Friends of Seven – Page 19

On the Road: Bespoke Cycles SF

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.

On the Road – Velosmith Bicycle Studio

Partnerships are important. We do our best work with shops we work with a lot. On Saturday we were at Velosmith Bicycle Studio for the launch of a special collaboration, the Moselle. Tony Bustamante, of Velosmith, once worked here at Seven. When he opened his studio, we immediately began working together on gorgeous custom bikes for his customers. It is a partnership in the truest sense of the word where we use our shared experience to do increasingly difficult, but gratifying, work.

And now the culmination of all that effort arrives in the form of the Moselle, a bike Tony designed specifically for Velosmith and only available there. The Moselle is a straight gauge titanium Swiss Army knife of a bike, disc-equipped and set up for wide tires. It can group ride on the road. It can explore double track. It can happily roll down the trail, and it can commute in all weather. The finish is a subtle, bead-blasted river theme that mixes shine with matte to create a signature look.

For the launch, our friends from SRAM came out. The Moselle features their new CX1 drivetrain and Force 22 hydraulic brakes. The first bike was built for Velosmith team racer Eric Drummer, who will mix cyclocross with longer gravel events, like Dirty Kanza, to showcase everything the Moselle can do. At the end of the night we sat with Tony’s father Alberto, a legend of the Chicago bike world, and he shook his head wistfully looking at his son’s creation. “We can do anything now, can’t we?” and he smiled, and that alone made our visit to Chicago worth making.

On the Road – Omnium Bike Shop

The way to the world is down along the river, through the tunnel and out to Logan Airport, where a jet will take you almost anywhere. It had been a little while since we’d visited the Twin Cities, but our friends at Omnium invited us to their annual Sonderkrossen party, an event to mark the switchover from track season to cyclocross, so we booked our passage and packed our bags. We even shipped a bike ahead, so we could see Minneapolis and St. Paul in the manner most befitting a cyclist. We had no idea what was in store.

Omnium sits between a breakfast cafe and a bakery, across from a deli. As places to meet go, it’s a cyclist’s dream. It’s also the kind of shop where everyone who walks through the door is a friend. “Bill!!” They yell from behind the service counter. “Hi, Nancy!” Our East Coast frostiness melted in the honest mid-western warmth. We bought a round of coffees, and helped set up for the party.

The party looked like this. There were a few Seven owners who were kind enough to share their Seven experiences with us, and the crowd was kind enough to listen while we talked about bike building as something of a religion and our factory as a sort of cathedral. This made more sense in context than it does here, or maybe it didn’t, but everyone smiled and clapped politely, and we got down off our soap box (actually a step ladder) quick, before anyone’s beer got warm.

Don’t tell anyone we took the party to the roof as the clock ticked well past closing time. We were definitely not supposed to be on the roof, so as far as you know that didn’t happen.

We got to bed late, and set our alarms for the pre-dawn Fleche ride, that leaves from yet another coffee shop, just across a bridge over the Missisippi, on the Minneapolis side. Aaron, Omnium’s GM, organizes the Fleche, a soft roll around the cities, a chatting ride, a beautiful way to greet a Saturday morning, even when you’re dog tired from not partying on the roof.

One of our fellow Fleche-ers was big Russ H, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He got this bike from Aaron at Omnium and came out for the Fleche in part so he could ride with us, which was, naturally, very touching. Russ turned out to be a fantastic riding companion, even if he did turn up on a more attractive bike than even we were able to muster for ourselves. That’s how you know he’s a winner.

The party, the ride, the company, it all made getting out on the road that much more fun. Meeting people, riding bikes, that’s what it’s all about. We are lucky to do what we do. It’s funny that we sometimes have to get on an airplane to be reminded.

#TBT

Here is the bike Seven friend and sponsored-rider Mary McConneloug rode at the Beijing Olympics. It’s the same frame she rode at the Athens games four years earlier, making it the only mountain bike ever to feature in two Olympics. We are so proud of this bike, and Mary of course, because it proves that well-made things can last, even at the absolute top of the sport.

Seven and Get-a-Grip at the Wassau 24

Our good friends from Get-a-Grip in Chicago recently raced the Wassau24. See the picture below of Adam Kaplan with Seven Sola SL.

Adam said, “The Wausau24 was a great event. Very well organized. The course was 11 miles of twisty, rooty, and rocky singletrack mixed with some nice gradual fire road climbs and fast descents. I started off first for our team and had laps at approximately 10am, 4pm, 8pm, 2am and 6am. The first two laps were great, no real fatigue. The third lap I flatted 2 minutes in and had to be careful. The fourth lap was amazing in the dead of night. The last lap was in the rising sun and misty conditions. Our team, Get a Grip Cycles, was able to clinch a podium spot for third place. Not bad for a bunch of 40+ year old men.”