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FEATURES: SOCAL CUSTOMS: SAN DIEGO CUSTOM BICYCLE SHOW
Patrick Brady
April 7, 2009
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(Photo: Vendetta Cycles)
Seeing the work of more than one or two custom bicycle makers at a time
used to be difficult, if not impossible. Years ago Reynolds tubing and
Nova Cycle Supply would show the work of their customers in their
booths at Interbike, but that wasn’t exactly a public forum. The advent
of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show has not only given builders
a way to show their work to the public, it has focused a spotlight on
the incredible renaissance going on in frame building here in America.
That
said displaying at a show is an expensive venture for a one or two-man
operation and at the end of the day, what a frame builder really needs
is an order, right? Brian Baylis, Dave Ybarrola and Chuck Slesinger
realized Southern California builders needed to connect with Southern
California cyclists and the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show was born.
Most of the builders in attendance were from the San Diego area
(there’s more of them than one might think), though a few came from as
far away as Portland and even Philadelphia.
As a first year
event, it was an absolute success and while NAHBS is the perfect
national spotlight for hand-crafted frame building, maybe there needs
to be more events like the ones in Portland and San Diego celebrating a
local region’s hotbed of creativity.
Dave
Ybarrola (left) and Chuck Slesinger (right) work with Brian Baylis to
pull the event together. Baylis says Ybarrola put in long hours helping
to secure a venue and create the website and marketing materials. Each
says without the other the event would never have happened.
This
single-speed, disc-brake creation of Bruce Gordon’s was easily the most
impressive bike of the show. It features lugged titanium construction;
ti tubes were bonded into ti lugs milled from bar stock and a number of
additional construction steps that Gordon refused to reveal, saying,
“There’s a lot more to it than that….” Notable details include a
wood-inset headset from Cane Creek, a custom disc-brake mount carbon
fiber fork out of Serotta’s composite facility in California, wood
rims, as well as custom braze-ons and a handmade ti seatpost.
This
integrated ti bar and stem combination benefited from ex-Salsa honch
Ross Shafer’s creativity. Gordon consulted with him on the construction
and got a call back a little while later, “(sucking sound) Yeah man,
it’s Ross. I know how to do it.”
This
unfinished Persechini Classic Cycles frame by Dave Ybarrola shows the
amount of work that goes into his lugs. After recutting the lugs’
points to his taste, he thinned them to the thickness of a few sheets
of paper and then added brass fillets to smooth the transitions,
softening the lines of the bike.
This
luscious orange and stainless steel creation from Vendetta Cycles
featured a brazed-on polished stainless logo rather than decal on the
downtube. We’ve seen this sort of work in only one other place: on a
Vanilla. Owners Garrett Clark and Conor Buescher hail from the
Wilamette Valley of Oregon. Bonus points for the visual palindrome.
Mirror-polished
stainless steel showed up everywhere on the orange Vendetta, in this
custom, lugged stem, the head tube and seat tube lugs, heck even the
stem top cap.
There
is a reason why Brian Baylis is a legend. No step is too difficult, no
exercise too futile in his quest to make an artful bike. This
masterpiece features gold leaf on the whole of the head tube, as well
as the seat lug and brake bridge. The head tube is also unusual in that
it integrates the top and downtube lugs together with fillets that
flair at the top and bottom of the headtube.
Pacific
Coast Cycles brought this display case full of cycling memorabilia.
From the collection of head tube badges (including Indian and
Blissett’s, a Jamaican brand) to the old Mario Confente catalog and
hand-scrawled contact info, the display was a trip in the way-back
machine to another era in cycling, several of them, in fact.
Dave
Bohm of Bohemian Bicycles used a jeweler’s saw to cut this stainless
steel S&S travel coupler into lace. Such intricate work is the
hallmark of the Tucson builder’s reputation.
Img 6155
Chuck
Slesinger named his company Sadilah for his daughters, Sadie and Lilah.
This bike recalled the work of a generation of English builders who
used Long Shen arrowhead lugs.
The
Masi USA operation is to Southern California frame building what The
Who are to Punk. The influence is felt everywhere. Mike Howard and
Brian Baylis started Wizard following their tenure at Masi. Howard did
the brazing while Baylis cut the lugs and this is the first frame under
the brand’s name.
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