Limited Edition: Leap Year Axiom S
Limited Edition: Leap Year Axiom S
With the excitement of Winter’s demise in our heads and nearly in our sights, we set out to create a bike that embodied the energy of Spring but was prepared for Winter’s last stand. The result? The Leap Year Axiom S, a bike decked out for all weather conditions:
- 28mm Tires: Beefy Schwalbe Durano tires for traction and flat protection.
- Painted Full Coverage Fenders: To keep the salt and slush at bay, while looking exceptional.
- Long Reach Brakes: For heaps of tire and fender clearance.
- Pump Peg and Chain Hanger: Roadside maintenance without any added drama.
- Brooks Saddle: Just waiting to be your perch.
- Seasonal Color: Leather tape, honey saddle, a painted fork, and painted fenders will help your bike look clean, even when it isn’t.
- Yours, Truly: Each bike is built to order with all the customizable elements that Seven Cycles offers.
The remaining parts pick is a dependable kit including:
- a Shimano Ultegra drive train
- Cane Creek 40 headset
- Fulcrum Racing 7 wheels
- Seven 5E Long Reach fork
- Seven aluminum bar and stem
- Shimano’s R-451 long reach brakes
When paired with the seasonal paint scheme of the fork and fenders, the complete bike becomes a true stunner.
As shown, the Leap Year Axiom S retails for $6,195. For a limited time, each order will include our three year protection plan, but to honor the Leap Year, we will extend coverage an additional year, protecting your bike until the next Leap Year in 2016!
Peloton Magazine Celebrates the Bike Studio Concept
Issue 10 of peloton magazine is on newstands now, and in it you will find an article about the bicycle studio movement, a new wave of smaller, more fit and service focussed shops. Bicycle studios tend to have less clutter, less commodity and things you can get just anywhere. Instead they feature custom brands and high end accessories for riders who live their whole lives by bike. Think of the classic “pro” shop, then pare it down to an elegant austerity, and you have the modern bicycle studio.
The forebear of this new breed of shops was City Cycle of San Francisco under the stewardship of bike industry legend Clay Mankin. Mankin proved that you could build great bikes and make good money out of a very small space, if only you sold the right products. That shop, which continues on after Mankin’s early passing, began selling Seven when we were just a start up in 1997. Mankin’s loyalty to the brands he carried was off the charts. Though no longer, strictly speaking, a studio, City Cycle’s new owner Cory Farrer has kept Seven on the floor, even as other bike brands have come and gone.
In fact, here at Seven we were deeply gratified to see that, of the ten studios mentioned, seven of them are Seven dealers (ooooh, symmetry). In addition to City Cycle, those include Cascade Bicycle Studio in Seattle, owned by former Seveneer Zac Daab; Velosmith Bicycle Studio just outside Chicago, owned by another Seven alum, Tony Bustamante; Paul Levine’s Signature Cyles of Manhattan, Greenwich, CT and Central Valley, NY; Bespoke Cycles of San Francisco, Bike Effect in Los Angeles and the Ride Studio Cafe in Lexington, MA.
In our experience, the studios are our most demanding customers. They’re the ones pushing us toward perfection. When you take the kind of time with each customer that they take, every detail has to be correct. Cascade Bicycle Studio and Velosmith in particular, because they’re run by former Seven employees, can be counted on for unfiltered, candid feedback on every bike we build for them.
Obviously, we are deeply committed to all the shops that sell our bikes. The studio concept, which has only proven viable in large urban markets up to this point, simply represents a new approach to bicycle retailing, the cutting edge of high end bike sales. To be represented by so many of these forward-thinking shops is a great validation of the work we do and an inspiration for us to keep pushing forward.
BikeBiz: Seven Cycles expands UK sales network
BikeBiz
by Mark Sutton
‘Largest US custom bike maker’ looks to expand dealer base via Cyclevox
Seven Cycles is to expand its UK operation, having already appointed a number of new dealers alongside UK partner Cyclevox.
Claiming to be the USA’s largest manufacturer of custom bicycles, founder Rob Vandermark now believes that 40 per cent of the brand’s customers reside outside the US.
Vandermark said: “We’ve been travelling to the UK to meet friends and customers more or less from the first day we started building bikes, so there is a natural affinity for us. The roads and weather are a lot like the area we live and work in too, so when we’re building a bike for a customer in the UK we have an intuitive understanding of their needs that we might not have in other parts of the globe.â€
A strong resurgence of interest in titanium bikes has Seven planning for growth, but the veteran frame builder recognizes the need to manage those increased sales carefully. “More isn’t necessarily better, “says Vandermark, “if we can’t continue to deliver on the promise of the custom experience.â€
London retailer and bike fitter Cyclefit is one of the UK stores now on Seven’s books.
Director Phil Cavell said: “Cyclefit has admired Seven from afar for nearly ten years – ever since I wrote the first ever European review on the Seven Axiom in 2002 for Cycle Sport Magazine. We share the same ethic that anything short of perfection is a real shame and an opportunity lost.
“Moreover we commend Seven for their unswerving commitment to craftsmanship and provenance. They, like us, think that where something is made, and the lives of the people that make the products, is crucial to the quality of the relationship the customer enjoys with their bike over time. Cyclefit is excited and proud to be working with Seven Cycles – it has been well worth the long waitâ€.
Close Encounters of the 622 Kind
Bryan saw something in my expression and invited me over.
“Check it out!”
Clamped in his final machining stand was a yet to be finished, and very raw 622 SLX. He popped it out and handed it over. Until this morning I had not seen a 622 in the flesh, let alone held one.I basked in its aura for a bit, maybe a little too long.
“Well?” he asked.
Still stunned by the frame’s lithe beauty, I had forgotten to pay a compliment to one of its craftsman and could only muster a fleeting thought. Had I not been in a trance, I would have told him just what I was thinking,
Everything is different than I expected. The lugs are miniscule and oh-so-shapely. The matte finish looks appropriately industrial, but in the right light, the filament-wound fibers twinkle.
My word! They twinkle!
Deceptively lightweight yet surprisingly beefy. Elegance and power rolled into one. Mamacita.
But in the heat of the moment, all I could say was, “it’s awesome.”
Sorry Bryan, I was awestruck.
-Karl B.