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This year for Eurobike, ENVE contacted one of their favorite British frame builders to design a bike for their booth. Harry from Field Cycles is best known (over here in the US anyway) for bright paint and his unique tubing selection. Both of which were turned a few notches for this unique bike.
Check out more photos and full tubing specs below!
“Il Faut Toujours Souffrir.”
That’s what’s painted on the top tube of Barry’s Stinner disc all-road frame. Roughly translating to “we must always suffer,” this saying acts as not only a motivation for Barry on rides, but as a reminder as to what cycling means to him in relation to life. Nothing good comes easy.
Barry‘s an illustrator, a typographer, a graphic designer and in Los Angeles, that means freelance. It takes a certain soul to be a freelancer in LA. You’ve got to hustle, be on your game at all times and yes, sometimes suffer the ups and downs of the creative economy. That means some weeks, months, years, you’re on your game and others you’re not. It all takes sacrifice.
“The unicorn is a legendary animal that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The unicorn was depicted in ancient seals of the Indus Valley Civilization and was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, and Aelian. The Bible also describes an animal, the re’em, which some translations have erroneously rendered with the word unicorn.” Wikipedia
While this bike isn’t as rare as a unicorn (my uncle saw one once in West Virginia on a bootleggin’ run), it’s safe to say that we’d all rather ride atop this bicycle, over a smelly horse with a horn.
Eric is a lucky sonofagun. After having his bike taken from him, he used his insurance money, along with money he had saved up for a custom bike to put a deposit down on a Speedvagen Rugged Road.
San Francisco’s Low Bicycles is finally hitting full-on production on their aluminum MK1 road frames. Each frame is made by hand in SF and is available in three color options: orange paint with black decals, black paint with raw decals and black paint with orange decals.
As an introductory offer, Andrew is selling the first 20 frames at a 20% discount – that’s $1,600 for a frame. If you’re looking for a new road frame, you should check these frames out. See more at Low Bicycles.
Brown and orange never looked so good. Nao from Tomii Cycles always takes pride in designing a client’s paint by touching pen to paper. Here’s his latest example: Tammy’s touring maching. You can see more at the Tomii Flickr or just give him a follow on Instagram.
Pretty in Grimy Pink Stinner Roadie
Photos by Kyle Kelley, words by John Watson
Ride Jah Bike!
Custom frames aren’t to be babied, or coddled, no matter how pretty they may be. Pink bikes especially. Now, the common misconception about pink bikes is that they don’t get thrashed; they’re too delicate. Like a flower. Or an orchid. Or a rare flower orchid that only blooms once every 20 years like that one in Dennis the Menace. Andrew, (@Moon_Raccoon) doesn’t care about babying anything. He bought a custom road bike from Aaron Stinner because when the rowdiness is happening, he wants it to fit like a glove.
Built with the usual suspects round these parts: a casual mix of SRAM, Thomson, King, Brooks and some nice, hand built wheels. While you might think this bike is a fashion statement, I can assure you this one is all about thrashin.
Less fashion, more thrashin.
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Part commuter, part touring bike, beautiful functionality with that Icarus flair.
Chris wanted a bike that did all of the above. Having already commissioned Ian to build him a matte black road bike, he knew exactly what he wanted in a commuter. Tubus titanium racks, SON hub, Edelux lamp, Chris King, Paul components, custom painted Berthoud fenders, Swift Industries panniers, Jack Brown Blues and White Industries cranks, all being operated by SRAM’s XO long cage rear derailleur and barcons.
A lot of the parts selection was informed by my Geekhouse when Chris was selecting his kit. Dependability was the most important issue yet as we said earlier, it needed to be beautifully functional.
Maybe he’ll have time to get out on a tour? Or maybe it’ll just serve him as it has for the past year as a commuter for Austin, TX.
The poll is in and we have a winner… Get Ian from Icarus Frames to build you a winner by contacting him.
I absolutely love frame builder profile videos, especially when they’re of shops I’ve never visited. This one features Matthew Sowter of Saffron Frameworks out of London.
Rivalries between component manufacturers are ongoing. When SRAM introduced XX1 a few years back, they made quite the stir yet die hard Shimano loyalists were still uninterested. For people like Kris at 44 Bikes, riding as many different setups as possible helps him better understand his client’s needs, which is why he took a look at XX1 versus XTR on his site. Head over to 44 Bikes to check it out.
It’s happened. The locals of Austin, Texas have embraced Lauren from Saila, the woman who welded for Seven Cycles in Boston for years, laying down tight weld lines over even tighter mitres.
Saila makes performance steel and titanium bikes ranging from “all-road” to cross and road. This bike in particular is a perfect example of a guy who wanted something special, yet didn’t want to splurge on componentry. Rather than dropping a couple grand on new parts, he built this race bike up with old parts left over from previous bikes.
Titanium is a medium that yields classic beauty without the need of expensive paint, or even expensive parts. Holler at Lauren if you’d like her to create a piece of work like this!
Inspired by the paint from old Dacorrdi frames, Adam from Stanridge Speed made sure Jen Malik’s race bikes look great before the mud. See more photos of these bikes at the Stanridge Speed Flickr.
It’s going to be hard to beat last year’s team bikes colors but these are looking mighty fine. See more information at House Industries.
Ok, mayyybe not forever, but at least a couple of generations.
Not everyone has the budget for a titanium road bike and not every titanium road bike needs to have thru-axles, discs, a 44mm headtube, internal Di2 wiring and other, what many would consider, modern essentials. For Zach, he desired the durability, liveliness and overall feel of titanium to tackle the climbs found in the hills and mountains of Los Angeles.
Originally, this bike had a garish paint job, with a LOOK fork and a mix of components, which Zach slowly replaced over time before stripping the paint to the frame’s bare metal. After ditching the fork, he swapped in a Chris King Ti headset and a Wound Up, one of the better riding 1 1/8″ carbon forks on the market.
This bike is a total sleeper. It’s got a little bit of flash where it matters and for a production bike from Litespeed, has a great deal of frame details including that seat tube cutout.
Titanium road bikes are beautiful, but Zach’s has a story and a process as evident in the final product.
Photos by Heather McGrath
Being a returning Geekhouse customer myself, I can identify with this bike. Deb wanted the ultimate city/touring bike, sparing no details. She already has a Geekhouse Mudville ‘cross bike, but wanted a dedicated tourer for the long haul and around town commuting.
This one’s got it all. Racks, fenders, generator lamps and a mean parts list. Not to mention paint designed by Adria Klora, and then painted by Rudi at Gold Coast Cycles. It’s one of the most complicated bikes I’ve ever seen come from the Geekhouse shop.
Check out the full build kit and more photos below.
Photos by Keith Trotta
For those who like insightful information from the world of frame building need to check this out…
“My personal bikes are always a testing ground for me, not only for parts but also frame tubing, forks, and frame building components. This bike has modern carbon bars, seat post, which I have not ridden before, and a modern 1.0 ENVE fork, so I wanted to see how they felt compared to the aluminum bars/post and steel (fork) that I have been riding recently.
The frame is also much stiffer than my traditional road bike with a 35 mm double oversized down tube and custom-tapered 28.6-31.7 mm seat and top tube. This allows for a standard 27.2 seat post, which is more common and comfortable than the odd 30.6 post the 31.7 seat tube requires.”
Continue reading and see more photos at the Bishop Bikes Flickr.
It happens every year. Frame builders get the request for a new ‘cross bike and while it’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s always that one caveat: “can I have it in time for this year’s season?”
Last year around this time, the Mudfoot team was clamoring for their new bikes and one of the rider’s wife, Crystal, really wanted to get one as well. After some thought and a brief conversation with Megan from Moth Attack she decided to support not only a female builder, but an ex-LA frame builder. Megan re-located to Colorado a few weeks back, but her and Crystal stayed in touch.
The docket was easy: discs, 44mm head tube, an english bottom bracket and red paint! Megan delivered on all fronts and Crystal built up her new bike with Shimano Ultegra, Chris King, an ENVE CX fork and Easton parts.
Personally, I’d like to think this is the kind of ‘cross bike most people would want to order currently and It’s one of my favorites I’ve seen this year. There’s something about its size, simplicity and I love the various logo hits on the bike. Great job, Megan and Crystal, ENJOY!
Jordan Hufnagel took a short sabbatical from bicycle frame building to take on his transcontinental motorcycle trip with West America partner James Crowe. Before taking off on the road, or dirt rather, he produced a run of porteur bikes. These bikes may look similar, clad in their matte black with gumwall 650b tires, but each one was specially tailored to his client’s needs and potential uses. Hufnagel has an aesthetic he likes to hit, ever-so precisely.
As I was flipping through Instagram, I noticed an newly-built olive-drab disc bike on Jordan’s Instagram. No less than a few minutes later, in rolls Jason with his Hufnagel.
Jason snagged one up as soon as he saw the pre-order go live and to be completely honest, it’s my favorite one I’ve seen. Having shot a few for the Radavist already, I was impressed with the detailing that went into Jason’s build: clean lines, custom fender brackets, custom racks, custom stem, matte black paint, clean generator routing and that awesome pannier…
See for yourself in the Gallery!
We took a look at Matter Cycles‘ SlayRide in our NAHBS coverage this year and now Thomas Woodson takes us inside and out of their shop in Boulder, Colorado.