Seven – Page 2 – Seven Cycles

Handcrafted: One Frame At A Time

Skip is part of our Special Projects Team. He is Seven’s most Master Framebuilder, with more than 30 years of custom machining experience. Here he completes a one-off project code named SOURCE Endurance Race Gravel. The SOURCE integrates a number of details and advanced features in a new combination we’ve not yet offered publicly. Details to follow. And available soon for all.

Skip machines the down tube of a custom frame. Our proprietary coping system ensures tube length accuracy to within 0.003″ — the thickness of a piece of paper.

Skip machines the head tube; preparing the frame for Seven’s innovative internal housing routing system.

Skip bends Seven’s ultra-thin Moto seat stays in three dimensions for improved ride flow.

The tubeset is ready for welding. Each part of this frame kit was custom-machined by one master framebuilder. Each frame tube in this kit is unique when compared to any other frame we’ve ever built. More custom than necessary? Maybe, but it’s what we do.

Framebuilding: Special Projects Team

We’ve been working on a new project bike code named SOURCE. It’ll be public soon. In the meantime, here are a few images of Skip working on the frame’s rear triangle.

Skip checking the bending accuracy on our three-dimensional dropped chainstay design. All of the bends are in multiple planes. Complex to machine, but the performance benefits are many: Stiffer, shorter, and more tire clearance.

Skip machining FlowState chainstays. A new design for a special project. Those hands have built frames for more than 30 years. He’s a master framebuilder times ten.

Chainstays and seat stays ready for welding. Each of the four stays have multiple bends in multiple planes for optimal performance.

Did you know that Shimano makes Dura-Ace level fixtures? They don’t. But Seven does, sometimes. We call it found object fixturing.

Velosmith Performance Allroads Bike: Titanium XX with In-Route System

Designed and built with Velosmith Bicycle Studio, a Seven Cycles retailer in Wilmette, Illinois. Velosmith brought the Seven to the Chris King Open House. The Radavist took some fantastic photos at the Open House along with many beautiful bikes. Seven was fortunate to be part of it. Thank you, Velosmith, Chris King, and The Radavist! Photographs by The Radavist.

Velosmith Allroads blue beauty. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Full In-Route system for clean and hidden housing presentation. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Symmetry. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Dropped chainstays and Fastback dropout interface. Fast, stiff, clearance. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Seven paint designed by Velosmith. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Love to watch it go. Photograph credit: The Radavist

Three Head Tube Badges

We have three styles of head tube badges. One for each tubeset type we offer.

Seven’s titanium tubeset page provides details about the XX, SL, and S frame platforms. All of our carbon-titanium frames come with the XX-type badge.

You don’t choose your badge; you choose your tubeset platform or model. That determines which badge your Seven will have.

All are laser-cut stainless steel. Clean and understated.

The screw-hole locations for each of the three badges are different, so you can’t swap badges.

Public Service Announcement: The Midlife Cyclist

Read The Midlife Cyclist.

This is not a review. It’s a strong recommendation.

When I first heard about the book The Midlife Cyclist, I thought, “Oh no, not another storybook with goofy anecdotes about getting old on a bike. I already live that every day.” Fortunately, I couldn’t have judged the book by its cover more incorrectly. I read a few early reviews and was surprised by descriptions of the content. I picked it up and was happy to be completely wrong in my presumptions.

The Midlife Cyclist is filled with easily understood and digestible data, research, and smart thinking about riding longer and healthier far beyond midlife. The book’s tagline, “The road map for the +40 rider who wants to train hard, ride fast and stay healthy,” is precisely correct. It is indeed a contemporary map and compass for our riding future. If you’re 40 or older, reading this book is in your best interest.

In this relatively recent era of easy access to too much information, perceived comparative stats, and online competitive riding with real-time data, some of us become captives. Cavell’s book provides a path forward to sustained fitness and sanity. After reading Midlife I expect you’ll have more fun on your bike. You may reevaluate your goals. You’ll rethink your relationship with your bike. All of the questions and answers in this book are worthwhile.

The writing has stuck with me. I keep coming back to it in my head over and over. For me, that’s the sign of a valuable book.

In Cavell’s words,

“the Midlife Cyclist is my attempt to square the holy triumvirate of age, speed and good-health, using the very latest clinical and academic research.”

He has accomplished this seemingly impossible task.

Who is Phil Cavell? Why read his writing?

I don’t think anyone has a more overlapping Venn diagram of skills for this topic. He’s been working on these themes for many years; his performance-based cycling knowledge is second to none; he is technically adept. Cavell’s circle of confidants is among the best in the world for this subject, too; he’s been working with world-class athletes for decades; he has access to the most progressive and cycling-aware physicians and doctors on the planet. And, oh yeah, he’s an excellent communicator and the founder and CEO of Cyclefit.

The book has only one flaw: Cavell didn’t write it fifteen years ago when I was just starting on Team Midlife.

I look forward to the next book Cavell says he’s working on (I hope): The Twilight Cyclist. It better happen soon if I’m going to benefit from it. For now, I’ll reread The Midlife Cyclist.

Read it and ride on.