It's no secret that Portland brews a mean cup of coffee and houses some of the United States' most talented frame builders. Vanilla Bicycles is one of those companies. Sacha White began making bicycles in 1999 and over a decade later, Vanilla is one of the most recognizable names in the handmade bicycle world. This year at the NAHBS, Vanilla displayed their true design intent through their bikes and their booth.

Below are some photos I took at the 2010 NAHBS.

Six-Eleven Bicycles is a small bicycle company owned and operated by Aaron Dykstra in Roanoke, Virginia. Aaron's company is named after the famed Six-Eleven Locomotive, which was made by Norfolk & Western in Roanoke during the mid-20th century. It only makes sense that Aaron would look to his local town's engineering vernacular to inspire his submission for the 2010 NAHBS.

Check out more shots of Aaron's bike below.

Photo by Ben Broomfield

Wooooo. This one's hot. Fixed Gear London has some studio photos of the Bright x 14 Bike Co x D*face frameset up on their blog. They're auctioning this off on eBay within the next few days, so check back for more information!

Previously:
Bright x 14 Bike Co x D*face

Traitor Cycles has a new site up. Check out some new offerings to the Traitor Cycles line below, along with a press release.

Ted's bike and mine

I'm leaving for Tokyo in the morning, so I had to say bye to Super Ted tonight. As we were parting ways, we signed each other's bikes. His says "Thanks for looking after me in 'Merica - Ted", in case you were trying to decipher it.

Ted, mate, safe travels!

Photo by Graham for Wired Magazine

In an age when most companies are out-sourcing to Taiwan or China, Brooks Saddles continues to hand make each of their saddles at their facility in Smethwick, England. Wired Magazine toured the Brooks factory and has a great gallery showcasing the process. Really awesome photos of hand-made products. Sounds like something up Tracko's alley.

Photo via Chari & Co

At first glance and knowing Look's history, you'd expect the Al-464-P to be in the $2,000+ pricepoint. When they showcased the Al-464-P at Interbike last year, with a pricepoint of under $1,000, people were going nuts. Finally, an affordable Look frameset. Whether you plan on putting drops or risers on it, this will be one mean bicycle.

Chari & Co just got in their shipment of framesets and at a retail of $900, they won't last long. Not sure if this applies for their free shipping discount, but if it does, that's a solid deal!

Marty of Geekhouse | Aaron of Six Eleven Bicycle Co | Erik of Peacock Groove by Urban Velo

What a weekend. Total Bicycle overload. While I'm sorting through my 6 gigs of photos, you should check out Urban Velo's coverage of the 2010 North American Hand-built Bicycle Show. The NAHBS this year was a huge success and Urban Velo, once again, managed to cover the entire show with precision! Check it out:

-Urban Velo NAHBS 2010 Day 3
-Urban Velo NAHBS 2010 Day 2
-Urban Velo NAHBS 2010 Day 1

With NAHBS just around the corner, you'd expect this to be Icarus' show bike. Nope. This is their everyday work. A local mechanic hit Ian up at Icarus to design and build him a classic track bike with some Icarus flavor. Check out the detailed shots below.

I saw these when I was at Bens Cycle in Milwaukee for the Mid-West Mayhem. Something to drool over for sure, especially NOS. The only thing more coveted than these are the ones with the Campagnolo shield panto'd on the arm, not printed. What will these set you back? A cool $900! Damn. Someone will pay that though.

I've got the Strada version on my Merckx, which I got for a fraction of that price, but then again, they're not Pista.

Oh Campy, you used to produce some sexy bicycle components.

The guys at Indy Fab have quite the stable brewing for the 2010 NAHBS. They were commissioned by the team at Phil Wood to fabricate 41 (#00 - #40) limited-edition titanium track bikes in honor of Phil Wood's 40th anniversary. There are tons of Phil Wood logos cut out of literally every component on this bike. It's really over-the-top. Luckily for those of you who will not be in attendance at the NAHBS, they snapped some shots of bike #00 before packing it up.

Check the rest out at the IF Blog.

Wooo!

All-City just posted some more photos (which we saw earlier on their Flickr) of their new SS / Fixed Cyclocross bike called the Nature Boy (If I have to explain the reference, you get smacked). Looks bad ass! Internal cable routing, big-tire clearance and the All-City signature track ends. Just one question for ya Jeff, when are the All-City mudguards, aka "the Bushwackers" coming out?

Check out more photos of the Nature Boy here, at the All-City blog.

Scans from Old Mountain Bikes

Yes, we're all lucky to have durable forks now for our fixed gears. Remember all those photos and videos of kids snapping their forks a few years ago? After the fixed freestyle crew picked up on 26" rigid MTB forks, or unicrown forks, there's been very few instances of snapping forks. Most people want to thank the BMX industry for that and it's true, early BMX bikes did use unicrown forks. The late 1970's introduced the first BMXs, which were beefed up Schwinn Stingrays. On the bigger-wheel side of the cycling world however, we have one person to thank; Tom Ritchey.

Speaking of the Mix Meat blog. They've got some classics in there, like this one of Pope John Paul II accepting the Campagnolo 50th Anniversary group number 002; group number 001 is in the Campagnolo factory. (I had this image in a bike dump folder on my computer, so I uploaded my version instead of theirs, which is higher resolution) For the article from the Campagnolo Record news, check below.

Yes. One please. Thanks.

Today the Williamsburg Bridge was a solid sheet of ice. I let my tire PSI down to 60 and trudged up and down it. That's one way to ride in nasty conditions and this Indy Fab NAHBS Winter Bike is another. Damn. I cannot wait to see this bike next weekend. They've let the cat out of the bag at their blog, even disclosing great detail shots. Check the rest out here.

Are you going to the NAHBS? You should. West, East, Mid-West or Third Coast. No excuses.

One of those Cinelli MX-1s just popped up on eBay. This one's in pretty poor condition, with a bent fork blade, a repair job and chipped paint. Gotta love those decals though! The original "CMX". There's much better photos of a nice blue MX-1 over at BMX Museum and the original Cinelli MX-1 ad is below complete with a Campagnolo BMX group and Clément tubular racing tires.

Travis from Berlin just shot me a photo of his new copper-plated Milwaukee Bruiser. I never thought I'd see something like that done to a Bruiser. Really crazy! I just replied to his email with a link to a patina formula website with hopes that he finds a good mixture to treat his frame with. Did you know you could mix chemicals that form a purple patina? Hrmm....

Looks great Travis!

Kinfolk Bicycle Project from Jesse Carmody on Vimeo.

Just caught this on the Ways & Means Twitter. Now it's a bit old, but still worth the watch.

I ran into Maceo from Kinfolk today at Affinity and was just Photoshopping a few photos of his Kinfolk #1 when I came across the video. Perfect segue into the few detail shots that came out nicely. Check them out below.

Photo by Bishops Cycles

People often forget the ingenuity of early frame builders. Take this BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) Shortbase Speedy for instance. Pathracers were predominately British-built bicycles used in track and grass track races. They're characterized by a longer, stable wheelbase and the forks usually had a double or triple crown to dampen the rough-ride to and on the track.

These were track bikes in the earliest form; bikes used to race. They were still ridden on the streets; racers would ride their bikes to the track to race. Sometimes with a single caliper on the front wheel attached to the bars with a toe strap; that was about as minimal of a brake as would pass by law.

Photo by Dennis Fischer

Here's a look at the new Svevo complete. Dubbed the Métisse, this new 700c trick bike is handmade at the Svevo factory in Stuttgart, Germany. How rad is that? A city known for their bicycle history has started to make a 700c trick bike! Check out more shots below and a full break down of the build.