I won a Bedford Single Speed from the Brooklyn Bicycle Company

8/8/2014 #222 10m

Went to the BikeFest kickoff event which promised a Bike Beauty Pageant, which I thought might be fun to see. Little did I suspect...

Arriving, they organizers said 'put that bike over here' so I did and that was pretty simple. Hung around checking out all of the bikes, there was some really awesome equipment there. Old bikes, fat bikes, touring bikes, Frankenstein bikes - the kinds of bikes people really use.

The award categories were Best Vintage Bike, Best Lit Up Bike, Best Shiny Bike, Best Mutant Bike, Best Yinzer Bike, Best Commuter Bike, Best Antelope, Best Ugly Bike, Best in Show.

As Anya Vasilis Dobratz explained when making the presentation (she was excellent) the Best Antelope category is about being a noble creature: having tremendous antlers, multiple hand positions, great capabilities, and being a go anywhere, do anything bike. Remarkably, my Surly LHT won "Best Antelope" which amused me to no end. The trophy (suitable for wall mounting, designed and fabricated by Chris Beech of Thick Bikes wow) looks like this:

But wait, there's more. Turns out one of the category winners gets chosen for BestInShow, and my LHT won that prize too. So there's a second trophy, and it looks like this:

And yet, there's even more!So I'm standing outside the crowd, gobsmacked with two trophies (which is not a standard experience for me) and Chris Beech says hey you forgot your bike and I said, No I've got my bike right here. And Chris says No, Best In Show includes winning a bike and he rolls over a really sharp single speed from Brooklyn Bikes. And I'm from Brooklyn, so Double-Yoi and a shout-out from Avenue D.

This is a Bedford single-speed model and it's a really nice bike. They're a boutique Brooklyn shop so they have a Buy-and-ride program - buy the bike online, pick it up at your Local Bike Shop. That's pretty cool.