By Rob Vandermark
Since Seven’s inception, I’ve been fascinated by our position in the bike industry. Fifteen years ago, a template for a medium sized custom bike building company didn’t exist. It is because of this that it’s been instructive to witness how the industry changes, and to see the context in which we fit–and sometimes don’t fit–within those changes. Every once in a while we discover that Seven has come to influence some shift in the very industry we vie to learn from.
Over the last decade, as the larger industry has accelerated its move to the “design and import” model, there’s been a counter proliferation of individual framebuilders. Bike brands seem to be getting either bigger or smaller than Seven Cycles, leaving us in a somewhat unique position. This is something I love.
To get where we are today, we spent the better part of two decades refining and expanding custom framebuilding in the context of a production setting. In essence, crunching data and developing processes that have enabled us to hand build more than 35,000 highly precise, completely custom frames.
Seven has always fostered the ambitions of young builders. Many small companies are born here. Some go on to establish themselves in their own right while others stay to learn and be a part of our ever growing and changing place in the industry.
Teaching and supporting this new group of builders might seem like a foolish use of time and resources–at least so I’ve been told–but I see that supporting the efforts of people who are passionate about custom framebuilding comes back to us over and over in making the world a slightly better place.
The industry. Our experiences. Our team. The combination of skill and drive within each Seven employee pushes us onward in the bike industry, raising the bar for our work.
It’s an exciting time for Seven, as it is every year.
