Seattle Bike Expo 2013

March in Seattle means Bike Expo, the annual pilgrimage to stare at all things bike and kick off the season.  Attended solo this year, no other family members seemed too interested today.  I was also scheduled to assist the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance booth for a two hour shift, to yap about the Student League to anyone interested.

Left the house a bit late, only allowing a quick run through of the show before my 4:00 - 6:00 PM booth duty - the end of the expo day.  Spent most of my quick tour in the classic bike show area...

Pretty good supply of vintage bikes to gawk at.  Classic Bike Show sign to help the confused, wandering around lost searching for carbon fiber and electronic shifting.

Old school wheel covers.

Lots of purty painted metal tubing, down tube shifters and toe clips.

No nonsense looking '81 Albert Eisentraut.  Very nice.

Old school Masi.

Eddy Merckx in Team 7-11 colors.  I always wanted one of these.

This company, Drillium Revival, redoing the drill out everything craze from years ago.

Stepped outside to take in the amazing weather and incredible view.  Seattle rocks.

333fab make some sweet looking bikes.  If I was in the market for custom, they would be on my list of contenders.

Crazy cool electric assist utility rig.  This would be a fun replacement for the second car.

On One had a booth, displaying their direct order bikes, available via Internet.  Here, carbon 26er with decent build for $1700 or so.  Killer deal.

And their carbon 29er, ready to roll for $1800 or so.  Wow.

Nice sunset on the way out.

Smart dude heading home.  I drove instead, not quite the same.

Quick post 'n' pics from the day.  I had good time manning the booth with folks from Evergreen and talking with people about the student league. Cool program to get more kids on bikes.  And that's always a good thing.  With that, I'm signing off...

For Those About To Commute - We Salute You

Happy Bike Month!  Get your Hallmark cards early, they sell out quick.  May is that magical time of the year when bike commuting percentage rises from .00001% to .001%  It then drops off promptly on June 1st.  Sort of like that dried out Christmas tree still laying in the backyard.

Enough wise-ass comments.  Here in the bike crazy Seattle area, it is cool to see the increase of folks pounding the pedals.  Part of the increase is due to the Group Health Commute Challenge, organized by the Cascade Bicycle Club.  Companies and individuals form teams, mark their progress on the website and go for bragging rights.  Trips and mileage tracked.  A few thousand folks signed up for the festivities. Awesome.

For the 9th year now, I've put together my own team at work, and helped organize some other teams - along with other bike minded folks earning a paycheck at the same place I do.  We have 10 teams total for this year, maybe 80 people signed on.  All good clean fun to get people out there.

It also kick starts my alleged fitness level, which after this winter is pretty lame.  I totally fell off the commuting wagon in, uh, November or so. I'm usually the hard core bike commuter, the last two winters not so.  Call me the soft core commuter now, which also describes the 10 pounds gained.  The occasional mountain bike ride and garage trainer session not enough to keep the pounds at bay.

Commuting to the rescue.  100 - 170 miles a week.  Painful at first, then the source of all goodness.  Let the riding begin.