Laila and Steve’s matching bikes

March 17, 2020

When Steve and Laila came to me with the idea of a matching pair of bikes I was pretty excited. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever done before and I thought that the process would be sped up a little since I’d be doing two of everything. Well, only one of those things was true. These bikes, although they have mostly the same components and paint, couldn’t be more different.

Now, before anyone makes any comments, they were both steering the ship on this one. They both were in agreement about the colors and components. It was my job to design the bikes, find the components, modify them when necessary, and make the bikes look as though they were indeed a pair meant to be ridden together.

Steve’s bike, the taller of the two, could have easily been built with standard lugs but Laila’s mixte could not. To make sure both were in the same style, they could have been fillet brazed or joined in the more elaborate bilaminate style. They latter was chosen which added significantly to the work required to get these done before the Philadelphia Bike Expo. I had given myself plenty of time to complete the bikes but I’m glad I did. The extensive amount of small details on these bikes took some time.

The style of bike is essentially a 1×10 city bike/commuter. No aggressive hill climbing but a wide range 10-speed cassette allows them to navigate the city easily. For the single chainring crankset up front, I removed the teeth from a Rene Herse chainring to create a chain guard on the outside. The extra Campagnolo shift lever was modified to act as a chain catcher. Both bikes had Campagnolo drivetrains with Rene Herse cranksets, Schmidt dynamos with SL connector-less dropouts, front and rear lighting, custom racks, Paul Component brakes/skewers, and matching custom Brooks saddles (thank you Simon at Transport Cycles in Philly!).

I will never forget the making of these bikes. There were so many lessons learned and take aways from this project for me. I would definitely do it again but it’d have to be for the right couple who would be as agreeable and pleasant to deal with as Laila and Steve. If the decision making process wasn’t fair and balanced from the start, it’d be a big red flag and I’d have to return the deposit and tell them I couldn’t do it. Hopefully that never happens!