In late September 2011, I attended Oregon Manifest in northwest Portland. I visited the opening night showcase, and was able to get a peek at most of the entries. I saw some beautiful bikes, some silly bikes, and some extremely interesting bikes. Though I did not spend enough time at this year’s Manifest events to provide a thorough or detailed report, I will write here about some of the bikes I saw that will be of interest to my readers. (If you care to read a very thorough, well-written, and well-informed report, get your hands on the Winter 2011 issue of Bicycle Quarterly.)

In the interest of full disclosure, note that I had a few cards in the game this time around. The Antload/Joe Bike team hired me to design the logos and website for their entry, the Byerley. Metrofiets and Clever Cycles are clients of my design studio (for work not pertaining to their Oregon Manifest entries).

Oregon Manifest’s primary event is a design competition called the Constructors’ Challenge, where framebuilders are asked to enter bikes that meet a certain set of criteria. This year’s challenge sought the “ultimate utility cycle.”

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