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A month after the autumnal equinox I found myself on a 15-hour drive up the backbone of California to attend the 2019 Chris King Open House. After last year’s event, I wondered if the event would be as splendid as the year prior. I must admit, I was surprised.
This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!
This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!
ISEN was born from UK custom framebuilders Hartley Cycles and Talbot Frameworks, aiming to bring stock sizing (47cm – 61cm), precision steel bikes, built and painted in house. They offer up a choice of 5 magnificent paint jobs, also known as their #SikCandyFadez and in general make damn appealing bikes with an aesthetic unlike anything else I’ve seen from the UK framebuilder scene.
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? Cody Leuck brought this Plimsoll Buckshot, a Tomac homage hardtail, with unique seat and chain stay yokes…
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? This outstanding Sycip gravel bike brought classic Sycip details to a modern platform.
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? This morning we looked at a fillet Steve Rex and this afternoon, we’ve got a spicy Moth Attack fillet brazed hardtail.
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? We’re continuing today with Steve Rex’s gravel bike.
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? For each gravel bike in the morning, we’ll present a mountain bike in the afternoon. This round, we’re matching the BTCHN’ gravel bike with this Sklar Rigid 29+.
This year at Grinduro, eight frame builders presented bikes in partnership with Maxxis, Sram/Zipp, Columbus, and Hope Tech. The theme? What is your ideal Grinduro bike? In the first post, we’ll look at BTCHN Bikes’ gravel bike.
After sharing the Mystic Alluvium earlier this month, we’ve received a lot of emails requesting the geo sheet. While numbers and degrees aren’t exactly intellectual property, initially I felt a little weird posting them for the entire internet to see. Adam and I put a lot of time in designing the geometry for this bike and I didn’t want to just give away all that work. Later I realized it really doesn’t matter and we only dialed in the geo for the size large and size medium anyway.
I thought it would be fun to just open source the sheets for other people to hand them off to a builder of their choice. Even if no one follows through with that, it’s still a neat project to share. I’ve been riding this bike as a 29er with a 150mm fork over the past few weeks and it’s even better now!
See the full spread below.
Yesterday, we looked at Erin’s Rock Lobster during her Old Growth Classic Reportage. Is it a road bike? Or a cross bike? Or a gravel bike. I don’t know but it has v-brakes, a 2x Ultegra drivetrain, and a dropper post in a field of ultralight, carbon, disc brake, chubby tire bikes like that Ibis Hakka MX I reviewed. Erin’s had this bike for a while and I felt like she did a great job explaining it in yesterday’s post, so read on for a refresh.
Our friends down in Fairfield, Australia at Bastion Cycles pulled together a real treat for us. This “Fall Forest” themed Crossroad frame has been hand-painted to resemble an autumn forest, filled with leaves, flashing colors across the carbon and titanium frame. Read on for all the details and photos below.
I went to grade school in Chico with Jeremiah and still have a very distinct memory of us running laps around the field at Citrus Elementary. He still has some cartoons I drew of a triangle guy riding a skateboard from back in those days. So it’s a real trip that after all these years, and what feel like many lifetimes to me, life has come full circle and I now find myself riding bikes and going to shows with him all the time in Chico. He almost always answers yes to the last minute “Swimming hole ride after work?” texts I send out, and as a long-time Chico rider, he knows all the cutty local trails.
Last year’s Chris King Open House was a great time and this year, to coincide with their two new colors for 2020, the factory will be open to the public once again, and once again, a number of beautiful custom bikes will be on display from a whole roster of talented builders. We’ll be covering each bike in detail, as well as the weekend’s events, so please, come out and enjoy the hangs with food, beer, and Beautiful Bicycles. Head to the event’s Facebook Page to sign up so they know how many to expect and we’ll see ya there!
Speedvagen’s Ready-Made OG series offers up the styling of a custom Speedvagen, at a much lower pricepoint. We looked at the OG road bike a few years back, including that beautiful lilac frame, and my OD OG-1. New to the OG lineup this season is the Disc OG, which has a few new details, other than the addition of disc brakes. So does this bike ride as good as it looks?
Last month’s Open House at ENVE was a bit of an experiment. The brand wanted to explore possibilities of showcasing framebuilders that have been building with ENVE wheels and components over the years, while offering up an option to ride in Ogden, Utah where they’re based through an event they’re dubbing Grodeo.
Over the years, I’ve had the honor to throw my leg over many bikes, try them out, write a review, and then send them back. While the bikes return to their companies, the experience stays with me, and in the time I’ve been running this website, I’ve developed my own belief for what the perfect geometry for a hardtail mountain bike is. About a year ago, I began talking with Adam Sklar and Colin Frazer, who were about to launch a new production, US-made frame company called Mystic. We wanted to test the waters with a Radavist edition frame, dubbed the Alluvium. After chatting about numbers and branding, we felt like we were getting closer to releasing this frame. Then the reality of such an undertaking took hold and we killed the project.