North American Handbuilt Show: 2. The fat bikes cometh.

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Our tall guy with a camera, Brad Quartuccio, reports once more from the NAHBS show. A couple of years it seems all the builders were making $10,000 townie bikes to show off their craft. This time it’s the turn of the fat bike. (Click on the pics to make them extra biggerer). Looking at some of these, you’d think that California was Frozen2, (er – frozen too, but can you see what we did there? Badum-tish)

Peacock by name, peacock by nature.

Peacock Groove

Based in one of the coldest big cities in the United States, Peacock Groove is well versed in fat bikes and cold weather riding. If you want to ride in Minneapolis, you’re going to have to deal with some snow — there’s a reason the modern fat bike was more or less “invented” by the bike industry in and around Minneapolis. Erik Noren is one of the most talented builders around, with the creativity and finish work other wish they could harness so succinctly. This fat bike featuring color shifting paint, a Rohloff hub, and enough rack and bottle mounts to get plenty dangerous is no exception. Minneapolis, Minnesota. www.facebook.com/peacockgroove

The show is a chance for painters to show off too.

 

Like a ’90s Vauxhall Nova

 

Big wheels and a Rolhoff for Tonka Toy terrain conquering

 

And you can add a rack too…

 

Fat tyres, carbon rims, skinny dropouts

 

Lovely headbadge too.

 

 

Bring on the Reeb.

Reeb Cycles

Oscar Blues Brewing started its own brand back in 2011, and in the years since, Reeb Cycles has established itself as a favorite Colorado-based builder. Along with a RockShox Bluto fork and red Gates Carbon Drive, this titanium fat bike features a built in Pinion gearbox, eliminating most external sources of drivetrain failure. While some fat bikes are meant to plod along on soft surfaces, this one is clearly meant to go fast, and go anywhere — note the upright position and dropper post. Longmont, Colorado. www.reebcycles.com

 

 

A red Gates belt, just for show-offs

 

A neatly integrated Pinion gearbox up front.

 

A brewing company that makes bikes. Makes sense to us.

 

Not sure about those bars though.

 

Ride Bikes, Drink Beer, Go F – orth and ride?

 

There’s a lot of gears in that there bottom bracket

 

Neat, hollow chainstay bridge

 

Frame painted in Ostentatious ClearCoat.

 

Retrotec Cycles

This Retrotec fat bike is the personal bike of builder Curtis Inglis, and was judged the Best Mountain Bike of NAHBS 2015. Curtis is the modern master of American cruiser-like frame construction fit for current use, and year after year brings out show favorites. Note the segmented fork and seatstay construction, and final prototype Paul Components disc brake calipers,190mm wide hub and matching thru-axle QR. Napa, California. www.ingliscycles.com

 

Ideal for just running to the shops for groceries, right?

 

This bike won the ‘best mountain bike’ prize. How things have changed, eh?

 

Curtis made the rack too

 

Trademark double top tube

 

Custom rack bosses unsurprisingly work perfectly with the bespoke rack

 

This is what mountain bikes look like to some people now.

 

Fellow Californians Paul Components supplied hubs and brand new cable disc calipers

 

Paul also makes some great cam-action QRs too.

 

 

 

Wiseman Frameworks

David Wiseman is the rare mountain bike builder still choosing classic brazed steel construction throughout. Done well, brazed frames look seamless like carbon, yet the tubes remain classically proportioned. This fat bike features internal front triangle cable routing, and impeccable paint finishing.
Naperville, Illinois. www.wisemanframeworks.com

 

Top marks for the subtle bend on that brake hose

 

This paintjob gets a big thumbs-up here.

 

Custom painted forks too.

 

Look at that fork brace paint!

 

Is this what they call ‘frenching’ in custom cars? It’s lovely whatever it is.

 

 

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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