Cycle Monkey Attends the North American Handmade Bicycle Show

Katie, Neil, and Aaron at our booth

A week after the Seattle Bike Expo, some of the Cycle Monkey team headed east to Charlotte, North Carolina for the ever-impressive North American Handmade Bicycle Show, also known as NAHBS. The show is a chance for small and mid-size framebuilders to showcase their artistry and craft to consumers and fellow bike builders. The show is full of the most exciting customized bikes you’ll ever see, where no cost is spared in producing beautiful and functional works of art. Cycle Monkey has been exhibiting at the show for the last five years, and this year we were excited to have a larger booth space to showcase some of our most popular builds from the Monkey Lab.

In our booth we had a Co-Motion Americano touring bike, a Bike Friday folding bike, an Independent Fabrication S&S-coupled gravel bike, and Neil’s Oxide Battleaxe full suspension mountain bike. All of the bikes we had on display were popular among the showgoers, in particular Neil’s Battleaxe. Plenty of people stopped by to marvel at the unique two-chain jackshaft design, and the attention it generated at our booth prompted Gizmag to cover the unique design in their Emerging Technology Magazine.

Close-up of jackshaft on Oxide Battleaxe

At the show we met many people who have a Rohloff SPEEDHUB of their own, some who were familiar with the SPEEDHUB but had never seen one, and some who had never even heard of an internally geared hub. Customers were excited to take a look at the cutaway model we had on display, which shows all of the internals of the SPEEDHUB. Others enjoyed shifting through the SPEEDHUBs' 14 gears on the bikes on the display. We also had displays set up to show off our Wheel House and Suspension Lab services. Those customers interested in a new wheelbuild or an overhaul on their shock or fork took our fliers about the Wheel House and Suspension Lab and said they would contact us soon.

Neil with Stephen and Tom from Bilenky Cycle Works and
Andy and Sandi, who are the proud new owners of the super
 custom Rohloff-equipped tandem in the background.

The show also gave us a chance to meet with many of our bike industry friends, suppliers, and customers. We checked in with companies who we buy frames and parts from for our Monkey Lab builds as well as companies who buy SPEEDHUBS from us for their own builds. We met with companies including Moots Cycles, Bilenky Cycle Works, Groovy Cycles, Connor Wood Bicycles, Independent Fabrication, Co-Motion Cycles, and many others.

Connor Wood Bicycles 29'er Mountain Bike with
Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 that was ridden in the
2013 Leadville 100 Trail Race

If you’re interested in a bike from any of these superb builders, please call us to see what we can put together for you!

Neil with Black Sheep Bikes founder James Bleakely.