It’s the third year of the Paul Component Engineering and Sierra Nevada collaboration bike build. This year, Paul pinged BTCHN Bikes for the Sierra Explorer. Read on below on this kick-ass project!

Ken Grossman and Paul

It’s no secret that Paul loves Sierra Nevada beer. He might go to their brewery here in Chico for lunch so often that they keep his own personal mug handy behind the bar. So, when Sierra Nevada asked us if we’d like to build up a sweet custom bike for them to show off at the Sea Otter Classic in 2018, we said “Heck yeah!” and built up the Sierra Shredder. When they asked us again in 2019, we took it to the next level with the Sierra Klunker. Both bikes were as custom and American-Made as could be, so when Sierra Nevada asked if we would like to create another masterpiece to show off at their beer garden at Sea Otter in 2020 we had to think hard about whether we could raise the bar of custom American bicycle fabrication any higher than the last two years.

Then it dawned on us. The city of Chico has the best backyard ever, the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where we spend a lot of time enjoying the beauty and rugged nature it has to offer. Over the last few years we’ve enjoyed working with the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship and volunteering with our PAUL aid stations for their cycling events up in the Plumas National Forest. What better way is there to explore this wilderness than by bike? We reached out to our buddy at BTCHN Bikes, a fresh new framebuilder here in Chico who’s making big waves in the custom bike world right now, and asked him if he’d be interested in creating the ultimate bikepacking/camping platform for us. He said “I’d love to, that’s my specialty!”.

Then we reached out to our friends at White Industries for cranks and hubs, Velocity for rims, Pass and Stow for racks, Ultradynamico for Tires, and Outershell Adventure for bags. If you’d like to see process photos of everything that goes into a full-custom project like this from beginning to end, be sure to follow the hashtag #SierraExplorerBike on Instagram for a sneak peek into all the cutting, welding, machining, sanding, polishing, sewing, and painting that goes into a custom bike of this magnitude.

And now for the best part. YOU could own this bike, FREE. That’s right, there will be a “Text to Win” Program at Sea Otter and participating Sierra Nevada retailers from April 1st through April 30th where you can enter to win the Sierra Explorer Bike, so stay tuned!