Independent Fabrication Steel Crown Jewel w/ Campagnolo Chorus 10

Here is the beauty I've been gushing over.  Independent Fabrication Steel Crown Jewel with a matching steel fork, Campagnolo Chorus 10-speed, hand-built Record hubs to Mavic rims, Thomson seat post, and Tiffany-inspired teal main color with Lamborghini-inspired green panels.

This thing is just so classic....

Independent Fabrication SSR Max

Main details:

Independent Fabrication SSR, Max tubing, internal wire routing
ENVE 2.0 fork, custom IF crown paint
Shimano Ultegra Di2
Rotor 3D Quarq
Chris King R45 to NoTubes Alpha 340 with DT Swiss Aerolite spokes
Thomson Elite and X2

The Max tubing is incredibly limited.  As of right now, only 6 tube sets were made available.  One set was used for the Abarth-inspired NAHBS show bike, one set is here on this bike.

Ride review coming, but let me spoil it a bit: this thing is fast.  What makes it fast?  It's stiff, but still rides like steel.  That means you can put some power down and it rockets forward but glides over the rough stuff.

Enough for the spoilers.

Better pictures coming soon....

I love jobs like this....

I'm happy to see anyone bring just about anything into the shop that we can work on.  No, I'm not going to start replacing spark plugs on the bikes that someone rigged up with an engine, but if the rider is the sole source of power we most likely want to work on it.

Sometimes though, we have bikes like this one come in.  The Crown Jewel is a staple of the Independent Fabrication line-up.  It's their history, it's the baseline of their stable.  This one in particular is made even better with Campy, hand-built wheels, and custom paint.  The main color is oh-so-close to the packaging Tiffany is known for.  The panels are painted a beautiful lime green.

There's something special about this one.  I get excited when it comes in the door, I get excited when it goes into the stand, and I get excited when I see it on the road.  This one has seen the road for plenty of miles over it's 12 year life.

Yes, this bike is 12 years old.

That's what you get when you make the investment upfront, a beautifully crafted steel bike, custom for you, that over a decade later will look as good as the day you bought it yet provide you with even more value every day.

Lynskey Cooper Build

This bike has been great for us.  Handmade in the US, titanium, perfect-shifting 105, Ksyriums.  It's such a solid build, a well-made frame, durable, with an incredible warranty.

This one is a medium, pre-fit.  Of course, I forgot to weigh it, we'll try to get that tomorrow.  For the mean time, enjoy the photos....

IF and Alchemy at NAHBS

The North American Handmade Bike Show is one of my favorite times of year.  I wish I could have gone this year, but instead I spent about 72 hours straight on social media following photos being posted of the show.

Now that it's long-since wrapped up, we have a little info to share.  First off, Independent Fabrication came to the show with a killer new SSR Max (which we have scheduled to arrive on Monday), an outrageous single speed townie, an over-the-top Ti Factory Lightweight CX bike with disc brakes, and a pair of sweet mountain bikes.  More info can be found here.

Alchemy came away with a highly-coveted "Best Carbon Bike" award for their custom Carbon Aero Road frame.  Having had one in the shop in the fall, I can attest to the quality of the frame.  The design is beautiful, the quality is stunning.

*Alchemy photo credit to Cog Blog

Clement X'PLOR USH Overview

It's becoming increasingly clear how much our crew enjoys gravel road racing. Being CX-crazy, it shouldn't be a surprise we like this type of racing, but we needed something to keep us rolling in the spring/summer.

Right out of the box I had to weigh them.  I was nervous they'd weigh a ton, but at 438g I'd say they came out ok.  I weighed two different tires, both were within 5g.

Clement must be seeing a lot of this action, which is prompting a couple of new gravel road-specific tires coming soon, the USH being the model we're reviewing here. The USH is labeled as a 700x35c, and measured in at 34.43mm mounted to some Alpha 340 rims, which seems pretty much right on.

The tread is a really solid center section, very similar to a tire we'd sell to someone looking for a beefy city tire. Outside of that, though, is where the tire shows some CX-influence. The shoulder is a pretty gnarly diamond pattern.

From my first couple of rides, I can say these roll quite fast.  They of course aren't as fast as a Corsa CX, but they roll far faster than a Clement LAS.  I have yet to get any hard cornering in on them, but so far cornering on the road has been really confidence inspiring.

I can see a tire like this being excellent for anything from road to limestone to light trail riding.  With it's bigger brother, the MSO going on test as well (keep an eye out for another post) it seems Clement may have hit another homerun.  We'll know more soon.

Please feel free to ask questions on this one.  Clement is looking for feedback from us, and I'm happy to try this out in various conditions you think it may be useful in.

2012 Felt Breed Video

The following video was submitted by a customer who is really enjoying his brand new Felt Breed single speed CX bike.

Thanks for the share!

Anki / FTT from Oyvind Naess on Vimeo.