I went to take pictures of Paul’s legacy of bikes. And I did that. Sort of. As an afterthought.
Danielle of Schön Studio and F!rst L!ght Thomas (FLT), the main organizer, were there rep’ing graduates of Paul’s frame building school at UFV. Chris Dekerf made an appearance and I heard at least a few threats that samples of Dekerf‘s work would be shown next year. Happy to continue that rumour! In general, there were a bunch of folks I recognized that make stuff with their hands, and I am certain piles more that I did not know.
There was a gaggle of bike techs, both ones I recognized and some who simply could not be anything else. Someone was sporting a Core Rat vest, and for once it wasn’t me. Skyler, who I know as a past maker for Porcelain Rocket, has a newly launched rack brand called Mica Cycles. Congrats on selling out the whole pre-order Skyler!
More than anything, as Paul worked through the crowd with that mischievous glint always present in his eyes and his signature smile, I came to realize that it was not really about the bikes. Most folks there were well and truly familiar with at least some of Brodie’s legacy of work. Rather, these awesome machines were a catalyst to chatting nerdy bike sh*t with friends, old and brand new.
It was the perfect excuse to make time to get together, and in a sense, whatever he puts together next, I would say for Vancouver-adjacent bike nerds (or, heck, Cliff from redbike made the trek from Edmonton!) that Thomas’ events are don’t miss.
I stayed significantly longer than I had intended. First chatting with the show’s silent partner, sponsorship wrangler, and shadowy-bicycle-media-cabal dark lord, Brian Park. I am awful at names to begin with, but I met a bunch of people with interesting things to say about bikes. If I was taking notes I would name-drop a bunch more people. Ha. Caught up about riding with kids with my friend Andrew (thank you for the ride home, Andrew). Talked about project bikes with Larry Talker & Wendy. I even almost scored one of those ultra-rare Schön Sharpies.
I did not end up taking that many photos, what you are seeing here are the bikes that really piqued my interest. A quick web search will pull up a bunch of others. For a quick teaser of the unique machines that were there, check out this video on Paul’s Instagram. Here are a few more randoms:
Anyway, I have been sitting on this for a bit thinking about what I was going to write about, and the key takeaways are:
1) Paul Brodie made and continues to make sweet bicycles.
2) Keep an eye on Thomas’ events page so you do not miss his next product.
Cheers!
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