Mary McConneloug and Mike Broderick took the 2012 USA Cycling Mountain Bike Cross-Country National Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho by storm last weekend!
On Saturday, July 7, Mary raced to a podium finish taking the 5th position in the Women’s Pro Cross Country race. Later in the afternoon Mike put in a solid performance finishing 17thoverall in the Men’s Pro Cross Country field. On Sunday morning, Mike raced to a 12th place finish in the Pro Men’s Super D and returned in the afternoon to take 19th place in the Pro Men’s Short Track Cross Country race. Mary raced in Sunday afternoon’s Women’s Pro Short Track Cross Country field and took a podium spot and bronze medal in her race!
Here is what Mary had to say about the races in sunny, parched Idaho:
“It is high and super dry out here with little chance of badly needed precipitation. The XC course consists of a single steep fire road climb that sorts everything out before dropping us into a no passing single track descent. It makes for some hard racing at this altitude but it was a good weekend and we are both stoked to be healthy and fit!”
At Nationals, Cycling Dirt interviewed Mike about his IMX SL 29er. Mike raced all of three races on this bike, and we are happy to hear he’s satisfied with its performance.
Neil, or rather Mr. Mansfield, used to work alongside Seven Cycles’ founders as a welder at Merlin Metalworks before moving on to become a top tier welding and metal fabrication teacher at the Assabet Valley Vocational Technical High School in Marlborough, MA. To help generate learning moments, Mr. Mansfield sets up field trips to show his class real world applications for the skills they learn throughout the school year. Today’s example was tube welding, and what better way to bring welding to life than showing his class what he did more than twenty years ago?
One way to create buzz at Seven is to drop a bus load of students into our showroom. The entire factory was crackling with energy.
Before splitting into groups, we opened the floor to questions, and were inundated:
How much is that bike?
How much does it weigh?
Do you make BMX bikes?
How long does it take to make one?
What are they made out of?
Do you weld?
Why not?
How long do they last?
Are they strong?
What happens if you crash?
Is titanium better than steel?
What if I wanted a BMX bike, then could you make one?
Matt O., going over the finer points
Once their questions were answered we headed out to the production floor for the real fun. Starting in machining we covered the basics of tube preparation, cutting, coping, bending, curving, and squishing. As is the case year after year, Neil’s classes are always more mature than their age would suggest and this class was no different. Their questions honed in on the craft and harkened back to things they had studied and practiced in their classrooms.
Tim D. dropping some knowledge
The highlight of every tour, for both the me and the students, is when we get to Tim Delaney’s welding bench. Not only is Tim an encyclopedia of welding knowledge, he is also a natural educator. When he speaks, people listen with interest and enthusiasm, and the rapport is instantaneous. I’m certain that the students’ interest in Seven’s welding process had a lot to do with it as well. They pummeled Tim with questions, donned welding masks, and watched as he showed them examples of what we do here at Seven. When the questions came to a close, we moved to final machining, then finishing, and finally to painting where Staci was working on a Diamas SL, which garnered some serious attention.
Wrapping up in the show room, Matt O’Keefe took some final questions on job inquiries, and positions for beginning welders. Needless to say, those of us over age 15 were exhausted by the end of the tour, in a good way, but the kids seemed to be ready for another go ’round. And lunch! We were really happy to have spent the morning with Mr. Mansfield and his smart, interesting, and very well-behaved students. We hope that someday, we can call one, or even a few of them colleagues.
Our showroom, such as it is, is a beautiful space, with vaulted ceilings and a generous supply of natural light. In the morning, the sun slants in through the blinds and bathes the few bikes that live there in a warm glow.
Invariably, we display our project bikes there. The Berlin Bike is often in residence. The Bicycling Magazine bike has been a frequent occupant. But, also invariably, those bikes want to go out to bike shops for display or for special events.
Today, just today, the bikes in the showroom consist of: Rex, the very first Seven, the primogenitor, the bike that spawned all others; Rob’s belt drive Cafe Racer with custom Tiberius handlebar and S&S frame couplers; Karl’s Elium SL, all carbon lightness in a pure-speed build.
We should make clear that employee bikes end up in the showroom quite a bit. Back at home, garages and storage rooms struggle to accommodate all of our cycling predilections. It ends up being a symbiotic arrangement. The showroom gets beautiful bikes to display. And our loyal Seven staff get more space for even more bikes.
There are a few frames hung in one corner, examples of our best custom paint work, and a pair of Elium SLXs with internally routed Di2 builds. They’re on their way out, demo bikes for shops who want the very latest in their own showrooms.
We joke a lot about the showroom. What do you call a bike company with no bikes? More than once, a passing tour has offered to buy an employee’s bike right off the display rack. It’s good to make a product you can’t keep in stock. It’s the problem you want to have.
Recently, sculptor Grace Hilliard-Koshinsky visited Seven for a guided tour of our shop. When Grace arrived, we noticed that she had an unusual accessory: a backpack made of steel.
Our interest piqued, we took the opportunity to learn about Grace’s process in creating this trompe-l’œil sculpture. Grace fabricated her hollow steel backpack using 20 and 18 gauge mild sheet. After hand-forging round stock into a swage, the ‘zippers’ were plug-welded onto the backpack. Assembly was achieved through a combination of TIG and Gas welding. Grace worked with Elizabeth Brim, a Blacksmith who has developed a method of inflating metal like a balloon while it is red hot. This technique, combined with subsequent forming and alteration, achieved the look of a worn steel backpack.
As a metalsmith and maker, Grace’s work ranges in size from jewelry scale to larger sculptural objects. She works with ferrous and non-ferrous metals in addition to other materials such as wood, fabric and enamel. According to Grace one of her goals in her work is to alter our visual expectations and in doing so, “to comment on the notion that the value assigned to materials is directly tied to whether people or objects are kept or given away.â€
It’s great when visitors to Seven can enlighten us, and that is one of the many reasons we enthusiastically encourage customers and anyone interested in observing our designers, engineers, craftspeople, and service professionals in action to get in touch with us and schedule a visit to our Watertown headquarters.
Thanks so much to Grace for sharing her work and philosophy with us!
