U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix
Seven Cycles were born out of ex-employees of Merlin Titanium, (one of the first modern companies to start building with titanium, back in the '80s). Merlin's chief MTB designer Rob Vandermark, and several other important folk, left Merlin to set up Seven in 1997 and haven't really looked back. They initially made just Ti frames, but moved into also making steel and now carbon frames as well. They're based just outside Boston, Massachusetts.
Our test frame is a production Sola frame, but with a custom paint job. Paint is an up-charge option on all Ti Sevens—but you're equally welcome to leave it bare if you wish. We weren't that sure about the paint to start with, but stacked against the other Ti bikes on test, it certainly stands out and is a welcome change to. the utilitarian dull gray of a plain Ti frame.
For two grand, though, you'd want the beauty to be a lot more than skin deep though. Looking over the Seven, there's a lot of simplicity and neatness going on. The seat collar is big, but neat. The dropouts are sculpted but not ostentatious and the welds and tube diameters seem 'just right'.
There's a lot of titanium bike history gone into this Seven. The tubing is seamlessly double butted and the seatstays feature long 'S' bends—both innovations developed while Rob Vandermark was at Merlin. Ironically the 'S' bend stays were to increase mudroom but also to give more power to cantilevers. The 'S' these days is much longer and results in parallel stays with an elegant kick out at the dropouts. The Sola is Seven's butted titanium frame (the unbutted Verve is � 1600) and comes in at barely more than 3Lbs for a 16in frame, so it's no real surprise that it built into the lightest bike on test.
With our stock Shimano XT build and 80mm Manitou R7 forks, the Sola builds into a bike on the verge of 'impressively light' and a lighter, leaner or bigger, chunkier build would be easy depending on your penchant. At around 241lbs though, it felt just right for high speed blasting.
The components are a similar spec to the build on the Moots—good old reliable XT shifters, transmission and brakes, with Shimano XT wheels. They can be run tubeless, but we were keeping to our stock Kenda tires so ran tubes. The only other differences were with a Hope stem and a Thomson seatpost instead of the Moots Ti items on the Moots (there's something very satisfying about the 'zzzip!' of the machined ridges on a Thomson post as it slides into a precisely reamed seat tube.
The paint is very wet looking and obviously many coats thick—this can be easily seen where it ends and the Ti frame starts showing. There's a I mm step there, protected by a shaped vinyl strip—I suppose there's not much else they could do here, but it would make sense to get a few spares to protect the vulnerable paint ends from chipping.
The paint has already shown signs of wear, despite helicopter tape in high risk areas. The stop-free center of the top tube is already showing scratching from the brake hose and there are a couple of other scuffs.
Like all the bikes here, there is none of the expected 'angels singing' ride experience. At their best, all Ti bikes ride like 'a bike' and buying one won't make you a faster rider unless it's because it inspires you to ride bikes more. The Seven falls into that category. It's simply a wonderfully inspiring bike to ride.
The light weight of the Seven can be felt in a couple of ways—riders used to regular steel hardtails were climbing hills a couple of gears higher, but those used to more burly trail bikes found the Sola to be just on the edge of 'too light' on faster descents as it can get bounced around a little. The racer boy 80mm forks (the other bikes had 100mm) that the frame was designed for meant that the Sola was happier on fast, twisty trails rather than rock fests, but it still coped admirably with some slow, thrutchy stuff. Technical climbs were particularly fun as the combination of light weight and surefootedness made slow and steppy stuff fun again.
In terms of flat-out speed and performance on high speed singletrack, the Sola was a joy to ride. Throw it into comers, lean it over and big ring it out the other side. I even found myself dropping back from the 'pack' just so I could wind up another sprint. There was a definite 'snap' to the ride and changes in speed just needed a moment's notice.
The Sola is definitely a bike that won't let you walk past without an appreciative look and on the trails it won't let you go home until you've gone further than you were intending to. I could fault the scufflness of the paint job, but there's nothing to stop you saving money and having a bare frame anyway. Besides, if you're going to have a bike for ten years, it might as well gain a few scars and wrinkles- after all, the owner is certainly going to... which we have been very fortunate to draw upon. Plus, I think there is a very good work ethic out here."