Seven – Page 101 – Seven Cycles

Neil’s Big Orange Monster CX

Performance Fit Designer Neil has ideas he just can’t let go of, and he always has a project going, so none of us was too surprised when he started pushing around the concept for a new monster CX bike based around our Expat S frame set. We had done one for our old friend Chipps Chippendale at Singletrack magazine, so that build was fresh in mind.

We were on our regular Friday shop ride, mountain bikes on local trails, and that ride always presents the challenge of breaking off at the end and getting to work on time, or at least on-time-ish. So Neil got to thinking of good solutions, and this is the result.

The 29-inch wheels allow him to crush it on the trail. The on-board bag takes care of commuter essentials. The disc brakes make it an all-weather beast. It rolls fast across town with a stiff, compact geometry and a rigid steel fork.

The orange paint with red and black accents is an homage to the Bridgestone XO-1 Neil grew up coveting, and we did a custom decal (see left) that echoes the famous Bridgestone decal from that great builder’s hey-day. If you’re going to nerd-out, go all the way, right?

The XO-1 was originally sort of the slow-roller in the Bridgestone line-up. It came with a moustache bar and an upright riding position. It’s a short step from there to the wide drop bar associated with modern monster cx set ups. The disc brakes and fat tires just complete the re-think of this classic bike.

We saw our friends from River City Bicycles at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, and they asked what weird, wacky stuff we were tooling on in our spare time. Well here it is guys, a throw-back Monster CX commuter.

Graeme Fife – The Elite Bicycle

To correspond with journalist and author Graeme Fife is pretty special, not only because of his gorgeous prose and encyclopedic knowledge of this cycling universe we live in, but also because he cares so much about the stories he tells. You might be familiar with some of his work including Rapha’s Great Road Climbs, The Tour de France: The History, The Legend, The Riders, and The Beautiful Machine, or his features for Rouleur magazine.

Lately, we have been in touch with him because he is planning on including Seven Cycles in his new book titled The Elite Bicycle, with photos by the inimitable Gerard Brown. We had Gerard here in the Spring, when we had a long, rambling conversation about what it means to make things.

Graeme told us just recently, “I love New England – I had three great rides on Cape Cod when I first came to New England in 2003 – I’d seen the beach from an aircraft flying into NY and decided that I would swim there one day. The friends in RI who loaned me bike and motor for my trip have a condo up in NH and we rode the Kanc one day, next day past where Robert Frost lived – glorious roads. First ride we did, we stopped at a cafe somewhere in the loom of Mt Washington and the guy at the counter asked me where we’d come from. I said I don’t know. So where are you going? I don’t know. It was a bit queer but expressive of the sense of complete freedom, somehow.”

Be on the lookout for The Elite Bicycle for more great writing from one of cycling’s literary legends..

Grand Prix of Gloucester Cyclocross

Finally, some mud. Also known as the New England World Championships, the GP of Gloucester is part of “holy week” in our local cross world, and this year we had what some might call perfect cross weather, gray and drizzly and a little bit raw.

The Grand Prix of Gloucester is considered one of America’s best cyclocross races, and it was well attended by riders and racers from all of the country and the globe. For Seven Cycles this is a hometown event and our bikes could be found in nearly every race category throughout the weekend. From factory employees in the amateur categories to our sponsored professionals in the men’s and women’s UCI Elites, our Mudhoney’s were ridden hard and fast through the perfectly wet and muddy conditions featured in Gloucester this weekend.

The course was classic Gloucester; it opens with an uphill stretch of pavement through the start/finish, winds up past the beer garden steps and then dives down into muddy off-camber chicanes. There were barriers (of course) and wide-open power sections through the grass. Gloucester has one of the steepest and meanest loamy rocky run-ups in cross where anyone who is really running is a lot fitter than me. There were deep mud holes and ever-changing slippery lines twisting through the trees, and day two featured a sand section that crosses the oceanfront beach at Stage Fort Park. Spectators could watch the race and catch some amazing views of this classic New England seaport from atop a giant rock – a prominent feature in the park and a major attraction for the young ones in the crowd.

The UCI Elite women’s race featured no less than four women racing on our bikes – nearly ten percent of the field and three of them were top-ten finishers this weekend. Mary McConneloug posted 5^th and 8^th place finishes, and Mo Bruno Roy was 11^th and 4^th. Overall this was an outstanding weekend of racing for Seven Cycles.

– Joe W.

Current Work – Deep Coral and Bone Axiom SLX

Axiom SLX painted with Gran Fondo scheme in deep coral and bone — A New Paint Scheme, in New Colors

This is the brand new Crossroads paint scheme, in deep coral and bone, two new stock colors for 2012/13. Find this and all our updated paint schemes in our paint gallery.

Midnight Ride of Cyclocross

Seven Mo Pro down tube in RSC Blue and white

Last night Jake and I left work a bit early and headed west to Lancaster to compete in the Midnight Ride of Cyclocross. This fast and fun mid-week race is in its second season and after hearing the rave reviews from last year I put it on my calendar as “can’t miss.” The Midnight Ride follows a similar course to November’s MRC race, but in the reverse direction. Since it’s still September, the course was dry and fast and the reverse direction offers less climbing and off camber turning than it’s November counterpart. Announcer Richard Fries was on hand for the event, which always makes things more exciting, and as he repeated multiple times throughout the evening, this race is the kickoff to what is now known in New England cross as “Holy Week.”

Racing as a beginner amateur and working at Seven, I’m in a great position for success. I have friendly relationships with some top Pro racers who have raced on the very same courses that I now compete on and they willingly offer up advice on things like tire selection. I ran into Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug at Cross-Vegas last week and Mike gave me some tips on what to run for the Holy Week races. I heeded his advice and it paid off in spades. The treads that I had chosen were fast on the gravel and pavement and hooked up just well enough in the grass and loose loamy corners that I was able to walk that fine line that exists between speed and control. Line selection, not tire selection, would be the only fault in my race.

I’ve raced enough at this point that I am starting to get first row call-up and for this race I lined up one spot from the outside with a clear view of the first turn a few hundred yards ahead. At the whistle I jumped out in front and my first four of five pedal strokes put me out in front with a fair gap on the field. I had taken the hole shot, and it was suddenly my race to lose.

Having never been in this position before in any sort of bike race, I did my best to stay calm and just rode my ass off. From what I’ve been told I actually put a sizable gap on the field and held it until my worst case scenario presented itself – a crash in a hard 180 degree turn on loose gravel. I got up faster than imaginable and got back on the bike, but after a couple more turns I lost the lead.

As we wove through the course and over the barriers I held onto second position for dear life and started to hear Richard announcing that the 14-year-old in the group was gaining on the leaders. I held second place for about a lap until the leader missed a turn in the woodchips and slid out – I was back in front. For the next two laps I led this group of men and boys through the twists and turns of the Midnight Ride course and listened to Richard’ words about what it might mean to our egos to lose to a 14 year old.

He also seemed to give Jake’s single-speed a shout out every time he passed through the start finish area. When I finally saw the lead slip away for good, it was a newbie to cross, not a kid whose brothers have been notorious for cleaning up in the men’s field as juniors, who took it away from me. I kept fighting and rode most of the last three laps in the 5th position and watched another young and new-to-cross racer, who had fought from the back row past about 65 other riders to take the lead with two to go.

When he went by the leaders he rode off in front with ease at a pace that none of us could match. I was cooked, and hanging on by a thread, dry mouth, blurred vision, etc., when I heard a friend yell “Joe! Hurt!” Oh, yeah, I thought, this is not supposed to be easy, you have to hurt to win, there are no two ways about it. I kicked it back in but unknowingly was making it easy for the rider behind me. He was drafting me around the course and saving energy for a move in the last grass section before the pavement to the finish.

I feared if I let him around me so that we could work together that I would not be able to hang on, so my best bet was to keep him behind. It seemed to work, but in the end he made a move and went around me just as we came up on that speedy young teen who had finally run out of gas with just a few turns to go.

The result of these place changes left me squarely in 5^th place, another top 5 finish in what has been a great start to my season. A few more like this and the heckles along the course, hopefully, will be encouraging me to “cat up” into the 3’s, a place where many a family man can spend the bulk of his bike racing career.

Post-race, Jake and I grabbed a beer and heckled some friends as they suffered much in the same way that we just had, and then cheered on Mo Bruno Roy as she rocketed around this drag strip with apparent ease. I picked up some tire tips from her husband and pit crew, Matt Roy, and he showed me some new treads that they are trying out for this season. It’s good to be an amateur, it’s great to get the inside line on tech tips from the pros, and it’s amazing to have the opportunity to ride and race on a bike that is just like the pros race yet uniquely built for me.

– Joe W.

Image: Matt Pacocha, Bike Radar.