Handmade Bicycle Show 2010

We were very excited to be able to go to the handmade bike show this year in Richmond, VA, this year.




Originally, Adam wanted to drive up there, but airfare was so cheap that everyone decided to fly, instead. We met up with Adam and Andy at the airport.




Jansen's hat, Shey and (his very good and most tolerant friend) Adam.





We got to the venue right after lunch and I have to say the show was VERY OVERWHELMING! There was sooo much to look at and it wasn't just like, "hey sweet ride" It was more like, "I think I'm gonna cry because that bike is so beautiful......or innovative.......or ingenious........or just totally crazy......then, you start to become numb and walk around for the next hour like a zombie....speaking of zombies, here is a zombie paint job.


Yes, we'll take one of these.....



No, not bowling shoes. Very cool leather, cycling shoes.

Yes, it has a flame thrower that shoots out the back.

Drool, drool... Dave Parrett was also there, from Thomson, and after we caught up on family news, he offered to hold on to my checkbook, in case I went on a shopping spree! (by the way Christian is headed to Wales to ride for pro road team, more news on that later!)

slobber....

Several bamboo bikes were on display.

The people watching was almost as much fun and the bike browsing. One of the first guys we saw when we walked in was someone in a Faster Mustache Squoat shirt!

Alexis was there, too and Jansen was jazzed to see the new damascus steel he had been working with.

Alexis actually worked with a guy who is a master at creating knives and they made their own damascus steel to place on this bike. Gorgeous!

Bilenky had a very cool set-up. They pulled one of their work benches out of their shop and brought it to the show. So, it was like walking into their shop, full of lots of interesting goodies.

One of the Vanilla Workshop bikes from Portland.



Ah, this was the best dessert ever, after a long hard day's work of window shopping.

An early flight home, put us back in time for a lovely ride at Dauset.

**

Crazy Weather.

All four of us went to watch Wolfman on the Friday before Valentine's Day. It was very romantic....lots of intestines.



When we got out of the theater there was a good dusting of snow on the ground.

We were going to write our names in the parking lot, but we ran out of room.

When we got home we had an awesome snow ball fight. The snow packed into perfect balls and we are all pretty bad shots, but can run pretty fast.

Then, this weekend, it was sunny and in the 60's. CRAZY! So we headed to Yargo to ride for a few hours, spent some time working in the yard and Jansen put up another wall of his work shed, then we met Jafter and Elizabeth at Dauset for a few more hours on the trail.

Who needs T.V. when you have Teenagers???

We headed to Florida for some sunshine, canoeing and riding. I had the enjoyment of having two live comedians, who also happen to be my best traveling buddies, with me.

On the drive we decided it would be really cool to live in one of these. All Funnel Cakes, All the Time!!

Captain Tater Tot keeps us safe on our journey. Long live CTT!!

As I was riding behind the boys they put on a synchronized biking show for me.

Here is J with no hands and one leg.

This is after J squirted E with his water bottle twice, now E is reaching for his water bottle...which he threw the entire bottle at J....quite comical.


This is Moss Man. He is the cousin of Slime Man and Black Coffee River Water Man.


Slime Man.

Black Coffee River Water Man.

Time for lunch.

Canoeing the Suwanee after all the flooding was awesome! I don't know why the guys felt the urge to rush over and touch each log with their oars, but it seems to be a guy thing. Yep, this is one such log....

Lot's of places to explore.

We found a slide...

And a bridge......

And this root thing.




All the Florida state parks are really nice. This is at the Stephen Foster park at White Springs.

This is his banjo.

This is a tower with something like 90+ bells in it, we could hear it from the river, while we were paddling.

We were the only tents there, and this retired guy from the motor home with a sattelite dish and neon "Las Vegas" sign kept asking us if we were warm enough and if we wanted any coffee or cocoa or anything. As he walked off we looked at each other, lifted our hands and said, "More porridge please, sir".

Jiffy Pop over the campfire, near San Felasco.

Jansen worked on his paper mache project, for biology, on the drive. Everett and I gave lots of advice. It turned out pretty cool.

It was a great weekend with lots of riding and as usual I laughed my head off at those two clowns. They are the best entertainment I have found!

****