NAHBS 2013: Gangl, Stinner Frameworks, Castle Frameworks, Steve Potts, Soulcraft leave the show bikes to others, Display what they make
Trends at NAHBS this year included the ever growing fat bike segment, adventure/gravel road bikes, and less show and more go from a lot of the builders. While we here at BikeRumor love to see the flashy one-off show pieces, as an attendee of the show, it’s really great seeing good clean examples of bikes the builder makes day in and day out.
Past the break check out more from Gangl, Stinner Frameworks, Castle Frameworks Steve Potts (Best Tig Welded Frame), and Soulcraft.
Gangl Custom Cycles
Richard at Gangl Custom Cycles has been building and painting frames for the past 32 years. As a professional racer, he felt like he wanted a custom frame to better suit his racing style, so he made his own. From there, other racers came to him wanting the same, and thus a business was born.
This was Gangl’s first time ever displaying his product at a trade show. His loyal customers felt that he had to have a booth (since he is only a 30 minute drive a way from Denver) that they ponied up the monies and got him set up. The booth was nearly overwhelming with the amount of bikes on display. Six were Richard’s personal bikes, and the rest were on loan from customers. Shown were Ti, Carbon, Aluminum, and mostly old school lugged steel frames. All of which had high quality finishes and paint done in house by Richard himself.
Stinner Frameworks
After working in the cycling industry on the racing side for years, Aaron Stinner decided to learn the art of frame building and take up a torch full time.
The above mountain bike was made for Ty from Golden Saddle Cyclery. He will be riding it in the Tour Divide. Growing up riding BMX, Ty opted for a flat bar to best suit his style of riding. Notable parts include a belt driven Rohloff hub and Son Schmidt OR 15 generator hub.
This no nonsense cross racer was built for winter training and racing in the mud.
A good, clean fillet brazed frame Aaron built for his father-in-law. The Ultegra Di2 drivetrain is powered by a Calfee integrated battery seatpost.
Castle Frameworks
Eric Coury started off, as so many in the industry do, as a mechanic. He then moved to fitting riders. Eventually, he made a career change and jumped into metal fabrication and welding. After buying a custom frame from builder Carl Strong, he was so moved that he took the torch to tubes and started building Castle frames in Idaho.
Steve Potts
Legendary builder Steve Potts took home the Best Tig Welded frame award at this years NAHBS for this lovely mountain bike.
Soulcraft
If you like playing in the dirt, Soulcraft has you covered. The model range includes a rando bike, cross racer, a do-anything fat tire adventure bike, plus a full on mountain bike. Pictured here is the Dirtbomb (above) bike built around 45c Rock n Road tires, and the Grasshopper (below) rando bike meant for a little road, a little cross, and a lot of fun.
Comments
Great article, but quite a few typos… worth a read over from the editors…
Re: Alan
Hey – it’s beer-o-clock. Give the boys a rest.
the typos in general bother me quite a bit too. besides, at least Alan was polite about it.
Alan & Greg have got to be road toads &/or tri nerds. Relax, it’s bike stuff. Cheers.
No, no, they’re right. Typos tend to be really annoying sometimes….
To be fair, these still look like “show” bikes (ie, very shiny, all brand new parts, very carefully painted, no miles on them yet). I think the distinction you are trying to draw is that they are *actually bikes someone will ride someday*, as opposed to a lot of the other dreck that is obviously never meant to be ridden.
Soulcraft keeps it simple. Always cool stuff from mr.walling.
How many no-nonsense builders can the market support?
How many all-nonsense builders can the market support?
none of those really get my heart racing.
@Walt – I have personally seen Richard Gangl race on both of the track bikes shown – they are not just for show – I seem to recall Richard Gangl laying down a sub-1:09 kilo at Colorado Springs Velodrome on the green bike back in about ’95-’96…
All three of those Castles are presently being “flogged” in the few patches of snow free dirt here in Idaho and up in Montana. It was all EC could do to keep the owner of the 275 hardtail in check while waiting for the show to come and go. They’ll not be shiny and new again – meant to be ridden hard and put away wet!