Moab – Seven Cycles

We’ve said it a thousand times, one of the very best things about building custom bikes is that we get to know our customers. This message came in the other day from Len, a longtime Seven rider. You can find more of Len’s photography here.

the silhouette of a Seven head badge key chain hangs on the rear view mirror of a truck driving down a lonely road

Hi 7 team,

I bought my Seven Verve mountain frame back in ’03, and it has been a faithful ride. The first year I bought it I took it out to Moab to break it in…. On the drive to Moab I photographed the “7” head badge hanging from my rear view mirror and sent it to you.

Here is another image on the same topic – taken many years later. The scene is looking out the windscreen of my Land Rover Defender over a dry and harsh mountainscape at a little over 11,000 ft in elevation. The image was taken in the White Mountains east of the Sierra Nevada. When you spend a week or so between 11,000 and 13,000 ft even the air molecules in the mineral oil filled compass precipitated out of the oil solution to form an air bubble. The “7” frame performs flawlessly at high altitudes!!!

regards,

Len

Charles and his Sola SL at the Colorado/Utah border

We received a brief note from Charles, a guy we built a Sola SL for in 1999. It contained the text: “Seven Sola did a fine job on a seven day Telluride to Moab Hut-to-Hut trip,” and a link.

That’s it.

Click the link and you get a great story about a seven day bikepacking trip through postcard scenery, a grueling ride made by a group of friends.

Some representative prose:

We had wonderful views of the desert formations surrounding Gateway at the Gateway hut. Sean and I cooled off a bit and washed some items in the Dolores River. Mosquitoes were coming out in full force during dusk. It became quite windy during the night, but the night sky full of stars was wonderful without any light pollution.

and

After the singletrack, we had a long climb to the first hut on Last Dollar Road. Mark was the first one up to the hut. The 9,000 to 11,000 foot climb didn’t seem to affect him that badly, but Sean and I started walking our bikes at two miles per hour toward the end. There was just no energy left in me to keep pedaling. Sean sat down a few times since he was bonking hard due to the altitude. We both made it to the hut right before dark though.

a lone cyclist pushes his bike up a steel moutain road

Click over to read the whole story. It’s worth it.

Tag: Moab

A Message from the Mountains

Bikepacking Telluride to Moab