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Current Lead Times: Rider-Ready Framesets: 3 weeks. Full Custom Bikes: 7 weeks.

Building Titanium and Carbon-Titanium Bikes in the USA for 28 Years

Author: Seven

The Bicycle Story – Mike Flanigan

Rob Vandermark (left) and Mike Flanigan at Seven.

Seven has always been a sort of collective, a group of passionate cyclists and bike builders, very much in the New England tradition. Our founders came from Merlin Metalworks, but we’ve been fortunate to be able to bring in builders from the other local bastions of craft as well. We’ve given some young builders their start, and we are always, always dedicated to the idea that the more passion and experience we can get in the door, the better our bikes will be.

So we were particularly thrilled when Mike Flanigan (Fat City, IF, ANT) came aboard as a welder. Mike has been at this as long as we have and brings so much talent and experience with him.

He was interviewed recently by The Bicycle Story, and it’s a good read for anyone interested in custom bike building. Check it out here.

Sweet Eighteen

We were so busy building bikes (and shoveling snow) in January that we failed to remember that we turned 18. It was January of 1997 that saw Seven, in its first incarnation, 1000sf of machinery, desks, and bike builders all jumbled together, putting out the first all-custom frames from our original location in Topsfield.

Eighteen years later, 30,000+ frames, 17,000sf and a team of 30, we’re all grown up and still growing. Like so many milestones, you don’t see them coming. They creep up on you, you reflect on what they mean, and you move on. When we set out, we believed the world’s cyclists would respond to the idea of a fully-custom bike, built on a short timeline, but you can never see the future. It’s nice to be here now, and see it working out.

Mike’s Sola S 29er

We have recently found a good partner to work with in New Zealand, Mark Rose of Bespoke Cycles of Hamilton, which is pretty great, because riding bikes there is a unique pleasure we can recommend highly. Anyway, this is one of the first bikes we built for our Kiwi friends, Mike’s Sola S 29er.

Mike says:

This is my Sola S 29, purchased through Bespoke Cycles in New Zealand, and very recently built up. I’m the first customer of theirs, and I am thoroughly pleased with this bicycle. It fits me like a glove, and the workmanship reminds me of my previous hardtail, a 1992 Merlin. I never thought I would end up owning another titanium hardtail, but the pull was too strong.

I can’t wait to get it out on the trail, and enjoy the benefits that titanium and custom geometry have to offer.

Regards,

Mike

The Overlooked Awesome, Part III

In the last installment of The Overlooked Awesome we talked about options, paint being just one of them. But paint deserves more than that. As one of the most powerful ways to personalize your bike, paint (and custom decals) can motivate and inspire. Cursory research suggest a good looking bike will motivate you to ride more and will spark more stop light conversations than an off the shelf bike.

We became known for our polished Ti bikes, and that was an aesthetic that served (and continues to serve) us well. It’s classic. But as custom builders we are always looking for new ways to add more value to the process of building a bike just for you, and paint has become a big part of that. Each year, we paint more bikes than the year before.

We offer a lot of stock paint options, each of which can be personalized with different color choices. There are 23 stock colors in our palette and another 23 in our legacy color archive. We offer 17 different stock paint schemes as well. By the time you pick your colors, your scheme, and your decal, you can see the opportunity to create something special is strong. We can also mix custom colors for you, and we provide color matching services if you know what you want but are having trouble identifying it.

It’s probably not a great idea to talk too much about beautiful paint though. It’s better to just show some of what’s possible.

Related Posts

Matt and Mo Bruno Roy’s MMRacing Season Wrap

Matt and Mo do a great job of documenting the fun they have on the race course and on the road, and they’ve just posted their 2014/15 Cyclocross Season Wrap Up.

Here is a quick excerpt:

Wednesday was race day #1 and I was feeling ready to go in a competitive field. The number of single speed women had doubled from the year before and as the defending champion, I was going to have a hard race on my hands.

Bounce over to MMRacing and read it all.