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Norstad’s titanium couch. The titanium rods were originally made for medical usage as femur implants but when tested had too much iron in the alloy. They came to Norstad in a bundle 1.5 feet wide by 20 feet long. The couch took 300 hours to complete and is built on an aluminum frame. He has enough tubing for three more and estimates its price at $16,000.

Paragon’s business: All the little bits and pieces to build a bike.

Mark Norstad of Paragon Machine Works explains the intricacies of one of his bottle openers.

Moon's britches come in two styles, shorts and plus fives for men and women. The plus fives are shorter than pants and longer than knickers. The herringbone series Britches will cost $170.

Sheila Moon previewed her Herringbone Riding Britches at the show. She had her regular Riding Britches on sale for $100; they were a hit with the Portland crowd.

Fi’zi:k had three brown and black saddles at the show with matching brown Microtex handlebar tape. The styles fit the scene well.

The Brooks saddle booth had a fitting flat screen and the will, so the crowd grew.

Someone was looking for a good place to show a San Francisco-made messenger movie.

Nobilette also had a few customers’ bikes on display as well, including this custom white cyclocross bike.

Mark Nobilette, a builder from Longmont, Colorado, had a few frames on display. This one was built especially for the show.

SyCip's fixie sported matching tidbits, including the steel bar-and-stem combination.

The SyCip has a unique braking (or at least velocity-damping) system. It has a Formula Oro brake attached to its downtube and a rotor attached to the custom White Industries crank arm. Obviously, since the gear is fixed, the brake slows both cranks and the bike.

SyCip had one of the most-talked-about fixed-gear messenger bikes on the floor.

Actor and comedian Robin Williams was both admiring and admired.

Gravity racer Brian Lopes also visited, and he, too, seemed genuinely intrigued by the fine craftsmanship on display.

Lance Armstrong was in attendance, though there wasn’t a Trek in sight.

Hometown pride was on display for Portland, Oregon, and the builders who live and work there.

Exhibit hall C was packed to capacity with bike geeks for three days.

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show was quite a draw this year for boutique frame builders and their fans — including Lance Armstrong, Brian Lopes and Robin Williams.

Monday's podium: from left, Won Jae Lee (Seoul Cycling), Mathieu Sprick (Bouygues Telecom), Anuar Manan (Letua Cycling Team) and Shinichi Fukushima (Meitan Hompo GDR).

From now on, February 11, 2008, will be known as a significant milestone in the globalization of cycling. It saw an successful all-Asian breakaway that lasted some 150km, and the first Korean winner in the Tour de Langkawi. Cycling is no longer a sport that excites only those in Europe, or attracts fans interested only in European racing. One of a quintet of riders who escaped on the longest leg of the race, Won Jae Lee (Seoul Cycling) wasn't the favorite - that was Meitan Hompo's Koji Fukushima, who initiated the move on his own after 60km before being caught 20km down the road.

Summer Fun in August 1975, A Day of Bike Races for U.S. Military Dependents in Frankfurt, West Germany Thanks to the USO, 7-UP, and AMF Bicycles

Yury Trofimov (Bouygues Telecom) sewed up overall victory in the 38th Etoile de Bessèges on Sunday. The Russian won the five-day French race after finishing safely in the bunch behind Borut Bozic (Cycle Collstrop) in Sunday’s 145km finale into Bessè. The 24-year-old Trofimov took the jersey in the third stage and then followed the sprinters into his biggest win of his career. Mike Friedman fought into the day’s main breakaway for Slipstream-Chipotle and was only reeled in with less than 5km to go to set up the mass gallop.

Philippe Gilbert (Française des Jeux) uncorked a late-race solo attack and surprised the sprinters to win Sunday's opening of the five-day Mallorca Challenge. Sprinters typically hold court in the 100km circuit race, run on a flat, out-and-back circuit along Palma’s stunning seaside promenade anchored by the towering Gothic cathedral. But Gilbert had something else in mind.

Alberto Contador never dreamed he would win the Tour de France last year. But he did, thanks in part to Michael Rasmussen’s tangle of lies, and now the Spanish climber is intent on proving to the world that he’s a worthy champion. But there are dark clouds on the horizon in Contador’s otherwise-sunny post-Tour world — the possibility that Tour organizers might follow the lead taken by the Giro d’Italia and leave Astana sitting on the sidelines. Contador, 25, simply says that he cannot imagine being left out of the Tour.

DeSalvo hasn’t had trouble keeping busy in the age of carbon fiber, Indeed, he says his titanium sales are growing. Just a few years ago it was a third of his business — now he estimates it’s up to half. He’s not afraid of the current carbon craze, saying his customers are constantly telling him that the “off the shelf stuff has no character.”

Mike DeSalvo could be found next door, behind one of his latest custom projects, a BMX-inspired 29er.

A Selle Italia saddle also gets the Vanilla treatment.

Sacha White, Vanilla’s proprietor, has a new paint booth in his workshop and isn’t afraid to make things match better — like this Ritchey stem.

Molly Cameron, a Vanilla Factory racer and owner of Portland’s VeloShop (in black behind the Speedvagen Project road bike), was just back from a European cyclocross campaign and hob-nobbing with attendees in the Vanilla booth.

Hunter's brake mount and stay junction is particularly smooth.

Hunter's single-pivot design rotates concentrically around the bottom bracket shell on four sealed cartridge bearings.

Hunter's bike also features a minimalist front-derailleur cable routing.

Hunter, hiding behind his latest creation. Notice the semi-integrated carbon seat tube.

Rick Hunter, who grew up racing mountain bikes, was proudly showing the first rendition of his "World Cup Level" full-suspension cross-country bike , which his wife will race on this year. The mostly True Temper OX Platinum steel bike weighs about 24 pounds and has 3 to 3.5 inches of travel.

The king of water bottle cages, King Cage, made by Ron Andrews in Durango, Colorado had special show stamps on the stainless steel and titanium cages he was selling.

Chris King is pictured in the center, with his collar up. He is in his early 20s in this photo.

The front end of the bike isn’t the only part that draws attention.

The fork crown is machined from stainless steel.

This frame is built with a 1-inch head that has a modified 1.125-inch Steelset headset brazed directly to its stainless lugs allowing a 1.125-inch fork steerer to be fitted.

Also on display in Chris King’s camp was a frame called Cielo. It’s a brand King started back in the ’70s, but took a backseat to the headset and hub business. King produced frames under the name as recently as ’96 but let it go dormant in the last decade. Now that King Components is settled and thriving in Portland, he hints at the possibility of bringing the bikes back to life.

Chris King also displayed a special “Sotto Voce” edition, named for its toned-down graphic. The standard-sized headsets were created just for the show, but the look was first unveiled on the 1.5-inch headsets. King wasn’t planning to release it to the retail market in the standard sizes, but seeing the overwhelmingly favorable response to its plans that may change in the near future.

The mahogany version of the special-edition 110.

Cane Creek makes a version of the 110 for integrated headsets called the 110 IS. The model pictured has a maple top cap and spacer.

A cutaway example of the internal workings of the 110. The headset comes with interlocking, hollow aluminum spacers, a captured compression ring — the key design element of the headset — and a split lip sealed bearing. The whole package weighs less than 100 grams.

Cane Creek has a new headset —the 110, named for its 110-percent design effort and 110-year warranty. It’s priced at $140. For the NAHMBS, Cane Creek made a special variation of the 110, replacing aluminum parts with titanium and featuring delicate wooden inlays. Only 50 were made, half with maple inlay and half with mahogany. Each costs $650.

A half hour before the doors opened for day two of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, the crowds piled into the Oregon Convention Center’s lobby to wait. Each had paid $18 for a day’s worth of access to more than 150 of North America’s finest small- and medium-sized frame builders, as well as a few big-time component manufacturers.

After the dramatic events of Saturday, the sprinters' teams decided there would be none of the same Sunday in Sitiawan. However, a disorganized chase in the final kilometers led to chaos — but thriving in chaos was Jeremy Hunt, who showed that at age 33, he's still got the legs to beat the best. Without a lead-out train in sight and sensing a lack of unity, the veteran Briton, who switched teams this year to Crédit Agricole, found himself in a 10-man move that skipped clear of the peloton 5km from the finish.

After just one day in the saddle, the Tour de Langkawi finds itself in an intriguing position. On a stifling Saturday afternoon in the mainland's far north, a select breakaway group charged to the finish in Kepala Batas way ahead of schedule and more than 20 minutes clear of the rest of the field. And in one fell swoop, it's likely to have changed the race for overall honors into a 19 horse race.

The 2008 North American Handmade Bike Show kicked off Friday in Portland, Oregon, with more than 152 exhibitors ranging from solitary tradesmen to the giants of the industry.

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