Seven – Page 47 – Seven Cycles

On the Road – Mike Bybee Rides to Canada

Mike Bybee never thinks small. His latest odyssey took him from his native Arizona north to Canada, taking in the Grand Canyon, Park City, Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Forest, Idaho, Montana and Washington along the way, 1,590 miles in total. His Sola SL and custom rack carried him and all his gear the whole way.

Mike sometimes calls himself a photographer and sometimes a 7ger and sometimes a bike-packer, but what he really is, is an adventurer, a description that serves the other things he likes to do well. Other bike-packers listen to what he has to say, mostly because they recognize his passion and the size of his imagination. We are deeply grateful that he chooses to ride a Seven, because we know he will test our bike to its limits…and send us great pictures of it in action.

Here are just a few of his fine photos from this trip. Get over to his TrailChat Blog for the words and even more photos.

Seven at Dixie — “Seven Cycles Sola at Dixie National Forest. Too many trails for me to ride with the time I had. Definitely must return”

Mountain biker doing a jump — “A mountain biker enjoying the Tidal Wave at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah”

Two riders on the Deer Valley Trails — “Start of the Deer Valley trails in Park City, Utah. This one has amazing views and is an overall easy and fast ride with great flow”

Seven at the Salt River Pass — “Finally got to the Salt River Pass, Wyoming on my Seven Cycles Sola.
This was a really hard day – climbing up to 7,630 feet.”

On the Road – Yorkshire and the Isle of Man

It can be arduous, getting away from the shop here in Massachusetts, extricating ourselves from bike building, to the sorts of far flung locales that serve up riding adventure. The village of Clapham in Yorkshire, just outside Settle, is a place we never imagined going to. In fact, we didn’t know it existed, but a few hours from the plane in Manchester we found a small inn, nestled in seemingly limitless green fields.

The Yorkshire Dales offer up these incredible, exposed landscapes, every rise letting you look off to the horizon, all the roads hemmed in by high hedges or stone walls. You come across very few people, but the lush greenery and ever present sheep keep the place feeling very alive.

A Dale is a valley, so you could forgive us for hoping the landscape would be more forgiving than it actually is. Miles and miles of short, sharp climbs on unimproved roads and cattle track make for grueling adventure, but ultimately, it’s so beautiful there, you just don’t care.

After a few days of wandering the Dales, we made our way to Heysham, and the ferry to the Isle of Man. The Irish Sea boiled with windy white caps, and we didn’t hold out much hope for holding down our modest breakfast, but we came through with the help of some strange, herbal remedy and mounted our bikes on the other side.

We had been spoiled for weather so far, the notorious English rain holding back in favor of sunshine, but our time on the Isle restored meteorological balance. We’d opted to camp instead of luxuriating at in inn, so we spent the last of this trip wet through. Fortunately, we snuck in a warm camp meal before the heavens opened.

It was worth it. We’ll be warm again one day. And of all the places we’ve ridden, New Zealand, Sedona, and more, the rolling, roiling gravel and grass paths of Yorkshire maybe captured our hearts the most. We could ride here forever and not tire of the views.

Robin’s Elium SL

This is one of those rider emails that makes your whole day. We built Robin’s Elium SL in 2010 with Bob Olsen at Wheel Werks in Crystal Lake, IL. You can’t tell from this photo, but it’s a beautiful bike. Five years later, she writes:

Hi Seven,

I ran across this old email and had to drop you a note. You helped me build my bike 5-years ago and I hope you’ll be happy to learn that it still is the best money I’ve ever spent. My Elium has traveled with me across the country (see it lounging in a hotel room bed below), participated in countless cycling events and logged thousands of miles, yet I never tire of it!

I appreciate the work you and the Seven team does to ensure every mm is spec’d and each detail closely tended to. I can truly say I LOVE my bike!

Continued success,

Robin

Williams Bay, WI

On the Trail – Up to Canada, Down to Mexico with Mike Bybee

Mike B's Sola in the foothills — Mike’s Sola SL

When we built this Sola SL for our friend Mike Bybee, the svengali of Trail Chat, we knew he had some big rides planned. Over the months that followed delivery of his new Seven he rode it through his native Arizona landscape, wrote a review, and worked out the kinks.

Now he’s ready to really rock. We got a note from him the other day announcing his plan to ride north to Canada, then return to Arizona and head into Mexico. Check out the Trail Chat site for live updates here, and watch this site from some select views from his epic journey as well.

The Headbadge

This is our headbadge. It’s one of the very last things to go on a Seven before it leaves our door. Laser-cut and bead-blasted, we think it adds a classy touch to hand-polished titanium, filament-wound carbon fiber and painted steel alike.

It starts flat, like this. Then we clean it up the bead blaster, and we bend it in a hand press depending on the diameter of the bike’s headtube, either 1-1/8″ or 44mm. There is a long and rich tradition of headbadges on handmade frames that goes back more than a century, and it’s one of the small things that we think makes a Seven a Seven.