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This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!
This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!
At this year’s Chris King Open House, the brand’s new limited edition colors have been announced, Bourbon and Violet. While Violet is available now, Bourbon will be a three-time, small-batch release with the first batch available for ordering on December 2nd. Bourbon will be a first-come, first served release, so contact your local Chris King dealer for ordering. Two more batches will be available in 2020, so stay tuned.
Coming from last year’s all-male panel at the Industry Summit, Chris King has swung the pendulum and filled out an all-female panel at this year’s Open House. Check out the live feed here and be sure to skip the hour-long lunch break in the middle. ;-)
Kudos to all these brands!
Last year’s Chris King Open House was a great time and this year, to coincide with their two new colors for 2020, the factory will be open to the public once again, and once again, a number of beautiful custom bikes will be on display from a whole roster of talented builders. We’ll be covering each bike in detail, as well as the weekend’s events, so please, come out and enjoy the hangs with food, beer, and Beautiful Bicycles. Head to the event’s Facebook Page to sign up so they know how many to expect and we’ll see ya there!
I have a Chris King story. Do you? Well, I have a few Chris King stories and that’s because I own more than a couple of their products. In fact, most of my bikes have their headsets and hubs. My Retrotec is what I would consider the epitome of King’s reliability. This bike was built for NAHBS with the King 40th group: Hubs, headset, and even a stem faceplate. I still ride this bike as much as I can and still haven’t had to service anything, three years later. I really need to do an update gallery to the bike!
Knowing that now, King stands behind their products with a no-questions replacement warranty really sweetens the deal. King also now offers a lifetime warranty on their carbon wheels, including the Santa Cruz Reserve and ENVE wheels.
Head over to Chris King to see their Lifetime Warranty post!
A bike that’s perfect for its one imperfection. Mick hasn’t ever owned a new bike. Not new, new. Like pulling a brand new frame out of a box, new. It’s not that he was opposed to new bikes, he just never really found a company or a frame that fit his ideologies. Over the past few months however, Crust Bikes‘ offerings have really piqued his interest. He works at Golden Saddle Cyclery, a shop that churns out balleur Crust builds all the time. When he saw the new Nor’Easter, it strummed his heartstrings.
It took a long time and there’s a long story behind the reason for the abnormal wait but at NAHBS this year, Chris King released the plug-n-play XD driver for their R45 road hubs. Now, there is a compatibility window for this replacement driver, so you should check with your local bike shop to see if your hubs can take the 11-speed driver, but if you have a Centerlock hub, then you’re good to go. Head to your local shop to inquire about the upgrade so you can use SRAM’s 10-42 cassette on your all-road bike.
You’ve seen our photo documentation from the Chris King Open House and the bikes from the show, now here’s Path Less Pedaled’s recap video!
For the past few years, Chris King has opened their doors to the public as part of an entire weekend of events dubbed the Chris King Open House. This event’s intent is to be coordinated with a product launch of their new colors for the year, as well as to showcase what makes their operations tick, and to display a selection of custom bikes, built by some of their best builder customers.
the two new colors for this year: matte turqoise and matte mango.
This year, they sent out an open invite to 30 of their best builder accounts, offering up discounted pricing to them to build a bike for the show, passing on the discount to their customers. Out of those 30 builders, 17 showed up, and they were displayed alongside a Pegoretti bike, which we looked at on Friday. These bikes lined the halls of the Chris King factory, where visitors could look at their features in great detail, chat with the builders about their process, and if they were so inclined, purchase their dream bike.
I was invited up to the Open House to document these bikes for the builders and for Chris King, as well as offering up an ultimate dream bike gallery for you, the readers of this website. Please enjoy! Which bike do you like the best and why? Oh and if you’re interested in one of the bikes showcased here, be sure to reach out to the builders, who are linked in the bike descriptions below.
Finally! I finally made it to a Chris King Open House. Over the years, I’ve heard how much fun these events are. The events began on Thursday with an Industry Summit. On Friday we rode out to Chris King’s barn for lunch and Saturday, the doors at the Chris King factory opened to the public where visitors could take tours of the facilities, see the DropSet in person, check out the new limited edition colors – Matte Mango and Matte Turquoise – and ogle the bikes on display from 18 frame builders.
We’ll take a look at those tomorrow, but for now, let’s look inside the Chris King Open House!
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Follow Chris King Precision Components on Instagram and check out more from the Open House at #ChrisKingOpenHouse.
This weekend is the Chris King Open House, an event open to the public for free. Coinciding with the open house are these two parties, beginning Friday night at the Chrome Hub, following up on Saturday is a party at the Athletic. See you there!
See you at the Chris King Open House this weekend! There will be a handful of bikes on display, as well as symposiums, and all are invited. All you’ve gotta do is RSVP on the Facebook event page. See ya there!
If you have a Santa Cruz, Yeti, Alchemy or other compatible brand’s full sus MTB and want some Chris King bling on your head tube, well, the wait is over. I feel like I first heard about the PR&D behind this headset years ago, so it’s great to see it come to fruition. Check out specs below and get on the pre-order at Chris King.
I love it when two MUSA companies join forces on something simple like this. Spurcycle and Chris King teamed up to make round two of their limited edition anodized bells. In stock now at Chris King for $69. I love how sinister it looks. Almost like HAL 9000.
Eric Koston – yes, that Eric Koston – is hooked on cycling. A few months back, he acquired a Santa Cruz Stigmata, much to the disbelief of internet cycling experts, who claimed he “wouldn’t ride that bike.” There’s something to note about these naysayers, particularly with cycling. At the time, I was bummed out on readers, and Instagram commentators from the Radavist’s audience. What is it about the sport, hobby, and activity of cycling that brews this discontent? At any rate, he proved them wrong. Eric rides bikes.
He shows up at the Golden Saddle Friday rides where he’s learned the ways of riding in Los Angeles, ascending the steep dirt roads of the Verdugo Mountains, tubeless woes, promptly taking a digger on the singletrack, getting his feet wet in the LA river, and cruising up behind the Hollywood sign.
Fishing analogies aside, Eric is hooked.
The skaters turned cyclists Eric hangs with all ride Rivendell, Crust, and All City with more upright riding positions. So he started shopping around and settled on the Gorilla Monsoon, prompting this insane build from the guys at Golden Saddle. All-City and Chris King sent in some goods, prompting the build. All these components are familiar to you, the readers of this site, yet seeing them all in one place makes me feel all tingly inside. Down to the Spitfire top cap! So yes, Eric rides bikes, he’ll ride this bike, and hopefully one day, his friends will take him bicycle camping.
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If you want a custom build like this and live in Los Angeles, hit up Golden Saddle Cyclery.
This year, I’ll be covering the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship’s Triple Crown events: Lost & Found, Grinduro, and the Downieville Classic. My intent with this is to grow the Stweardship’s presence, help them raise money and spread the stoke for the Lost Sierra. Jumping on board with this project is just the icing on the dirt cake!
“Custom frame makers Sklar, Stinner, Mosaic, and McGovern have teamed up with world-class component makers ENVE, Chris King, SRAM and WTB to create four unique and beautiful custom bicycles that will be raffled after the gun goes off for the Lost and Found Gravel race. All proceeds will benefit the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship.
Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship is a non-profit organization that builds and maintains multi-use trails in the Sierra Buttes, Tahoe, Plumas and Lassen national forests. Their mission is building sustainable recreation-based communities through stewardship, job creation and hosting world-class events. SBTS has donated an estimated 72,000 hours of volunteer labor, maintained over 800 miles of shared use trails and created nearly 80 miles of new trails since 2003.
The bikes will be exhibited at the Lost and Found gravel race and the raffle will be live, with $20 tickets, from June 2nd through June 15th, hosted by The Pro’s Closet. All donations and raffle ticket purchases are tax deductible.”
Check out more details on these bikes and how to buy a raffle ticket below!
With builders like Pegoretti growing in popularity over the years, the idea of an “art bike” has certainly been given a lot of traction in the market. At the Chris King Swarm event in Bend, Oregon, Crow’s Feet Commons displayed this stunning OPEN UP, painted by local Bend artist, Sheila Dunn. The UPs have certainly signalled a sea change in the road, all-road and ‘gravel’ market, with their unique drop stay design, allowing for road cranks, with an XC tire selection, all made from the utmost of carbon technology, and designed for anything from a casual road ride to full-on endurance bikepacking events.
So what did Sheila use as inspiration for this build? Well, I’d say she didn’t have to look any further than out of her window.
I must say, this has to be one of Sheila’s fastest-looking canvases to date! If you’d like one of these custom painted OPEN UP frames, holler at Crow’s Feet, who is taking deposits for 10 right now.
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Follow Chris King on Instagram, follow Sheila on Instagram, and follow Crow’s Feet Commons on Instagram.