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It’s not every day that Ian gets ahold of photos from his recent work, so when I saw this, I had to jump on it. Inspired by Chris’ Philly Bike Expo road, Ben’s Road Wraith is all about performance through modern steel. Check out more at the Icarus Blog!
I met Khalil while I was in Sydney a few months ago but I met this bike at the 2011 Philly Bike Expo. When he found out I was in Australia, he wanted to meet up and I offered to shoot some more photos of his Bishop flatbar fixed gear. It’s still in immaculate condition. Khalil takes it out when he can and rides the coastal roads with. You already know how partial I am to Chris Bishop’s work and this bike shows a different side to his work.
Check out more by clicking the photo above or here to open in a new tab.
To make her Tokyo Fixed Dream Machine Cargo complete, Lauren really wanted a rear rack and panniers. Now I know I push the handmade in the USA thing a lot here but what I really care about are quality products made by people who give a damn about what they’re doing. When I met Shane from Laplander at the Philly Bike Expo, I was very impressed with these City Panniers.
Laplander makes all their bags in Philadelphia and I opted for the waxed cotton model for Lauren. After a few weeks of use, she loves them. Matched with the Wald rack and they add a whole new level of simplicity to her daily routine.
Check out more below!
Well, I hope you all had a great New Year. I’m assuming most of you are back to work now and probably have some time to kill today during your lunch break so I invite you to check out a year in review. 2011 brought about a lot of traveling for me and like the increase in frequent flier miles, the site’s content continues to rack up. International, cross-continental and bi-coastal travels brought me to shops, events and in front of Beautiful Bicycles.
Check out Prolly is Not Probably’s Year in Review below!
This year, more so than years past, I got to document Beautiful Bicycles around the world. From Melbourne, to SF and NYC, track bikes, road bikes and even fixed freestyle bikes found their way to the other side of my lens. When I decided to make my top 10 list this year, I knew I had to find an unbiased way of judging from my posts. After looking at them all, I decided Facebook “likes”, Tweets and comments were the best way to judge. Each of these bikes were broken down on a spreadsheet and I can say with confidence, they’re by far some of my favorite bikes of the year.
Without further ado, here’s my Top 10 Beautiful Bicycles of 2011!
I can identify with large frames up to a certain point. I can ride a 62cm with no problem but a 63cm, for some reason, looks massive. John’s classic road bike was so big that Chris had to construct it from all downtubes. Not only does that give an increased stiffness, it makes for a nicely-proportioned bicycle. The Philly Bike Expo had many great bikes but this one just stood out above the rest. Mostly due to its size!
Check out more from Chris Bishop’s 2011 Philly Bike Expo road bike for John below!
Ian at Icarus is a man of many talents. When you are a master at fillet brazing, making the switch from small-diameter, vintage-inspired bikes to modern, lightweight race machines is easy. When Chris hit up Ian about building him a race bike for the 2011 Philly Bike Expo, he had one thing in mind: performance. After selecting the right tubeset, the bike was under way. This thing is 16lbs complete, has some of the smoothest fillets and sports one bitchin’ paint job.
Check out more from Ian from Icarus’ 2011 Philly Bike Expo road bike for Chris below!
Hey, that’s not a saddle bag! Technically it is, but the folks at Zambale designed a full line of saddle bags to fit on either your handlebars or your saddle rails. I picked up the 7 Litre Saddle Bag from this year’s NAHBS. At the time, I was stoked to find such a nice bag with a DSLR case integrated into it and the reps (who at the time I mistook for the owners), were extremely helpful. It wasn’t until the past few weeks that I finally got around to installing it on my Merckx road and while it doesn’t match the aesthetic of the bike, I found it to be a highly useful accessory to accompany me on my rides.
Check out more below.
Ok, ok, stop emailing me now! Here’s the full monty on my Milwaukee Bicycle Orange One frameset. I didn’t think everyone would be so receptive to such a gaudy paint job but after the 10th email, I promised I’d post the frame. But there’s more to me posting this bike. Let me explain my recent rants about rack and fender mounts.
Check out more on this and a few more photos below.
To say that I’m a Bishop Bikes fanboy might be a little extreme. But then again, if you search for Bishop Bikes on this blog, it can be overwhelming. Chris Bishop builds Beautiful Bicycles out of Baltimore, one of the grittiest cities on the east coast. I have never seen a Bishop that didn’t hit a soft spot with me and hanging out with Chris the day after the NAHBS was a blast!
Check out more photos of Chris Bishop’s custom road bike below!
You asked and Bryan supplied (3 days ago). Who knew he had a Vimeo account? I thought all framebuilders were still in the dark ages? At least Ian cooks one bitchin’ apple pie! Here’s a back-story to the disk wheel on Royal H. Cycles’ time trial bike we saw earlier.
Check out more below.
Royal H. Cycles and Icarus both share a space in Somerville, Mass. Two frame builders, each with unique approaches and personalities united by their love of the custom bicycle.
Check out more photos from my shop visit below.
So it’s been a few weeks since the last Merckx Mondays but this week I’ve got a few gems in store for you! First up is this custom Merckx portrait done by the R.E.Load Philly crew. They had it on display at the 2010 Philly Bike Expo and it’s the perfect introduction to this week’s Merckx Mondays!
Check out some more gems below including the Landlord’s Merckx Selecter!
Friday morning I met up with Scott, Harry and Isaac at the PATH station next to the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. It was around 8am and we were all groggy and anxious. Our plan was to ride to Philadelphia for the Philly Bike Expo. This had proved to be a bit of a problem for me. I knew I didn’t have a bike equipped with rack mounts and my attempts at procuring one last-minute fell through. Finally having sorted my bike out, the three of us made our plans and rode to Philly.
Check out nine more photos below!
Photo by Jack Stewart-Castner
So I made it down to Philly in one piece. Our trip was a huge success and I’ll post up photos once they’re all dumped to my hard drive. I know there’s so much to catch up from this weekend so bear with me while I sort through this mess! While I’m writing some posts, here’s a photos Jack Stewart-Castner took of me and Tony Fast at the Philly Bike Expo / NY Bike Jumble today.
Nice meeting you dude! Thanks for the photo!
When Roland from REload hit me up shortly after I initially posted the Flight Pack asking if I wanted to try one out, I was stoked. I love REload and the way I see it, they pretty much started the whole “custom messenger bag” thing. They’re also located in Philly and I always like supporting East Coast companies. Shortly after I confirmed my address with Roland, a Flight Pack arrived and I started using it as my daily bag. While it’s not hyper-organized, its simplicity is part of its allure.
Check out more of my review below.
Sometimes It’s easy to forget that many framebuilders call Brooklyn home. Even in my neighborhood. Thomas Callahan runs Horse Cycles, a small company on N3rd street in Williamsburg. While Thomas enjoys fillet brazing, he’s also familiar with the fine art that is working with lugs. From the mean street machines to the refined touring bikes, Horse Cycles creates some beautiful bicycles.
Check out my shop visit below!
It’s safe to say that Thomas from Horse Cycles has his own modus operandi. From his frame designs to his graphics, he’s carved a niche in NYC for custom bicycles. This spills over into other areas of his company. Take for instance these new cycling caps he made for the 2010 Philly Bike Expo. Rather than buying yards of fabric, he went out and bought old suits and ripped them into usuable material. Then he commissioned a local seamstress to design a new template for his caps. Using the old material for the hat body and trim, he created a unique silhoutte. Not bad!
These caps will be available at the Philly Bicycle Expo so make sure you’re in attendance.
