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Photo by Morgan Meredith
LA has been rad for various reasons. One of which has been figuring out how to talk about this #UrbanRacer. So far Morgan has shot the best photo of the bike which I will discuss more in depth at a later date, but tonight we went up to a spot in Los Angeles to recreate it and came out with a completely different shot.
A shot that I’m still really vibin’ with. Lay waste…
Don’t forget! Tomorrow the Speedvagen Fit Tour lands in Los Angeles, beginning with a group ride at 9am from Golden Saddle Cyclery. We’ll ride for a few hours before the party starts at 7:30pm… See ya there!
Yesterday, after a morning of delays trying to get from Austin to Portland, Billy picked me up at the PDX airport in the Speedvagen tank, loaded with bikes, merch and other surprises. As you can imagine, riding in or driving an old armored money truck from Portland from SF will take a few days, so we’re making a few stops along the way to see friends.
I’ll be updating the site daily, and you can follow @TheVanillaWorkshop on Instagram for other, on-the-road updates.
We hope to see everyone at SF on Saturday night as well!
We’re en route to San Francisco in the Speedvagen tank, preparing for the Mission Workshop party this Saturday for a night of bikes, music and beer. If you can make it out, we’d love to have you! Here’s all that’s happening while we’re in town:
Saturday, May 2nd ride:
Ride with Rapha from the Cycleclub
Meet up 8AM, Roll out at 8:30
Coffee provided by Four Barrel.
Expect a 2-3 hour no drop ride.
Saturday, May 2nd party:
Mission Workshop from 6-10PM
Free Fort Point Beer and secured valet bike parking
There will be Speedvagens on display.
Drinks, and unseen art from Chris McNally from the Vanilla Collection
Bike parking will be provided by MW and Vanilla Workshop.
For one of this year’s new paint designs, Sacha White of Vanilla / Speedvagen worked with Japanese customer and brand buddy, Masashi Ichifuru, or Ichico as he’s called by friends. Ichigo initially helped Sacha design their Speedvagen National Kit for Japan.
When asked to describe the end result, Sacha White relayed the following:
“What he designed was quintessentially Japanese insofar as it had aspects that were refined and represented high craft, but it also had all of this killer, super cute Japanese pop culture vibe.”
The resulting kit that Ichico designed was a pattern of text alternating between Katakana and English, spelling out Speedvagen in the two alphabets. Mix in Speedvagen’s signature colors and it was so good it had to make its way on a bike frame, resulting in a visual representation of where Speedvagen is right now.
This Surprise Me paint scheme will make an appearance during this year’s CX season and it won’t be alone. Speedvagen will be releasing the desesign in new colors, that will be accompanied by some very special, traditional Japanese goods.
On to the build itself, we’re looking at a Rugged Road model, which is essentially a road bike with larger clearances and disc brakes. This particular bike was built using ENVE, Chris King bits and Campagnolo EPS 11 speed. Some notes of interest are the battery charging port at the bottom bracket cluster, the newly-designed Speedvagen disc dropout and that elegant seatpost topper.
On a personal note, this was one of my all-time favorite bikes from Vanilla…
I’m bad at keeping secrets, but let’s just say something rad is on the way next week in California.
Next week I’ll be embarking on a trip with Speedvagen as we cruise the Cali coast, stopping at key spots and fitting customers for the 2015 Speedvagen Fit Tour. Which, I might add, still has a few spots open. Sign up for a Speedvagen Fit today.
Even if you’re not going to get fit by Sacha, you can come hang in SF on May 2nd and Los Angeles on May 5th at a few choice locations. Our host shops are the Rapha Cycles Club in SF, Mission Workshop’s Valencia store and Golden Saddle Cyclery in Silverlake. There will be group rides leaving from these shops, with special parties at night. Come check out some Speedvagens and artwork from Chris McNally on display.
Check out the full details below.
Over the next few weeks, Speedvagen will be rolling out a few new bike models, the first of which being the Rugged Road. Like a cross bike, but with some geometry tweaks, the Rugged Road is closer to a road bike than a cross bike, as the name implies. It’s meant for gravel descents with rutted corners and long days in the saddle, rather than an hour of being raced in a cyclocross course.
This frame in particular utilizes the Speedvagen new HollaText scheme with a cream base color; a color we’re the brand will be working with for 2016. It’s built with Di2 and hydraulic discs with room for 40mm tires. As for the geometry tweaks, the most notable is the lower bottom bracket, making it super agile while cornering and keeping the rider’s center of gravity low, despite the larger tires.
To lighted the bike up a bit, customers can opt for a carbon seat tube, which sleeves into the bottom bracket and seat tube cluster. When painted, you can hardly tell, yet it shed substantial weight off the frame. The paint work on the DT Swiss hubs is an accent that Speedvagen has been doing since 2008.
There’s more information on the Rugged Road to come, so stay tuned at Speedvagen.
There’s a bit of Speedvagen coming to California later this month! Here’s the information from the Vanilla Workshop…
“The Vanilla Workshop is excited to announce our California Fit Tour. We will be packing the Money Truck up with bikes and goodies and heading down the coast, bringing our signature fit to San Francisco and LA. One of the most important components of a custom bike is the fit, and being fit by the man who will design and build your frame adds a level of control to the entire process…”
For more information on the Vanilla Fit Tour, read on below for an interview with Sacha White.
Sacha White and the Vanilla Workshop has been around for over a decade and in that time, they’ve shaped what it means to be not only a frame builder in the US, but what it takes to be a successful brand. Whether it’s a custom, hand-built by Sacha, Vanilla frame or an in-house production Speedvagen, you’re going to get the best frame possible.
For years I’ve admired the Vanilla and Speedvagen dropout design and yesterday, I finally got to visit their home at the Vanilla Workshop in Portland. While I work on the photos of the space and the bikes, I’ll share with you a photo I took of an in-progress Vanilla road bike.
Expect more to come…
Oh man, those two globe-trotting, flash bulb firing, brilliant minds over at Manual for Speed really did it this time:
“Do you dream? Of course you do, who doesn’t? But how often do your dreams come true? They’re just dreams after all. Have you ever thought, “Hey, I am sick and tired of my dreams just being dreams? I want these dreams to be a reality, but how could I possibly do it?” You have to want it, you have to understand it, and then you have to REACH FOR THE DREAM!
And we’re here to help. That’s right; you want to make that magical-rainbow-laser-unicorn-tropical-island-melting-clocks-brilliant-light-bouncing-off-of-the-floors-hyper-everything bike of your dreams a reality? We know how! With our proven process you can have that bike of your dreams, so join Manual for Speed and special guest Kanye West as we walk you through the necessary steps to making all your dreams come true.”
Check out the full story at Manual for Speed, pick up some unique MFS custom goods at their web shop and see more of the custom Speedvagen and Argonaut road bikes below. Seriously, I want one of those fly-ass Mike Cherney stem caps!
While the public may know about the Vanilla Workshop and Speedvagen, they might not know the inner-workings or exactly how the two brands operate under one roof. There’s a misconception that Sacha White runs the whole show with maybe one or two other people. When in reality, it takes a whole team to keep things moving.
Recently, the Vanilla Workshop and Speedvagen shared a little insight to help people better understand what really makes them move. Read on below!
Photos by Bob Huff
Sure, the paint, the build kit and everything about this bike is dialed. However, it’s easy to overlook that disc caliper mount. On the chainstay, there’s a hole that punches straight through, reducing vibration from the frame to the disc. That’s pretty ingenious.
See more photos at the Speedvagen Flickr.
Year after year, Portland’s Speedvagen always produces some of the best looking kits. This year’s design is very straight-forward. The Speedvagen Black Kit features the Speedvagen coat of arms on a mostly-black base and is made by Castelli.
Head over to Speedvagen for pre-ordering now.
If you’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on a new road bike, you might want to check out the 2015 Speedvagen Road Guide Book. It goes through the ordering process, pricing, standard and custom features, as well as timeline for delivery and how to order. This year, the new paint scheme is Ghost. An olive drab coat in matte finish with the graphics inlayed, creating a 3d effect on the frame. It’s something else. Read more about the paint at Speedvagen and while you’re there check out the 2015 Road Guide Book.
Photos by Jeff Curtes
Over at the Speedbloggen, photographer Jeff Curtes wrote an essay on the 2015 ‘Cross Nats, including a great little write-up on Crash Nationals. Head on over to the Speedbloggen for more great photos!
Photos by Bob Huff
Speedvagen’s paint jobs are nothing short of amazing, with each year’s new design being an evolution of the last. For 2015, the Coat paint shop worked up a new scheme for the HollaText design, fading colors within the text. See more of this design at the Speedvagen Flickr.
