Our European correspondent Petor Georgallou recently visited four North American framebuilders who have been awarded SRAM’s Inclusivity Scholarship to attend Bespoked in Dresden, Germany, on October 18–20. In the first installment of this series, Petor joins Memento Cycles of Montreal, Québec. Take a look behind the collective at Memento Cycles…

I’m not sure what I expected from Montreal. There is luxury in landing like an alien without having any preconceptions about what a place might be, and it’s fun to lean into that and be open to the little things that give a place a feeling. The buildings look somehow not real, like they were built as part of a set, or like they’re computer generated with a house-textured skin on them, because they’re all timber-framed and then clad in brick, or some kind of weird brick facade panels. They look like brick buildings, except they have an uncanny flatness and boxiness that 3- and 4-story buildings of a certain age in the UK are unable to preserve. In old age, brick buildings in the south of England warp and twist, and slouch over where their Canadian counterparts seem to either stay bolt upright or fall down. They’re lightweight, inexpensive and practical, fast to erect, and easy to repair.

The landscape and climate in a place often dictate practical building methods, which is part of why the concrete and glass that dominate the centers of most cities are perverse in their global monoculture. In the same way that the buildings are influenced in their architecture, materials, and construction methods by the landscape they sit in, the people that inhabit the buildings are perhaps influenced by the same environmental conditions as their homes.

Cruising down tree-lined back streets, down car-width cycle lanes, separated from pavement by floral borders. During the summers, kids play in car-free alleys, streets are awash with cyclists and greenery, and people sit outside in cafes. The winters are brutal and long, with temperatures regularly below freezing from November to May. There’s a practicality borne of necessity to the people of Montreal, the harsh and wildly contrasting conditions breed a sort of resilience and willingness to repair and maintain things that stacks neatly with cycling.

Walking to Memento Cycles through the pan-flat city took forever as walking always seems to in cities. Block after block, slowly stepping east towards industry and the sorts of concrete buildings where you can install lathes and mills comfortably on the first floor without worrying about overloading wooden beams. Memento Cycles is Éliane Trudeau, Ronny Perez Jaramillo, and Aube Detolle.

Memento is the first small independent manufacturer I’ve ever visited (and possibly in existence) operated by a majority of trans framebuilders. I kind of snuck up on Memento with not a huge amount of notice and just three weeks after a shop move (from the building next door), which was ideal because the shop was messy, and all over the place with each person working on a different thing, with Ronny welding a batch of racks, Aube attaching some fillet-brazed racking to the wall and Éliane finishing up a customer’s frameset peppered with braze-ons, adding the last of the mudguard bosses. It was perfect.

Petor: It’s brazed AND tigged!? You build frames that are brazed and tigged at the same time!?

Éliane: I do both, we usually TIG frames and then braze on all the bosses, but some things I braze. I like to braze the seat stays on a triple-triangle so that there’s less heat distortion on the seat tube.”

You did an engineering degree? That’s where you learned to weld?

My degree was actually in Civil Engineering.

Bridges?

Bridges, but also just big structural stuff, and management, which is perfect for this – because it’s the same, just working out structural stuff and management. I took a welding class after I finished and then practiced for many many hours before actually making anyone a frame. Ronny did mechanical engineering so between us, it’s perfect. I finished my degree in civil engineering in 2019 just before the pandemic, so the pandemic gave me more time to think about what I wanted in life, and with my past (and still present) job as a bike messenger I got a taste of what it was like not to work for a boss and just be by yourself, so I couldn’t picture myself in a classic engineering desk job. That’s why I wanted to work for myself.

I still use everything that I learned in that degree with structural integrity with the frames, and also management to run a business! It’s nice! I think if I was just by myself, it wouldn’t work as well because I would just be super slow, and there’s some stuff that I’m just not that good at, like designing pieces for laser cutting for front racks or dropouts and stuff. Ronny’s really good with that, so it’s nice to have partners in such a business. Now that we’re three, it’s much more fun. Three people is optimal for a small business like ours. Aube also brought with her a lot of super important skills that Ronny and I didn’t have, so now our team is really fully effective.

Despite our being there and being shown around, the three-person shop is surprisingly efficient and feels like a small business, rather than an individual builder. There’s a coherent division of labor, and a cohesive collective moving in the same direction to accomplish tasks. Ronny finished welding up the racks and rode with Bennet (who’d come along on the trip to help carry stuff as “mein handlanger”) to collect the previous batch from the powder coaters, Éliane set up the jig and prepped tubes for the next frame while Aube bounced between finishing putting the shop together, sewing some straps for a cargo bike, and completing frame repairs. Memento is a light-drenched, spacious shop with separate workstations set up for different tasks so at least from the outside it looks like everything runs super efficiently and no one gets in anyone’s way.

Where does the name Memento come from?

It works the same in a lot of languages, and we wanted a name that means the same in English as well as French, we wanted to build bikes that people use and keep for a long time and make memories with. Also it’s like a physical thing – a bike is like a memento of all the fun stuff you’ve done with it.

So obviously I’m here because you were awarded the SRAM scholarship, which aims to make framebuilding more diverse and ultimately more interesting for everyone. The cycling industry is dominated by middle-class cisgender white guys, and I don’t want to say that like it’s a dirty word, because I am one, but that is basically just the situation. Do you think the cycling industry is especially hard to be in as a trans woman?

So I saw at Philly Bike Expo that the majority of people there were super happy about the frame I made, and that got me thinking about why at that bike show it was like that and why in general maybe it won’t be the majority, but I feel like people that are cyclists already have like a step forward compared to people who will just use their car all the time, cyclists are just like a bit nicer in general. In the cycling industry, I think it is much better than if I was in the car industry for sure. When you see that it’s SRAM who does a scholarship for inclusivity that’s a big step in the right direction to have big companies like that make a stand and do something to genuinely help. It’s fine for a space to be inclusive but it doesn’t feel inclusive when you’re the only one, but you feel a space is inclusive when there’s more people like you there.”

[Éliane digs through tubes and checks butt lengths to begin her frame for Bespoked]

What are you going to build?

A new bike for Ronny. I built myself a new bike for the Philly Bike Expo, so now it’s Ronny’s turn. It’s going to be like his old bike, with the same geometry, but with nice tubes and nice parts.

Rad. And what are you looking forward to the most about the show?

Meeting so many new people, because it’s kind of separated between Europe, where there’s tons of framebuilders in general, and North America. It was already so nice in Philly to meet so many new people and having the opportunity again to give better representation. That’s what drives me.

You think there are more builders in Europe?

Oh yeah, for sure! Before we started this business, we were cycle touring to Spain, where we met Safi. He told us that in every big city, there are a bunch of framebuilders. When we started here, there were none in Montreal, except a few like Jacques Gallant, who’s been a great mentor for us, but he doesn’t really do bikes anymore. So back then the scene was totally dead but since then there are a few hobby builders. Safi told us that it was hard there even though he’s an amazing builder, just because there are so many builders out there.

Hmmm. I don’t buy that. I think the problem is cultural – if you look at how many bikes over a certain value are sold in those cities, I’d bet they’re almost all Specialized, Trek, Cannondale, and Canyon. Framebuilders have such a tiny market share that I feel like they are competing with mainstream manufacturing and economies of scale, rather than each other? It’s about teaching people that a bike is something to repair and live with, rather than replace.

For sure. I guess that’s part of our work, to increase our market share so there’s enough demand so that many builders can have as much work as they want. Bigger brands are selling tons of carbon bikes, but it’s hard to make the people who are looking into carbon bikes to consider steel frames. It’s such an elitist market, so when people get into carbon, it’s kind of hard to convince people to buy a steel frame from us.

Why do you like steel?

I love steel. I had an aluminum bike for a huge part of my life and I couldn’t work out why I didn’t like riding it. With carbon and aluminum, the frames are more fragile – and of course there are people who repair them, but it’s not the same as a steel bike which, when you get a custom bike, is a bike that can be with you your whole life. We do a lot of repairs. Each month we get more and more normal frames from around Montreal, which we can repair, and that way we prevent normal bikes from going into the landfill.

Do you like doing frame repairs?

Yeah. I like it because it’s challenging and it changes the pace a bit. Doing custom frames is fun, but if you keep doing the same tasks everyday, it will get boring. Repairs are challenging, because most of the time it’s something new and you have to think about how to repair it and make it as effective as possible.”

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Bennet and I borrowed Éliane and Ronny’s winter bikes to get around Montreal while we were visiting. Being able to ride their bikes in their city of origin helped me understand cycling culture in Montreal a little better. While the winters are harsh, long, and super hard on bikes, which need a total teardown and rebuild each year with hubs and pedals taking the brunt of the abuse, the city is designed with both cyclists and pedestrians in mind. With the exception of the “mountain” (small hill) in the middle, Montreal is more or less totally flat, so bikes are easy and normal, and a mode of transport for a lot of people.

Memento makes mostly super-utilitarian bikes for regular people. Like the houses in Montreal, they’re light, relaxed, utilitarian, and easy to repair. Éliane still works one day a week as a courier at Chasseurs, a local messenger co-op, as a break from the workshop and a chance to ride around all day once a week. Between that and polo, the relaxed, tight-knit cycling community in Montreal make it a great place to be a builder – and Memento are very much a part of the fabric of that community.

I’m super excited to see what Éliane and the team bring to Bespoked with the support of SRAM, as a super valuable part of the global framebuilding community, as well as the cycling industry at large.