Bespoked Bristol 2018

Best in show IMO

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oof, lovely

Nice bike that

Caren and Matt know how to build them!

I was probably at the bar :) . To be honest, I find the whole self promotion thing very awkward and was taking regular breaks to get my shit together.

The boat is still work in progress.

Seems like Thursday evening was a quiet one, there was no-one about when I got there at 9 to pitch. I think I had a lucky escape, I can't stand listening to other people having fun without being invited.

My fave things of the show were, in no particular order:
Ogre's lush blowtorch graphics
Mercredi
Cyfac
Petor's lecture about Grayson that was really an advert for a religious cult
Brevet cycles, nice bikes, nice guy.
Karussel with the retro futurist no-seat tube track frame
Winter's lush Rando.
Stanforth

What was the Stanforth stuff like? I used to work with Simon Stanforth a few years ago in a completely unrelated field. He got a custom bike which he was not happy with so decided to set up his own company, seems to be doing alright! His dad did own Saracen bikes, so guess there is some heritage there.

Thanks to you and @cgg for the route. Due to lack of time I had to leave late on sat and didn't have time to research routes further so just copied this one. Worked very well mostly. The canal paths near the end worked less well but that was because I was too tired to deal with hatred from dog walkers after being up all night. If I'd been further on by sunrise they'd have been great.
The thunderstorms were not so great... Very glad I put rain jacket in at last minute. Though following them afterwards and seeing all the lightning on the horizon was cool.

(too tired afterwards to have any interesting opinions on the bikes.)

Cool. I ended up only following it from Bradford on Avon to Farnsborough because we started south of Bristol in a town called Hallatrow.
I imagine @cgg took the train to Farnsbourough and started there. I did in in reverese and cycling all the way to Crouch End. Everything from Eversley to Regents Park was shit. I am never cycling +200km and ending with cycling through Greater London.

So many highlights!
All the bikes were awesome but particularly like Mercredi and Isen as genuine purchase options.

Saw the talk with the Adventure Collective (?) and the showing of their Tour Divide video. Many lols.
Had a beer at Stayer ( @Hulsroy ) straight off the cargo bike too :)

Nice meeting you

As I was heading out of London at about 11pm that part was actually really good. But based on cycling back from Dunwich, etc, coming into London when tired is always awful.

Though helping load/unload the entire Isen stand after no sleep and without scratching anything is also not a good post 200km experience I suppose.

I really liked them. A lot. I like tourers.

The canal paths near the end worked less well but that was because I was too tired to deal with hatred from dog walkers after being up all night.

I feel ya. Sad to hear you actually got 'hatred'. I found that having to go veeeerrrry slow around dogs didn't particularly bother me, but I was going from Devizes to Bristol around 5-7 pm, so perhaps less dogs, and less expectations to not see bikes at that hour. I actually got props from some boatlife crusties around Avoncliff for scrubbing the speed near their wandering dogs. I actually think people on bikes should chill the fuck out, a couple of riders I saw were being proper dicks.

I was going down a towpath a couple of years ago and some chap came tearing past us from behind and we watched him do the same to someone walking. It was well unnecessary. As we went round a bend a few minutes later we saw him fishing himself out of the canal. Many lols were had.

I may have been a bit over-sensitive due to sleep deprivation... it was particularly the bit around Caen Hill Locks which was narrow + mostly just dog walkers out at that time of morning.
I mean no one actually said anything, but I tried to slow down and say good morning each time I passed and quite a lot of them just sort of scowled...
There is a bit of a dilemma when people stand off the path with their dogs to let you past but do it too far in the distance so it's then very hard to decide whether you should speed up so the're not waiting ages, or whether this will piss them off as you're then passing quickly...
The Bath>Bristol cycle path was great - first time I've done that.

Gad, I know exactly what you mean about people waiting really early, makes you feel sort of guilty.

As a regular dog-walker, I never mind stopping and grabbing my dog’s collar really early to let a rider / jogger pass, esp’ if they show any appreciation at all.

Yeah the 17mi from Bath is just dreamy innit!

Just before I left the banks of the Avon there, I passed a couple shagging right there on some steps by the path. Did my head in!

Yeah karmic right there.

Ha! I figured as much.

I preferred the pinky/purple one myself.