camera glitches at the philly bike expo

I went to the Philly Bike Expo today in the impending Nor'Easter that wasn't (well, I wasn't going on a group ride, right?). I had a great time looking at all the bikes and stuff, but almost none of my pictures came out; they mostly look like this:

Oof.

I did get a good pic of the jewelry box that Silca sells as a hex-and-torx set:

(Like, would you ever put you greasy fingers into that lovely wooden box to pull out one of those wrenches?)

And there's now a builder in Buffalo NY making bikes out of wood.

Although, if you're gonna do a wooden bike...

 

I also liked this raw carbon fiber frame. If more of 'em looked like this, I'd like 'em better. (Don't worry: there's an art contest. The winning design will be painted onto the bike and the clearcoated, and the artist of the winning design gets a $10 gift certificate off the cost of a frame, or something.)

This corrugated plastic box goes over your rear rack. It replaces panniers, but, at $86, it seems a bit spendy.

There was a lot of lovely machining that I'm never gonna buy, but I love the look of it anyway.

And, this being a bike show in Philadelphia, with sprinklings of folks from the Pacific Northwest and other places of interest throughout the country, I got to rub elbows with people with tattoos, nifty-colored hair, interesting piercings, luxuriant facial hair, and all the other stuff that reminds me just how un-hip I really am. To underscore the point, I wore a white button-down collar and a bow tie. If I'm gonna be un-hip, I'm taking it as far as I can.

And I only bought a hat for The Excellent Wife (TEW), and a tire jack for the road. I got away cheap!

Remember all that rain? Some of our intrepid showgoers still rode in; below are pics  of the free bike parking on the ground floor. The racks are mostly empty, but not completely abandoned.

How's THAT for Rule 9?