When: May 9th, 6.00 PM (ride out at 6.30) Where: Meet at Rittenhouse Square, end up at North Bowl. What: Nice leisurely ride through the mean gritty streets of the city without pity, then books, beer and bowling balls. Why: Meet Bike Snob, have a ride, hear about his book, buy a copy, have the best Thursday night ever. How: All bikes and levels welcome. It'll be getting dark, so encrust your bike with knog lights, if you like.
April is the cruelest month according to some English guy with a hipster beard, but for us it is deceptively calm. We're cranking out bikes with a certain quiet desperation, so they're ready for the onslaught of MAY. Here's your abbreviated pre-May cheat sheet so you mark your calendars, should you want to.
May 4th-- Velofest at Trexlertown (or as everyone calls it, The Swap) A couple of us will be there selling Cool Stuff, which you should buy because our shop is absolutely lousy with Cool Stuff and it's getting on Isis' nerves (ahem).
May 3-4th-- Bike Expo New York, in New York. Keep Steve and some bikes company at Pier 36. Fellow exhibitors will be everything from Dahon to Lifeway Kefir.
May 17-19th is the fun and nerdy Cirque Du Cyclisme down in Leesburg VA. If you're at all into old bikes, fancy bikes, or old fancy bikes, this is THE PLACE.
We'll keep you updated as more stuff comes along; right now this is the Big Three.
What else?
This year's Expo is going to be in the Philadelphia Convention Center!!
That shiny thing behind the paintbrush
It is going to be so shiny and awesome! While we'll miss the grandeur of the Armory, we'll enjoy the lack of darkness and coldness (and so will you).
On a side note, if you manage to bring the drip under the paintbrush to the Bilenky Booth during the Expo we'll give you a sweet prize and our undying gratitude because that thing is.....
Yeah.
BMXers who keep riding up it, we approve.
Speaking of sculptures and sculptors, it has come to our attention that Steve is Auguste Rodin.
Steve
Rodin
We know now, Auguste! You couldn't hide forever! We expect all the bikes to come complete with writhing little bronze people, ok? And don't let us catch you sculpting paint drips.
So a few months ago Bicycling Magazine made this video about us.We were overwhelmed with nice responses, from all over the world. The other day we got this email:
HI Steve Bilenky!
i saw online axcidently your excellent video this weekend. It inspire me
and i draw some still frame, so i will send to you and hope you enjoy it. I'm
artist in Rome and i think that some beautiful images have value. I appreciate
your work and your video so much! I'm sorry about my english but i speak
italian, german and tzech and not fluently english.
I send to you and your staff a hugs.
Clara
De Paoli
Here are the pictures. We are speechless, senza parole, verklempt, and němý:
Looking good, Steve!
We also got some great photos of one of our frequent customers doing RAAM (which, for the uninitiated, stands for Race Across America. The riders go across the continental US, in sometimes as little as eight days. Some do it in teams, which is reasonable, and some go solo which is NOT.)
Dan's team here had the oldest average age of any RAAM contestants ever:
At the starting line....
Made it!
And here's Dan on his RAAM Litespeed, which we retrofitted this winter.
For the record, this guy has a Cessna airplane and a Burley tandem with just one set of couplers in it so it fits in the back.
And finally, here's an email we got today:
Steve,
I thought I'd toss you an update: The Lygie you saved and
renovated is still in fine shape and passed on to my son Nathaniel who rode it
across 5500
miles across country and went on to a career in promoting bicycling for
transportation, lifestyle, health and urban design. I will always remember the
time on the phone time, trust, sensitive of art and esthetics and personal care
invested in a rejuvenating a beat up bike that still means so much.
Thank you,
John Higley
Sherborn, MA 01770
Aww! Thanks John! We love hearing about the lives of bikes that have been through our shop.
Bilenky Cycle Works-- serving criminally cool cyclists since 1983.
On an unrelated note, can it be spring now? I mean, COME ON!
As some of you may have noticed, our website looks different. As some more of you may have noticed, it works! No more re-directing to pages from 2003 (although they may still be floating around in cyberspace somewhere, no one can remember the necessary passwords). One of the biggest changes is a readable, functional store that functions. 20th Century, here we come! Steve even has an iPhone.
Our Official Awkward NAHBS Family Portraits are out!
THE EPIC FRONT
THE EPIC BACK
I should have made a vest for the 'chuck. I am a rotten rodent wrangler.
SPEAKING OF RODENTS....
HOW did no one bring us a live woodchuck? Not one? Woodchucks are so eminently smuggleable, all you have to do is give them a few shots of bourbon and they sack out for hours in the nearest box.
Like this!
Well it's your loss, next time you have to smuggle in a woodchuck that looks exactly like Jacques Anquetil if you want your free Bilenky!
Also, Tom and Kasy don't want their vests. I'm gonna put em on Ebay, but I figured I'd give our faithful fans a chance to make us a first offer. They're both medium-ish. Tom's says 'love' on the back in glittery sequins and has hearts on the front. Kasy's is more conservative. Both have giant BCW patches on the back. HOW CAN YOU RESIST?
Meanwhile, we have rearranged the office, tried to tidy up the shop (ha. ha.) and made a significant dent in our bike queue. Ferdinand is having none of it:
You can have these files when I'm good and ready.
But check out this tandem!
29er Ti Crazybike
And I leave you with a lovely video from one of our customers. These bikes are currently in for retrofits. We love facilitating globetrotting!
Well that was fun! We're still reeling from amazing bikes, thin air, amazingly nice people, too much beer, too much snow... According to the airplane announcer guy, Denver is sunny 300 days of the year. According to me, it's kind of slushy. But there are actual mountains all around, and that makes it worthwhile.
All the bikes took the train:
ALL THE BOXES ARRIVED. Miracles can happen.
And then those 12 grubby boxes became this:
So tidy.
And then Steve did this:
So MESSY.
Note the pink vest. I'm waiting for our official shop photo with ALL our beautiful studded vests on display to turn up. Tom and Kasy didn't like wearing theirs at all, but Steve stood out like a hot pink glittering beacon all weekend. And the woodchuckgot drunk:
The beer is called Old Chub
And passed out at like three PM:
This is just embarrassing.
We were honored to win the ribbon for best lugs! All those hours of cutting, flowing and polishing paid off:
AND moody lighting
We got a ton of awesome press, too. I can't sufficiently express how thrilled and humbled we all are by everyone's kind words.
There's more, but you get the idea.One of the great things about these shows is that all the builders from around the country (and world!) get to hang out and trade ideas and gripe and draw an already tight community tighter. We don't often get to let our dork flags fly quite so flamboyantly! I'm writing a much longer recap on my own blog, if anyone's interested.
And now we're back, with bikes to build and a website to redo and a woochuck to resuscitate. Again, it was great seeing old friends, making new ones, and drooling on pretty bikes. And next year NAHBS will be in Charlotte! Bike trip, anyone?
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