New Freak bike and NAHBS show photos aka MONSTER POST!

As you all know, I made the trip down to Richmond Virginia this past weekend for NAHBS. I also mentioned coming up with an awesome new creation of my own to roll around with that weekend so here it is:

This one came to fruition so quickly that it has yet to be named! The best suggestions so far have been: BMHEX, SnookiePUNCH! and the T4 (Totally Tragic Tall Tarck) followed by 'Mark I' since after having ridden it a bunch, I'm SO DOWN to make more of these! SO. MUCH. FUN!! Not to mention how HOTT that shit looks- DAMN!

..and I know the photos suck ballsac. Fucking weather has been complete shite here lately and I've had no real time to get anything done much less trapes around taking photos. I suppose I could've taken some in VA but it's just SO not Jersey there..

For years I'd heard and read things from various builders about how they were on deadline or were in a mad dash to have something completed for one of the various larger builder award/industry shows. Suddenly I was finding myself under that same intense personal pressure! Okay, well, nothing like what they have to go through but it was a very decent glimpse..

I originally conjured it Thursday afternoon the week before the show while working at my BS job and thought- Shit! I need to go for a walk to get lunch or something to properly formulate the idea in my head. Came up with some good shit while out and then came back and began working on a sketch. Here's the mock up I did later on that night:

I also laughed at this a bunch that day..

Then here's the first test spin build photo from Monday morning after having completed about 85% of the job on Sunday night:

I then placed an order to Ben's for all the parts I needed to complete the build (and others):

FUCK YES!

..aaaand by Thursday night it was all complete! New mini tall tarck conceived and built inside a weeks time- not bad considering I have a full time job!

My unbelievably sexy lady friend was kind enough to spend that weekend at my place as well while I toiled away in the shop. As though it wasn't inspiring enough to be in the midst of such TREMENDOUS creative GENIUS after coming up with yet another MASTERPIECE. Yes folks, I've gone past patting myself on the back and have moved on to just giving myself the full reach around- AWESOME!

But in all seriousness, I just thought it would be kick ass to show up to NAHBS on a ridiculously fun new freak bike that I built myself in the spirit of the event. Even though I'm no where near a proper builder by any stretch of the imagination. I'll most likely end up toning down the parts group a bit too. 1) The Jackson is kinda pissed at me for ripping a bunch of parts of it and 2) I want to be able to lock this bitch up around town without worry..

Oh right, in all likelihood you don't give a shit about all this! Okay, moving on to NAHBS..

As you know I started out my day on Friday with a few feet of freshly fallen fucking snow all over and around my car. After I dug myself out and got going I was stoked when the sun was kind enough to break free of the clouds and offer me up a ray of light for good luck. After all the shit storming that had been going on I was stoked!

Until of course my rear passenger side tire decided to blow out while I was doing 75mph down the New Jersey turnpike- DHHOOO!! Fortunately exit 12 was not far away so I managed to limp my way over to it on the shoulder. As you could image I was pretty fucking pissed! Buried under snow and now this?! DAMMIT!! I feared that the trip would be off altogether. But right when all hope was lost what did I find at a strip mall on the other end of the exit? A fucking Pep Boys! Which may as well had been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow considering my situation. The gold coming in the form of a properly sized tire! If I had a normal car with stock rims it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. However most places don't stock low profile 18" all season sport tires. Seeing as how Pep Boys rules I wasn't even worried as I waited on line. When I finally talked to the guy he said he had one left in stock- THANK GOD! So I ripped off said wheel with blown tire and handed it over. Hung out, ate lunch, looked at car parts, got the wheel with fresh new tire back on and I was off again..

Exit 152B-A had me lulzing:

I got into town late on Friday night so I didn't do fuck all but relax in my hotel room. Woke up early the next morning and walked over to the Convention hall. I have to say, the Richmond downtown area is a bit of a ghost town. Lots of buildings for sale or in need of repair/falling apart. It was kinda weird. A good portion of the town was like this. Welcome to the rest of the country outside of the NYC area I guess!

The show was pretty gnarly and just a liiiiiiitle overwhelming. I took a fuckload of photos tho. Here's a few things I was stoked on..

First thing's first, The Bilenky boys had THE BEST display there:

To give you a better idea of just how good it was here's a comparison shot from the show:

..and one I took a few weeks ago when I visited their shop:

Awesome huh?!

Oh and a little side note: This wicked Hetchins esq vintage roadie was built with a similar set of vintage Hetchins lugs and tubing I had originally bought from a collector in CT. I ended up selling them to a buyer was from Long Island NY. When he inquired as to where he should get his custom built locally, naturally I suggested that Bilenky Cycleworks since they had done such a bang up job with mine. I was super stoked to see the final product! He def went in the complete opposite direction as I did with my set of lugs, hehe..

Speedvagen/Vanilla also had a pretty awesome display:

As did Chris King:

..and Chris (not THE Chris I don't think) was cool enough to tell me more about their new road hubs which I was totally digging on:

I mentioned that I was also digging on the display and he told me that people were saying they should get a DJ going in there. Which when I suggested that a pole and a couple of strippers would most likely go over very well with the crowd on hand, hehe. In any case, they had some kick ass deals on headsets and hubs that I was super bummed to miss out on. I had a set of CK classic road hubs a while back and would LOVE to try out these new ones..

I was amped to see that the Kimori guys were there with all the awesomely neat goodies they make along with one of their crazy ass bikes..

Kimori is probably my favorite companies I've ever found out about. Super, super stoked on their designs and it was SO AWESOME getting to meet them and vigorously fondle all their gear in person. I was actually really bummed I didn't have a bunch of extra cash cause I could've EASILY dropped a few hundy no sweat. I did however pick up one of their front brake adapters for a certain someone I'm still regretting selling a certain Cuevas frame to with the non drilled for THAT HAD BETTER STAY THAT FUCKING WAY or there will be blood spilled..

Also super stoked to meet Eric from Ground Up finally. We'd talked a bunch of times over the years via internerd socializing sites etc so it was nice to BS like normal human beings for once. He had THE WICKEDEST Ti BMX frame EVERRRR:

He also brought a SICK track monster and RAD cruiser with a built in flame thrower..

Seeing his work in person makes me want to get a custom from him sometime in the near future. I'd LOVE to get one of those BMX frames tho- so reddic!

The other amusing thing I noticed is that there were a lot of cute chicks in the form of girlfriends and wives. The only thing more coveted in the cycling world are women who genuinely enjoy cycling (as opposed to the ones who do it just to meet and hang out with 'boys'). More so than the rarest of the rare campy WTF ever or most ridiculous deal you could possibly imagine (Like getting a near mint condition custom coupled Sakkit frame for $150!). Cause let's be honest, what's better than sharing something you're most passionate about with someone you not only love to screw, but can tolerate on a daily basis. Not to mention them tolerating your dumbass for having nothing better to do than fuck around with, talk about and ride bikes everywhere all the time. 'I love her cause she get's me!' Yeah.. Keep telling yourself that buddy..

Afterwords I went over to the Trick Jam contest for a little bit to scope out what they had set up and take a few snaps. There were a shitload of kids there playing polo and riding BMX and fixies. It didn't take long for me to become bored to tears tho. I mean, the light was kind of a bummer, there was a bit of a weird vibe and well, let's face it, I'm not 22 anymore.. So I left since I'd been dying to take the new Mini Tall Tarck around and explore Richmond a little bit..

Here's a few snaps and sequence from that event:

During my ride I stopped by Re-Cycles to check out their shop since I most likely wouldn't be making it out to their party later on that night. It was def an awesome REAL shop. I say real because they had all kinds of cool shit and didn't have polished wooden floors. Not that there's anything wrong with that either but there's nothing like a grimy old dark shop full of neat old dead stock shit in overflowing bins. Like the bin where I found all these tools for a buck each:

Um, FUCK YES!

The dudes there were super cool and funny. They said it was okay for me to pet their dog (note tool bin in upper section of photo):

I went to the COG party later on but didn't bother taking any snaps aside from this kids bike he had locked up across the street:

My fucking hero! The balls on that guy with the single tiny ass U-Lock!!

Then I saw this shit on the way back to the Hotel:


Sunday morning I checked out of my Hotel and hung out at the show for a little bit and got whatever photos I missed the day before and or needed to reshoot. Then took off and somehow made it back up north to my area in NO TIME. Left Richmond at 11:50am, passed the Ikea in Elizabeth at 4:30pm. Felt so good to be back in my area a lot faster than what google estimated..

Here's the full slide show of the entire two days worth of photos. It's something like 130ish images so take a b-room break and get some snacks:



Note to self: NO MORE MONSTER POSTS!!!

New Freak bike and NAHBS show photos aka MONSTER POST!