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Road to NAHBS 2014: Geekhouse’s Marty Walsh Gets a New Geek

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Geekhouse Woodville touring bike with custom racks
Photo: John Watson

To say Geekhouse has some repeat customers might be an understatement, considering the past few years have all shown bikes built for John Watson. And to say they have a wide range of similar bikes would also be an understatement, albeit a weird one. Over the years, we’ve seen the Brentwood city/porteur bike (with racks), the Hopedale gravel road bike (with racks), and now this Woodville touring bike. With racks. All similar at first glance, but as with all fine things, the devil’s in the details.

BIKERUMOR: What are your main building materials?

MARTY: Our main building material is steel. Preferably OX Platinum tubing from True Temper, because steel is real!

BIKERUMOR: What’s new with your company since NAHBS last year?

MARTY: As of 2014 I am officially a 1.5 man show. I’m doing all the fabrication myself while Katty Walsh-Motes [no relation] does…pretty much everything that’s not fabrication.

Geekhouse Woodville touring bike with custom racks
Photo: John Watson

BIKERUMOR: Any killer custom bike builds in that time?

MARTY: We’ve built a ton of bikes in the past year that we’re proud of. But John Watson’s (of prollyisnotprobably.com) is probably one of our favorites. We built a Woodville touring bike with complete custom racks, braze ons, and a beautiful matte army-green powder.

Geekhouse steel cyclocross race bike
Photo: Heather McGrath

BIKERUMOR: Say a customer gives you free reign, where do you draw your inspiration for the best projects?

MARTY: A lot of our bikes hail from an age of neon glory! We draw a lot of inspiration from the 90s mountain bike era. We’ve also been added a lot of mid century modern geometric patterns and colors to our bikes. We like to switch it up, our bikes can look as different as our customers personalities.

BIKERUMOR: What are you building this year that’ll draw a crowd?

MARTY: We like to play hard to get here at Geekhouse. Before every NAHBS we like to keep everything we’re doing secret. But suffice it to say, our bikes will awesome.

BIKERUMOR: Scenario: NAHBS introduces a new category called Mashups, pairing two completely different builders to make one bike. Who’s the yin to your yang, and what kind of bike do you think you’d build?

MARTY: We’d definitely team up with Royal H Cycles. Bryan creates lugged steel bikes and his attention to detail is astounding. As is his mustache. Our first Royalhouse would definitely be a touring bike, because we may or may not have made the mistake of promising one to Katty.

GeekhouseBikes.com

Geekhouse steel cyclocross race bike
Photo: Heather McGrath
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Micah
Micah
10 years ago

I’ve always enjoyed your work, detail, and use of OX Pt! *saving to pick up a geekhouse in the future* My dream list of builders – geekhouse, 44bikes, and Gios.

Tyrone Chicane
Tyrone Chicane
10 years ago

“To say Geekhouse has some repeat customers might be an understatement, considering the past few years have all shown bikes built for John Watson.”

Can someone please translate that sentence into English?

Kovas
Kovas
10 years ago

Still the best name in the custom bike game.

Rob
Rob
10 years ago

All the highlighted bikes for the past year have been built for the same customer…John Watson.

The Black/pink bike is sick, details please!

Ck
Ck
10 years ago

One day I will own a Mudville. Every bike they’ve made for John has been amazing to look at. I still fawn over that Woodville every time I see it, and I have no interest in touring.

SR
SR
10 years ago

I like Marty’s work for the most part but a if I am looking for a custom touring bike, it is not this one. from what the pictures show, this “touring” bike has a big saddle drop, high BB, no disc brakes, no spoke holders, no chain catcher, only 2 water bottle mounts, no light braze on, and no fender mounts. I would like to have some of those options if I am going to call a bike a touring bike.

Milin
10 years ago

I’m on my third Geekhouse!
^_^

Rob
Rob
10 years ago

Anyone know what kind of saddle pack is on that green/touring/cross rig that is pictured?

protijy
protijy
10 years ago

I’ve had 3 geekhouses *inculding #2 ever made

My mudville was stolen and still leaves a hole in my heart
My MTB I show up to race (CAT 1) against fast guys on carbon fanciness and while I don’t always win I am not DFL and I do it in style on my GH

Ed Johnson
Ed Johnson
10 years ago

SR: Amen! I’ve had a Bruce Gordon BLT (Basic Loaded Touring) with his rack and panniers for more than 10 years, and have done several 5-10 day fully loaded, self-supported tours. It’s the real deal; a TRUE touring bike. Solid and stable.

kimbo305
kimbo305
10 years ago

@Tyrone
“Since Geekhouse’s past years’ entries to NAHBS have all been bikes built for John Watson, it’s obvious that they have repeat customers.”

@Stefan
what happened?

mudrock
mudrock
10 years ago

what?

Marty Walsh
10 years ago

Tyler, thanks for all of the compliments. Really excited to show our 2014 NAHBS bikes. We’re bringing 3 bikes this year, they all are for John Watson. And they all have front racks, rear racks, and also we’ve come up with these new racks, for the racks. It’s just going to be a Prolly, rack bonanza!

See you guys at the show!!!!

Chris T
Chris T
10 years ago

it’s a Yanko and Tracko Ramblin’ Roll.

@SR there’s a third bottle mount on the underside of the down tube, the wiring for the lighting system is built into the fork and custom rack, which is where the light mounts, and disc brakes suck for long tours because they’re not as easy to fix if something goes wrong in the middle of nowhere.

Protijy
Protijy
10 years ago

Oh and a *gasp* I race a 26er and on that bombshell goodnight

Chris T
Chris T
10 years ago

(deleted)
the seat bag is actually a tool roll made by Yanko and Tracko called the Ramblin’ Roll.

@SR that bike has a third water bottle mount on the underside of the down tube, there are light mounts built into the custom rack, and disc brakes suck for touring.

Somervillian
Somervillian
10 years ago

Hey Marty, dis-owning Katty as a sister huh?

John Watson
10 years ago

@SR funny how you can say all that without seeing detailed photos. The bike has a light mount on the rack. There are three bottle cages. I live in TX – there’s no need for fenders, even though the bike has fender eyelets.

Disc brakes aren’t my thing. Paul touring cantis feel amazing!

The BB drop is perfect and I’m flexible enough to tie my shoes, so the saddle to bar drop doesn’t bother me.

Trust me man, I’ve done plenty of big rides on this bike, down 18% grade fire roads that are so rutted and rough that all three bottles have ejected.

It may not be your touring bike, but it fits me and my riding style. That’s the beauty of a custom build.

Ajax
Ajax
10 years ago

John Watson is right. It’s a custom frame, so you get custom options. If this was a Specialized or Trek or some other production bike then that is one thing, but that isn’t the situation here.

John, what are those tires? How wide are they? And how wide can you go with the custom fork you have?

Jake Brown
Jake Brown
10 years ago

A bit late, but @Ajax they’re Bruce Gordon Rock’n’Roll’s.

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