Pushies Galore

One of the scary things about writing a regular blog is how quickly annual events come around. This weekend was the second annual 'Pushies Galore' bike show for the bike tragics of Brisbane, and it doesn't seem like 12months ago since the last one.

It seems like the event is getting more popular and this year they introduced a 'BNE' section to the show & shine to highlight bikes built locally - BNE being the airport code for Brisbane. It was funny to hear my mates comparing the bikes on show to similar models in their sheds or garages and swapping stories about their meetings with the frame makers.

 Other classifications included the ever popular track bike section

and a wonderful vintage section which showed that what is considered up to the minute in bike design now was being tried out over 100 years ago

There were also three BMX classifications, for old-school, modern and a phrase I've never heard before - 'mid-school'

Some of the guys I hang out with have been riding bikes in Brisbane for 20 years or more and seem to know almost everyone in the riding community, but that doesn't seem to extend to the BMX scene. The BMX community over here is massive but runs in parallel to the roadie / MTB / track / hipster scene with very little crossover. Some beautiful bikes though

and some great innovative engineering. Although my favourite thing about this bike was that after it had been welded up it was resprayed and the 'Specialized' (sic) brand name on the down tube was spelt correctly.

The event was held at a local Bowls club, which was also providing some fine craft beers in a classically 60's environment that modern pubs will spend thousands of dollars trying to achieve

Although I'm not sure if the guys behind the bar were on top of the beer choice, as when you ordered a specific beer they would ask if that was the red or the blue one.

There was also a 'swap meet' where you could find any number of long-buried treasures

 After a couple of beers Gordy found the perfect frame and decided to invoke the N+1 rule.

Good luck sneaking that home mate - oh, and nice t-shirt :)

All in all it was a splendid way to spend a Sunday morning. I just need a bigger garage!