North American Handmade Bicycle Show

Today I attended the 2009 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, probably the biggest custom bike show in the country. This is a show that I have known about for years and always wanted to attend, but it has never been close enough for me to go to, until this year, when it was in Indianapolis.

These are just a few of the photos that I took, I put the rest up on a Picasa Album (Link).

Most of the top builders from here in the United States were there, along with some famous interenational builders, such as DeRosa. Probably the best moment at the show for me was when I was at the booth of a Japanese bike builder called Cherubim. I knew of his bicycles from magazines that Dan had given me, and so I asked him for his autograph on one of his flyers, which he thought was hilarious. He did not speak English, but there was a translator there and the builder's wife did speak a little. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the bike that he had that I liked a lot (I thought that I had, but oh well).

Kate, Sam, and our friend Cat came along to Indy, but instead of going to the show, they went to see the new Indianapolis library.

The Raleigh Rides Again

After years of laying dormant in the basement, it is good to see that the old Raleigh has been resurrected into a grocery getter. Actually, Guinness Book of World Records wants a picture of that frame as the biggest frame around.

Sam's First Video

Sam out on the floor, having a party.



ps - see if you can catch the fart.

Sam Updates

Sam is fine, just some pictures for all you fans out there.

Sam's First Bike Ride

I am not sure why, but this first picture of Sam really reminds me of pictures of Grandpa Reese, maybe it is the colors in the photo or something, but he just looks like his great-grandfather in this one.
And I guess that that second picture is pretty obvious, it was Sam's first bike ride (well on the trainer). He was not all that interestest in it, in fact, he fell asleep (but he does that with pretty much everything).

We went to the doctor's yesterday and she said that everything looks fine and that Sam is doing wonderfully. He is now almost 9 pounds, so he is certainly gaining weight.

Riding and the Baby

Today was the one warm dry day of the week, so I wanted to get out for a ride. I just did one of my usual Sellersburg routes on what turned out to be a grey dull day (at least I got most all of the branches up from our yard and burned). While the ride might have been a normal route for me, I did run across this guy hanging out by his fence just watching the traffic go by.
Needless to say, I felt that he deserved to have his picture taken.

Now, here are the requisite Samuel pictures. Here he is trying out the Moby wrap with Mom, and looking at the baby face book, which he loves.

Beer Reviews

It has been awhile since we had a beer review on Lug Bros, so here are two beers that I have been enjoying lately.

The first is Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, a supposedly even hoppier version of Sierra Nevada than usual, which is funny because it actually tasted less hoppy than most of the Sierra Nevada regular brew that I have had. This was possibly due to the slightly higher alcohol content than the regular beer (7.2% versus 6.5%).

All in all a very enjoyable and drinkable beer.



The other beer is Celis Grand Cru, a Belgian inspired beer from the Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville. This is a Belgain golden ale with various spices and Curaco orange peels added during the brewing process. It has a nice tangy taste, has quite a bit of carbination, and a surprisingly sweet finish (lots of sugars) (Yes, I know that I sound just like Michael Jackson with that review). I was surprised to find this beer down here in Indiana, but the Keg (the local good beer store, has quite a selection of Michigan beers) as I had never heard of this brewery before. The beer is actually the creation of Pierre Celis, the brew master behind Hoegardeen from Belgium. This has become one of my favorite beers.

Littlest Lug Bros

Here is Sam in his first offical Lug Bros. photo, doesn't he just look thrilled.

He is doing really well, it is amazing how much he has grown in just a week.
Sam is continuing to learn how to keep us awake at night, his latest trick is to almost fall
asleep and jerk himself awake with a big grunt.

More Sam Pictures

Here are some more pictures of Sam from the past few days.

Grits

On Saturday, I got out for my first road ride in awhile. I rode with a couple of people from my old team. The day was supposed to be partly sunny and around 60 degrees, but it turned out to be cloudy, and I doubt the temp got above 50. This was one of the first warm days after the snow and ice storm last week, so was lots of road grit and water around, plus in some places even still some ice on the road.

We did a little over 40 miles, all the time trying to stay out of the way of a 15 mph wind coming out of the southwest. We rode from Memphis (about 15 miles north of Utica), and headed up into Washington and Scott counties (neither of which are know for their stellar road maintenance). It was fun to be out on the roads again, but after riding through the third 2 inch deep stream of melting snow running across the road our feet started to get cold. Then, Jerry who was leading the ride took us on several knobs, which only added to the fun (at the end of the ride I told him he had a new nickname, the Marquis de Sade). But we all made it back in one piece, so it went well, but I then had a hour's worth of work cleaning up my bike.

Sam comes home

Yesterday was a momentous day in the 4 day of life of Samuel Robert as it was the first time he came home (along with his first car ride, getting licked by the dogs, being outside, etc, etc) - so much stuff is in brand new when you are only 4 days old.
We finally got the okay from the hospital to bring the boy home around 4:30 and so we got him all loaded up and in car and got home around 5:00. So here is Sam in his car seat just after we got home and then the dogs meeting him for the first time.
Both dogs are extremely concerned about Sam. Ben was jumping up at every little sound that Sam made last night.