Colorado road trips are pretty great! Last year we rode at Trestle Bike Park and this year we got to ride Keystone Bike Park. I was stoked for this as most folks I talked to agreed that Keystone was the gnarlier of the two. That proved to be quite true, it’s an awesome hill.
As has been proven, chairlift days means using full size tire cores. Here’s a shot of the parking lot of Safeway that morning as I make the swap. That was all that the Millennium Falcon needed to flog the hill.
On last year’s trip, I had stopped by Steamboat Springs and met with Brad Bingham at his workshop. Listen to that interview, (and another from NAHBS2017)it’s good stuff.
This was the old shop, the original location of Moots Cycles and Kent Eriksen Cycles and full of lore and patina. Everything was about to change. The building had been sold and there was an end coming to all of this.
It’s sad, but not the worst thing. This was an old and run down space that made little sense for an operation of the scale that Brad is working at.
BinghamBuilt is a family operation. Brad and his wife Hannah Bingham. She’s going to be doing most of the things that surrounds Brad’s building.
This is the two of them just after getting back from the NorthSouth Colorado Gravel Race in Colorado. 595 miles and 48,575 feet of climbing. Brad – Finished in 3d 07h 58m (fucking insane). Hannah – 5d 06h 45m (more than I could ever do).
This was a clean start. More than that, this was a new building, being constructed as condominiums with Brad on the first floor industrial shop and the builder of the building owning and renting the condos upstairs. Few companies in the world of small frame building get a chance to spec their space like this.
I was hoping to get a chance to see the difference. It’s amazing. I’m so jealous.
Brad told me that during the time the move was taking place, he injured his hand in a bike crash. This led to him taking a bit more time during the move to focus on details and layout while he wasn’t going to be able to build bikes. A short term loss for long term benefit. It was already going to be dialed. Now it would be more dialederer.
Still, the shop isn’t done yet. There’s lots to finish but Brad’s at a nice point. I’m sure that this will be so much sicker in a few years.
Brad loves his seat posts. We talked about that some. He had some new additive titanium clamp plates and an aluminum guts. Seriously trick stuff here.
The tool that Brad had designed for cutting the seat post parts was very elegant. This is what we love to see!
A Teledyne Titan. They only made 2000 of them, between 1974 and 1976. One of the first commercially available titanium frames. A customer of Brad had been riding this frame since new. When he finally bought a new frame from Brad recently, he gave Brad the old frame. That’s heritage!
While we talked for a few hours, there is no recording. I don’t think that either of us were prepared for anything going to tape.
