Golden Saddle Rides: DIRT Research Cross Bike – R.I.P Tom Teesdale
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley

This bike is rare, probably one of the rarest bikes to ever grace Golden Saddle Cyclery. It’s owner is one of our favorite customers to work with(a true lover of vintage mountain bikes), because of him we build some of the coolest bikes on the planet and this one is no exception.

This is 1 of 3 DIRT Research cyclocross bikes, these three bikes were built by the late Tom Teesdale, and when this frame/fork was brought to us it was NOS.

The pictures tell the story of the build, so I don’t need to talk about that really. The bike is a very period correct, fire-road crushing machine. But what really matters, is who it was built by. Mr. Teesdale was the ghost writer for a whole generation of American made mountain bikes. Tom recently passed away while doing the thing he loved, riding bikes.

T.E.T you’ll be missed.

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Follow Kyle on Instagram and visit Golden Saddle Cyclery in Silverlake, Los Angeles.

I had never heard of Shand Cycles before yesterday’s new of Chris Hoy’s Keirin-inspired track bike, so I did some digging… Enjoy!

Photo by Anthony Bareno

Eric at Winter, like many builders, has been busy, busy, busy with frames, the most recent being this Consano All-Road. This frame is equipped with clearances for bigger tires, while maintaining a road geometry and feel. Equipped with PAUL MiniMotos for stopping power and a deep red coat of paint from none other than Keith Anderson.

Head over to Winter Bicycles for more.

When it comes to men’s track racing, a handful of names come to mind and Chris Hoy is at the top of the list. I can’t imagine how stoked Shand Cycles must have been to build him this incredible Keirin-homage track frame.

Head over to the Shand Flickr for the full photoset!

Admittingly, I was first drawn to the Teague x Sizemore because of the overall frame design, but after really looking at all the details, I’m sold. While the handlebars might not be the most comfortable (looking), the lockbar combination is brilliant, as are the fenders. Those two details alone sold me on the design, because that’s what the Oregon Manifest has always been about: innovation.

The rest of the bikes have some clever details, like the Pensa + Horse Cycles expanding rack, but the Sizemore developed a few details that I could see catching on in the industry.

Seriously Taylor, you should send a set of those fenders to Bicycle Quarterly… Cast YOUR vote at the Bike Design Contest site and see some more details of the Teague x Sizemore design below.

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… and here we are again, watching Italian men made beautiful Colnago C60 frames!

The Radavist features a lot of frame builders, but few are as world-renown as Colnago and yes, they still make frames, by hand in Italy.

Dain from Giro was the key player in the Easton Dream Bike give-aways and now, he’s put together one of his own. Being good friends with Todd from Black Cat and a resident of sunny Santa Cruz, he knew where to go with his idea: a carbon and steel constructed road bike.

See more below!
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While N+1 may be the theme around here these days (so many bikes!), I love seeing projects like this coming from the 44 Bikes workshop. Murdered-out cross bikes with disc brakes and SRAM Force 11-speed look great, especially with big tires for shredding, but let’s be honest, there’s no sense in forgetting that these bikes make great commuters as well.

See more photos below and thanks to Kris from 44 Bikes for sending this project over!

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I’ve learned a lot in the past two years and so has Ben at Argonaut Cycles. He looks at his made in the USA, fully custom carbon road bikes as a project that’s ever-evolving. With each frame, he learns more not only about his customers, but his own process. My Argonaut was perfection in my eyes and while I loved it, some things about it made it less than ideal for my lifestyle and by that I mean, I travel. A lot. At the time, Ben didn’t offer a traditional seat post, only an ISP…

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