Back for 2026, the MADE bike show in Portland Oregon!
I drove up to the show with a theme in mind, “Constraints & Cheat Codes”. It’s an interesting question. What constraints frame our creativity and what cheat codes allow us to do things that are hard for others. I figured that this would be a good question to ask people in the audios. Sadly, it didn’t work out well and I basically abandoned the task. I should write about this separately.
Josh Ogle really was the star of the show this year. The sheer scale of what he was showing would be difficult for 10 builders to show rather than one solo act. From wild custom full suspension bikes to the most intricately machined components, his work was just wild and at the highest end.
I got to show two of my bikes thanks to the generosity of Josh. Being “in” his booth was a real status bump for me, I’m grateful. He let me place a bike in the back of his booth each day, the Starfighter on Friday and the Corsair on Saturday. Thanks to being there and what I do, my bike got into the media stream of James Huang’s N-1 and BikePacking.com.
I didn’t get a lot of audio interviews this year. I wasn’t really in the groove. These are the few that I did get.
Sean Hatten – Industry Nine
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Sean_Hatten_01.mp3
Joel Chapman – Library of Congress, Archie Green Fellow for “Cycling Lore: The Occupational Folklore of Bicycle Workers in America.” joelchap94@gmail.com
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Joel_Chapman_01.mp3
Rich Faller – Sanitas Bikes
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Rich_Faller_01.mp3
Matt Lessmeier – Telepathy Bikes
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Matt_Lessmeier_01.mp3
Dustin Simons – Big Block Bikes
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Dustin_Simons_01.mp3
Chris Delere – Benchmark Tooling
https://www.peterverdone.com/2026_chris_delere_01/
Stefan Klein – Paladin Engineering
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2026_Stefan_Klein_01.mp3
The Cal Poly Kid – Cal Poly Bike Builders (sorry, intro got cut off, didn’t get your name)
http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/CalPoly-Kid_01.mp3
As usual, I have my photo dump of about 200 detail images that designers and engineers will appreciate. Fine details, close up. This is the stuff that you my not see in mainstream outlets.
