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I’ve learned a lot in the past two years and so has Ben at Argonaut Cycles. He looks at his made in the USA, fully custom carbon road bikes as a project that’s ever-evolving. With each frame, he learns more not only about his customers, but his own process. My Argonaut was perfection in my eyes and while I loved it, some things about it made it less than ideal for my lifestyle and by that I mean, I travel. A lot. At the time, Ben didn’t offer a traditional seat post, only an ISP…
At this point, my Geekhouse Mudville is about as worn out as I am. It’s traveled the world multiple times and each trip to Australia, the build is slightly different.
Looking back, had I known this bike had clearances for up to a 42c tire, I would have ditched the 33c world a long time ago. For big, big rides, those 40c Nanos are the way to go. Surly’s Knard 41c looks like a great option as well, but I’ve yet to try them.
Over the past few years, this bike has proven itself to me time and time again. While there are a few characteristics that make a cross bike less-than-ideal for big tough dirt rides, I’d say it’s an all around, solid tool for the job. Even doing ‘road rides’ on a 40c ain’t as bad as you’d think.
Looking forward, I’m not sure what kind of bike I’d like to use for ‘dirt riding’ and travel. A road geometry with a slighly-slacker head tube angle is best suited for descending steep, rutted and sketchy fire roads, but the clearances for a larger tire make any rocky surface just kinda disappear, even on singletrack.
I’d love to make a bike with a road BB drop, a slightly slacker heat tube and enough room for a 40c tire but for now, this bike is ripping! Out of all of my bikes, it’s seen the most action and it shows, especially after a long ride like the two day Bush Blast (day 1 and day 2).
After that ride, I have had these photos on my desktop and figured I’d share them.
At this year’s NAHBS, I knew something. Deep down inside, amidst all the insane custom bicycles, I know that Cielo was onto something with their new Road Racer Di2. The custom market is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but the domestic production market is far too overlooked.
Today, FYXO and I took the trip down to Geelong to visit Darren at Baum Cycles. After we toured the new Baum facilities, we ate some lunch at a local cafe and took to the You Yangs trail system.
The next few hours, I spent all my energy chasing after a neon streak in the bush. In fact, it became a point of fixation for me, as I struggled to keep up with the extremely fit rider pedaling this machine.
Ryan works at Baum and he rides a Baum. This bike is the fruit of his labor at Baum and it’s one of the company’s most famous rides. Or at least one of my favorite rides from the company.
SRAM XX1, ENVE, Chris King, you name it, it’s got it and then some. Like a bright chartreuse paint job with neon pink accents and a carbon Selle Italia saddle shell – leather saddle just get wrecked on a MTB anyway…
For me, the thing I brought away from this ride was seeing a Baum completely smash these trails. In an age where digital presentation is everything, I rarely see a Baum outside of the photo studio. It really brought the reason why Darren builds these machines to the forefront.
Baum makes MTBs fit for thrashing their local trails and that’s exactly what Ryan did. All afternoon… Stay tuned for more photos from my Shop Visit and MTB shred sess with Baum. For now, check out more photos of this rad bike!
I love how even the simplest Bishop road bike has so much attention to detail. Seriously, look at that lug thinning! See more of Curtis’ road at the Bishop Flickr.
As a manufacturer of products built on the belief that quality is of the utmost importance, Chris King is always eager to learn about other like-minded manufacturers. One such business is Portland manufacturer Grovemade, makers of modern and sophisticated wood based office supplies and personal electronic accessories. See photos at Chris King!
A while back, I featured Andre, my new intern’s Stoemper Cross. Well, since then, he got in a wreck and folded the top tube in half. He was pretty bummed, as you might imagine, but luckily for him, a friend who used to work at Co-Motion had this magenta Lucifer frameset sitting in his garage since the 2005 Interbike when he bought it…
When Austin, Texas based Fairdale first came onto the cycling market, it all began with the Skate Rack. Soon, ex-pro BMXr Taj Mihelich and his team at OTX began designing commuter bikes and other around-town / get outta-town rides.
From there, Fairdale grew and in my opinion, it wasn’t until the Weekender OG that the company reached its full potential. A 1×9 disc, townie bar cruiser quickly took over. Now just about every city has fleets of Weekenders rolling around, all built up differently, as per the customer’s specific needs. Even the production models have options now: a drop bar with disc and a canti version.
For 2014, Fairdale is set to release their most ambitious project yet: the Goodship road bike. A race-inspired geometry, paired with Fairdale sensibilities. Utilizing the Odyssey integrated head tube, scaled for a road bike, an ENVE road fork and a custom pulled Japanese Drawnright tubeset. This tubeset is custom butted, heat treated, custom shaped and tuned to Fairdale’s specifications.
In the past few years, Brian Chapman has shifted interest in frame building. Initially, he was half of Circle A Cycles but recently, he began building under the moniker, Chapman Cycles.
The work Brian is producing at Chapman Cycles is exceptional. Not that his work at Circle A was lacking in any regard, but going out on his own allowed Brian to really pursue his vision of what cycling truly means to him.
When I look at David Wilcox’s road frame, I see Chapman Cycle’s future, even though this bike was built years before Brian began building for his new venture. Geometrically speaking, this is a road bike with a traditional geometry, but functionally, it’s much more.
Rack, fender mounts and clearances for up to a 33.3 slick, this bike is a “long ride” road. It was built for the Oregon Manifest, specifically for David Wilcox, or as he’s known in the Northeast, “the Wilcox“.
Much like Chapman Cycles, David has gone off on a journey of his own. He just happens to be towing the new and improved Rapha Mobile Cycle Club, Tillie along with him. On his new path, he’ll be meeting up with countless group rides where, more often than not, watts and carbon are the nomenclature, not steel and plump tires.
Eventually, someone notices the brazed Circle A Cycles on the downtube, the large tires and mid-reach calipers. Or maybe they notice the spokes that were brazed onto the chainstays for chain slap protection and around the internal routing exit-port for a little added “pop”.
At that moment, David becomes the “hero” of the ride and all other technology present becomes obsolete… Well, almost.
Last weekend, I planned a route, dissected from our Super Bro Weekend ride. Four of us showed up and after five miles, my knee decided it wasn’t ready for the big day, so I bailed, only to return later in the day to shoot David’s bike amidst the rolling hills of the Austin area.
Every year in the months of May and September Chris King challenges his employees to commute to work by bike. Though the majority of our staff bike to work year-round we have a number of folks who happen to live too far away to make a daily bike commute plausible, but during our bike to work challenge months they find a way. Riders are tempted by their ability to earn two extra paid days off per month and are coaxed along by workmates.
The Pulse is Signal’s third production bike but you could probably say it’s their fastest. This bike just exudes speed, even sitting in the photo studio.
Signal went with a tapered Enve fork with a tapered headtube, double oversize Columbus Life tubes and pulled it all together in a tight, zippy geometry.
Available in the stock sizes additional options to play with like paint colors, component kits, disc brakes and Di2.
Prices start at $2500 for frame, fork and Chris King headset. Completes from $4500.
Check out more below and contact Signal for ordering options.
During the Amgen Tour of California, I spent eight hours in Santa Barbara with Aaron Stinner. His framebuilding company, Stinner Frameworks has been on fire lately. From building the Mudfoot Elite cross bikes, to speaking at Mission Workshop and unveiling his newest model: the Fundero MTB.
Available in both 27.5 and 29’r these semi-custom frames are meant to take you to the trail and home again in (mostly) one piece, depending on how much you enjoy ripping. For this build, Aaron went with SRAM XO, Stan’s wheels, XT brakes and a White Brothers Loop 120mm fork but build kits are available in any group.
These frames are lightweight, come with a powdercoat, replaceable derailleur hanger and a tapered head tube. If you’re looking for a straight up, made in the USA shred sled, holler at Aaron!
After I shot photos of his workshop, I grabbed Aaron and his 29’r Fundero for a quick photoshoot at a trailhead down the block from his house… Next time, I need to actually shred this thing!
The Cinelli XCR embodies the ideologies representing the brand’s history of making performance steel racing bicycles. Much like the modern big brother to the Supercorsa, the XCR is made in Italy, individually, by hand.
It just so happens that every one of these frames is made to order. Custom if you will, because each frame is welded after an order is placed, which, to me, is pretty rad.
For people like Garrett Chow, the man responsible for many of MASH’s designs, the XCR was exactly what he was looking for after riding strictly carbon for years. He wanted some compliance with a livelier stride…
When the crew at Cinelli / Columbus offered to build him a bike, he gladly obliged and requested a white paint job with Mash insignia added in. Garrett spared no expense on the bike, building with with Campagnolo Record 11, 3T and Fulcrum Racing Lite XLR race wheels. Basically, everything on this bike is made in Italy, minus the Chris King headset and LOOK pedals.
I shoot a lot of nice bicycles, but this one made me nervous as we propped it up on the side of Diablo… See more in the Gallery and thanks to Garrett for thinking of me when it came to shooting this bike!
This one’s been sitting on my desktop for about a month, but that doesn’t matter because machines like this are timeless. Check out more photos of this Field Cycles track bike that Crema Cycles had the pleasure of sharing at their Berliner Fahrrad Schau booth below!
The Hunqapillar. A touring bike with massive clearances for mountain bike tires, tubing spec’d for off-road ripping (fully loaded) and a gorgeous green and cream paint job. Branded as a “Wooly Mammoth Bicycle”, this machine is meant to rip wakki 1-trakk and still make it to Poppi’s Pizza in time for a cold pint or a toke from the wizard’s pipe.
At this point in the MTB game, probably one of the greatest inventions in the past few years has been the narrow wide chainring. Sure, there was a patent from a century ago, that called out a similar design but at a much larger scale but it was SRAM who first applied that technology to the cycling industry.
Later, companies like Wolf Tooth and Race Face adopted the narrow wide ring design, making it applicable to a wider platform. Basically, any system can use this ring design and work.
A good rigid MTB is a lot of fun, especially when it’s a Serotta. Check out more photos of Victor’s shred sled at Archive Bags and Shitbike.com!
I love seeing Ian from Icarus Frames‘ work oversees and in the capable hands at Blue Lug. This blue and white road bike looks incredible. Check out more at Blue Lug’s Flickr.
