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Every steel bicycle frame begins life as a pile of tubes and frame components. This frame really started as a pair of Shimano UF, semi-vertical dropouts, lying on the Schauff table at Eroica South Africa. I bought them on a whim, after enjoying a few beers at the finish line of the 2020 event. At that moment I thought I would hang them on a keychain or hand them over to a friend, Dave Mercer of Mercer Bikes.
The Speedvagen Readymade program returns for 2021 but due to the pandemic, it required some new requirements for this popular program. Right now, Speedvagen is taking deposits for the Drop Bar GTFO and the Disc-OG bikes. A deposit of $1,000 is required to get get the ball rolling and only 11 of each bike model are available. Check out all the information below and if you like what you see, place your deposit at Speedvagen.
Our friends at the Service Course are working with Argonaut Cycles now and are the exclusive distributor for the UK, Europe, and Australia customers. Here’s a quick video profile on the brand, introducing their new partnership:
From humble beginnings building steel frames by hand, Ben Farver and the team behind Argonaut Cycles now produce some of the finest custom carbon bikes in the world, controlling the entire process from raw material through to final build at their high tech composite facility in Bend, OR.
Taking inspiration from F1 race cars and aerospace engineering as much as the personal connection forged with every Argonaut customer, their latest creation is the RM3: an “argument” to the wider cycling industry as the most complete road bike imaginable, uniquely tuned to the exact requirements of each rider.
See more at the Service Course!
This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Paul de Valera from Atomic Cycles, the organizer of the Coaster Brake Challenge. Paul had an idea for a Cruiser and finally executed it, resulting in a very unique bike. Check out more as Paul walks us through the design and fabrication below.
In Reflections, Pegoretti riders around the world share their stories of life during the past year, their thoughts for the future, and how cycling, community, and creativity help them find moments that matter.
Named after the Pinhoti Trail, which extends between Snake Creek Gap and Dug Gap within the Chattahoochee Forest into north Georgia, Litspeed’s newest iteration of their hardtail, the Pinhoti III, received some modern updates. Now optimized for a 130mm suspension fork, the Pinhoti III also fits a 29×2.6″ or a 27.5×3″ tire, thanks to an asymmetric dropped chainstay and a new CNC-machined titanium chainstay yoke.
The Geometry has been tweaked as well, with a slacker head angle, longer reach, and a few other tweaks. Litespeed offers various builds (XTR shown here at a retail of $6,699) and finishing kits, and with all these new updates, the size medium frame comes in at just 1,649 grams (size medium)—a savings of 95 grams over our previous version of the Pinhoti. As with all Litespeed bikes, these are made in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
See more at Litespeed.
A little while back, Patrick from Bikes or Death reached out, saying he was going to be in Santa Fe and was hoping we could sit down for a podcast interview. Naturally, I obliged, and last night we hung out at our office here in Santa Fe and talked about bikes, photography, other randomness related to this website. I won’t give too much away but I was really stoked on how it went. Doing interviews is a great way to bond with a person and afterward, I just had to shoot Patrick’s Chumba Cycles Stella Ti. While the podcast episode won’t be out for a few weeks, I wanted to feature this rad build while it was all still fresh on my mind, so enjoy!
Last year I was visiting the BTCHN’ Bikes shop to shoot some process photos for the Sierra Explorer project and got stopped in my tracks as soon as I walked into the door by a different frame in a stand. This frame was totally unlike any design I’d seen before, and there was so much hard thought and problem-solving that went into making it a reality that I couldn’t even open that door of my brain and had to just stay on target with the bike I was actually there to shoot.
My intent was to space out the three complete builds I photographed during my Shop Visit at Baphomet Bicycles, yet I received a number of requests to expedite this gallery to this morning. That’s a good sign, right? People are very interested in this bike and it’s easy to see why. Dillen from Baphomet originally called this bike his “Right-Hand Path”, with his personal hardtail being the “Left-Hand Path,” yet his Instagram followers summed it up perfectly with the catchy name “Shreddy Rando.”
So let’s look at this bike in detail, including a synopsis from Dillen.
Hear me out here, set your preconceptions aside for a bit. Before jumping into today’s Shop Visit, I have to clear the air and give an introduction to the iconography and ideologies which represent this particular framebuilder’s brand…
Last week, we came across this custom, one-off stem rack made by August Bicycles and reached out to them for a little backstory and a few photos. They replied with some history of this project, as well as some high res shots, so if you’re tired of squinting at Instagram photos, check out the full story below!
Last year, we posted Petor’s Shop Visit to UK-based Sturdy Cycles, and to supplement that coverage, we’re re-visiting their Fiadh disc all road bike, shot in a studio environment. These bikes blend modern tech with very subtle and classic proportions. Read on below for words by Tom Sturdy and more photos of these stunning 3D printed assemblage frames!
I first met Elliot a few years back while I was leading a bikepacking trip with El Grupo, a Tucson based youth cycling organization. Since then I had seen Elliot tinkering with all manner of frankenbikes, which are a regular, at the Grupo clubhouse. Discarded and mismatched components of yesteryear handed down from the large cycling community here. Their low-pro pursuit fixed gear with a 24″ bmx fork caught my eye awhile ago and I knew Elliot had that special eye for janky but fun clashing of parts.
These days, gravel bike designs can be very redundant, something German manufacturers like Nicolai Bikes are looking to overcome. Their newest design, the Argon GX, is as much a gravel bike as it is a touring bike but look closely for some clever manufacturing detailing.
Through 3D modeling and engineering, Nicolai is able to construct durable and lightweight 7020-T6 frame components. Each of these pieces are made on modern 5-axis CNC machines and allows for the construction of so-called “Hollow Mill” assemblages. The bottom bracket and chainstay yoke in the Argon CX use this technology to both shed weight and set their offerings apart from their competitors.
Other details include the option for a Pinion gear box, fender/rack mounts, flat mount disc calipers, internal routing, and designed geometries to fit just about any body type. Head to Nicolai to see more!
As though they’d joined a cult and made some kind of suicide pact, having seen none during the five hours of driving previous, perhaps thirty pheasants lay dead in the road over a quarter-mile3 stretch. What had happened on this quarter-mile stretch? Why here? It made me regret buying the rabbit, but without screeching to a halt on a frozen dual carriageway it wouldn’t have been practical to stop and collect them. Even at 70mph I could tell some were past their best and it’s rude to turn up empty-handed. I was on my way to visit Ted, so turning up with roadkill seemed to make sense. I was running late though and didn’t want to rely on road gifts so I picked up a wild rabbit wrapped in paper from our local butchers. It was a relief they had it because plan B was the pet shop.
I’d debated not going to visit Ted of Ted James Design and just compiling the stories people tell about him. The chronicles of SuperTed! The stories people tell can seem fairly fantastic, however, worryingly most of the time they’re true. I sometimes wonder how Ted is even alive? If I were more superstitious, I’d say his spirit was too big for his body and so it spends all of its time trying to get out. There’s something in his eyes like the sort of superintelligence and frustration a sheepdog has about being domesticated, as though any room that he’s in is somehow too small, so his eyes dance about searching for exits.
For today’s Readers’ Rides, we look at Sepie’s beautiful Breadwinner B-Road. Read on below for words and photos by Sepie!
Wow. The titanium anodizing wizards at Firefly Bicycles just popped this beautiful ti and carbon road bike on their Tumblr and we had to share a glimpse. See much, much, more at the Firefly Tumblr.
The Rocky Mountain Gator lives around Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and has taken up mountain biking on a Moots Womble. Good luck catching it!