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U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix

Tag: commuter

On the Road – Bob Kruger Grinds Oregon Gravel

When you finish a bike, put it in a box, put that box on a truck and send it out into the world, you never know what kind of adventures it’s going to find. We built Bob Kruger a Mudhoney S last year with our good friends at Cascade Bicycle Studio in Seattle, and, like so many of the cyclists we admire, he put it to good use as a cyclocross race bike, a bad weather commuter and finally, as a mixed-terrain explorer.

Bob’s gorgeous photos and prose from the Gorge Roubaix Gravel Grinder below:

Seven head tube detail

Last spring I was looking for a new bike. I had a number of intended uses for this bike: commuter, cross racer, gran fondo and all around performer. I wasn’t looking for a plastic race bike, nor a heavy city bike. This bicycle needed to look great, take a beating and come out the other end looking just as good. It needed to perform well 365 days a year for the next 30 years. That’s a big ask.

I found the perfect bike. It was a Seven Mudhoney S. Although I thought it was perfect throughout last autumn’s cross season and a winter of commuting, I verified it this weekend at the Gorge Roubaix Gravel Grinder.

rolling fields

Throughout the day I was continually reminded of how much I loved my Seven Mudhoney. The 28 mm Continental 4-Seasons performed spectacularly both on the treacherous gravel descents and fast paved sections. The CBS-built Hed Belgium + Chris King hubbed wheelset was bomber and rolled smoothly and perfectly throughout a day where many, many large rocks were hit. The Mudhoney S: titanium frame was solid with zero chatter or skittishness. The gravel and rocks we encountered didn’t even faze the polished titanium’s shine. The Avid BB7 disc brakes gave me a massive amount of confidence and between that and the solidity of the bike I had no fear descending rough gravel at 35 mph for extended periods of time. While others complained of numb hands and feet, I experienced none of that. I couldn’t have been happier with how my Mudhoney performed over those 85 miles.

A long dirt road

That night I rinsed the dust off, lubed the chain, screwed on the fat PDX fenders and was ready for the rainy Seattle commute the next morning. In the fall I’ll pull my Contis, install my fat tubeless CX tires and try to win some old man Cat 3 races on this Mudhoney. I’m serious about riding this bike for the next 30 years. I’m sure it will look better than I do in 2045!

Bob Kruger is an Environmental Scientist who grew up in Skagit Valley, Washington and currently resides in Seattle. All of his energy is focused into family, friends, work, travel and being active outdoors, in that order and often together. His outdoor passions include cycling, skiing, golf and being on the water.

See more on this ride here. There is also a great video from the event here.

The Overlooked Awesome, Part V

The Overlooked Awesome is about all of the great things you can get out of a custom bike beyond the perfect fit. Check out installments I, II,  III and IV.

Part V is about the future. Time, as nearly as we can tell, is uni-directional, the present sprawling relentlessly forward into the future. We get older. Our interests change. How and where we ride changes, too, our relationship with the bike.

So when we design a new bike, we think about how it will be ridden in 5 years, in 10. We make lifetime bikes, so we think about how the rider will change in their lifetime. We design in adaptability. Will a road bike become a commuter? Will a commuter be ridden on tours? Will a trail bike do some bike packing?

There are all sorts of ways to future-proof a frame design. For example, we can make a headtube a little longer, rather than depending on spacers to achieve a desired bar height. That leaves the rider the option of adding spacers later, when maybe they are less flexible. This the fit-related future.

Or maybe we’re working on a cyclocross race bike that the rider will eventually use as a winter commuter. We add fender mounts. This is the use-related future.

Many of these things are simple to do, but our experience is that when people buy a new bike, they buy the bike they want right now. As designers and as builders, it’s our duty to help them think about the longer term, and to make sure we are designing in as much value as they can get from their Seven over its entire lifetime.

Related Posts

Seven featured on Bicycling.com

Seven Cafe Racer

One of the things a custom builder can do better than most production builders is find the sweet spots in between the traditional cycling categories. Constance Winters of Bicycling.com recently tested our Cafe Racer SL in just such a special configuration, somewhere in the space between go-fast road bike and all-purpose commuter.

First, this bike has S&S couplings so it can be broken down for travel. Total time to assemble this one, straight out of the case, is about ten minutes.

Next, it has a custom Tiberius handlebar, which gives the rider multiple hand position options, both aggressive and more upright.

And finally, it features a super quiet, super clean single-speed belt drive. The belt keeps you from getting grease on your pants if you’re riding for business, and its elegant simplicity makes break down and reassembly that much easier.

All of this in a sub-15lb package.

Image: Constance Winters