The Radavist

So I’ve been building up to my Icarus MAX track bike for some time, showing you teasers and hyping it up with bling upon bling of beautiful components. If you think you’re ready to see this bike, then know for sure that I’m as anxious. A while back, Ian emailed me a few photos, one of which I’m sharing with you now. You’ll have to come to the Philly Bike Expo and see this bike before I can get my camera lens on it!

Ok, ok, I’m kidding, there’s a few more photos below!

If you can’t make it over to the East Coast for the Philly Bike Expo, you should head over to Bend for the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show. Check out more details here.

Gypsy and Gear Brisbane made a video showcasing the PC x Leader Kagero.

Interbike was a blast this year. Once the dust settled and I could look through all my photos, it dawned on me: fixed gears and track bikes have really changed the face of the cycling industry. I know that’s a bit ambitious to say but I really do think that track bikes made it “cool” to ride bicycles and the trickle down effect has taken hold of the cycling industry.

Check out more photos below, along with a complete listing of all my coverage from Interbike 2011!

This little beauty popped up on the Firefly Tumblr and the rest of it’s up at the Firefly Facebook. Framebuilders, here’s how you sucessfully rise to the top of the hand made in the USA frame industry: proper marketing backed by a pristine product. Firefly is on top of their game! Check out more here, here, here and here. Oh, this bike will be at Eurobike this year. Untz, untz baby.

Previously:
Shop Visit: Firefly Bicycles

This week brought some very interesting discourse in the comments section of a few blog posts. First, the Bruce Gordon SOS went up and then I posted a teaser to Majaco Bicycles, without stating who the builder was, allegations and assumptions flew like sparks. Frame building, especially in the USA, is a difficult profession. All the builders I know struggle from day to day but they continue to make Beautiful Bicycles with their hands. Mark from Majaco Bicycles is new to frame building. He’s been producing custom bicycles for a little over a year now. I spent a few hours at Mark’s house in South Austin talking bikes and discussing what makes Majaco Bicycles different from many other builders in the US.

Check out more below!

Here’s where we left off last week: wind-tunnel testing with the Toyota Prius Projects concept bike. In this day and age, technology has taken a rather strong footing in cycling. Both in the amateur and pro market, science is being applied to make people and their bikes more efficient. Efficiency is no stranger to the Prius, and I would argue that it’s one of the main concepts Parlee grasped during the design of the Toyota Prius Project concept bike. It wasn’t until after the wind-tunnel testing that Bob Parlee could see the areas on the bike that needed revisions, and that’s just part of the design process.

Check out more from Week 8 of the Toyota Prius Projects Concept Bike coverage below!

Throughout my coverage of the Toyota Prius Projects concept bike, I’ve been feeding you little snippets of information, alluding to the design of an aero-road bike. Bob Parlee‘s key involvement in this project has been of the utmost importance. The man’s a master of carbon fiber and racing technologies. When we first began discussing the intent of this project, Bob was adamant about making something new but not so concept-driven that the applications couldn’t be implemented in some way or another into the cycling industry.

Check out more from Week 7 of the Toyota Prius Projects concept bike coverage below!

The grassroots bicycle shows keep coming. San Diego, Philly and now Madison, Wisconsin are all hosts to their respective velo shows. The Heartland Velo Show will start a new tradition of the “Made in the USA” bicycle show. Check out the press-release below!

Finding out that your product has been knocked off is a huge bummer for a small business owner. Much less, a small frame builder! When Greg and Marty first discovered the Indonesian bootleg Geekhouse Rockcity track bikes on the internet, the guys were super bummed but that made them realize something: people in Indonesia want Geekhouses!

So from that moment, arose the opportunity for a distributor in Indonesia to carry a few Rockcity track bikes and here’s the first baby the guys in Allston cooked up!

Check out more below!

When you think of the term, frame building, what kind of connotations arise? Shavings, mills, flux and steel right? As commonplace as steel framebuilders are nowadays, there are very few that are still making aluminum bikes, much less aluminum track bikes. That’s where Low Bicycles comes in. Andrew Low began building track bikes in 2010 after a he got tired of making roll cages for off-road vehicles in Colorado.

Now he’s got a small shop in the Mission in SF where he designs, fabricates and even heat treats his frames.

Check out more photos from my Shop Visit to Low Bicycles below!

Kyle at Trackosaurus Rex knows the best way to save the track bike is to sell the stickers here on Prolly is Not Probably. Show your support for Tracko with these vinyl-cut stickers. Made in Los Angeles county, USA.

SOLD OUT

I’ve been chatting with Tom at Donhou Bicycles over the past few months. Originally they were supposed to come to the NAHBS but visa problems got in the way. Well, the guys are still kicking and are ramping up for the Bespoked Bristol show. Tom shared with me their most recent work, Sparky’s road bike.

Check out more below.

NYC can support an almost unlimited amount of bike shops. Even to the point where specialized boutiques can thrive. That’s where GRIME Bikes‘ storefront comes in. They won’t fix your flat or adjust your derailleur, but they’ve got everything you need to get your fixed freestyle bike rolling and more. I wasn’t around for the grand opening of the store, but I caught up with Mike and Joey on Saturday to take some photos of their space in Chinatown.

Check out more photos from my Farewell NYC Shop Visit to GRIME Bikes below.

Chris Bishop has completely murdered the competition in the 2011 NAHBS. His track, road and rando bikes stand out from many other builders and once again, I did my best to document his lovely bicycles.

Check out more photos of Bishop Bikes’s 2011 NAHBS offerings below!

Today I snuck into the 2011 NAHBS to grab a few teaser from everybody’s favorite builders. First up is Chris Bishop from Bishop Bikes. Chris’ work is covered here extensively and he’s one of my favorite builders in the US. I love Bishop and his bikes at the 2011 NAHBS are ridiculous!

Check out a Teaser of Bishop Bike’s 2011 NAHBS offerings below!

I have a feeling that Chris Bishop is going to be breaking necks the entire weekend at the 2011 NAHBS. Granted, it’s just a feeling but with previews like this, who’s gonna argue with me? Remember those elegantly-carved head tube lugs I posted before? That was just a preview of the Horton Town Bike that Bishop was building. Here’s a preliminary photo showing the master painter, Joe Bell‘s work.

For a detailed, in-progress photo of Joe Bell’s masking, check out one more photo below.

Framebuilders take note. This is some Weigle shit right here:

“I was going to do a fillet stem originally then Brett sent me a pic of a Rene Herse stem and asked if I could do one like it. I have had a block of 6061 around that I was planning on using for a stem some day. Well It is a LOT more work than I ever thought. Especially on my little Linely Jig mill. Making this stem reminded me of a three pitch rock climbing trip I took with a friend to Seneca rocks. The farther you went up the higher the stakes were and the more careful you had to be.

By day four of the machining I knew one wrong move would set me back that much further. I had another stem ahead of it that I would use to test each set up with, but early on I messed up the drop angle, so it was like a track stem. After the machining I hand filed all the edges to give it a more organic handmade feel, which definitely transformed it from the downhill stem it was looking like during the machining process.”

Bishop Bikes is going to be huge in 2011. Chris’ work just keeps getting better and better! I can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store for NAHBS dude! Check out the entire process, from billet to beauty here at the Bishop Flickr!