Welcome to Beer & Gear, a series where we get to know individuals making big moves in Portland’s Athletic and Outdoor industries. In this edition, author Ellee Thalheimer heads out to the 2024 MADE Bike Show and speaks with some of the bike industry’s most dedicated designers, artists and craftspeople.
In August, bike builders and component artisans descended on Portland from all over the world for the 2024 MADE Bike Show, North America’s biggest handmade bike event.
The MADE Bike Show is in its essence the couture runway of the cycling industry, where conventions are challenged, the pragmatic is elevated to art (with art-level price tags to match), and makers get a chance to preen and peacock, emerging from behind their sweaty welding helmets for the weekend.
More than 250 bike brands set up stalls and sleek exhibits within the 100,000-square foot Zidell Yards on the SW Waterfront. All of this was to the utter delight of bikeophile crowds, who came by the thousands to marvel at the wares. Portland, which has a robust and enthusiastic cycling public, is the perfect host city for the annual event.
“In Portland, the bike community is full of riders, builders, and lovers of artisanal bikes,” says B Vivit, owner and builder at HotSalad Bicycles in Portland, the homebase of about 20% of the MADE Bike Show exhibiting framebuilders. “People from all sorts of backgrounds come together around bikes.”
HotSalad Bicycles is almost three years old and specializes in steel and titanium bike frames. Vivit’s signatures are slow-sloping seat stays, speed holes (a thru-hole design feature in frame tubes), and anodized titanium logos on the seat stay backs.
The name HotSalad comes from a memorable Thanksgiving misadventure in a small apartment crowded with friends when a plastic bowl full of salad met a hot burner. That memory represents the impetus behind Vivit’s building: “That this bicycle will give you that shit-eating grin and tear-inducing laughter, that the community and the space you find as a result of riding becomes an incredible core memory.”
“I want to show people that anyone can be a part of this world.”
-Ashley King, Significant Other Bikes
Around the corner from HotSalad was Significant Other Bikes from Denver, Colorado. Longtime frame builder Ashley King founded the brand just a couple of months ago, and it has been met with much enthusiasm. She makes a variety of steel and titanium frames, from gorgeous NYC-style fixies to bikepacking bikes.
“When I first started building, I didn’t feel like I belonged or was included,” says King when asked about the origin of her company name. “So I took that feeling of being ‘other’ and transformed it into something positive with this company. I want to show people that anyone can be a part of this world.”
Farther down the crowded aisle of stalls, it was a no-brainer to stop at Schön Studio. Danielle Schön’s BMX-circus bike hybrid stole the show. The frame, covered in mirror fragments like a disco ball, was paired with custom purple suede grips and a holographic stingray saddle. She fabricated most of the parts for this two-wheel steering bike, which has a direct drive (like a unicycle). The bike unsurprisingly ended up winning the People’s Choice Award at the show.
“My bikes are exploratory and sculptural,” says Schön, who is based in Squamish, British Columbia, and is the only framebuilding instructor in Canada. “I went to art school before I became a trade welder so my bikes are what happens when weird artist meets metal worker.”
As for the “beer” part of this Beer and Gear edition, it’s worth noting the show’s beer garden debuted a Block 15 Brewing limited-edition collaboration with Chris King Components–the Buzzworks™ Northwest Pilsner. Brewed specifically to celebrate the riding season, the citrusy craft beer found a crowd with a will to swill.
If you missed it this year, the MADE Bike Show will be back in Portland next August to display the next round of cutting-edge innovations produced by this hyper-creative, passionate niche industry.
Ellee Thalheimer is a Portland-based freelance writer and guidebook author. When she can’t get to the trails, she’s writing fiction, relishing local IPAs, falling off bouldering walls, and obsessively scheming the next adventure. Find her on Instagram: @pnw_hedonism.
