Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
After wading through photos of the many incredible bikes on display at this year’s North American Handmade Bike Show (NAHBS), here are six bikes that caught our eye, each built with bikepacking in mind…
Held recently in Sacramento, CA, the 2019 edition of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, or NAHBS, featured a lot of interesting bikes from small builders all over North America. All-road bikes seemed to be the most popular category, but there were many that blurred the boundaries, and a lot of riveting bikepacking rigs to peruse. We didn’t make it to the show, but there are countless galleries floating around the interwebs. Here are six bikes that captured our attention from afar. Special thanks to NAHBS for providing the photos.
Mosaic Cycles (Best Mountain Bike)
Mosaic Bespoke Cycles is a Boulder, CO-based small batch builder of purpose-made bikes for mountain, gravel, road, and city. Complete with funky, bolt-on JPaks bags and a sweet paint job, Mosaic’s MT-1 Series titanium 29er hardtail took home the overall Best Mountain Bike award.
Steve Potts Trail Tourer
After starting WTB back in the 1980s, Steve Potts started building frames, and has been doing it ever since out of his shop in Etna, California. This non-suspension-corrected mountain bike is fully equipped with new Pass and Stow racks designed with three-pack bottle bosses to hold two Anything-style cargo cages.
Black Cat BOOST All-road Bike
Todd Ingermanson builds bikes out of his shop in Aptos, CA, under the name Black Cat Bicycles. You may have seen the Holy Mountain featured here a couple years back. We were pretty stoked to see this experimental rig, an all-road bike, but for large 27.5 x 2.35” tires (which we obviously like). To accomplish this level of clearance, Todd went from the typical 142mm rear spacing to 148mm BOOST. This, along with a lot of other wizardry, allowed Todd to build an experimental 27.5 x 2.4″ road bike with short, 420mm chainstays.
Corvid Cycles Sojourner
Corvid Cycles is a small builder based in Boulder, CO. The Sojourner is the company’s titanium dirt-touring rig, complete with a Gates/Pinion drivetrain, a unique titanium rear rack, US-made Astral rims, a silent Onyx hub, and an original titanium touring handlebar.
Frances Cycles Randonneur
Frances Cycles’ Joshua Muir builds bikes and trailers out of his 235 square foot shop in Santa Cruz, CA. This classic randonneuring frame was on display at the show, fully equipped with racks and Frances’ own Farfarer Trailer.
Rob English’s Plus Bikepacking Bike
Rob English has been building bikes out of Eugene, Oregon, since 2009 and won Best in Show at the 2013 edition of the show. This year, Rob decided to focus on bikepacking with this 3.0” tire equipped mountain bike, complete with a removable bolt-on rear end (for packability), elevated chain stay, custom bags by Kaibab, and a truss fork with an integrated rack. Find more photos and info here.
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