards and 50 mm of headset spacers, and flipped up stems. Nothing makes a bike look slower than when the bars are level with the saddle.
I couldn't wait to get home (after a few more Harpoons) and admire my black and silver steel Pinarello Opera, decked out with full Record 10, Nokon cables and silver Eurus wheels. Now I know why I built my own ride...