I took the train from Seattle to Portland on Thursday. The train was fast, comfortable, and worked great with my folding bike. I wandered around Portland on Thursday (visiting the expanded Clever Cycles was a highlight) and have been at the show since then.
I posted 177 photos on my smugmug site last night.
Yesterday was the Industry Day. It was really nice to have a lighter traffic day and it gave me a chance to meet and talk to many builders. I expect today to be super busy in contrast. As someone who is learning how to build it is really nice to have this open forum to meet builders and talk to them about bikes and not bikes.
I think that the bikes this year are generally better than last year. Some highlights:
Engin seatpost meets dynamo taillight in this custom seatpost from Bilenky. Nice idea, smart.
Rebolledo is building some really nice bikes. Good asthetics, nice designs. I hope to ride one someday, I think we'll be hearing more from him. The builder and his wife are also incredibly nice people.
Sycip went for weird show bike stuff instead of practical. Disk brake on the crank instead of the wheel on this fixed gear.
Meeting Peter Weigle was definately a highlight of the trip. His booth was always busy, so it was hard to get good photos, but this bike is a stunner.
I expect this will be the buzz of the BOB list. Tony Pereira built this for BOB list member Jon Muellner. Big tires, cool detachable lowrider racks, really nice build. I bet Jon will love this bike. I feel guilty for seeing it at two shows when he hasn't seen it yet.
A tied and soldered bike from Villin Cycles. I wonder how it'll hold up. He says it was tons of work to mask and paint.
Frances brought this neat front loading cargo bike. Cable steered, nice design.
ANT brought this nice commuter. The racks are a little more beefied up than previous ANT bikes that I've seen, and I like the colors and asthetics.
Sweetpea has the nicest women's bikes that I know of. In photos they look like normal bikes, in person you see that everything is perfectly scaled down.
This photo doesn't do this bike justice, I'll try to get another one today. Click for more details.
Neat belt drive Rohloff commuter from Curtlo.
Super cool porteur rack by Pass and Stow. It fits on most forks, has a great QR system for the optional bag, and lets you use panniers too. It's a smart design, I hope we see more from them. I'll update this post with purchasing info later on.
Lugged Ti bike from Bruce Gordon with a cool stem.
A new Rene Herse with integrated LED lighting, switch on top of the stem.
This just scratches the surface, there is a lot of great stuff here this year.