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.
We are, all of us, trying to get back to that moment, when we were two, or five, or ten-years-old, of first pushing off and feeling the freedom, the joy of riding a bike. The 5 Elements are meant to get us there, to strip away the fear and focus on the idea for a new bike.
Our friends at Velosmith Bicycle Studio did an interview with Seven founder Rob Vandermark recently for a series they’re doing on bike builders. We’ve been working with Velosmith since they opened in 2010, and Tony Bustamante, one of the studio’s founders and owners, once worked with us here at Seven, too. Watch the Velosmith site for the full interview.
In the meantime, here is a brief excerpt:
Velosmith: In 1997, offering a custom bike was a relatively new concept for traditional bike shops. Tell us a little about those early years.
Rob Vandermark: That’s right. There weren’t a lot of options at that time. People were interested in high-end titanium and well-made steel but they didn’t really think that they were going to do true custom. There was no model for it yet. The four of us who started Seven had strong industry backgrounds in design, development, building, marketing, and sales – we had all the bases covered. So, we were able to find retailers who trusted us because of our reputation or past relationships. Within eight weeks of opening, we were shipping orders out the door.
Rob V. on the Trail
Where do you find inspiration for products and design?
RV:I’ve been frame building for 29 years and it’s still engaging for me. It doesn’t get old because the way I relate to the bike keeps changing. For the last few years, my inspiration has come from adventure riding. There was a time when I would look at other industries for inspiration – motorcycles, cars, wheelchairs – more than actually riding. Now, the pendulum has swung back to bike usage, bike riding, and all the niches that are happening in the industry today. It’s always about reconnecting to the bike in a different way.
Who do you see as your ideal customer?
RV:Because everything we do is custom, I see everyone as a Seven customer. It’s anyone who loves riding and wants a better experience while riding.
You may have noticed in a recent post about Craig Gaulzetti’s new Axiom SL, that he wanted a race bike. Craig raced as a youngster while growing up in Belgium, and has never gotten over the thrill of a stiff, speed first, comfort second-if-at-all race bike. He wanted to recreate the same excitement with his very first Seven, and we were excited to take on the challenge.
Walking around our production floor, the most memorable site is the towering wall of titanium tubing located in the machining area.
A section of the titanium tubing wall.
Hundreds of twenty foot tall tubes tower over everything in sight. Organized by diameter, these tubes will determine how a bike will feel on the road. To over simplify, a narrow tube will bend and flex over bumps and potholes resulting in a plush ride, but all that flex means the bike won’t explode forward when you stomp on the pedals. A large tube responds oppositely, bouncing over bumps like a poorly performing suspension, but will take off like a rocket when you mash your pedals. Most people want bikes that fall somewhere between those two extremes. No matter how you want your bike to feel on the road, choosing the appropriate tube set is our specialty.
To ensure Craig’s bike was going to bring him back to his racing heyday, some of our most massive tubes were selected, including the Louisville Slugger-esque 1 3/4″ down tube, a 44mm head tube, and a 1 1/2″ top tube. For most of us, these tubes would yield a bike so harsh, we’d want off. But Craig was looking for that feeling exactly, so when it came time to select his chain stays, we reached past the traditional 7/8″ tubes, and chose our most hulking, 1″ tube stock. An additional eighth of an inch in diameter sounds minor, but in both looks and performance, the difference is obvious. We felt these stays would add the extra boost Craig was after, and his early reports confirm that they have done the trick.
For Craig’s Axiom SL, the 1″ chain stays made sense: the design mission, the size and power output of the rider, and the overall aesthetic were a perfect match. Though they worked wonderfully for Craig, the one inch stays aren’t for everyone. More often than not, they are too stout, too heavy, or too limiting in component choices to use. These large chain stays crowd the bottom bracket junction, leaving only enough room for slick, narrow tires, and are therefore only available on our road bikes. They are so large and stout, that we do not curve them as you’ll see on all of our 7/8″ stays (as I incorrectly pointed out in my response to Brian S. back in September), they get just a small tire clearance crimp but are otherwise perfectly straight.
If you are interested in discussing whether or not our one inch chain stays are right for you, give us a call!
One stubborn visa is all that keeps Zand Martin from boarding a plane to Kazakhstan, the starting point of an amazing adventure. The wait will be over soon though, and in the anxious days leading up to the visa’s arrival, Zand has been hard at work. For starters, the trip’s website and Facebook page have been created, and are now live!
Zand might be an outdoorsman at heart, but he is a gifted writer and storyteller, too. When he visited us a few weeks ago, it was apparent that he was biting his tongue to prevent all of the stories from rushing out, perhaps to avoid keeping us there all day. I doubt we would have noticed the clock, however. His stories sound like folktales. One such story involved his inland kayak traverse of the United States a few years ago. He came to a point where he could paddle no further, so he bought a $30 bike on Craigslist, built a trailer, and pulled his kayak right through Yellowstone. I’m sure the buses of tourists took as many pictures of him and his rig as they did the buffaloes that day.
To help us grasp the scale of his latest trip, Zand unfolded all of his maps on out showroom floor. Laying them out, it was obvious he is a map guy (I wasn’t surprised to see this 7 post a few days later). Some of the maps were what you could find on line, others were old Russian military maps and harder to acquire. While he was talking us through the route, his enthusiasm, and smile, began to gleam. If there weren’t bikes to make, we’d be on that trip with him.
Speaking of bikes, Zand has also been using his time to familiarize himself with his Expat S. His bike is outfitted with drop bars, bar con shifters, mechanical disc brakes, and due to the weight of his gear and the unknown terrain ahead, a triple chain ring. On his rack, he’ll be carrying a tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear, a change of clothes, skis, ski boots, an avalanche probe, and camera equipment. The goal is to carry no more than 35 pounds of gear and equipment. To see what all of this gear looks like, when spread out and organized over a time lapse video, click here.
And so, our excitement grows for “Circling the Golden Mountains.” As soon as the final visa arrives, Zand and his partner will be off, and we’ll be that much closer to our next folktale.
