Sam Whittingham and Andrea Blaseckie of Naked Bikes in BC, Canada are on top of the world, taking top honors at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. After winning the President's Choice, People's Choice, and Best of Show awards with their beautiful retro-modern track bike, things got even better when Lance Armstrong bought the winning bike (for an undisclosed figure). The icing on the cake (what? there's more?) is that the bike will be displayed at Lance's soon to be opened bike shop in Austin in the company of Lance's tour winning bikes and some of Eddy Merckx's tour winning bikes. Not too shabby, you say? Well, Sam is used to doing things right. He also hold numerous human-powered speed records, including going 81 MPH on flat ground with no drafting! Oh yeah, and Andrea has a couple of records of her own, too! We hung out with them in the hotel bar and neither of them could stop smiling. Congratulations!
And regardless of what you thought of Lance Armstrong up until this point, if you love the bicycle and wish American cities were safer for them, then you have to respect what this man is doing in Austin. Not only is his bike shop primarily geared towards commuters, providing showers, lockers and pedicap services, he's also working with the city to develop safe and efficient bike lanes. Beside being a good business model, hopefully it will make Austin a model for other American cities. In a nod to the NAHBS host city, Lance say he wants Austin to be more like Portland. Read more here.
