Bespoke Cycles is a smaller, more intimate space in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, where owner Ari Bronzstein pursues singular perfection in every bike he and his team builds. Industry veteran Trystan Cobbett brings a very discerning eye and a marketer’s nous to the show. With Intelligentsia Coffee on steady brew, Bespoke specializes in making each rider feel special with lots of individual attention in an intimate setting. A growing roster of regular rides leaving from the shop make Bespoke another hub for local cyclists, who are constantly stopping in for a cup of coffee on the wide couch at the back of the shop space.
Bespoke sits in a quiet, residential neighborhood, just a few doors down from Alta Plaza Park. We spent a few hours with the guys last week, and then walked over to the park to watch the sun set over the Presidio and Golden Gate Park. It was a nice way to spend a day.
Ari has worked with us for more than a decade as well, both through Bespoke and during his time at City Cycle in Cow Hollow. The bikes he and his guys produce tend to be extremely well-fit and aesthetically unique. Just look at this Axiom SL floor bike they designed for themselves last season.
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!
The level of customization here at Seven Cycles as witnessed by our Editions of One, as well as other unique creations we’ve highlighted, can sometimes overshadow the fact that we also spend a lot of time thinking about, designing and building race bikes.
Early on here at Seven, I decided I wanted a new race bike and after much deliberation on model and material, I decided on an Axiom SL, our benchmark model and in my opinion, the ultimate evolution of the titanium road bike.
With the help of Neil Doshi in our Performance Design Team, I worked through our Custom Kit exactly as you would, in order to come up with what you see here. Seven’s Fit Methodology (SFM), a comprehensive, data-driven system resulting from a 18-year study of ergonomics, biomechanics and kinesiology, drove the process that resulted in positionals and frame geometry perfect for me. The bike is not all that different in terms of fit from the bikes I have been riding and racing for years, but the small tweaks resulting from the process are a noticeable and quantifiable improvement.
The oversized tubing selected for this bike allows it to easily achieve the UCI minimum weight of 6.8kg. In fact it is lighter than both my previous carbon and aluminum bikes. As one would expect from a bike with such massive tubes, it has an amazing amount of drivetrain and torsional rigidity, tracks solidly over mixed terrain and unimproved roads and is abundantly confident during spirited efforts, changes in tempo and hard cornering.
The paint scheme is a peak at one of the many new finishing offerings our team is working on for the coming season. To my eye it appears forceful, yet refined and elegant. I let our own Jordan Low from our Paint Department choose the colors and could not be happier with the results.
Our oft repeated motto here at Seven is, “One bike, yours.†I could not be happier that this one is mine.
Bare titanium chain stay: easy to clean and chain slap won’t chip the paint.The over sized tubes make for a stout, race ready ride.Ready to roll.
Peter B., from the UK, visited us last week for a factory tour. When he got home, he sent us some incredible pictures from the routes he’s ridden recently. He writes:
“Thank you for showing us round the Seven production facility recently (calling it a factory doesn’t seem quite right). We both enjoyed the visit and found it very interesting.
The first picture was taken a few weeks ago at the top of Hardknott pass. It’s not a long pass, but it’s steep, around 30% in places. We had to walk a bit of it! The descent is also pretty interesting if the weather is wet, fortunately it wasn’t when we went over it. It was on a ride called the Fred Whitton Challenge, which is 112miles and includes around 3900m of climbing, and goes over most of the steep passes in the English Lake District, many of which are 20 to 25% climbs. If you’re interested, you’ll find some information about this ride and also the Raid Pyraneen on the web.
The others were all taken on the Raid Pyreneen, which I did last year. That goes Coast to Coast along the Spanish / French border from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The basic route is around 720km with 11,000m of climbing and the objective is to complete it in under 100 hours. Due to some passes still being snow covered from the west side, we actually did 755km and 13,100m of climbing. The first picture is the Col D’Aubisque:
The second is the Col de Tourmalet (which was closed from the Aubisque side, so we had to go down to the valley, round the mountain and up from the far side).
I can’t remember the name of the last one, but it’s a nice picture so I thought I’d chuck it in. This ride goes over a lot of the big Pyraneen Passes many of which appear regularly in the Tour de France. They go up them (and down them) quite a lot faster than I did!
