Custom Bike Builders Sweat the Details at MADE Show
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Small and craft builders often go the extra mile to inject personality, functionality, and style into their frames and products. Passion for bikes and riding was on full display last weekend in Portland, Oregon at MADE Show 2024.
A consistent theme our editors discussed over morning coffee, midday burritos, and evening beers (or bumping into friends also walking the show) were all of the little things we saw. These small details were everywhere at MADE—seemingly every bike displayed at the event had individual elements or flair. These details made the bikes memorable but also personal; they drew us in and compelled us to look even closer at the builders’ work.
Below is a small sampling of the many great details, touches, and flourishes of creativity, ingenuity, and love we saw on bikes at MADE.
Pedal Details
Black Magic
When you ask a premium paint shop like Black Magic to go full send, you’ll get a bike back with details like these painted-to-match carbon leaf springs on your Look Keo Blade pedals.
Retro Head Unit
Prandus
If you want to get a sense of Prandus’s vibe, here’s what it said when it unveiled its Rhombus steel road bike (previously rim brake only) with disc brakes, “We’ve finally made a road bike with disc brakes. For more stoppy, I guess.” Befitting a bike with “more stoppy” was an out-in-front mounted Casio digital watch and OG-style Selle Italia Flite.
Next Level Touches
Tomii
Few builders in the world sweat the details like Nao Tomii. Beyond the on-point color-matched bolts, Tomii hand-carves intricate elements into many of the bike’s components and his signature cactus badging. He also sweats functional details like the smooth cross-over routing for the Paul Racer center-pull brakes.
Brakes
Btchn’
Paul’s USA-machined Klamper cable-actuated disc brake is popular among the hand-built crowd. Fellow Chico, California resident Tyler from Btchn’ leveled up the already beautiful Klamper by taking one high-polished Klamper and one (rare) pink anodized Klamper, breaking them apart, and re-assembling them into a striking half-pink, half-polished brake set.
Water Color Paint
Scarab
Colombia’s Scarab is already well known for its intricate paint schemes. But the Andes brevet bike—developed in conjunction with Brooklyn, New York’s Eighth Hour Bike Studio—Scarab brought to MADE is on another level. The bike’s “Condor” finish was designed by the artist Washedog and combines multiple techniques: watercolor, transfer, paintbrush, and stencil. The result is a deep, detailed design that reveals surprises with every new look.
Asymmetric Top Tube
Caletti
We all wish John Caletti well as he recovers from his injuries. And let’s also take a moment to admire his wonderful bikes. Caletti’s Scrambler is purpose-built as a flat-bar gravel bike and features mountain bike adjacent geometry. That makes it a fun and versatile bike for everything from getting about to long rides on mixed surfaces. This “Disoriented” steel Scrambler at MADE leveled up with asymmetric twin top tubes and offset seat stay attachment. Why? Well—as is a theme among bikes at MADE—why not?
Shorty Cranks
Appleman
Accompanying his role as a custom carbon frame maker and repairer of broken carbon, Matt Appleman is a crank-length evangelist. Proper crank length, Appleman says, is vital for a rider’s comfort and speed. That’s not a controversial statement, but Appleman feels the cycling industry has let riders down by standardizing crank lengths and reducing them to a narrow range of options. As a result, Appleman contends that many riders are using too-long cranks.
Using myself as an example, I’m a bit over 68 inches/173 cm tall with a 31.5 inch/80cm inseam, and I typically ride a 54cm/medium road bike. Almost universally, those bikes have 172.5mm cranks. But according to Appleman’s crank sizing tools, I should be on 160mm cranks. Appleman sells USA-machined cranks in 135mm to 175mm lengths (in 10mm increments) and 100mm. The 30mm crank axle and the spider mount are modular to accommodate different BB standards and bike styles. Appleman offers a wide range of colors and custom finishes.
Retro-Modern
Wilde
The Sugar Foot is a labor of love for Wilde’s Jeffrey Frane. This is his ideal gravel race bike: a 650b, rim brake, lugged steel frame, and fork with 1-inch steerer and quill stem. But to see it come to life, Frane had to convince Cane Creek to resurrect one of its discontinued two-nut threaded one-inch headsets as the other (still available) 1” options on the market didn’t suit his or the bike’s requirements. Frane rounded off the build of his personal Sugar Foot, seen here with a bevy of classic parts, including a circa 1991 M900 series Shimano XTR drivetrain and cantilever brakes.
Hidden Routing
Baum
Full-internal brake hose routing results in a cleaner-looking bike in a perfect world. But most metal bikes with internal routing, almost universally resort to a bulky headtube and headset to make space for the hoses. What makes Baum’s Celaris special? It is a titanium bike (metal) that features internal routing and a sleek tapered headtube with integrated headset bearings. The secret is the in-house modified Enve fork that routes the brake hoses through the steerer instead of around the steerer.
Flawless Execution
Prova
Between Baum, Bastion, and Prova, very cool things are happening in Australia. While Bastion uses 3D-printed titanium lugs and carbon tubes, Baum builds more classical TIG-welded titanium and steel frames with minimal 3D-printed parts. Prova slots somewhere between the two.
Prova builds traditional(ish) looking bikes along the lines of Baum. However, in recent years, Prova has hit its stride by incorporating more 3D-printed titanium parts and modern designs into its models. Today, its most renowned frames employ 3D-printed titanium lugs joined with titanium tubes (and the occasional carbon seat mast).
Prova founder Mark Hester arrived at MADE with an Integrale version of the Mostro gravel bike, a perfect example of why Prova’s bikes stand out. There is the clean execution of the integrated front end with a sleek 3D printed headtube assembly that mates perfectly with a Chris King Aeroset for Enve In-Route bar and stem. Further back, a 3D-printed seat lug arcs gracefully to join the seat and top tubes and hides an integrated seatpost binder.
Pivot Pulleys
Contra
While there are a lot of beautiful and incredibly detailed bikes at MADE, this Contra is one of the only bikes on display that is raced at the highest levels of the sport. The steel BR200 is used by Beyond Racing’s Abie Hogie and Anna Newkirk (newly crowned and repeat US national champion) to race the UCI Downhill World Cup.
While it is the sort of attention-grabbing bike you would expect to find at a hand-built show, everything is purpose-built for racing. The 24-tooth idler pulley is larger than most—it’s smoother and longer lasting than a smaller pulley. The BR200 employs a top guide to keep the chain in place in the roughest conditions. The machined aluminum dual-link suspension system provides a well-rearward axle trajectory—better for tracking over larger square-edged bumps—but with smoothly controlled leverage ratio, anti-squat, and anti-rise that helps make the BR200’s suspension easy to set up and tune to different tracks.
Headset Bearings
English
Rob English’s personal time trial bike is just about as wild and striking as you’d expect from a bike with his logo on the downtube. However, one detail that’s not obvious is the custom-made headset bearings that allow English to use a small diameter heat tube for less frontal area. Also hidden is a steering stop system that prevents the dual crown fork from spinning into the top and downtube.
Clean Dropouts
Ira Ryan
Ira Ryan built a new race bike for the upcoming cyclocross racing season. But when ‘cross isn’t coming, this gloriously retro racer—lugs, steel fork, one-inch head tube, cantilever brakes, 2x mechanical shifting drivetrain—can be set up for winter and wet weather riding thanks to the tiny fender mounts Ryan built into the frame.
3D-Printing
No.22
3D printing was everywhere at MADE. The hand-built crowd has fully embraced the design and customization opportunities this process grants lower-volume builders. No.22 is one of cycling’s biggest users of 3D printing. The brand uses it liberally on production bikes for dropouts, stems, seat-mast toppers, and other parts.
However, even for a company that uses a lot of 3D printed titanium, the prototype Reactor Aero they brought to MADE is next level. This bike is almost entirely made from 3D printed parts, which lets No.22 dial quickly iterate and prove the design and details before it moves to production. One of the only parts not 3D printed is the carbon seat mast, which was made in partnership with Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based July Cycles.
UDH Dropout
Ritte
Ritte showed up at MADE with updated versions of its custom Occolto titanium bike. The bikes boast a new 3D-printed dropout. It marries the look of a hooded dropout but with UDH compatibility in a neat and compact design. Representatives say the design works with “various chainstay and seat stay shapes,” which allows Ritte additional flexibility when customizing the bike for the rider.
Machining
Sour
A small and growing resurgence of metal full-suspension mountain bikes is underway. The MADE show had several examples, including this German-made Cowboy Cookie (120mm rear travel) from Sour.
Sour makes the steel front end in-house, while the rear end is all aluminum, highlighted by the one-piece rocker link and dramatically hogged-out seatstays. The rear-end components are made down the road (literally) from Sour at machining specialist Actofive, a brand known for amazing fully CNC machined aluminum frames.
And One Last Detail
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