As expected, Chris King's Open House brought with it many beautiful bikes. We've collected some photos of a few of our favorites below.
The first of the bikes is one that you may have seen in our Instagram feedbefore the Last week: Rob English's custom gravel bike. This bike is, like so many of Rob's bikes, beautiful and extremely unified in its appearance.
Rob uses Chris King's new Matte Mango R45 hubs and InSet as the major accent colors, which he echoes in the headbadge and tiny flecks in the paint.
While these are purely aesthetic points, they seem hard to leave out when they are also examples of the unified approach Rob English seems to take with his bikes: the integrated seatmast that makes room for an extra bidon, and the short 150mm cranks that allow for a lower bottom bracket. This bike seems like a perfect match for the Chris King components that it uses because while those components are colorful and beautiful, they're also some of the most durable and functional available. This bike blends form and function really nicely, making it appropriate that it come first.
The next bike that really stood out was this Mosaic GT1 uses Chris King's Matte Mango R45 hubs, InSet, and ThreadFit 24 Bottom Bracket to accent the amazing fade paintjob, and it also pulls in a seatclamp that matches the color of the Chris King parts pretty well. It's worth noting that if you want to do this on your bike, we're happy to help! We've found good matches for most of the colors that Chris King, White Industries, and Phil Wood offer, so just let us know if that's what you're after!
When fenders are painted to match the bike they really take on a whole new feel: this bike looks like a bit of springtime for a dark, rainy ride, and the Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and hydraulic disc brakes would make it even
more perfectly suited to that situation!
The next bike that caught our attention is this Steel Refugio from Stinner. First off, the paintjob is amazing: I mean, who doesn't love outer space all over their bike? This thing looks like half of it's a sun, and half is the expanse of space, and if that isn't good enough, then I don't know what is! The Matte Mango parts perfectly set-off this paint job.
...But there's actually a lot more to it than that: this bike makes great use of the flexibility of Shimano's Di2 systems, and has quite a bit of tech tucked-into it! The combination of Di2 dropbar levers, with the XTR Di2 rear derailleur allow it to have a wide range 1x drivetrain with Shimano's super-comfortable hydraulic Di2 levers. In an interesting turn, the bike manages to mix things up a bit more by using a Sram crankset with a Quark power meter! Who says there's no flexibility with modern drivetrains? This bike shows that while there might not be as much as back in the friction-shifting days, there's still quite a bit of room to get creative with your build!
Continuing the trend of unique drivetrains, this Klatch Pinion CTX from Co-Motion Cycles, which uses, as you might have guessed, the Pinion Gearbox. We haven't gotten to actually ride this system, but from inspecting an open version, it's definitely a work of engineered art, and could be a great option for riders who really don't want to deal with an external gear system (or who just don't like to lube their chain, in this case).
The Pinion Gearbox keeps this bike looking pretty simple, and the integrated seatmast and Chris King InSet 2 help maintain that look by keeping the accents fairly low-key. One other interesting note about this bike is the shifter setup: the German company Tout Terrain, which has tended to specialize in very specialized touring parts and bikes, made these special drop-bar shift levers for the Pinion Gearbox.
There weren't that many mountain bikes at the Open House, but this one from Sklar really caught out attention. It's just so low-key, with its semi-clear finish, and has the feel of a classic klunker in the best sense. We really like how well the Paul Klamper brakes match the Chris King Matte Mango parts! The White Industries M30 Crankset mimics the shadowy look, and those Enve M630 wheels are going to make that one snappy klunker!
In looking at the bikes we've talked about to this point, you'll notice that they all feature the Matte Mango color, so what about bikes with the new Matte Turquoise? Since we've received these new colors at AVT, we've actually been really impressed by what a cool color it is, so we wanted to finish with a couple of bikes that use that color!
Right down the street from us, Mike Desalvo builds some pretty sweet bikes, and this one is no exception: the simple lines are bounded by the Matte Turquoise R45 hubs, T47 bottom bracket, and InSet which together make for a bike that looks fast, but doesn't shout it out the way some of the other bikes do. This bike looks like it would be very at home on the mix of pavement and dirt forest roads around us here in Ashland, Oregon! We plan on bringing you more photos of this bike in the future too!
One last bike that we just couldn't leave out is this Speedvagen Rugged Road, also decked-out in Chris King Matte Turquoise parts, Enve wheels, and a paint job that fits Speedvagen's racing pedigree perfectly.
With the refinements we've come to expect from Speedvagen like the integrated seatmast with Enve internals, stainless steel clamping surface, and an incredibly clean look, heavily shaped tubing, and aggressive position, this bike might just make any ride into a race!
If you've got any questions about the parts in these builds, feel free to get in touch! Want to build a bike with the parts kit and wheels on one of these? We've got you covered! These are just some of our favorites, but there are plenty of others too, so check out the sources below for more photos if you like what you see here!
Photos courtesy of The Radavist (photos 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, and 10), bikeportland.org (photos 3, 4, 7, 8, and 11).
