When people find out we build custom bikes, they ask, in the grocery store, at the school drop off, at the donut shop, “What kinds of bikes do you build?” And we pause, as you do when the answer is much larger than the question, and then we say, “Well, all kinds, road, mountain, commuter, cyclocross, whatever people want.”
Except that’s not the half of it.
The truth is that categories like road or mountain have stopped meaning much of anything. We build road bikes, and sometimes that means a narrow-tired race machine and sometimes that means a fendered, long-distance randonneur.
What’s that? Randonneur? You can’t use the word randonneur at the donut shop.
So categories break down. Road is an umbrella that covers so many distinct and exciting types of bikes that before you know it, you’re in another category altogether, maybe cyclocross, maybe commuter.
If it’s ridden on pavement is it a road bike? If it lives on the trail is it a mountain bike? It’s hard to know how to define a custom bike. We are not constrained by shelf space or model year, by component choices or paint scheme, by pavement or dirt.
People come to Seven, often, because the thing they want can’t be captured in a word or two. Maybe they want a road bike, but they want the option to add fenders and racks when they’re not riding with their fast, weekend group. Maybe they want a cyclocross racer, but they want to be able to convert it to a winter-time commuter when the season is over.
We build road bikes, sure. That’s what we say at the grocery store, or at the barber shop, but we also build all the bikes in-between the road and the trail, the race course and the school drop off. Those are the kinds of bikes we build.