Updated: Small builders adopt the latest tech features
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Do you want one? Because we want one. Behold Independent Fabrications' Factory Lightweight titanium and carbon road bike. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles' stunning green hardtail looks traditional but incorporates a lot of wholly modern features. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Lightning carbon fiber cranks fill out the shells on the Calfee tandem. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee's Tetra tandem is not only impressively light but also relatively easy to travel with thanks to S&S couplers and a disconnectable Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 wiring harness. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee starts with an Edge 2.0 carbon road fork and then adds on disc tabs and a hose guide. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee's Adventurer features extra tire clearances and disc brakes front and rear. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Adding disc brakes to the rear of Calfee's Adventurer frame was relatively easy, requiring just a new non-driveside dropout. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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The uniquely Calfee carbon fiber bottom bracket shell is designed around PressFit 30 cups. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee offers the new Adventurer model in both rim or disc brake variants. Claiimed frame weight is just 1,000g and Calfee says up to a 35mm tire will fit along with fenders and racks. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Check out the rotor diameter on this Calfee carbon tandem! The standard Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 pulley cage is traded out for a mountain cage to handle a wider gear range, too. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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In addition to frames, Calfee can also take your own carbon bar and stem and turn it into an integrated setup. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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The eccentric bottom bracket shell is wrapped with hemp fiber. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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What to do if you have a standard-diameter bar and an oversized stem? If you're Calfee, you just build up the center section with hemp fiber. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee started with a Niner carbon fork then built up the base of the crown to 1 1/4", spliced on a steerer extension up top, and added the housing stop. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee showed off this wild carbon and hemp fiber tall bike. What's the point, you ask? Just because. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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The kickstand began life as a basic Greenfield model but was upgraded with the remnants of an Alpha Q and a Time carbon fiber fork. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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Calfee's unique Dragonfly carries on and still is one of the most distinctive carbon bikes around. (Image credit: Jonny Irick)
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This Engin Cycles stainless steel hardtail includes S-bend stays and a neat seat stay bridge. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Lugged stems are nothing new at this point but they're no less pretty these days. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Rather than use an conventional eccentric bottom bracket, Independent Fabrication used a standard shell and this slick Phil Wood indexed unit. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Great welding on the rear end of Independent Fabrications' Caffeine Racer. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Wound-Up forks were a popular choice at this year's NAHBS thanks to the availability of disc tabs on their road forks. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Independent Fabrications built this Caffeine Racer for Toni Smith, the wife of company owner Gary Smith. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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A playful spin on a classic motorcycle genre by Independent Fabrications. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Naturally, the Independent Fabrications Caffeine Racer includes a finished-to-match stainless steel coffee mug. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The available slotted dropout on the rear end of the Independent Fabrications Cross Jester carbon 'cross bike can be separated for belt drive use. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Independent Fabrications officially launched their new full-carbon Cross Jester at this year's NAHBS. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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According to Independent Fabrications, the silicone internal molds used for the carbon lugs allows for slight tweaks in geometry. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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No words needed. Awesome. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Independent Fabrications showed off this stunning Factory Lightweight mountain bike hardtail. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The black and orange paint scheme is reminiscent of classic American muscle cars, says Independent Fabrications. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles designed its cast seatpost head to work with a wide range of shaft materials. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The head tube badge is neatly brazed on to the front of this Engin Cycles frame. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The perfect blend of classic and modern on this Engin Cycles hardtail: steel tubing, stainless steel reinforcement rings, and a tapered Cane Creek headset. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles' paint jobs are simple but striking. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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A 142x12mm thru-axle skewer on a steel hardtail? Sure, why not, says Engin Cycles' Drew Guldalian. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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This Engin Cycles stem is capped with a Paragon Machine Works faceplate. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Two major players in the handbuilt bicycle world: Engin Cycles builder Drew Guldalian and Paragon Machine Works owner - and SOPWAMTOS co-founder - Mark Norstad. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles also showed off this beautiful steel road racer. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The neat green and yellow paint on this Engin Cycles road racer almost looks like lugwork from the side. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The rear brake cable on this Engin Cycles road bike is neatly fed through the top tube. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles incorporates an integrated seatmast on this steel roadster. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Engin Cycles neatly masks and polishes the interior surfaces of this Paragon Machine Works stainless steel dropout. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Also on display in the Engin Cycles booth was this beautiful red randoneur bike. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The miniature front rack on this Engin Cycles bike may not be all that useful but it does serve as an elegant mount for the LED front light. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Sliding dropouts and a split seat stay allow for easy tension adjustments on chain or belt-driven singlespeed setups. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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An elegant lugged fork adorns the front of this Engin Cycles stainless steel hardtail. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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Stainless steel tubing is still very popular among the small builder crowd. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
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The integrated seatmast on Independent Fabrications' Factory Lightweight mountain bike is topped by a seatmast of the company's own design. (Image credit: James Huang, technical editor)
Engin Cycles builder Drew Guldalian's steel tubes and lugs may be viewed as old-school but some of the features he's now incorporating into his frames are anything but. Quick to adopt the new PressFit 30 bottom bracket standard last year, Guldalian's newest 29" steel hardtail also includes a proper tapered 1 1/8"-to-1 1/2" head tube and even a 142x12mm rear hub complete with a RockShox Maxle.
Guldalian's frame still uses open rear dropouts so it's not a true thru-axle design (though his bike uses a 20mm thru-axle up front) but he still believes the new standard is the wave of the future as it theoretically improves rear wheel strength when hub makers begin to widen the spoke flanges, too.
Even with the modern touches, though, Guldalian's striking hardtail still sports a distinctly classic look including stainless steel reinforcement rings around the head tube ends, his own cast seatpost head, beautiful Paragon Machine Works dropouts and a custom stem capped with a Paragon four-bolt faceplate.
Other Engin creations on display include features such as integrated seatposts, split seat stays for use with Gate Carbon Drive toothed belts, and ultra-modern stainless steel tubesets.
Calfee Adventurer carbon fibre tourer adds front and rear disc brakes
Craig Calfee - as always - brought a number of showstoppers to NAHBS including a wild 'tall bike' built with carbon fibre tubing, hemp-wrapped joints, a custom modified 1 1/8"-to-1 1/4" Niner carbon fork, and even a trick carbon fibre kickstand based on a basic Greenfield model but augmented with a couple of old carbon road forks.
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Despite the whimsical basis for the bike, the build kit was still pretty serious with a Rohloff SpeedHub, Campagnolo carbon Ultra-Torque crank, Enve Composites carbon stem and seatpost, and Avid disc brakes.
According to Calfee, the big bike is actually surprisingly easy to ride - but no, we didn't take him up on his offer of a test ride.
Another similarly striking - and similarly big - sample on display was a carbon road tandem, complete with S&S couplers for easier traveling. Calfee built the frame with Shimano's Dura-Ace Di2 electronic drivetrain and modified it with his own extra-long wiring harness, quick-connect plugs, and an internal battery setup of his own design housed inside a seatpost. The rear derailleur has also been modified with a longer pulley cage to increase the gear capacity.
Other high-end parts include Lightning two-piece carbon cranks (the design on which Specialized bases its own FACT cranks), a Gates Carbon Drive timing belt, Zipp carbon-aluminum clinchers, and a Enve Composites cockpit components. Claimed weight for the entire build as pictured is just 12.7kg (28lb).
Calfee also offered up his modern take on a classic randonneur bike - only his version is built around a 1,000g (2.2lb) carbon fiber frame with a PressFit 30 bottom bracket and optional disc brakes at both ends.
The rear disc tabs are built right into Calfee's own titanium plate dropouts but the front tabs are added on to an Enve Composites 2.0 carbon fork. Still think disc brakes and road bikes don't mix? Think again - and get used to seeing more of stuff like this.
Independent Fabrications blends classic muscle car personality into carbon fiber and titanium
Independent Fabrications' highlights were road and off-road version of its Titanium Factory Lightweight - ultra-modern machines built of titanium and carbon fibre with integrated seatmasts but whose personalities and liveries were drawn from old American muscle cars of yesteryear.
The seatmast tops on both bikes are of Independent Fabrications' own in-house design and both bikes also feature Chris King's latest InSet headsets and PressFit 30 bottom bracket cups.
Independent Fabrications also showed off one of the worst kept secrets in the 'cross world: a mud version of its Corvid full-carbon frame called the Cross Jester.
Each tube and lug are individually moulded by Enve Composites and a unique series of internal silicone molds allow for slight tweaks in frame geometry. A split driveside dropout also allows for a belt drive if a customer opts to go with horizontal dropouts.
Perhaps the most creative showpiece was the so-called Caffeine Racer, an urban titanium townie built and designed for the Toni Smith - the wife of company owner Gary Smith.
As the name suggests, the Caffeine Racer's mixte step-through frame and handlebars are styled after café racer motorcycles. Phil Wood's eccentric bottom bracket allows for easy chain tension adjustments, the Wound-Up carbon fork includes disc mounts for the single Avid BB7 caliper, and a generator hub powers the LED front light.
And of course, no Caffeine Racer would be complete without a matching stainless steel coffee mug - natch.
