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Current Lead Times: Simple-Custom Framesets: 1 week. Full Custom Bikes: 7 weeks.

U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix

Author: Seven

Trans Andes 2013 – Mike and Mary Win Again

Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug

You only ever want your bikes to be carrying people to awesome adventures. It doesn’t matter whether those adventures are happening in their neighborhood or across the sprawling landscapes of Chilean Patagonia, as happened last week as Seven sponsored riders Mike Broderick and Mary McConneloug (Kenda-Seven-NoTubes) won the Trans Andes mountain bike race again.

The Trans-Andes is both a physical and mental challenge. The stunning scenery will not always distract racers from the punishing topography of this section of Patagonia.

Stage 1 stretched from Puerto Pirihueico to Huilo-Huilo threading its way between lakes and volcanoes. Stage 2 went on from Huilo-Huilo to Termas de Coñaripe, before Stage 3 took up the network of technical jeep track, gravel road and single track to Termas de Menetúe. Stage 4 then threaded an out-and-back loop from Menetúe out around Lake Hualalafquén and back to Menetúe with 2250 meters of climbing in between. Stage 5 left Menetúe again and looped East before heading due West for Lake Caburgua and then Pucon, which hosted the start and finish of Stage 6 south to the Villarrica volcano and back.

Mike and Mary managed to win each stage on their way to the overall in the mixed, open category.

Mud and Elegance, Grime and Grace – Ali Engin

Mo Brudo Roy at the XC races

Ali Engin’s photos of athletes in motion are elegant and graceful, even under the most grim and grimy circumstances.  His photo of Seven-sponsored rider Mo Bruno Roy dashing up a set of stairs against a vast blue sky, surrounded by onlookers, captured the dramatic tension of top-level cyclocross so well we decided to make a poster of it.  To us, his image says it all about the essence of racing cyclocross;  painful yet exhilarating, terrible but beautiful.

Ali’s pictures always make dramatic and dynamic use of light. Colors burst through his lense. His unique style sets him apart from many other talented photographers working at our favorite events, and we were lucky to be able to work with him on this project.

Check out more of Ali’s photos on his website.

Compliance

A very long titanium tube poised to go into the lathe

One of the magical things about titanium is the consistency with which it maintains its shape. Subjected to the sometimes punishing forces of riding on road and trail, no other material currently in use in bike frames will find just the right amount of compliance to cushion all those blows, and yet spring back, perfectly, to its original place.

In today’s seemingly inexhaustible (and yet exhausting) search for stiffness in every aspect of bicycle construction, compliance is undervalued.

Think of your typical trail ride. Rocks and roots create chatter. Downed tree limbs punctuate the route. Twists and turns and ruts and stumps, it’s all there. And so, your job, as the rider, is to smooth it all out. You use your body to turn the bike this way and that. You soak up big hits with your knees flexed, shifting your weight forward and back, side-to-side.

The stiffer your frame is, the more of the force has to be dissipated by you, the rider. When you ride titanium, the frame will actually help you with the work by flexing along with your movement, soaking up its own share of the barrage of forces at play as you roll down the trail.

And, those same properties that help you smooth out the trail, produce the same magic on the road as well. A titanium frame works with you in ways that other frames won’t, leaving you comfortable at speed, over greater distances, by eating potholes and road debris, cushioning road chatter and flexing microscopically through turns.

At Seven, we believe that steel and carbon also have strong places in frame construction, but our ongoing investment in and commitment to titanium come from a belief that, for most riders, the compliance a Ti frame offers is a key part of enjoying the ride at whatever speed, over any distance, on any surface.

Bike Builders

A busy production floor

First there is Skip who opens the shop early. He uses the pre-dawn to make his rounds, cleaning and lubing all the machines on the shop floor. He spends all his days maintaining our tools and building new fixtures. Skip is the bike builder who builds no bikes.

Next through the door is Mike or Chad. Mike is our lead machinist. He does the CAD drawings of frames that guide us as we move from tube set to finished frame. Chad hits the finishing department and tries to work his way through whatever didn’t get done the day before. He fires up the drills and fills the air with the whirring noise of things being built.

Jennifer and Rob arrive. Inventories get sifted through. Parts orders get readied. Rob sorts a stack of folders, orders for new bikes with designs from Dan or Neil already done. He evaluates their work, makes notes for changes, improvements.

The welders, Stef, Tim and Yoshi, show up. They wheel the freshly prepped tubes from machining into their own department and assemble them in the frame jigs. Gas lines get fitted to the jigs. Oxygen gets purged. Joints get tacked and then checked for alignment.

Painters come, too, Staci and Jordan. They pull primed frames from the drying booth and begin sanding out imperfections or begin masking for top coats.

In the office, the blinds slide noisily aside and Karl sits down at his desk, cracks his email to see what’s come in over night, questions from shops from all over the world. Orders get pulled off the fax machine. The coffeemaker stirs to life.

Throughout the morning, the rest of the crew rolls in, Matt and Mary, Dan and Nick and Lloyd, Seth and Lauren, Sutts. The whirring sounds rise and fall. Compressors fire and shut off, and frame-by-frame the boxes fill up in shipping.