We’ll be riding, judging, and Providing mechanical (if not fashionable) support. Ride at 10:30 from Kennedy Plaza, registration begins at 9:30. If you like Sara’s bike on Facebook you could win a free ticket.

Just click here: Tweed Ride PVD

Mark your calendars people, it’s the 2012 New England Builders Ball! That is if you want to meet a bunch of awesome framebuilders from New England. It’ll be happening right here in our hometown of Providence, RI in the beautiful Biltmore Hotel. If it’s anything like last year’s event, it’s going to be a good time. See you there!

As in, this Sunday October 23, from 2-6 pm. Hard to believe, but it’s been ten years (and a month) since Circle A first opened it’s doors in Carpenter Mills. One move and nearly 250 bikes later, we’re still hobbling along.

Hope to see you there!

What? A Providence bike show? Yes indeedy, it’s really happening, coming right up, and Circle A will be there!

So as you probably know, the Providence Cyclocross Festival is coming soon, October 7-9 at Roger Williams Park.

But in addition to that, the first ever New England Builders Ball is happening Friday night (Oct 7) from 8-10 at the Biltmore. If it was good enough for Buddy, it sure as hell is good enough for us. We’ll be there with lots of our New England bike-building friends, so come check out our latest work.

Hopefully we’ll see you there, and then 2 weeks later for our Tenth Anniversary open house, Sunday October 23 from 2-6. More details later!

Come see us and tons of other builders at the Philly Bike Expo, October 30-31! Philly is a great cycling city and there are tons of events to witness & enjoy. We’ll be at booth 1046, look us up!

The Boston Area Handbuilt Bicycle Exhibition happened on September 23rd and was a chaotic frenzy of people. Maybe it was the free beer or maybe it was the amazing bikes that were on display but it was a great success in my eyes. Organizers Bryan from Royal H and Josh from Open Bicycle let the radius go out to everyone who could access Boston from the commuter rail so Circle A was invited too. I didn’t get many pictures but a very responsible Tony Maietta did. Check out his shots on his Flickr page.

We still have one more show to go this year so if you’re in the Philadelphia area on the 30th or 31st of October, come over and say hi to us at the Philadelphia Bike Exposition.

We apologize for the cruelly short notice, but that’s how we roll these days! Seat of the pants, and on two wheels! Celebrate May Day at your favorite worker-owned bike builder! Meet the actual workers (don’t worry, they will be shackled!), see the machines, have a drink, and a bite to eat. Later, roll down to the rally at the Statehouse or just help us finish off the beer.

Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Location: Circle A Cycles, 523 Charles Street, Providence, RI
View Map

Rhode Island had its very first Maker Faire this past weekend right in downtown Providence. A Maker Faire is a “gathering of inventors, tinkerers, and creative types that is intended to celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset” (as said by Make magazine). It was well organized by Kipp Bradford and Brian Jepson who synchronized it with Providence’s Waterfire festival which draws a large crowd downtown. We were there showing off a couple of new frames and some bikes. Mostly just proving that all bikes are not made overseas and that manufacturing in the states still exists. There were a bunch of cyclist types in the crowd who were surprised to see that steel bikes were still being made and were excited that it was in their own city. We’ll definitely take part again if it becomes an annual event.

Circle A was in NYC this past weekend displaying our latest bikes at a Makers Market. A Makers Market is a place where people gather and show off their hand crafted goods. After a couple of torrential downpours and a beautiful sunset shining on the resulting mammatus clouds, it turned out to be a beautiful weekend. Long Island City was at the park in full effect checking out the wares of many local artisans but also some from out of town like us. One of those artisans was Walt Siegl of New Hampshire who impressed us with his handmade motorcycles. Check out the pics to see what we mean. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hi and talked about bikes, brazing, painting, polishing, and everything else. And thanks to all the staff at Socrates Sculpture Park, we had a great time!

 
 
 
 

Chris writes:

For the last few weeks, I’ve been teaching a bicycle trailer building class at the Steel Yard, in conjunction with Recycle-A-Bike.. This reunites me with Adam, who helped me do a couple of Monster Bike classes with high school students. The photos have de-linked (it’s on the to do list!) but you can read about that here.

Meanwhile, for the trailer class we have five projects, each a specific trailer for the builders’s particular needs. Warren is making a tool carrying trailer with integrated bike stand for Recycle-A-Bike; Hoshaiah and Lindsay are making a different style tool-tote for RISD Biketown; and Phil, David and Jonathan are each making trailers to help them spend less time in cars and more on bikes. Meanwhile Adam and I are putting together a chair car to help us test the pros and cons of different methods of attaching the trailers to our bikes.

We’re about to begin week 5, and the trailers are taking shape. Here are some shots of the plans folks are working off, from high-tech to low. Thanks to Jackson for all the photos!

  

  

And here are various action shots of the players at work:

  

  

  

  

  

And here are the finished trailers in action:

      

David K wins the prize for his Dave Sharp-rated trailer!