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Factory Tour: Breadwinner Cycles’ Small Batch Custom Approach

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Located in a garage in the northern outskirts of Portland, Breadwinner Cycles is the brain child of two of the best custom bicycle designers and builders in the industry – Ira Ryan (pictured) and Tony Pereira. Both have created Best in Class winning bikes at NAHBS, but teamed up together to bring their unique sensibility in small batches to the hand built market.

During a recent trip through micro-brew heaven, I had the opportunity to stop by their small workplace and see where the magic happens. Take a closer look at the #ShopVibes after the break…

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BreadWinner produces eight different models, which can be customized for each customer’s specific needs.

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Their product line encompasses everything from road to mountain, and offers both classic and race inspired geometries and styling.

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Everything is custom made to order, but built in small batches, so delivery time is usually between 8-12 weeks.

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All of the frames are Tig Welded, and are usually finished with head tubes and BB shells from Paragon Machine Works.

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With nearly twenty years of  experience between them, Tony and Ira often use a variety of different tubing to get their desired ride characteristics. For the most part though, they use Columbus, because it is available in the widest range of options.

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When they started BreadWinner, both builders thought they would still have time to continue building Ira and Pereira custom frames, but the new venture has kept them exceedingly busy.

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That doesn’t mean they don’t find time to do rad side projects, like this vintage front derailleur that Tony recreated.

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Ira is also an avid racer and race plates and other memorabilia line the walls of the shared workspace.

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As a gear head though, my favorite toy was Tony’s fully restored Yamaha.

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Custom Chris King accents.

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Tony created these clip ons using old bar stock.

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#SpeedHoles

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The bikes aren’t bad either.

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In addition to frames, Breadwinner also offers complete bike builds. Most are finished with U.S. sourced parts from brands like Thomson, Chris King, Velocity and ENVE.

Tony’s personal bike is a tasteful mix of mountain bike components, and – hold the phone! – are those Cook Brothers Cranks?

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Ira Ryan’s personal cyclocross race bike

If you’re interested in calling one of these beauties your own, head over to the Breadwinner Cycles website to learn more about their product offerings.

Special thanks to Tony and Ira for taking some time out of their busy day to show me their digs and talk kitesurfing.

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AbelF
AbelF
9 years ago

I really dig that hard tail.

1Pro
1Pro
9 years ago

nice bikes there but that yamaha? restored? no, more like hacked into some sort of hipster cafe POC! i think old farts call this a restomod

Gunnstein
Gunnstein
9 years ago

[Waiting for the crowd who cries “We don’t want no stinking motorbikes!” whenever an ebike is featured, to say the same about the fossil-tech Yamaha.]

Hank Hill
Hank Hill
9 years ago

That blue MTB with the dropper post: Drool

Grae
Grae
9 years ago

1Pro is a bitter bitter man, That Yamaha is a beaut! The Bicycles are also quite attractive. Great to see hardwork paying off.

Mortimer
Mortimer
9 years ago

As if the old Yamaha is for ridding on MTB trails. The issue with ebikes is “keep them off the bicycle trails”. Now that the hijacking is over. These are cool framesets. I love the headtube badge. My pick would be a JB Racer and a Hole Shot.

Gunnstein
Gunnstein
9 years ago

@Mortimer To re-hijack, many of the ebike haters tend to chime in on commuter ebikes too. Yet they seem to have no problem with BR featuring fossil motorbikes and cars. Oh well. Back on topic, The green/blue bike is pretty nice. If only they could put the rack on the correct end 🙂

Sevo
Sevo
9 years ago

Worth noting that Ira won the inaugural Transiowa as well. And thats not a reference to riding in drag in iowa. Not for this story….

Freddy
Freddy
9 years ago

Ira also “won” the first Oregon Outback this year, in a similar fashion to T.I.

Drew Diller
9 years ago

Do you guys remember how this was once a cool post about some talented frame builders?

…And how it was not at all about E-bikes in the first place and maybe everything is about E-bikes because YOU PEOPLE LIKE TO BRING IT UP ALL THE TIME?!

rlee
rlee
9 years ago

sorry drew,you’re right.

Dave
Dave
9 years ago

I dig their rigs. A Lolo and a Bad Otis would suit me just fine.

Pablo
Pablo
9 years ago

I remember first seeing the Bad Otis floating around on instagram before the show and loving it right away. That bike got me so stocked I ended up building a steel “trail” hardtail instead of a plastic (carbon) xc racer.
Some of the best looking builds in the industry.
Keep it up guys.

Tony Pereira
9 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to write about us. It was fun having you come visit. The t-shirts, sunshine and open doors of the shop in your pics brings me right back to summer.

My hipster moto is loads of fun.

Johnny Lignite
9 years ago

http://www.rodbikes.com/blog/
Ira & Tony make some beautiful rides. A buddy has an old Ira Ryan Rohloff equipped touring rig. Check the link above for some other PNW built customs in Steel & Ti.

Scrootalaboo
Scrootalaboo
9 years ago

Twice as much material as necessary in the braze. Sure you can pile it on, just more working during finishing. And you can tell by the lip on the edge that it was heated all the way to the seat stay. Some fine looking finished products.

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