Seven – Page 2 – Seven Cycles

Cycling Independent Podcast 409

Patrick Brady & John Lewis Talk Seven Bikes on the Cycling Independent Podcast

It’s a good conversation. Check out the Paceline Podcast 409.

As is always the case with Robot and Padraig, they had a great conversation that covered a lot of ground. During one segment, they talked about the bike they’ve each spent the most time riding over the years. To both their surprise and Seven’s, both have ridden Sevens more than any other bike.

Here are some Seven selfish highlights.

Some of what Robot (John Lewis) said about his Axiom SL:

“It’s simply the best bike I’ve ever owned. It is a whisper over pavement. It is a telepathic extension of my body. Everything I want a bike to be and nothing I don’t.”

“I thought I understood what [Seven] did and why it was good. [Within the first] maybe 50 yards, everything was perfect. You feel that in your body.”

“Everything was more perfect with this bike, right out of the assembly stand, than any other bike I’d ever thrown a leg over before.”

“It is something else. I knew intellectually all the information, but to feel it in my body, I was gobsmacked. It’s all true.”

“It was my everything bike for a while. I rode D2R2 on it.”

“Getting a Seven was like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Like moving from normal everyday life into another realm.”

“It was like Spiderman, the first time he’s clinging to the side of a building and looks down. It was that sort of like, oh, this is a new reality.”

Some of what Padraig (Patrick Brady) said about his Axiom SL:

“The best bike I’ve ever ridden.”

“The Seven was the yardstick by which I measured other bikes. No bike ever came close to measuring up.”

“A fair amount of stiffness for a Ti frame. Stiffness is often something that gets underdone with titanium.”

“Another thing the Axiom taught me was the value of a stiff top tube. Too flexible a top tube hurts the way the bike tracks and turns.”

“On occasions when someone would ask to check out my bike, what I heard repeatedly is they loved how calm the bike was at speed, and yet it always turned without hesitation.”

“I could race any crit against people on more aggressive bikes.”

They both have owned many bikes over the years. To have them both ride their Sevens the most means so much.

This is why we build bikes every day, all day.

Thank you both!

Patrick Brady on his Seven Axiom SL. 1997.

Lottery For $500 Vouchers

Our 2025 Survey is officially closed. It was way more successful than we could have hoped. We will be drawing the two winners on Friday, April 18.

If you’re waiting to place an order or have already placed an order, no worries. If you win the lottery, you can apply it to a Seven you’ve already ordered. So, if you’ve been waiting, no need.

Join our livestream to find out who wins!

Date: Friday, 18 April
Time: 1:00 to 1:30 pm, EST

The stream will be about 30 minutes long. We’ll draw the two winners and answer the 10 most popular questions we received from the survey respondents.

We hope to see you then!

Seven In The News: The N-1 Substack by James Huang

James, a long-time industry veteran, just posted some good words about Seven’s Rider-Ready updates. His take on the program is interesting and worth a read.

“what’s more shocking about its program is its massive scope. Its new Rider-Ready range comprise 16 models, up to 36 sizes (per model, not total), three different titanium tubesets, three different stiffness levels, as much or as little tire clearance as you could want, and a ton of finish and build kit options – all from a “stock” build.”

Rob Vandermark, Seven’s founder, said this about the project’s development: “A year ago, we launched a few Rider-Ready bike models to see if it would be something riders wanted. They did. The project has been so successful that we’ve expanded it to include most bike categories while maintaining streamlined build times.”

Stay tuned for more words from James. Or, better yet, subscribe to N-1 if you haven’t already. James is probably the industry’s most thoughtful technical writer and product tester.

Rider-Ready Gravel 743, going on a long ride.

Rider-Ready Road 732, looking fast.

Rider-Ready Mountain 924-130, out on a fast and fun ride!

Evolving Gravel Bike Tire Sizes

Gravel bike tire sizes are getting wider, fast. We see a lot of interest in 50+ mm tires. Some riders say bigger tires are faster. Some say it’s bunk. It partly depends on the terrain you ride. The rougher the terrain, the faster a wider tire will typically roll. It also partly depends on the harshness of your ride; a wider tire will help mask the shortcomings of your frame and fork.

The chart below shows 10 of the most popular and respected gravel bikes compared with Seven’s Rider-Ready gravel bikes. Our three gravel designs (plus our allroads) cover every kind of performance offroad riding.

Seven’s Gravel 758 is designed for 2.3″ (58 mm) mountain bike tires. This machine is a proper mountain bike with drop bars. Ideal for rough trails and rocky terrain.

Seven’s Gravel 753 has room for 53 mm (2.1″) mountain ready tires. The 753 is our riders’ current most popular balance of capability and speed.

Seven’s Gravel 743 is our classic gravel bike. It’s what most people think of when they think gravel.

Seven’s Allroads 738 is as capable as some popular gravel bikes.

Seven’s Rider-Ready gravel bikes are not warmed over mountain bikes.

Control or Fatigue?

Interest in wider tires has a lot to do with harsh riding frames of carbon or aluminum compared to well-designed titanium.

Do you want wider to help smooth out the ride and take the edge off, or do you want wider to give you more control at higher speeds and in more demanding conditions? If it’s the former, a Seven titanium frame is a great answer; this will provide you all the shock absorption you could want without the need for a wider tire. If it’s the latter, Seven offers more wide tire options and sizes than any other bike brand.

Whatever gravel you want to ride, Seven’s got it covered.

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All data was taken from the respective bike company websites.

Chainstay Material: Off The Charts

Seven takes multiple design approaches to drivetrain engineering. Here are a few examples.

There is chainstay stiffness and drivetrain stiffness. Both are useful to understand and to consider separately.

Chainstays account for about 50% of a drivetrain’s stiffness. The rest of the stiffness comes from a combination of:

Dropouts & axle interface: Seven’s are machined titanium and the stiffest by about 3x compared to any others we’ve tested — titanium or carbon.
Disc brake mount: Seven’s is bolted to the dropout rather than being welded to a thin tube or a molded carbon shape.
Bottom bracket shell: Seven’s is machined from the thickest material available.
Down tube & seat tube: We use a number of tube sizes and walls to tailor drivetrain stiffness.

See Figure 1 for more details.

Next, we turn these parts into a frame. Riders choose either of our framebuilding methods:

Seven Simple-Custom^TM program, where we offer three tubesets that are both size-specific and usage-specific.
Seven’s full custom program, where we individually design the tubeset from the ground up.

Simple-Custom

We offer three levels of frame stiffness. See figure 1 for an example of the differences and overall range of stiffness.

RocketShip^TM tubeset is super stiff. Typically about 25% stiffer than our Benchmark drivetrain. As much as 70% stiffer for our largest frames. This is a specialty tubeset that is not ideal for every rider.
Benchmark tubeset is the sweet spot; it’s balanced and optimized for most riders. For example, all of our world champions have ridden our Benchmark tubesets.
SuppleState^TM tubeset is super smooth and plush. This is a specialty tubeset for specific types of riding.

Specificity

Each tubeset is size-specific and function-specific.

Size-specific: We typically offer 12 frame sizes for each Simple-Custom design. Each of these 12 has a distinct and different tubeset from the other 11 sizes.

Use-specific: We have over 30 Simple-Custom frame designs (gravel, allroads, mountain, bikepacking, etc.). Each of these models has a distinct tubeset we optimize for the use. For example, an allroads benefits from a different tubeset than a gravel bike.

20-Plus Titanium Tube Sizes

We start each design with a choice of more than 20 raw tubes or starter stock. From there, we butt, machine, manipulate, modify, and bend each tube to optimize it for its mission. See Figure 2 for an image of 23 distinct tube profiles.

Full Custom

Concerning drivetrains, in our full custom program, we can make drivetrains over 250% stiffer than our popular Benchmark. While that kind of stiffness is not beneficial to most riders, it provides a good illustration of how extreme our full custom program can get.

Figure 3 shows how stiff the chainstay material can get, 155% stiffer than our Benchmark. Once we add in all the drivetrain elements (dropouts, bottom bracket, etc.), we can nearly double that stiffness.