Evergreen – Page 2 – Seven Cycles

Going to the Woods

We’ve already talked about Going Up, Going Far and Going Fast. Going to the Woods is another thing we like to do, riding the jeep tracks and trails that crisscross our New England forests. We design bikes to go there in a few different ways.

Two crucial variables for any woods-oriented bikes are traction and speed. How will we keep the wheels on the ground, and how fast do we want them to move? Suspension is an option with our classic NE hardtail mountain bikes, the Solas and 622M SLX. They’re built to be fast over chattery, heavily-rooted ground and to climb the short, steep pitches we find all over. The Ti chainstays on these bikes act as de facto suspension systems, effectively keep the rear tire planted on the ground and rolling forward. For dirt road bikes, we can narrow the tires and build around a rigid fork, which will speed things up on less technical terrain.

Another key question is, how much ground are we trying to cover? Are typical rides of approximately the same length, as with a cross country race bike, or do they vary wildly, with marathon trail sessions coming as often as possible. Those two bikes differ geometrically, one built for agility and speed, the other for comfort and stability. We can build them as traditional trail bikes, or with rack mounts for bike-packing. Geometries can get more relaxed or more aggressive.

We also send our Evergreens and Expats to the trees. The Evergreens are designed to tackle mixed-terrain, some road, some dirt. The Expats are touring bikes. As with the other types of bikes we design, finding the balance points is key to delivering the right bike. Going to the Woods can add as many or more different variables than the bikes we’ve discussed in previous pieces, so working through all the basic questions is integral to the process.

Carole’s Orange Crush Evergreen

This is Carole. We built her this steel, Orange Crush Evergreen last year with our friends at Halter’s Cycles in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. A recent email let us know a few things about Carole. First, she has ridden her bike a lot, including right through this last snowy winter. Second, she loves it. Third, she is one hell of a photographer.

Right away we asked if we could share some pictures of her Evergreen with you, and not only did she say that was ok. She sent us more pictures. We were going to pick just a few, as we normally do, but they’re all so good, we’re including every one.

We say it over and over again, we put a lot of time into building bikes for people, but they’re the ones who make us look good.

Check out Carole’s photos below:

One Bike (to Rule Them All)

There is a difference between a fad and a trend. A fad is an idea that pops up, becomes popular and then disappears after folks figure out it’s not as great as it first seemed. A trend is a gradual change in the way things are done. It can be hard to distinguish fads from trends. We struggle with this all the time. As builders of our own bikes, we can’t just be concerned with whether something is popular at the moment, we have to think through how to produce it, whether the resulting product is more valuable to our riders than the ones we already make, and whether developing the fixturing will be worthwhile over a period of years.

Recent seasons have produced some interesting trends, for example the growing interest in mixed-terrain (or “gravel”) bikes and on the mountain side of things, the emergence of the 650b (or 27.5) wheel size. These are both good trends for us, because, as custom builders, we already have all the capabilities we need to produce them. What looks like fragmentation in the market, the splintering of categories, actually looks to us like a convergence of our skills with what the market wants.

So, while other bike companies scramble to bring new products to market and add pages to their brochures to cover the latest trends, we’re actually seeing a lot of our products merging together as riders get better and better at knowing exactly what they want from their bike and their riding.

Of course, we’re still building straight ahead road and mountain bikes, but we’re also building an awful lot of bikes that blur the lines between pure road and pure mountain, as riders seek one bike to meet a lot of different needs. These can be road-oriented bikes (read: drop bars) with medium-reach road calipers to fit wider tires and/or fenders, so the resulting bike can spend some time off pavement and also work as an effective commuter in bad weather, or they can be more trail oriented bikes with cyclocross forks, wide tire clearance and disc brakes. Some will take flat bars, like a traditional mountain bikes, and some will have commuter type bars, flat or sweeping, but with multiple hand positions.

We are building these One Bikes out of our Axioms, our Expats, our Evergreens and our Solas.

Over and over we see riders working on that single solution , and the bikes that come out are not only some of the most everyday useful we have produced, but also some of the most ingeniously multi-functional. They take advantage of all the things we are able to add to a frame design, all the component compatibility, to do more cool stuff on two wheels. Watch this space for two upcoming projects that will feature exactly this sort of do-everything bike.

There is No Weather

With spring in the New England air, the time to gird our loins against snow and cold has (mostly) passed. Now we just have to concern ourselves with staying upright on the ice that comes from snow melting during the day and refreezing at night. We’re all still running our studded tires, so it shouldn’t be an issue. In fact, if there is one lesson from this record setting winter season, it’s that there is no weather that doesn’t offer the promise of fun on a bike. We challenged ourselves to ride through snow storms this year. We braved the cold. And we found, over and over, that riding bikes was still fun.

Next fall we will look back and know there is nothing to be afraid of when you have a bike suited to its purpose and a love for riding to keep you warm and willing.

A Bike for All Seasons

We’re at a funny spot in our local cycling season. After record snow and cold, we are beginning to see more sunlight and significant melt. Many of us have been riding our Evergreens all winter with studded tires, which are good for keeping you upright on icy surfaces. You don’t go fast with studded tires, but arrival at your destination is more likely. We have had fun riding through snow storms, through cold snaps, over icy trails and slick roads. The time has come, maybe, to think about switching back to an everyday tire, like a 32mm file tread.

It was in contemplating that change, and ultimately deciding that we have more ice in front of us, that we realized the value of the Evergreen.

In the summer we ride dirt roads, trails, gravel, pavement, really any surface, on the Evergreen, with tires that range from 25mm road tires to 40mm all-terrain rubber. That range of options for tire selection is a real game changer. Add on top, the effectiveness of disc brakes in foul weather, and you have a bike that will go almost anywhere, at any time of year. We highlighted this bike’s versatility in a post a few months ago, but since then we’ve ridden it in some of the heaviest weather New England has seen in more than a century.

Now, as we contemplate converting back into something like spring riding mode, it is amazing to think of all of the places we’ve ridden our Evergreens over the last year, and how good they are at just about everything. They might just be the most versatile bikes we’ve ever built.