Articles – Page 4 – Seven Cycles

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.

Floody Onion Special Edition Bike

Possibly the coolest headtube badge on earth, available only on Floody Onion special edition Seven Cycles bikes!

Order a Floody Onion Bike, it’s the best value bike on the market. It’s available only until November 30. Additionally and importantly, it directly helps Onion River Outdoors in Montpellier, VT, get back in business and continue to do business. Onion River Outdoors is a community-centric bike shop and Seven Cycles retailer who was flooded out of their space late summer.

Why does getting a Seven allow you the best riding? It’s a longer list than what we can fit here. These are some of the top reasons:

- It’s built to do what you want to do on the bike.
- It can be ready for you in 3 weeks from one of the most respected and, arguably, the most rider-focused, engineering-based frame builder in the world.
- It offers the best ride qualities with unparalleled power transfer from pedals to rear wheel and smoothness in ride.
- You get direct communication with a Performance Designer at Seven Cycles in the process, so you are involved and feel informed.
- It’s durable and light weight. The bike will support all of the riding you want to do without hesitation and no issues.
- Made for your future riding. Nothing proprietary to break or cause you to not be able to upgrade the parts in the future. As the bike ages, the frame ride qualities stay the same. There is no model year on the frame because that just doesn’t make sense for a Seven. It’s timeless and stays as fun as it was on #newbikeday throughout the years.

This is the first delivered Floody Onion bike! It is a dual wheelset Evergreen: set up here with 32mm slick tires for performance road riding, dirt road riding and has clearances for 700x40mm gravel tires for the rougher stuff when the time comes. Its rider has this to say about the bike: “Holy !$#@!, the new bike (aka Evergrenish SL, Floody Onion) is amazing. It is so damn comfortable and my ride position is fabulous. Awesome work by everyone involved and the Seven team! I am just in awe!!”

Onion River and the other great independent bike shops out there are at the center of the soul of the cycling world. Without them, our outdoor lives would not be the same.

We’re offering you a very special edition Floody Onion bike to directly help support Onion River’s recovery efforts in a very significant way.

Before the flooding, Onion River was full of bikes and all kinds of outdoor gear.

Place a deposit for a bike, Seven Cycles will donate $500 to Onion River within 2 days.

Kick off your bike project with a $2,500 deposit. That’s it. You will get this full amount applied to the price of a complete, special edition Onion River Seven. Seven Cycles donates $500 immediately to Onion River for each deposit submitted between now and October 31, 2023.

<<Order Now>>

Here’s what you get, over $850 in extra value for you:

You’ll get a great Seven Cycles bike of your choosing! Your Floody Onion Special Edition bike can be a gravel, hardtail mountain, road, cross, fat or dual-suspension mountain bike! If you’ve not ridden a titanium Seven Cycles bike, you’re in for a real treat.

You’re welcome to go with a custom design or Rider Ready bike, your choice.

Floody Onion Bike Headtube Badge. This bike stands out among bikes. You will feel good looking at it, it’ll be unique, and it’ll be a lasting reminder of the good that comes when community pulls together. You make a difference with this bike.

Floody Onion custom color graphics. Custom Decals of Turquoise or Darker Blue (matte finish). These are a $250 value.

You’ll be riding your new bike within 3 weeks of confirming the design! There are many parts kits to choose from so you get the parts and gearing that you want on your bike. Expedited lead time is a $500 value.

100 Years of Framebuilding Experience will go into your frame! We’ve pulled together four of our most experienced designers, framebuilders, finishers, and welders. Together, your team of four will have over 100 years of framebuilding experience. Only their hands will work on your frameset. We don’t think another framebuilder on the planet can offer so much experience and knowledge in a single frame — yours. This experience is priceless!

Free entry into the Muddy Onion gravel ride in the spring or the next time it’s held!*

If you don’t know which Seven you want or would like to take your time spec’ing out the bike, that’s fine! We’ll apply your full $2,500 deposit to your bike when you’re ready to order the bike. We’ll make a donation to Onion River of $500 immediately for each order we receive so they can have the money right away.

Fine print:

- A complete bike needs to be ordered.
- If Onion River is your local retailer, it will be GREAT for you to work with them since they’ll more greatly benefit financially and will still receive a donation from Seven Cycles. They’ll be back in business in November so there is time for everyone to coordinate schedules to start working on your bike, you can rest assured you’ll be riding the bike before the spring hits!
- Build kits and group sets: Many of the components we offer can be available within 3 weeks. Some parts are special order or built to order and may take longer to source. If that is the case, we will let you know ahead of time so you can make changes to stay within the 3 weeks or prepare for an altered lead time.
- Other retailer involvements: Depending on your location, we will work with a Seven retailer if one is within about 40 miles of you. If you don’t live near a retailer, we’ll work directly with you and ask that you work with your preferred fitter to determine your best position on the bike.
- Bike fit: Seven does not do remote fittings. It is important that you have a fitter help you; otherwise, you are responsible for the fitting.
- Free entry into the Muddy Onion spring ride assumes Onion River will be able to bring this ride back. They don’t need any additional stress on their shoulders right now, but with their track record, they’ll host rides in the future that you will be able to take part in!

Deadline: This offer is good through 31 October 2023. We’re encouraging speed since this helps get funds to Onion River fast to help them reopen. The faster you order, the faster we will be able to make the $500 donation to Onion River and the faster you’ll be riding your new bike!

<<Order Now>>

What if I am not in the market for a new bike at this moment? How can I participate?

Purchase a Floody Onion Headtube Badge keychain! Is there a cooler keychain out there? The keychain is $250 and we’re donating all profits from your purchase to Onion River Outdoors to help in their flood-recovery efforts. When you eventually order a Seven from Onion River Outdoors in the future, present your keychain and ask for the Floody Onion special. You’ll have the option of putting custom color decals on your new Seven at no charge whenever it is the right time for you!

Order a Keychain Now! Available while supplies last.

We thank you for participating in this effort to help Onion River Outdoors and their staff get back on their feet and be well underway on day one of version 2.0 of Onion River Outdoors!

The community of Montpelier and the greater cycling community are all beneficiaries of your purchase. You’ll be riding your Seven for years to come, all the while feeling great about the people you’ve helped while also getting a great cycling experience in the process!

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.

On Framebuilding: Part Four – Paint

Painted frames get prepped, then hung on the rack just outside the odd looking, seemingly out of place, paint booth. Its silver walls look like nothing else in the building. A sign hangs above the door that reads “time machine.”
Continue reading “On Framebuilding: Part Four – Paint”

Tools of the Trade: Part One

People who tour our factory almost always comment on the brute elegance of the lathes and mills we use to build our frames. It’s a hodge-podge of heavy equipment drawn from old brick buildings like ours all over New England. Many of these machines have been working at their daily tasks for more than 50 years.

Skip Brown, who builds all our specialized fixturing, also maintains our fleet of behemoths. He shows up with the sun each morning and makes his rounds, oiling, aligning and cleaning. Skip says he can smell a well-cared for machine, just from the freshness of the oil scent wafting above it.

Continue reading “Tools of the Trade: Part One”