Bike Build – Seven Cycles

The Four-Season Sola 2×2

Design Mission: Create the most capable four season bike possible. As cyclists we are keenly aware of the weather and the many challenges it presents. Any cyclist who lives in an area that experiences four true seasons, like our home here in Massachusetts, will want a bike capable of tackling whatever the weather throws at them.

After building about a dozen variants of a year-round bike, we packed all our experience and research into this one broad-use, high-capability bike.

For summer and fall, with 29er mountain tires, the bike is a fast and agile race-ready bike, setup for technical single-track and short, punchy climbs. In the winter and spring, with 27+ 3” tires, the bike can do anything and go anywhere, with or without studs, in snow, ice, mud, or frozen terrain.

The Sevenduro 2×2 Scrambler

The Sevenduro 2x2 at night

Well, that’s a mouthful, but it’s a bike with a LOT going on. The basic idea with this project was to build a massively versatile machine that can maximize performance across a range of ride types. The knock on some multi-purpose bikes is that they’re not great at any one thing. The 2×2 Scrambler aims to be great at many types of riding.

Here is what it’s for and how we optimize for each thing.

For this specific design project we optimized for these two distinct ride functions:

A bike ideally suited for fast gravel and dirt road riding in hilly terrain (Sevenduro mode)
A bike optimized for New England mixed terrain riding: sections of singletrack with equal sections of paved roads — and a bit of everything else thrown in (Scrambler mode)

These two bikes are very different in function, and therefore design. How do you get this to work? Beginning with tire choice and wheel diameter decisions, the optimal design produces a frame geometry that allows for versatile rider position, fine tuning for each type of riding.

With this Evergreen 2×2 we have two hot-swappable modes. The first configuration is a pure gravel riding setup for the 700c wheels, we call it the Sevenduro Mode — because it’s designed for endurance gravel rides. It’s lightweight and provides a perfect gravel balanced rider position.

night shot of a bike's drive train with a dropped chainstay

For the second hot-swap configuration we’ve optimized for 650b riding. We’ve tagged it the Scrambler Mode — named after a type of bandit off-road motorcycle race. The Scrambler Mode has a flared drop bar for better trail handling, wider grip stance for more control, a shorter stem for slighter reach and improved body language control, and slightly higher front end to facilitate rolling over logs and other adventure obstacles.

There is a ton of new tech in this bike, features that make it a great travel bike, a worthy race bike, an all-weather commuter and adventure rig. Read more on the specifics here.

The Seven Ultimate Axiom Disc

Seven Ultimate Axiom Disc

This is the Seven Ultimate Axiom Disc, a project bike we developed as part of this season’s focus on technology, innovation, and leveraging the experience of building more than 30,000 custom bikes. For this particular project, the design goal was build the fastest, lightest, no-compromise road disc bike we could. As a result, this bike introduces a slew of new features that are available in our mainline products starting immediately.

Here is a quick look at just a few of those features:

One-Inch Fixed Chainstays – Larger diameter tubes, with thinner tube walls, increase both bending and torsional stiffness by 32% over our 7/8″ stays. We hold the weight down by custom butting the tube stock in house. Read more here.

Asymmetric Fastback Dropouts – 75% stiffer than the most popular titanium thru-axle disc brake dropout on the market. These custom asymmetric dropouts save 60 grams of weight over our conventional disc brake dropout system. Read more here.

Seven Ultimate Axiom disc - seat stay detail

3D Traction Seat Stays – With 3DT, we’ve been able to improve rear tire traction without reducing frame stiffness. We achieve these traction improvements through a combination of more aggressive bend profile, bending in multiple planes (3D), and a new tube butting process. What you get is a seat stay with a more dramatic shape that dissipates multi-directional force, and minimizes weight. Read more here.

Synergetic Chainstays – When you introduce asymmetry into a frame design, you have to restore balance. Our Synergetic Chainstays serve this function. Their unique design allows clearance for full-sized chainrings and 28c tires. They let us run a sub-41cm chainstay with a 160 mm disc rotor. Read more here.

Active Race Design Geometry – ARD geometry is a combination of race-specific elements that provide quick handling and telepathic transfer of rider input to your tire contact patches. We achieve this through a combination of frame geometry modifications including a compact wheelbase, short chainstays, high bottom bracket, steeper head tube angle, tighter front center, more compact front triangle for faster reaction time, improved front end torsional stiffness, and a bike that’s easier to throw around in a shoulder-to-shoulder pack of riders. Read more here.

All Out Speed Kit – Where Seven’s Active Race Design geometry option is a comprehensive set of geometric adjustments, the All Out Speed Kit modification is a set of design features that improve race performance and placing. Our most popular titanium AOS Kit includes our One-Inch Fixed Chainstays, an oversized down tube, a T47 bottom bracket, a Max Power Seat Post, Slipstream Di2 Internal Wiring, and a 44mm head tube. Read more here.

Direct Mount Derailleur Hanger – This is the industry’s first titanium direct mount hanger for Shimano rear derailleurs. About three times stiffer than a typical aluminum hanger, and tough as nails.

Mark’s Orange Crush

Mark is a rider we’ve collaborated with a few times. He brings a lot of forethought and passion to his bike projects, and this was no exception.

This is Mark’s Expat S, monster cross bike, and some kind words, below.

Seven with orange accents

Thanks again for your help (and Neil’s help) on the monster cross…”Orange Crush.” I’m still working rounding up a few orange accessories, but for the most part, she’s all built up and ready to ride ! I’m excited for future adventures!

Regarding the build, I decided to use a SRAM 1 x 11 drivetrain. A work colleague was selling parts, so I was more than happy to buy those from him! I’ve always loved Shimano parts, but I do really like the simplicity, reliability, and range of the SRAM single chain ring set-up. To support the orange theme, I used the Chris King mango headset, headset spacers, and bottom bracket (ceramic…so smooth!).

I tracked down a Phil Wood orange seat post collar. AndI had the head badge powder coated at a local auto paint store. The orange flame decals are a work in progress. These ones aren’t sticking very well, so I suspect they will be short lived. For wheels, I stuck with DT Swiss hubs…so reliable and easy to service. The anodized Chris King, I-9, and Hope hubs are nice, but I’m a DT Swiss fan. The hubs are laced to DT Swiss XM401 rims and I’m currently using Maxxis Treadlite tires. The cockpit is complete with Thomson post and stem, Salsa Cowbell handlebars, and Cobb saddle.

River City Bicycles and the Spirit of ’77

River City Bicycles owner Dave Guettler is something of a spiritual leader in our industry. He has managed, over a couple of decades, to show the way forward, to inspire people with his passion for cycling, AND to build the best shop in Portland, OR.

Dave is also a basketball fan, and when RCB invited us to build a pro-baller size bike for them as an homage to the Blazers’ 1977 championship team, we felt honored and excited.

Seven Axiom SL, custom built for a rider of enormous stature, with black white and orange striped graphics

Of course, no one does it like RCB, so they took our Evergreen S frame and finished it with basketball leather bar tape.

A closeup of grippy bar tape of an orange-brown color

Check out this cool video they made about the inspiration and final build:
Pro Build Collection – ’77 Seven

From the shop:

This is the first in our Pro Build Collection film series and it’s an all-star. We build lots and lots of incredible custom bikes at River City Bicycles because, let’s face it, we love bicycles. You know what else we love – basketball! Dave Guettler, River City Bicycles founder and owner, is a fan, Trailblazer season ticket holder, and has seen many Blazers come through the store as customers. Dave wanted a bicycle in store for the next Trailblazer, or any customer that tall, and the result is a titanium road bike built to commemorate the 1977 NBA Championship won by the Portland Trailblazers.

Seven Cycles perfectly executed a clean, stylish frame build and our service department spec’d it with top-tier components from Shimano, Enve Composites, and Portland’s own Chris King Precision Components. For the finishing touch we turned to Walnut Bespoke Leather Designs from Nehalem, Oregon who created basketball leather bar tape, tool roll strap, and pant cuff bands. Let’s go Rip City!