So, Made 2025, Yeah. Several booths featured bikes without builders. Maybe if the venue had aircon, lighting, and bathrooms more builders would’ve shown. Maybe, but these are tough economic times.

Overall the Made show feels like it’s moving with the times. I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing. Lots of loud music, legions of influencers focused on their palmtops, rides taking place somewhere out there. The same thing happens at art shows. Don't tell anybody this, but the idea is actually not to pull the attendees off the show floor and away from the booths, and to play music at a volume where the exhibitors can actually sell their work. 

Philly is easy, everybody loves Philly. It's a good time, well organized, and there’s no drama. The thing NAHBS got so right was moving around. Made is very 21st Century. It’s all about Influencers, but it doesn’t appeal so much to the over-40s, y’know the ones with enough of a mid-life crisis and the money to go out and splurge on an expensive bike, "the hell with it all," and then you've got them hooked for the next couple of decades at least, because handbuilt custom bikes are so freakin' awesome. It’s getting difficult to spend under $10k on a great bike these days. Even 105 is not cheap anymore. 

Maybe the biggest news is that Campy no longer is the outlier in gruppo prices. With the Trumptarrif economy, Shimano and SRAM are closing the price gap now. This opens a door in the market for TRP, which is planning to produce a full gruppo by the end of 2025, using the 2-speed Classified gear hub. The full groupset is projected to cost under $3k, and that's news we can all use.

I hope I don't sound jaded. I'm not, I've just seen a lot. After going to at least one handmade bike show every year since the Austin NAHBS in 2010, I still feel a flutter of excitement as I walk into the show hall, for all the obvious reasons. So the rant's over, and here's what caught my attention among all the amazing hardware at the Made show this time around. 

Bike Friday

Bike Friday has always been known for commuter bikes, and now they have gone electric. It’s not as big of a shock as Dylan at Newport but it is a surprise. They have teamed up with Bosch to create a very enticing E-bike that can travel. The 'All Day' is the lightest Bosch powered E-bike and the only one that will fold up to suitcase size in 30 seconds. In its premium mode it is 35 lb. You can’t pack the battery on a plane but there are a couple of options. You can carry the battery with you in the cabin (there might be some restrictions) or there is growing number of battery rental locations especially in Europe. If you can’t find a battery, the drag from the Bosch motor is negligible. You still have a slight weight penalty but it’s not the end of the world, you’re not pushing a moped. It is a class one motor, you have to pedal. The standard battery should give you about 50 miles of assist and the frame is designed to take different battery sizes.

Black Cat

There were several builders who had bikes at MADE but no booth. Todd Ingermanson from Black Cat Cycles was one. Reserve Wheels wanted a stand-out bike and Black Cat's Mystery Spot was just the bike. Only two of these frames were constructed, one was a custom build and one a prototype. This bike is the prototype. It’s a mullet, 29” front and 27.5” rear. The shorter chainstay allows for a more playful ride. The bike is all about feeling the trail and having  fun. There was no CAD designing, it was drafted at 1:1 scale and then carefully brazed together. It is not as light as a carbon race bike and doesn’t have as much travel, but for most of us it’s not about how fast you get there so much as enjoying the journey.

Blaze

Pierre Chastain builds his bikes in Moab, Utah. Not the first place you think of for exceptional titanium bikes but it’s perfect for Pierre. He is the child of bike riding parents and after a career doing 3d animation he decided he wanted to build bikes, His mentor gave him some steel tubes and a torch, and taught him to fillet braze frames. His years with the file may be over, but Pierre has brought that same attention to detail and devotion to craftsmanship to his welded creations in Ti. You couldn't just walk past this big, beautiful curvy bike. It's presence was arresting. It’s like Black Sheep and Retrotec had a love child. This bike has it all. House-made drop outs, a brake bridge to stiffen the seat stays, a retro look and really tricky oxidated logos (it’s easy to say anodized but it really isn’t). You look at this bike and it’s just right. Everything is just as it should be and it just dares you to not have fun.

There is one drawback. It’s way too big for me. Not a real problem, each of his bikes are custom.

DiNucci

Sometimes something catches your eye at a bike show and you just can’t look away. This happened at the River City Bike Booth. River City is a bike shop established in Portland, Oregon, 30 years ago. I honestly thought they had been there longer because I can’t remember them not being there. Dave Guettler, River City’s owner, brought some of his collection with him to the show this year. They were all nice but this one yellow bike stood out. It was like finding a Mercury dime in the change jar. Lugged steel, immaculate, 40 something years old but timeless. One of the finest and most accoplished frame builders of the modern era, Mark DiNucci has gotten better and better over the past 40 years. He was wandering the show this year, just chatting and seeing what and who’s about. He’s still making bikes but you might have to nudge him a bit to get him interested. And here's something for the younger generations: try your bars and hoods in this position and you'll learn to use your drops and tops lot more!

Kelly

What a surprise! Wandering around the show and I see a Rock Lobster, next there is a Kelly, and behind those two hardward legends is Chris Kelly himself. Chris started making bikes in a redwood shed behind his grandmother’s house in Oakland, California. Kelly has gone from that humble beginning to being a major player in the MTB scene back to a little shop in Nevada City, CA. He says he spends more time on his boat than in his bike shop these days, but he hasn’t quit making really nice bikes. His take on a gravel bike features some unusual details. The stunning paint catches your eye and then little quirky things start appearing. There is a steel fork with a single shock. He is using Microshift friction shifters. There are Vee brakes and cyclocross interrupter brake levers. He is either a mad genius or cleaning out the cupboards. Possibly both. Vee brakes do work and that means a lot of lever compatibility, The friction levers are fool proof and really don’t care who’d cassette you use. It’s a throwback to an earlier time. It’s also a lot of fun to ride.

Litespeed

Litespeed is back! Again! After some tossing and turning they are manufacturing in Tennessee again making the titanium bikes they were once famous for. All of their frames are stand out,  but their New Toscano gravel bike is a winner. It incorporates their elite tier top tube, formed from a sheet of 6AL/4V and then seam welded.The result is a lighter tube with  increased rigidity when climbing or sprinting. 6AL/4V is harder to work than the standard 3AI-2.5V tubing but Litespeed is up to the challenge.

Post note: Titanium is an element (Ti), Titanium frames have a mix (alloy) of Aluminium and Vanadium.The number denotes the alloy content in terms of percentage. So 3AL/2.5V has 3%Aluminium and 2.5% Vanadium. 6AL 4V is slightly lighter, stiffer and stronger due to its aluminium content.

Mischief

I am not the only one who liked this Mischief bike. They won a Builder’s Choice award this year.  It is a striking painted and polished Ti frame. Their roots are deep. They began as a collaboration between Christopher Wahl, an orthopedic surgeon, and Bill Davidson who started back in 1973. They are building in Davidson’s old shop in Seattle. Wahl says he enjoys Ti for knees as well as bikes. Why paint a Ti frame? Why not? The use of white paint on this bike makes it really stand out in a sea of Ti. The polished stays are a nod to the vintage steel frames of Davidson's early years that were chromed or nickel plated and then painted.

Moots

Everything has been done before in the bike industry, and Moots has sometimes been among the first to do it, which is what makes them a must-visit booth at every show. This is a reputation they've earned. At first look in the pictured bike, you might see a drop-bar mountain bike. Not so fast, it is more of a gravel bike with a suspension fork? Close but no cigar. This bike is designed for particularly hardcore adventures. You'd have to be a badass rider to really feel what you're riding. It has room for really big tires, a full suspension front fork and 28 attachment points. One of their welders had the lucky job of welding on 28 water bottle bosses with attachment points for everything from fenders to frame bags, placing everything where it's most needed. This bike is so new it doesn’t have a name and won’t be on the market until this fall. Its first intended use is for a human powered conquest of as many 14ers in the western states as a month will allow. This September, actually. That bad enough for your ass? I hope so, the rider is none other than Kilian Jornet.

Nomad

Electric bikes are here to stay like them or loathe them. Personally I'm in the 'loathe' camp, but the HBG editors think it's really weird I don't own and ride one myself. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Nomad Cycles PDX are here to help. Give me a lobotomy and they might be just the folk I need to talke to. Nomad have been building custom electric bikes for a decade and offer a modular design that can be repaired or modified. Most E-bikes (I even spell it weird, right?) are designed to be disposed of after a short few years, or have motors with planned obsolescence. Thing is, these aren’t race bikes, they're are commuter and work bikes. They let you carry a little more, go a little farther without being a wreck when you get there. You want an E-bike that can move with the times, which is what Nomad offer. That's smart money. Their bikes are reasonably light, under 40 pounds, and well made. (Editor's note: We'd like a deeper dive into this bike. The drive unit, which looks like something we saw from a small Ashland manufacturer a few years back. And that behemoth battery pack looks like 1000+ Watt hours).

Thomson

Everyone knows Thomson. Stems, seatposts, handlebars, they are synonymous with precision machining. Now they have a bike frame. Do they make their own frame? Not exactly, but close. Close, as in: They are located in Macon, Georgia, so when they started looking for a frame builder they went no farther than Augusta and Nate Zukas. There is no secret about Nate building their frames, they are rightly proud of it and each Thomson frame has a Zukas Rabbit logo on it. It is an interesting collaboration. It is a limited run, Thompson doesn’t have a massive stockpile and Nate doesn’t have a shop full of trained monkeys knocking out frames. He's a one-frame-at-a-time builder. Stock sizes are on offer right now, but custom is available. All the quality and precision you expect from a Zukas is there. Thompon gets a first class frame and Zukas gets a steady income, this looks like a deal we love for one man shops. Long may it last.

Wilde

Wilde Bikes have lived up to their name. This year they have a clunker inspired, 26” wheel, double top tube bike that’s Sirius. Pardon the pun but the bike is their “Dog Star”. It’s filet brazed, lugged, has a quill stem, a bull moose bar, and an XTR M900 drive train. Perfect for riding fire roads, fetching beer, or cruisin' a few laps on a Saturday night.