By: Embro News Mar 2, 06:07 PM |

I just now walked in the door from my return trip from Richmond, VA and the 2010 North American Handmade Bicycle Show. This has become an event that we, and many cycling enthusiasts like us, come to look forward to every year. This year drew the biggest crowd yet of any NAHBS show and with it some of the best bikes, displays and personalities in our industry. It would impossible for me to recount all the highlights of the show to you in any one sitting, or even multiple articles, so I’ll go ahead and give you a little recap of the show and Embrocation’s involvement in this year’s edition.

If you were at NAHBS, you might have visited us in the Embrocation booth, number 245, located just in front of the awards stage, just next to Dinucci Bicycles (who went on to win the official NAHBS award for best lugged bike) and across from Dromarti, a company that makes some classic leather cycling shoes that I may or may not be obsessed with… Anyway, it was a great show for us. We met many of you who follow our online articles, read the journal and are general fans of what we have going on. Needless to say, we more than appreciate the support and talking with you. We also met a bunch of you who hadn’t heard of us before – now you have, and I hope you’re reading.

Speaking of awards, I have to mention that we’ll be unveiling the NAHBS Embro Awards – our own unofficial, somewhat scientifically derived awards – in the next day or two, once we’ve finished counting the ballots. Unlike our end of the year Embro awards, in which we basically just picked categories and winners that arbitrarily appealed to us, this time we turned to you, our audience, to give us some feedback and decide for yourselves. It’s our way to get the pulse of the show, get you involved, give some attention to some of the crowd favorites and have a little fun. Many show attendees were kind enough to fill out our ballots in several categories as they walked the show floor. Jeremy was also walking the floor getting pictures and talking to all the builders who emerged as front-runners over the first two days, so he’ll be bringing you the results before too long.

When we weren’t doing awards, or talking up the publication we were entertaining a list of celebrities. Whit Yost spent a good deal of time with us. If you’re one of the many who enjoys Whit’s musings here on the Embro site or at his blog, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy Whit’s take on NAHBS, coming soon. Molly Cameron also stopped by for a little while and did her thing, talked to the crowd and might have even signed an autograph or two. All the while, Ira Ryan and Tony Pereira were making the occasional appearance as they walked the show – neither of them had decided to exhibit, opting instead to take the lower stress option of attending as guests.

Dario Pegoretti stopped by with a few of his buddies. He said he liked Embrocation and even signed a copy for one of his fans.

Actually, come to think of it Ira Ryan signed one for one of his fans, too, since we have an article about Ira in Volume 5.

Then there was your typical trade show weirdness. Some fellow was, well… here, why don’t I just show you what this guy was doing:

Then some roller derby ladies showed up and tried to get us to attend their next bout. We never did do that, but I might look up my local roller derby chapter sometime this year.

Brian Worthy from Vermarc is a bicycle industry legend and might be the nicest person in the world. He hung out for a while and hugged Jeremy.

Lots of love all around. So, it was a good time. And we have some really cool new T-Shirts. Look for those soon and like I said, look for the Embro Awards coming soon as well.