The North American Handmade Bicycle Show just wrapped up its 15th edition. Aside from the inaugural event in Houston, I’ve attended every single one. You might think that after 14 straight years of making the annual pilgrimage to the mecca of custom bikes that all of this luster might be wearing a little thin for me. To be honest, I sometimes head into this time of year feeling a bit weary, like I’ve seen it all before. Surely there couldn’t possibly be any more creativity than I’ve already witnessed in years past?
But yet, every year, I find myself heading home after NAHBS feeling recharged and excited about bikes all over again, not beaten down by another lap on the merry-go-round. If you’ve never attended NAHBS, you owe it to yourself to invest the time and money to pay the show a visit at least once. And don’t be fooled; the show floor is never all that big in terms of physical area, but it never fails to amaze me how long it takes to make it through just a single aisle. So much to see, so much to appreciate.
That said, you’ll have to forgive me for adopting a slightly different strategy to my coverage at this year’s event in Sacramento, California. Normally, I’d try to showcase at least one bike from every builder on hand, but I took a more targeted approach this time around, to instead try and find bikes that had stories behind them. The vast majority of these bikes aren’t built just to be pretty, after all; nearly every one of them was commissioned by someone with a specific vision or need in mind, and oftentimes those are just as important as the bikes themselves.
Rest assured, however, that I’ll still be presenting a fair number of galleries from the show floor, but expect to see a bunch of more detailed looks at individual bikes in the days and weeks ahead. And before you dive in, you’d better start making some room in the garage, and saving your pennies — because if you don’t come out of this lusting after a new bike like I did (and do every year), well, I’m not sure I can help you.
To kick things off, this gallery features the work of English Cycles, Civilian Bicycle Company, Mosaic Bespoke Bicycles, Low Bicycles, and Sarto Bikes.
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- English Cycles is celebrating its 10th anniversary with this limited-edition complete build.
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- English Cycles builder Rob English wanted to use as much US-made stuff as possible for his anniversary bike, which included HIA Velo’s new carbon fiber road fork. English didn’t want to use an oversized head tube, though, so he instead fashioned his own lower headset cup to accommodate the 1 1/4″ Cane Creek bearing.
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- The bike features English’s signature pencil-thin seatstays.
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- English will make just ten of these anniversary bikes this year – and then he plans to take some much-deserved time off in 2020.
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- The custom-etched Silca titanium bottle cages are a nice touch.
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- I’d imagine that it’d be hard to keep your eyes on the road when something this beautiful is positioned right below your face.
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- This single-speed, belt-drive road bike from Rob English looks straightforward enough…
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- …that is, until you notice what’s missing.
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- This isn’t the first single-sided bike English has built, but it never fails to stun in person.
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- English didn’t just omit half of the fork and stays and call it good. Both ends are heavily reinforced to deal with the asymmetrical loads.
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- English insists that his single-sided bike feels just like a standard bike.
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- The rear freewheel and brake are mounted outboard of the stays.
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- Not surprisingly, English couldn’t just use off-the-shelf hubs for something like this, so he designed his own. Interestingly, both wheels can be removed independently of the drivetrain and brake components. Another quirky benefit of the custom hub design is that the front and rear wheels are identical and interchangeable.
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- One big theme at this year’s NAHBS? Gravel bikes that were clearly focused a bit more on speed than capability, along with lots of blues, pinks, and purples, all of which were displayed in brilliant fashion on this Civilian. Looks fun, no?
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- 650b wheels have long enjoyed a dedicated following in the handbuilt crowd.
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- Lovely Paragon Machine Works dropouts on this Civilian, along with a direct-mount hanger for the Shimano rear derailleur. Opinions are mixed on whether a direct-mount hanger yields a noticeable improvement in shifting performance, but it certainly looks cleaner.
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- Mosaic Bicycles never fails to knock it out of the park at NAHBS, but the Colorado builder – and now painter, with the acquisition of Spectrum’s operations – manages to raise the bar even further.
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- This was quite possibly my favorite finish of the show, particularly with the matching fenders. Remember when it was almost considered a sin to paint a titanium bike? Sure, there are practical advantages to doing so, but it’s hard to argue with paint when it looks like this.
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- Mosaic is also making a push on metalflake finishes this year, with more than a few bikes at NAHBS gleaming even more brightly than usual.
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- Painted-to-match stems can sometimes look really weird. This is not one of those times.
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- One of Silca’s smartest business moves was offering raw frame and floor pump bodies to builders so they could be more easily painted. I lost count of how many were on hand at NAHBS.
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- This Mosaic uses particularly big metal flakes, and it was quite hard to miss.
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- Too much? Or not enough?
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- Andrew Low builds these TIG-welded aluminum road racing bikes in San Francisco.
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- Low has some of the more refined-looking aluminum bikes available. Considering the fully custom geometry and dramatically shaped tubing, the pricing seems fairly reasonable for what you get (US$2600 for the road disc frameset).
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- The powdercoated finish seems simple enough, but this particular color combination still looks absolutely fantastic.
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- It’s not often you see this much tube manipulation from a small builder. Both ends had plenty of room for the 31mm-wide (actual measurement) Schwalbe One tubeless tires that were mounted to the Enve SES 4.5 AR Disc aero carbon clinchers.
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- What do you think? Should we bring a Low in for a review this season? We’re so tempted…
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- Low also showed off his new gravel bike, displayed here in 650b trim.
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- Campagnolo consistently has one of the best booths at NAHBS, with a fleet of custom bikes from a wide range of builders on display. This Sarto aero road bike arguably attracted the most attention.
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- I don’t know exactly how much time was required for this paint job. But “a lot” seems like a safe assumption. Wherever this bike is destined to end up after the show, I hope its owner thoroughly enjoys it.
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- Absolutely incredible. The painted-to-match Blackburn cages accent the frame nicely as well.
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- According to Dan Large of Campagnolo North America, the saddle was fully custom as well, including a bespoke carbon fiber base.
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- The ridges on the leading edge of the fork and down tube presumably help reduce aerodynamic drag, but perhaps more importantly, they look amazing.
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