talked to the guys from Archibald<\/a> and seen photos of these rigs around, but seeing one of these Vancouver-made rigs in person was something else. They\u2019re as stunning as they are wild. Alex has clearly put a ton of work into the design and it feels like I\u2019m still finding new details every time I look at the bikes. Archibald had a few riders in the downhill race on Prevost (and on the podium), but had enduro builds of its AC1 in the booth, too. The bikes are built with Pinion or Effigear gearboxes and will work with a chain or a belt drive, making them pretty adaptable to riders preferences, as long as you don\u2019t want a derailleur. The DH bike was fully kitted out with a Manitou Dorado Pro, EXT Storia shock and even a Helix coil from the Nelson, B.C. coil specialist. Wild rigs!<\/p>\nErin and Noah\u2019s Serious rigid rids<\/p>\n
At pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from Archibald, Erin and Noah were running fully rigid hand-made steel bikes for the BC Bike Fest enduro. Held on Tzouhalem, it used a comparatively approachable course \u00a0instead of the hardest trails organizers could find. That made racing these more fun than death defying. Noah makes the bikes himself and the two of them use them for\u2026 pretty much everything. Bikepacking, everyday riding on Vancouver Island and even, now, an enduro. The one thing in common? Both these and the Archibald\u2019s are made in Canada. Cool beans.<\/p>\n
Landyachtz goes 32\u2033 for gravel<\/p>\n
Landyachtz Bikes is diving into the fray with a 32\u2033 gravel bike. The Vancouver brand loves gravel, whether that is riding local trails, racing, bikepacking or racing bikepacking events (Svein Tuft rode a custom Landyachtz for his Tour Divide attempt last year).<\/p>\n
32\u2033 is still very much a wild west of bike design and Landyacht\u2019s has a couple interesting takes with its prototype. This size medium does a pretty good job of looking normal, with not too much of a kink in the seat tube. The wheels may be the most interesting part. Super tall flanges on the hubs mean\u2019s normal spokes from a 29\u2033 wheel will work. That\u2019s not just good for stiffness, but finding replacement parts. The overbuilt head tube is just for the prototype phase. No one wants to get hurt testing a new concept, right?<\/p>\n
Geoff Kabush x Naked Bikes 32\u2033 custom titanium gravel racer<\/p>\n
Ok, it is a bit weird there are so many gravel bikes in a mountain bike show. But at least this one was made by a mountain biker for one of Canada\u2019s most famous cross country racers, right? Geoff Kabush has always been super dialed on his gear, so it\u2019s no surprise the Vancouver Island-raised racer wanted to get in on 32\u2033 wheels early. It\u2019s also not a surprise that he turned to nearby framebuilder, Sam Whittingham of Naked Bikes, to made his big wheel dreams come true. The two reconnected at Kabush\u2019s Underbiking World Championships on Horby Island last summer, so this bike is the official bike of Underbiking World Championships. That\u2019s maybe a joke, maybe the perfect bike for the event. Which is also intended to be a bit (a lot) tongue in cheeck. So, anyway\u2026 where were we? Oh right, details.<\/p>\n
This fully titanium 32\u2033 gravel bike is roughly a size large, on the edge of XL. Kabush is a tall man. That helps it look more normal than some 32\u2033 bikes out there. But Whittingham also put a huge effort into making this bike look less weird. That seat tube alone took around 35 bends, all done by hand, to make it look smoth. It\u2019s really putting the craftmanship back in custom bike building when you have to bend a very expensive tube with no guide beyond just eyeing it up and going for it.<\/p>\n
When we first saw this bike at Sea Otter, it had some beefy 2.4\u2033 tires in there. The 2.1\u2033 Aspen ST\u2019s in there now are what Kabush and Whittingham designed the bike around, giving it more than the whisker of frame clearance the bike first showed up with.<\/p>\n
Beyond some minimalist touches of paint on that ENVE fork, to let that Ti frame shine, the most notable component is the wheels. Even for a pro like Kabush, sourcing spokes last fall was tricky. So generic rims and Berd spokes built for 32\u2033 was the route. Those spokes are pretty special on their own, it\u2019ll be interesting to see if they find a bigger place in the new wheel size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While BC Bike Race celebrated its 20th year last week, and final year in its original format, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[182891,192662,49,48,635,228415,113112,87288,259785,1700,35620,259786,259787,82],"class_list":["post-717787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-archibald-cycles","tag-bc-bike-fest","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-geoff-kabush","tag-gravel-features","tag-gravel-gear","tag-landyachtz","tag-mtb-features","tag-mtb-gear","tag-naked-bicycles","tag-serious-cycles","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}