I first met Jacqueline at Breadwinner Cycles, while I was shooting a Shop Visit of their café. Since then, we’ve featured the Untitled gravel bike from the Philly Bike Expo and I’ve been keeping tabs on Jackie’s endeavors. Well, recently Untitled Cycles officially launched and Jacqueline has a press release announcing a fundraiser for the brand, so read it in full below.

I am writing to you today with the exciting news of my official launch of UNTITLED Cycles! Building custom bicycle frames has been my dream, and I’m thrilled to offer one-of-a-kind gravel, cyclocross, road and urban bikes. Starting today, I am taking orders and building a waitlist: You can join the waitlist through the pre-order form here.

This year has been unpredictable and difficult, and the prospect of launching a small business during this time is extra daunting. Still, I feel called to take this decisive leap of faith and create my own unique business. I am a working class trans femme and starting a business from this place is a huge undertaking. Therefore, I have created a fundraiser campaign with a goal to raise $15,000—this, along with your orders, will allow me to secure shop space, buy machinery, and purchase a vehicle so that I can ship bikes across the country. Additionally, I understand what it’s like to be marginalized in the bike industry. Along with creating beautiful, artistic, unique frames, one of my long term goals for this business is to provide training and apprenticeships to people underrepresented in frame building, so please know that your support for me and UNTITLED is also a way to change frame building and bicycle culture at large.

My journey to frame building traces back my education in art, design and fabrication at Cooper Union. Commuting to school, I fell in love with bikes, and continued to branch out into bike sports as I graduated and worked in the field of architecture. I soon realized that spending all day in an office meant that I couldn’t access my passion for fabrication, so in 2015, I moved to Portland, OR to learn a traditional method of bicycle construction called fillet brazing. From the very beginning — with a torch in one hand and a bronze rod in the other — I was mesmerized by the alchemy that happens when these elements come together. It’s a magical experience to melt dabs of bronze around each joint, creating a triangulated piece of steel destined to become a functional bicycle.

Over the past three years, I’ve worked at Breadwinner Cycles under the guidance of my first frame building instructor Tony Pereira and his business partner Ira Ryan. They, along with many other mentors, patiently answered questions and shared words of wisdom, and I’m now ready to embark down a path that honors what I’ve learned while adding my own special touch. To create the elusive “modern-masterpiece”—a goal which can so easily end in a contrived and busy assemblage of metal—is by no means an easy journey, but with practice, my vision has produced bicycles that are elegant, eye-catching, and transcendent in their ability to take you places you have yet to explore as well as make known routes feel new again. I can’t wait to share this with you all.

If you’re ready to get on the waitlist, I invite you to fill out the questionnaire linked above.  Please forward and spread the word of this announcement, share and donate to my fundraiser, and feel welcome to reach out to me to learn more about what I’m offering.

With gratitude and enthusiasm for what comes next,