Lucky last. This third and final gallery of what I captured at the Made Bike Show offers a broad mix of stunning bikes, some interesting accessories, and, because the editors requested as much, one of my own (not something I captured at the show). Be sure to check out our first and second galleries for much more.
The wide tire theme continues in this last instalment, but if you can look past the rubber size, you’ll also see some impressive craftsmanship and elegant design that could be applied to any style of bike. Take the Tonic that’s covered below, for example; even without the paint and logos, I can still spot Tony’s always-unique work.
Lastly, a Geek Warning podcast dedicated to chatting Made has been teased all week and is now live. Everyone can access the first half, but you’ll need to be a member of Escape Collective to hear me for the full hour.
Tonic Fabrication
Tony at Tonic really had fun with this drop-bar mountain build, drawing on inspiration from mountain bike pioneer Charlie Cunningham with the stem. The super clean integration is achieved with a one-piece stem/steerer that is secured in the fork crown. Tony also made the fork blades that bolt in, which taper perfectly to the dropouts.
A dropped driveside chainstay aids in chainring clearance. The build is completed with very tidy dynamo lighting.
Remco
Remco launched its motorized workstand at last year’s show, which has been selling well and now has international distribution (expect a full review from Dave Rome soon – Ed.).
Co-owner Ryan spent some time in New Zealand and, whilst in Wellington, met with Tristian at Wheelworks. Remco decided they could use its supply chain to create a production version of Wheelworks’ wheel stress device. Named the Grimlock, it allows for stress relieving a wheel in a repeatable and controlled fashion. Powered by an air compressor, the pressure applied and the time of application can be set depending on the wheel build (for example, Berd spokes can be loaded for three minutes to greatly accelerate the tensioning process). Aimed at professional wheel builders and service shops, the Grimlock is nearly ready for production with a ballpark price of US$2,000, including domestic US shipping.
Liminal Machine Works
Brian has many years of bicycle fabrication experience under his belt working for others. Last October he put out his own shingle as Liminal Machine Works to take on custom projects that fall into that space between niches. He can build in steel, stainless steel, and titanium, and is also working on his own component range, CNC’d in-house.
This bike is a modern recreation of the historic retro-direct drivetrain, which provides a second, lower gear when pedalling backwards.
Goodday Bikes + Curiosity Bags
Chris at Goodday builds frames in Colorado, where the gravel riding can be fairly demanding and sometimes needs a drop-bar mountain bike for touring. Every bike has a theme – this one is the Sage Thrasher which is a local bird. The frame will clear a 2.2” tire, and runs external cables for ease of care when out in the wilds. Details include a tiny custom stem, asymmetric seatstay and some wide Btchn titanium dropbars.
Chris’ partner, Arly, sews the custom bags to match (under the brand name Curiosity), which are neatly integrated so that they won’t rub on the rider’s legs.
Appleman
Matt Appleman suffered a knee injury in college, which led him on a journey to understand fit and biomechanics, experimenting with seat tube angles and crank lengths. The consistent knee pain was very motivating, and he eventually found a pain-free solution with 155 mm cranks.
Working as a custom framebuilder, Matt was frustrated with the lack of short crank options and so decided to design and make his own. The Appleman 2XR crankset is fully modular, with axles and spiders to fit any width and standard, in lengths from 135 mm to 175 mm, plus a 100 mm for riders with severe range of motion issues. Matt said that 155 mm is his best-selling length, and he recommends 20% of inseam as a rough starting point for crank length – for this, he had a crank length-o-meter for quick rider measurements.
Crank length is a trendy topic at the moment. It’s a topic Escape‘s Ronan Mc Laughlin recently covered in Performance Process.
Abbey Bike Tools
There is nothing totally new from the green tool company, but they have made a couple of small updates to the Truing Stand and have a new tray for the Noble bearing puller set.
Made-Stinner Bike
This year Stinner took on the task of producing the Made-themed bike. The rugged singlespeed is all set up for Portland with full fenders and a front rack. Very neat rear dropouts are paired with an eccentric bottom bracket for chain tensioning.
English Cycles
As for me … I brought my new personal gravel bike, which is also the latest iteration of my folding frame concept for travel. This one is all stainless steel, with a full mirror polish for some bike show bling!
It’s shown with 45 mm tires, although 50 mm will fit within the short 425 mm chainstays. Geometry is designed for more rowdy gravel, with 70 mm of trail and a longer front center.
The controls are all mechanical for ease of traveling, with an esoteric mix of Garbaruk, Ingrid, Campagnolo, and Growtac. It all works really well, and I gutted the left shifter to operate the Enve dropper. The complete bike weighs in at 18 lbs (8.16 kg).
One of the other bikes I showed was my new Time Trial bike (previously shown at the Enve Builder Round-Up show), and the Escape tech editors have asked me to do a deep dive into that one. Soon.
More to come, maybe
While I’m still feeling a little wiped out from last weekend, I’m now headed to California for Above Category’s smaller bike show, the AC Invitational. I aim to capture a few more drop-bar road and gravel bikes that I ran out of time to do while at Made. Wish me luck!
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