Australia’s handmade bike scene is really thriving. Along with the proven and well-known masters, there are no shortage of newcomers and disrupters from the scene. While a lot of these new faces are ensuring classic procedures and designs will continue into the future (as you’ll see in our next gallery), others are breaking the mould and merging sci-fi-like technology, fresh thinking and world-class craftsmanship.
It’s the latter which this gallery focuses on, and these builders are clearly making an effect on everyone else . See the pictures below for new bicycles from Bastion, Prova, Mooro and Geisler. All masters in their own right are the builders of the frontier.
Follow the link for all our policy from the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, including last year’s galleries.
Listen: A chat with Silca’s CEO Josh Poertner in relation to HBSA and the Australian custom builders scene.
Bastion has gone groad. The Melbourne-based firm has modified and enhanced its custom 3D-printed titanium lugs and woven carbon tubes to make its most recent model, the Cross Road.
The Cross Road uses newly designed lugs which are believed to create a bond with the carbon tube that’s twice as powerful as before. While Bastion didn’t have a cut-away to hand, the drag is efficiently now slotted for the carbon tube, offering bonding on both the inner and outer surface of the tube.
Bastion was among the movers in the bike industry to utilize 3D titanium printing. Lately the firm acquired its own printer, and today produces frame components for many other regional builders.
See that joint following the dropped section of the chainstay? This ’s where the 3D titanium printed bottom bracket lug ends. This large piece of clever additive printing affords clearance for around a 700x45c tyre.
Another angle of the bottom bracket drag. With Bastion’s lattice structure, it’s not at all heavy. The bike pictured is believed to weigh 7.5kg.
First seen a year ago, the Bastion Road Disc SL is currently available for order. Saving 100-150g over a regular Bastion Road Disc, the SL achieves the weight reduction through smaller lugs and paired thinner tube.
Like all Bastion frames, the lugs are 3D titanium published. The custom made carbon tubes feature a subtly different layup into the regular version too.
Not a show bike, the Road Disc SL on display will soon belong to Simon Gerrans.
Mark Hester of Prova Cycles has just ticked onto his 60th bicycle and is fast becoming a name in the business. Having stolen the show last year, the Prova Speciale was back again.
As a refresher, the Speciale merges a stainless steel frame construction with an in-house made carbon seattube. Hester recently changed his methods for creating the seattube, now using compression bladders which allows more finite control over the layup and desired ride quality.
The Speciale’s dropouts are now 3D printed in stainless steel. Hester’s workshop is in a shared area with Bastion, and so the young Australian mechnical engineer has ready access to the state-of-the-art technology. As a consequence of the new customized dropouts, the latest Speciale frames move to an updated Syntace derailleur hanger which provides a cleaner setup and more stable derailleur connection that is typically limited to mass-production brands.
Now the big news. Hester is dabbling with titanium. Pictured is his first titanium bike, a Ripido Party Ti built for himself to test. “My previous steel bike is limited by the maximum downtime length that is commercially available. Whereas this, I begin with long lengths of tubing and cut and externally butt for each frame, I was really able to build this framework as I’d originally planned for the frame. It allows more design freedom, you can purchase lots of different wall thicknesses, and this tubing in lots of different diameters. And because I’m custom butting it, I could tune it to a particular framework,” said Hester of his bike which includes a very roomy 495mm reach (extremely long given he’s of average height, in 174cm).
There is no paint on this framework. The blue and purple anodised fade is surely a crowd-pleaser, and has been done by Melbourne-based Nine Volt Colour (a brand new name into the scene).
Just like a good breakfast, this bike has two yokes. In cases like this, they’re 3D titanium published. As Hester explained end frame stiffness becomes an issue with titanium when you’re pushing tyre and chainring clearance to the limitation. The 3D printed yokes allow clearance along with the stiffness that is desired. This bike is a sign of things to come.
The Ripido Party Ti prototype uses a 86.5mm T47 bottom bracket shell to provide even more width to the chainstays. The frame fits a 29 x 2.5in rear tyre, while keeping a 430mm chainstay length.
The 3D titanium printed dropouts look amazing, but they also allow Hester to create hyper-specific changes to each framework he’ll produce.
Hester even designed his own 3D printed seat clamp. This design therefore provides a secure hold without causing stiction or pinching problems with dropper posts, and will help to spread the force over a greater surface area.
A look in the dropout of this Ripido Party Ti. Like lots of Hester’s other lugs that are published, it features the same published lattice structure as used by Bastion.
Baum may have been included in the previous Masters gallery, but that doesn’t mean that they ’re not pushing into the next generation. Baum is currently using 3D titanium printing in its bicycles where required, such as with this yoke.
Geisler isn’t a name that’s graced a framework but the person behind it is linked to projects and small products you’d have heard of. According to Fitzroy, Melbourne, Jesse Geisler is a machinist, bicycle tinkerer and mechanic who runs Bike Bar. He’s had a long history of creating measurement tooling and frame building for a number of framemakers, in addition to working on frames of names. Pictured is Geisler’s bike to bare his name. “This bike here is the bike I’t put my name on — this is a big deal for me,” stated an Geisler.
“One thing I’d be willing to take the Pepsi challenge on with this bike is its alignment,” said Geisler. “What I mean is that I’at arriving at certain alignment outcomes, m focussed. I started asking these questions of myself years ago. ”
This bike uses a combination of Columbus XCR (stainless steel) and HSS tubes. XCR is used in the top tube, seat tube, downtube and seatstays. The Zona seatstays are asymmetric in the bottom bracket, ovalised on the driveside. Geisler explained that the use of stainless tubes, along with making lots of his own fittings, puts the raw price inline with titanium.
Credit goes to Baum’s painter for the paint. “Darren [Baum] has been a huge supporter of what I do. There’s a mutual respect, and it’s an honor. Darren offered his paint store me for this bike, and I jumped at it. ”
Geisler has his own 3-Axis CNC machine in his workshop, and plans (this first framework uses dropouts from Baum) to create his own dropouts, including those for flat mount disc brakes, in future. The cable stops and many other fittings are Geisler’s very own creations. In fact, there are three equipment cable stops on this bicycle, each designed to conceal the cable slot from view.
Here’s one example of a customized instrument Geisler uses in his frame building. The purpose of this jig is to locate the dead center of tubes prior to mitering. As Geisler admitted, “A week ago Darren Baum was yelling over the phone. ”
Based in Perth, Mooro’s typically indigenous-themed bicycles draw a crowd. An example of the little titanium manufacturer s bike returned from NAHBS. It s named the Kwibidgi, meaning “escape”.
This particular customer’s bicycle has an immense amount of detail on it, merging mastery of titanium anodising, native handpaint (done by Noongar artist Rohin Kickett) and a few splashes of standard paint, too. All together, it tells a story of this customer’s home in Blaine, Washington, USA.
Each junction of the bicycle resprents an area surrounding Blaine. The bracket paint Olympus National Park, which is south of Blaine.
The painting on the fork represents Blaine itself.
Mooro doesn’t even have 25 frames to its name yet, but the very small company is already showing the large guys what’s possible with anodising. Yes, this toptube picture is simply artistry. It depicts the sun rising near Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters. I’ve probably spent 20 minutes looking at this, and it s function like this that earns Mooro a place in this generation gallery. Well, the artwork and the fact that Mooro also employs elements in its frames, such as.
Just completed, this Mooro is for an Australian Army vet who plans to circle the country. Until you take a look that you realise the significane of the machine that is stunning, it ’ s not.
The names anodised on the downtube are of the 41 Australian soldiers who lost their lives while serving in Afganistan.
A visual that is sombering is mastery provided by the anodisation.
The Australian flag is anodised to the seat tube.
A touch of Rohin Kickett’s art is found on the forks.
The red poppy is worn by soldiers on each Remembrance Day (November 11). The symbolism is that the poppies were among the first flowers to appear on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium in the First World War. Folklore suggests the red of the poppy came in the blood of their comrades soaking the ground.
The post Photo gallery: 2019 Handmade Bicycle Show Australia — The next frontier appeared first on CyclingTips.
Buy Tickets for every event – Sports, Concerts, Festivals and more buy tickets