On show: North American Handmade Bicycle Show, Part 6

Serotta turns the big two-five

Serotta celebrates its 25th anniversary this year in the best way it knows how: with a limited-release road frameset with production capped at – you guessed it – just 25 units.

Serotta says the TIG-welded VentiCinque (CVC) is a joint collaboration between the long-time Saratoga Springs, New York, builder and Italian tubing supplier Columbus. The main triangle is built using a new "ultra high-end steel alloy" with the rest comprised of Columbus's XCr stainless steel. According to Serotta, the ride quality will be very similar to its current all-steel Colorado model but with "a little more kick" and customers seeking a particularly smooth ride can also opt for carbon fiber seat stays.

Also included with the VentiCinque is Serotta's latest-generation carbon fibre fork and the company's all-new carbon fibre seatpost topping the extended seat tube. Retail price for the frameset and seatpost will be US$5,000.

In case you need even more exclusivity, Serotta is also offering the Patron – built in homage to the original Colorado and crafted by Ben Serotta himself. Unlike the current production Colorado, the Patron will be lugged instead of TIG welded and Serotta will only offer it in the original 7-Eleven paint scheme – and any variations must be approved by Ben.

Serotta expects to build one Patron every six weeks or so and production is limited to just ten. Pricing is on the stratospheric side at US$10,000 per frame but included in that sum is a personal weekend tour of the Saratoga Springs factory, a supervised fitting, dinner, hotel accommodations, and a bike ride with Mr. Serotta.

Vanilla and Speedvagen wow the crowd again at NAHBS

Perennial NAHBS crowd favourite Vanilla Bicycles drew in show attendees for a sixth straight year with an impressive collection of town bikes, road machines, 'cross racers, and even track bikes – all made of steel in Portland, Oregon by Vanilla principal Sacha White and his small band of artisan builders.

Though Vanilla had typically brought dedicated one-off showpieces to the NAHBS in years past – such as the jaw-dropping tricycle in 2006 – more conventional road bikes and full-on race machines from the Speedvagen line occupied the majority of the booth in Austin.

Drawing the most attention by far was a blindingly bright neon pink road bike featuring an integrated seatmast, White's own seatmast topper based on an Enve Composites post, seductively pinched and curved seat stays and White's signature dropouts with removable stainless steel face plates.

Rounding out the package was a painted-to-match PRO Stealth one-piece carbon fibre bar and stem, painted-to-match Chris King R45 hubs, an internally routed Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 group, and deep-section Enve Composites carbon tubulars.

Less flashy but no less stunning was a metallic grey Vanilla road bike with classic-looking white panels, subtle colour-contrast detailing on the lugs, a custom machined Chris King headset augmented with red-accented circumferential grooves on each cup, and a custom fillet brazed steel stem with a neatly integrated pinch bolt, built-in stack, and an elegant 'V' logo at its base.

Pegoretti does his own interpretation of oversized

Italian framebuilding legend Dario Pegoretti doesn't necessarily need to innovate year after year having earned a reputation for some of the finest steel road bikes in the industry and building personal machines for the likes of Miguel Indurain, Marco Pantani, and others.

According to Pegoretti aficionados, the unusually oversized steel chassis are among the most responsive and best handling out there and the often wild – and fully hand painted – finishes also mark them as among the most easily recognizable, too.

New from Pegoretti, though, is his D11 front end. Pegoretti sought a larger head tube dimension to better fit in with the aesthetic of the rest of his frames but didn't want to abandon the standard 1 1/8" steerer tube. Instead, he paired with Chris King, who built special headset cups with the same bearing sizes as usual but with larger-diameter and longer skirts to be used in a bigger head tube.

Matched to the new head tube is a new Pegoretti fork, which uses a flatter and broader crown that both sharpens up the handling – especially for bigger riders – and blends in better with the bigger head tube but without adversely affecting the ride quality.

Thank you for reading 5 articles in the past 30 days*

Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read any 5 articles for free in each 30-day period, this automatically resets

After your trial you will be billed £4.99 $7.99 €5.99 per month, cancel anytime. Or sign up for one year for just £49 $79 €59

Join now for unlimited access

Try your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1