Recently, sculptor Grace Hilliard-Koshinsky visited Seven for a guided tour of our shop. When Grace arrived, we noticed that she had an unusual accessory: a backpack made of steel.
Our interest piqued, we took the opportunity to learn about Grace’s process in creating this trompe-l’œil sculpture. Grace fabricated her hollow steel backpack using 20 and 18 gauge mild sheet. After hand-forging round stock into a swage, the ‘zippers’ were plug-welded onto the backpack. Assembly was achieved through a combination of TIG and Gas welding. Grace worked with Elizabeth Brim, a Blacksmith who has developed a method of inflating metal like a balloon while it is red hot. This technique, combined with subsequent forming and alteration, achieved the look of a worn steel backpack.
As a metalsmith and maker, Grace’s work ranges in size from jewelry scale to larger sculptural objects. She works with ferrous and non-ferrous metals in addition to other materials such as wood, fabric and enamel. According to Grace one of her goals in her work is to alter our visual expectations and in doing so, “to comment on the notion that the value assigned to materials is directly tied to whether people or objects are kept or given away.â€
It’s great when visitors to Seven can enlighten us, and that is one of the many reasons we enthusiastically encourage customers and anyone interested in observing our designers, engineers, craftspeople, and service professionals in action to get in touch with us and schedule a visit to our Watertown headquarters.
Thanks so much to Grace for sharing her work and philosophy with us!
Team Seven’s Mary McConneloug and Mike Broderick have taken Horace Greeley’s oft-cited advice to “Go West” and are now happily ensconced in their winter training location: Sebastopol, California.
Upon arrival in the Bay Area, Mike and Mary jumped into the Single Speed Cross Championships on their Sevens. Mike converted Mary’s Mudhoney and his Sola 29er to single speeds the day before the race, and they both proceeded to dominate the course: Mike took 2nd place and Mary took 3rd. While this race was seemingly wacky – costumes were encouraged – it was also technical and challenging.
Mary and Mike will wrap up 2011 by continuing their training in Northern California, with its bounty of incredible trails to explore and conquer. They kick off their 2012 race season with the Trans Andes Challenge in Pucon, Chile on 23 January, and will begin a European racing tour in the early spring, including three Olympic qualifying races in April and May. Their full race schedule is below, stay tuned to this 7 for updates and results.
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games will be held in London, England in August, and if Mary makes the team, this will be her third consecutive Olympic Games. We’ll keep you posted on all of Mike and Mary’s doings, and you can follow them on their very well-written Mary and Mike’s Riding Blog.
Date
Race
Series
Results
1.23-1.28
Trans Andes Challenge, Pucon, Chile
3.17-3.18
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #1, Pietermaritzberg, South Africa
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
4.7
Pan American Championships, Mexico
4.14-4.15
Olympic Qualifying Race
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #2, Houffalize, Belgium
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
5.12-5.13
Olympic Qualifying Race
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #3, Nove Mesto Na Morave, Czech Republic
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
5.19-5.20
Olympic Qualifying Race
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #4, La Bresse, France
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
6.23-6.24
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #5, Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec, Canada
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
6.30-7.1
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #6, Windham, New York
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series
7.28-7.29
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Cross Country #7, Val d'Isere, France
Matt Sending Mo off to the races at US Cross Nationals
As a proud sponsor of MM Racing, we were excited to see that while Mo Bruno Roy was cleaning up and making the podium at this past weekend’s Jingle Cross in Iowa, the other half of MM Racing, endurance racer and chief of the MM racing pit crew Matt Roy, got some accolades and attention from Podium Insight. Along with his duties as a part of MM Racing, Matt is a PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School, he also wrenches for the Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com team, working for Stu Thorne.
Lyne Lamoureux of Podium Insight asked Matt some important questions, about racing in the US versus racing in Europe, what it’s like to be in the pits at various races around the country, and from the pit crew’s perspective, what are the key elements to having a successful race. Typical of Matt, his responses were both enlightening and funny!
Lyne asked Matt for some tales from the pit:
“This isn’t super funny but I see Marianne Vos’ dad in the pit a lot. He speaks Flemish and essential no English but he’s just the friendliest guy, we always smile and say hello. Marianne flatted and he didn’t have enough air in one of her tires, I offered him my air pump but it was in PSI and he uses BAR, and I didn’t have a smartphone at the time, and I couldn’t do the conversion for him for whatever 1.8 bar was. So the two of us were using pantomime to try to figure out what psi and trying to estimate what bar… it was just a funny little bit of lost in translation. He ended just getting a hand pump from somebody.”
MM Racing
Matt also provided some insight into his learning curve as to essentials needed in the pit:
“I don’t bring everything. If you saw what I brought to the pit in the first National Championships compared to what I bring now, I have pared down dramatically. I always bring a pair of shoes for Mo, that’s a worst case scenario if she loses a shoe in the mud, I can give her a new shoe. That’s one totally excessive thing that I still stick with. We have two bikes, and sometimes we have three. You shouldn’t have to do major repairs, and those major repairs only in case of crashes because you have faith in your equipment going in, you know you shouldn’t have to worry about something coming loose. It’s typically mud or crashes. So for me, I always bring my airgun and I also bring lube and a towel because you don’t want to grab a bike with wet handlebars.”
Click here for more of this interesting and informative interview with Matt Roy, and good luck to MM Racing this weekend at NBX Gran Prix of Cross 2011 in Warwick, Rhode Island!
Just as the cold temps of late fall and the ever darkening dawn have crept up on us over the last few months we finally put a – somewhat – reliable group together for early morning mountain bike rides on the local wooded trails. It’s usually a small group, 3 or 4 of us, with one or two no-shows on any given day. Lately we’ve had about enough light for about 60 minutes of trail time before it’s time to head home for a toe thawing shower and then off to work. It’s always a good idea, if you want to keep on riding through the onset of the dark and cold time, to incorporate a new source of inspiration into your cycling arsenal. This past spring I was able to stoke my own enthusiasm by building up a custom Sola SL 650b single speed. Neil drew up the design and incorporated the future compatibility of a belt drive system. We knew that Gates had its new CenterTrack in the works, so I figured I’d run a chain for the time being and set up the strap once the new system was available. This bike is a purpose-built shredder designed for the rocky, twisty rolling hills of metro-west Boston’s various town forests and preservation lands. I opted for fat, tubeless tires and 120mm of travel up front to make bouncing through the rocky terrain as much fun as possible.
Nine months after my Sola’s maiden chain-driven voyage, I finally stepped up and got my hands on the CenterTrack parts. Gates recommended that I use a 46:28 setup with a 115 belt. It’s close, but a bit lower than my 32:18 chain configuration. Thanks to Neil’s design precision, and the Eccentric BB on my Sola SL, I’ll be able to run a 26t sprocket with the same belt, and will have a nearly identical match to my chain drive ratio.
Now that I have a few good belt-driven rides behind me, I struggle to find the words to describe why I feel that this is a very worthwhile upgrade. The feel at the pedals is very direct, there is less resistance than in a chain system, and it just runs quiet and smooth. The best part about it, though, is that even though the daylight hours are shrinking more each day, and every morning seems to be forecasted a degree or two cooler, I can’t wait to down a hot cup of coffee and head out on the next ride. At some point, and this will happen soon, someone will interrupt my otherwise peaceful ride through the woods, looking to talk for too long about my belt drive, and as a result I’ll have to cut my ride short or show up late to work. Other than those possibilities, I foresee no down side. I can’t wait to test it out on ice and in snow, and through whatever else Mother Nature has to offer in the next few months. See you on the trails!
In September of 2004, I was fresh out of grad school and substitute teaching in order to afford my lavish lifestyle of living at home, eating my parents’ food, driving their cars, drinking their wine, and searching for full time employment on their computer. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but had a few traditional Monster.com searches that I checked daily, all the while wasting an exorbitant amount of time on fun searches using words that had no hope of yielding a legitimate job. One time I searched the word “bike†which produced mostly garbage, but oddly enough, had an interesting hit. Seven Cycles, in Watertown, MA needed a customer service rep.
I had worked in three bike shops, led several biking trips for kids and college freshmen, and thanks to subbing, interning, and student teaching in a public school, felt like I had enough patience to cut it in the world of customer service. Before I sent out a cover letter, I thought I’d make the forty-minute trek to the nearest Seven Cycles retailer to see one in person for the first time.
The store was across from a town green, and their window suggested they meant business if not bidness. Once inside, I was overwhelmed; Merlins, Litespeeds, Looks, and a variety of other rare bikes littered the floor. I took a lap. When the salesman approached, I asked where the Sevens were, and he said something to the effect of, “Seven? Sweet bikes, but they won’t make you one until they know your astrological sign. We don’t have any on the floor, but I’ll grab you a brochure.†I didn’t mention why I was interested, but thanked him for the brochure, picked up an Apple Cinnamon original Powerbar and walked across the street to a bench. I probably spent an hour thumbing through the catalog while indulging in culinary perfection.
2004 Brochure
The slate blue cover was understated and classy, and the mantra, “one bike. yours.†sounded like they might care about me or at least someone considering owning one of their bikes. The first bike to be featured in 2004 was an Elium. Without looking I can tell you that it was outfitted with Ksyrium SL’s, a Dura Ace kit, and a titanium stem. It even had a pie plate, which was just as odd then as it is now. I took in every detail. That night I fired off a cover letter and a resume to info@sevencycles and wondered if they’d respond.
They did. At the time, I never would have thought that just seven years and two months later I could say that I helped play a small part in each of the eight brochures we have produced since.
When 2012 edition went off to print I had a Proustian moment that brought me back to that day in the park. Last Friday afternoon, the first pallet of completed brochures was delivered, but you would have thought Tom and Gisele walked through the door based on the smiles and general jubilance.
This year’s brochure is especially exciting because nearly everyone had a part in its creation. I’m a team guy after all. Rob, Kirk, Jennifer, Matt, Stef, Krissy, Joe, John, Dan, Neil, and many others all helped to make it happen. No outside help, other than the printer, laid a hand on it. I think that’s something to be proud of.
We’ll mail you a free one if you fill out the request form online. For full effect, I recommend reading it while snacking on a Powerbar. Let us know what you think.
