Seattle Bike Expo: The Future of Cycling is Compostable

I made good on my threat the other day to attend the Seattle Bike Expo. And I'm glad I did because I was able to put to rest a sneaking suspicion that had been lingering in the back of my mind for the past, um... week or so, that I would find a bike expo to be extremely boring. Indeed. Honestly, I swear I'm not making this up, in the few minutes it took to walk from one end of the show floor to the other I heard the phrase "laterally stiff yet vertically compliant" three times. Well actually not the whole phrase, I just heard parts of it like, "...and that improves the lateral stiffness while.." Or, "...without sacrificing vertical compliance..." And all that without ever stopping to talk to any of the vendors.

I'm about as in to cycling as anybody I know, so I find it strange that mainstream cycling stuff like bike shows and magazines have virtually no appeal to me. I guess I must be more of a retro-grouch than I know. Oh well.

The bike show wasn't completely without items of interest. I was intrigued by these bikes with laminated wood frames.

Sure, they're a bit heavy and they cost several thousand dollars, but they're made out of a renewable resource, right? And if you get snowbound in a cabin and you're running low on fuel, you can always bust up your bike and throw it in the wood stove.

And after you've thrown your last wood bike on the fire you can resort to the bamboo bikes.

Gilligan and the Skipper would look right at home on one of these. I'm sure the Professor would appreciate the vertical compliance.

And I did enjoy listening to the BikeSnob's talk.

However I was disappointed to learn that in real life he looks nothing like Rip Torn