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It's February, 2008. Our year is starting out well. Coat, our custom paint and design house, finally fired up their powder coating oven. This is the second stage of growth down there, one that will give Jason the tools to help realize his full potential as a high end painter. Jason and Kevin have been turning out some beautiful stuff, and Coat is poised to take on it's first two clients after painting exclusively for Vanilla for the past 7 months. The Handmade Bike Show is just around the corner, and I am doing my patented "keep it very calm and cool until a week to go and then stress out" move. I am super excited to have the show in Portland this year and hopefully show my friends and fellow builders from around the world a great time. The Speedvagen road racing Prototype is all done. It's going to be featured at the bike show and after that, I (and my growing winter belly) will be ready to log some serious spring miles on it. Outfitted with a full Sram Red kit, Edge carbon clinchers, and king hubs, it is far nicer than I deserve, but I'll be working hard to do justice to the equipment... Below are a couple of stories for you, some news about our friends, pictures of bikes that we wanted to share, and a quote that keeps crossing my mind. |
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North American Handmade Bicycle Show 2007
With the Handmade Bicycle Show coming up this weekend, I wanted to take a look back at the 2007 show and what Vanilla was looking to express. Leading up to the show, I had been talking a lot with my friend Daniel about Vanilla's place in the bike world. My feeling was that the stigma surrounding Vanilla was born of a lack of understanding about the real life of Vanilla bikes, where they come from and the people who ride them. I wanted to represent less of the museum quality "don't touch me" sort of vibe, and instead talk about my race team, my family and friends who have traveled around the world on their Vanillas. I wanted to talk about getting bikes dirty, and the happiness of using something that is built with care and built to last. I also wanted to speak to the process that the bikes go through from start to finish. It is very labor intensive, which is not something to complain about, but rather something to celebrate. There is no way for a builder to market their way past the hard work. Even a tremendous amount of recognition still leaves the builder at his bench doing the hands on work that he needs to do whether the spotlight shines on him or not. There is an honesty to this aspect of the bikes that one can't get a taste of when they are looking at pretty modeled shots online. 
These are all aspects of the real Vanilla. A truth that I am proud of and wanted to share. The bottom line is that there is so much more to the story than pretty bikes and that is what I wanted to represent at NAHMBS 2007. The booth was loosely broken up into 3 "lives". On the left was cross, the team and Speedvagen. In the middle was the shop, my workmates, my family. And the right was Jrdn Freelove, who took one of the fanciest "that's too pretty to ride" Vanillas and rode 8000+ miles around the country, giving his bike a life that most bikes only dream about. In addition to bikes, the booth was very image heavy. There was a total of close to 60 photos, ranging from 5 by 7 inches to 2 by 3 feet, from three separate photographers. As well as maps, journal excerpts and worn out garments from some of the subjects. I wanted to bring in a taste of the Vanilla color palette by backing each photo with a painted board - sky blue, brick red, dusty lavender, and a very dark lavender. Some of the photos were backed with a natural oiled hard wood representing the warmth found occasionally in the wooden touches we bring into our bikes. We created cherry wood pedestals for the raw frame pieces which were mounted on rebar that we heated and pounded into organic "stem-like" shapes, and then partially polished giving them a very raw, industrial base that morphed into an elegant finished top. The pedestals were mounted on a plywood base with a shallow border around it which was filled with dirt, grass, and clover at the show location in San Jose. For me, this scene represented the rough and dirty hidden elements from the earth and transforming them into something finished and refined. Click here for a collection of photos from bikeportland.org and a few other friends.
If you are in The Portland area this weekend, don't forget to check out this year's show: |
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Featured Bikesa personal accounting by Sacha. Vic LVic is an example of the perfect customer - kind, patient and super enthusiastic. He had a clear idea of what he wanted to use this bike for and was able to give some aesthetic guidelines for me to follow. I felt like I had found a kindred spirit and friend through the process of talking with him. That connection makes it so easy to pour myself into a project, as if I am giving a gift to the owner. 
The bike was built for light touring and long commutes in the Bay area. It features carved lugs that were brushed stainless rather than polished. This was a first for me and I really love the edge of modernity that the brushed stainless lends to the bike. We also reinforced the custom racks with stainless steel. The racks were made from series of small diameter tubes that are built into a truss like structure. The design looked very complicated and cluttered which made me a little nervous. But once the racks were finished in the same creamy white as the rest of the bike, they blended in and became one with the rest of the bike. They remind me of the mechanical elegance of a bridge like the Golden Gate and are one of my favorite details to date. Vic's bike was finished off with Brooks, Continental, King, Phil Wood, Nitto, Paul and Campy. The custom stem has spacers built into the steer tube clamp - a good way to get the bars up a bit while maintaining a graceful well proportioned look. TrikeThis bike represents a pivotal moment that happened in the Vanilla workshop. The design borrows heavily from the original Vanilla cross bikes (2000/2001 season). It features classic lines, unfussy lug-work, and straight blade forks. I am proud to report that most of the original cross machines are still being raced today. 
I built this tricycle for my daughter Delilah. Although it was completed nearly two years ago, the recent flurry of interest from the art and design world had prompted me to share a little bit of it's story and some photos with you all. I went into the project wanting to build something for my daughter that would last. As I considered what that meant, it occurred to me that what I wanted to build was a family heirloom. Something brought to life with materials that can hold up for generations of riding, being left outside under the tree, being stored in the attic, being cleaned up and oiled and passed down to the next adventurous youngster, ready for their first taste of pneumatic-tired freedom. There are definitely some personal ideals that come into play here and they are ideals that have further crystallized since I started building. In particular, I am talking about having fewer, but higher quality items in my life. Building this trike was a magical experience for me. I found an excited kid in me who likes to experiment and create and the grown-up in me has the skill to bring that kid's imagination to life. The design started as very rough napkin sketches. Unlike a standard diamond frame, this is a form that I had no template to start from. The scribbling turned into detailed illustrations and eventually evolved into a full-scale useable drawing. The front end is fabricated almost completely of Stainless steel. This includes the handle bar and stem (inspired by cafe racer style motorcycle bars), the head tube with built-in lug work and double down-tube bullet ends, the fork and cranks which both have lug ports built off of them. All of this was machined and welded from raw pieces of stainless tubing and solid stock. Once welded, the weld beads were filed and sanded to give each piece the appearance of being made from a single piece of metal, rather than segments that were pieced together. 
The grips were made from cherry wood and polished aluminum, inspired by the lovely turn of the century bikes with wooden or cork grips that were carved into an elegant elliptical shape. The rear platform was also made of cherry wood and has a sky blue inlay around the perimeter with a stainless inlaid Vanilla script. The rear end of the trike is made of chromoly tubing. All of the curves were completed in-house. We built the mandrels for this project from hardwood and shaped the tubes by heating them and pulling them around the wooden forms. The front hub and the rear wheels were custom made for us by Phil Wood Co. (Phil is best known for their beautiful and bomber track hubs and bottom brackets.) The rear wheels were machined from a solid 10" bar of aluminum. The Brooks saddle was cut down from an adult sized saddle. I did the final shaping with a larger belt sander, which spun at several thousand RPM, creating a lot of friction between the belt and the saddle. It smelled just like a barbecued hamburger. Gross, right? What I love most about the trike, is that whether a person is 3, 30, or 100, whether they are wealthy or poor, it garners the same reaction from everyone. An indescribable kind of mischievousness and a smile that reveals some dream whose spark has been re-ignited. | ||
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Delilah Sue Print
Original art by Dan Gillsdorf of Atlas Tattoo. Spot color and letterpress done here in southeast Portland by Rebecca, Brian and Eric of Stumptown printers . Inspired by my youngest daughter "Delilah Sue" and the trike that I built for her in 2006, this is the second in a series of prints that I have done with Dan. The hard lines and raw blocks of vivid color evoke the romance of the 1930's. A time when things were real. Cars were substantial and made by hand. A tractor was a farmer's pride and joy, and the lifeblood of his family. People didn't have a lot, but what they did have was quality. It was made to last. This print represents the authenticity of years past, not only with it's imagery, but also with the way it was produced. Dan created a different painting for each of its seven colors and a separate printing plate was made from each painting. The inks were mixed by the printers and all applications were done by hand with early 20th century-era printing presses. The 100% post-consumer waste paper is archival quality ensuring a long life and each print is signed and numbered by both Dan and myself. Cost is $85, plus $15 for shipping. Contact scott@vanillabicycles.com to make purchase arrangements. |
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NewsWabi Woolens www.wabiwoolens.com. A new Portland-owned, Portland-made wool jersey company. Early reviews herald these jerseys as the best wool cycling jerseys on the market. The bright red is hot. An exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design is featuring Sacha's show winning tricycle from 2006. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the exhibit, "New West Coast Design: Contemporary Objects," will feature 60 items from 40 West Coast artists and "will shine a deserved spotlight on West Coast designers," said Kathleen Hannah (curator). This is an opportunity for Sacha and Vanilla to help elevate the craft of framebuilding and connect with a group capable of appreciating a whole new level of style and design in bicycles. Molly Cameron has been in Belgium racing cross since mid December. She updates her website regularly and offers a raw and authentic take on her life as a pro-racer. Portland racing and team exhibit at Weiden and Kennedy February 8-10In conjunction with the Handmade Bicycle Show, Sean, Greg and Joe have put together a multi-media exhibit featuring film, photography, team bikes, and kits in the beautiful lobby of W+K in the Pearl. |
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A Parting Quote
"Oh twice as much ain't twice as good. And can't sustain like a one half could. - John Mayer |
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Vanilla Bicycles 717 SE 35th Avenue, Portland OR Phone: 503.233.2453 Email: sacha@vanillabicycles.com |
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