On this, our last day of business for the year, we were gratefully able to take a Seven order from someone with whom we had been discussing a custom build for some time.
I believe our job as a bike shop is to properly connect people with bicycles, and sometimes that is through mass production, or other times through what we call one-of-a-kind handmade items where you can see the face of the maker. The source itself is not the big point; what is most important is how effectively we can connect people with things.
Of course, this takes many different forms depending on the individual, but to reflect on the past year, I would like to introduce a few of the bikes we connected owners with through Circles Tailored.
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With the launch of a new shop and the recent opening of their attached cafe space, it has undoubtedly been a year of leaps and bounds for Breadwinner Cycles, the cornerstone of the builder community in Portland, Oregon. The incredible bikes created daily through the teamwork of real cyclists Tony and Ira prove that the strength of their team culture reaches far beyond the ocean.
Among their lineup, we built the B-ROAD—their versatile gravel road bike—into an all-rounder by taking advantage of its tire clearance and fitting it with 700x43c Homage tires. It offers high stability on gravel while still moving smoothly on the road, making it easy to understand why Ira designed it with the Oregon Outback (an Oregon-crossing race where 80% of the approx. 580km route is dirt) in mind. It is a machine that can go anywhere, regardless of the road!
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Black Cat Bicycles builds frames with extreme simplicity and care, utilizing the foundation of bicycle manufacturing and knowledge of modern materials gained at Santa Cruz Bicycles, which has produced numerous world champions. With a genuine cyclist's interpretation—where builder Todd handles everything from small parts to frame welding and the final paint job himself—every frame is born from a deep understanding of how a person and a bike become one.
It was two years ago that I took measurements, discussed riding style, and sent those details to Todd for the order. I only conveyed the image for the base color and left the rest to him. The finished frame is something that only those who can endure the ultimate patience of waiting—people with a deep love for the "fun tool" that is a bicycle, who believe in both the conventional and the free—can ever know. And I will never forget the happy expression on the owner's face when, after a two-year wait, he finally met his frame.
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Will you be racing? Touring? Or commuting? How will the bike age along with the rider's body? Is there adaptability? How do you build a bike that can be ridden for a lifetime? Imbuing design with as much permanence as the materials, and giving form to the rider's aspirations—that is what it means to place an order with Seven Cycles.
The answer reached after seriously considering how to enjoy the ride was the AXIOM SL. As the only frame manufacturer that can butt titanium tubes in-house, they create bikes that meet high-level requirements for both propulsion and ride quality.
The reason they remain the world's largest custom frame manufacturer, producing about 1,700 frames a year, is that for them, the act of correctly building a frame that goes beyond the common definition of "custom" from the rider's perspective is as natural as breathing.
Each is packed with the owner's thoughts, no two are the same, and I am grateful to be able to work every day while interacting with so many different bikes and people! Regardless of weight or speed, I just hope that everyone, absolutely everyone, climbs onto a bike and finds a smile on their face. To that end, I will do everything in my power to help!
We will be open for business starting January 5th. Please take care of yourselves, and I wish you all a wonderful New Year.