The World's Largest Bike Swap Meet rocks. There are people selling used bike shorts. How awesome is that? (I was forbidden to participate in that particular market.)
A lot of it is huge bins full of bike socks, or helmets, or stacks of tires.
A lot of it is high-end race bikes.
But a lot of it is some weird mixture of antique, junk, and refurbished, and sometimes those combine to produce awesomeness.
Behold the Schwreck.

I think the banana seat really makes that, although there are so many things wrong with it, it's hard to just identify one as the standout.
This is one of the most glorious things I have ever seen.

I wouldn't ride this, but I'd cheer for someone who did.

Same here, although these were merely fiberglass replicas of actual horns.

The owner of this bought it because his "old lady" said she thought it was "tasty" and then after a year of it sitting in his living room he decided it needed to go. He tried to sell it to me for $10. When I didn't say yes, he immediately tried $9. I could see where this was going, and to avoid being given it, I made an excuse ("uh, my wife is about to stab me for even LOOKING at this") and left.

He was also sellling this:

Those tires are wider than your hand, by a significant amount, unless you're Will Chamberlain.
A really stylin' bamboo bicycle:

and a bamboo bicycle so fresh epoxy was still dripping off it (as it was in a build-your-own-bike-frame clinic)

There were a handful of Montgomery Ward aluminum-frame bicycles from the 1930's, where they'd cast the lugs and pressed in aluminum tubes, then pinned them with steel. The guy who had them had restored one, and jazzed a couple others up with modern suspension. (The aluminum forks on these fail disastrously, so all-original ones are not entirely safe.)



The headbadge off one.

1930's touring bike with an absolutely beautiful stamped chainring.

Dubious 1970's experiment in non-round chainrings, to try to accommodate for non-linear crank torque:

Mark Nobilette paint job on a Ludacris frame

Mark Nobilette custom-formed lugs on one of his beautiful frames

Stingray-inspired bike with wheelie bars (and a gasoline motor)

art deco streamliner
