The Walker Hour Bike
I won’t hold liking cats against you, but if you don’t like dogs, you’re dead to me. Some things aren’t left to opinions, like whether Star Wars is good or not. You’re free to be an outlier – and I loves me some outliers and I loves me a rebel – but in some cases, being an outlier doesn’t make you clever. It just makes you wrong. Also, the Laws of Physics show that the more lightsabers you have in a movie, the better the movie. Except for Episode I and The Matrix, two anomalies which balance each other out.
Similarly, loving carbon bikes is no crime. They are light, they are stiff, and many (most) are beautiful. My stable is filled with them. But a bike handbuilt by an artisan in a small workshop is something different altogether, and each one’s singular beauty is not a matter of opinion, unless you’re comfortable being wrong. I only have one so far, and it’s the custom steel I had made by NAHBS founder, Don Walker for my failed Hour ride last summer. (I’m planning a rematch with Weather this coming June.)
At this point every bike I own is custom, if only the paintwork. But even then, having a hand in how the bike is finished bonds you to the machine in a way that off-the-peg bikes simply can’t. And my Walker, even though I don’t ride it as much as a practical bike (you know, one with gears and brakes) every time I climb on it, I can feel its magic. There is something about custom in general and steel in particular that feels uniquely magnificent.
We’re in a crisis, my fellow Velominati. The North American Handmade Bicycle Show is only a few weeks away and I just heard from Don that many of the builders who have been stalwarts of the event are struggling to the point that they can’t afford to attend, much less keep a booth there. People aren’t buying bikes as much as they were, apparently, and the bikes that are being bought aren’t custom, handmade ones. We’re buying kittens, not dogs. Cyclists are watching Star Trek, not Star Wars. It’s a fucking disaster.
This isn’t a call to go buy a custom frame, we aren’t made of money. But it is a reminder that there are giant corporations behind some bikes, and there are individuals behind others. And if you’re in the market for a bike, I’m asking you to remember that. And if you aren’t in the market for a bike but love looking at them, I’ll be at NAHBS this year (in godforsaken Salt Lake fucking City no less) and I’ll look forward to seeing you there.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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View Comments
@LeoTea
Hi LeoTea,
You can mount the plug and play fenders from Specialized or buy seperate eyelets for the fork otherwise you could Mount the rails of the front fender to the midblade eyelets of the fork. The chainstays have eyelets.
I am really satisfied with my Diverge even though my bottom bracket makes some noise. Think I am going to bring it to my bike shop when I have finished my next bike.
cheers Andy
@Cycle72
The bike business is changing ... for better or worse ... whether we like it or not. There will be more and more direct-to-consumer bike sales. Not just Canyon, but Specialized, Trek, Giant, and Cannondale. Price and convenience will be more and more important to a lot more consumers. Many bike shops will have to figure out a new business model to stay in business.We may not always like the results, but consumer demand and market forces will determine what happens next in the bike biz.
Custom frame building always has been and always will be a niche market. Yes, I ride a "mass produced" carbon fiber bike (Felt FC). But I also own a custom (or bespoke for my friends across the pond) Reynolds 653 bike (circa 1990). My "local" framebuilder has long since retired.
@Cycle72
What kind of bottom bracket with what crankset? I didn't have a noise problem using adaptors when I first built my Felt FC (Ultegra crankset with FSA BB30 bottom bracket). But I ended up replacing the FSA bottom bracket with a Wheels Manufacturing outboard bearing bottom bracket.
For Specialist builders of 753 have you tried Ellis Briggs? They built me a great race bike in the early 80's (branded a Favori from memory). Their website states they have 753 accreditation.
@chuckp
Hi Chuckp
I still have the Praxis Zayante cranks and the original Praxis BB30 my Specialized was equiped with. I still have warranty on it so my bike shop has to deal with that problem. Maybe the BBcups are loose.
@Stuart Fairhurst
Cheers, thanks, but I'd be reluctant even to call it racing. I hopefully won't be taking it too seriously. But if I manage to not lose a couple of races, I'll be pleased!
On the whole support your local frame builder subject; absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with the principle, and I could only wish for a made-to-measure machine that is practically hewn from my own DNA, but then there's the small matter of parting with substantial sums of legal tender. Not all of us have that kind of coin to part with at any one time.
@asyax
Note to self for this weekend, try to peel eyes away from this gorgeous bike long enough to guide its owner around the Adelaide Hills...
@Mikael Liddy
Whhhhhaaaattt
@Stuart Fairhurst
Super sharp. That seat stay to seatpost wrap is always stunning.
@DVMR
I wouldn't have been able to order a custom myself, it was a bittersweet experience because my mum died last year and although not a wealthy woman she left me enough to get a little 'treat'. A custom steel bike seemed like the perfect thing (carbon just doesn't fit the bill of a forever bike).
The whole process of picking every detail was a welcome distraction at the time (only someone who reads this website will understand the length of time I spent agonising over QR skewers!)
Best of all I got to put my Mum's own Rule#5 on the top tube and I get a smile on my face every time I go out for a ride.