Photos from the show
Meeting the master frame builders
What the award means to Roark
Comments from the designer about our track bike

Photos from the show

Roark Full Aero Track Bike

2007 North Amerian Handmade Bicycle Show

Meeting the master frame builders! During the show, we were blessed by meeting some of the best frame builders in the world.

Sacha White – Vanilla Bicycles. If you don’t know Sacha – here is a bit of info: at the age of 30, he is somewhat of a newcomer to the frame building business but has established himself as one of the best. Last year he took top honors at the show with a fantastic tricycle that he built for his daughter. After the show, his backlog went from 13 months to 4 years! I met Sacha early on Sunday morning as he strolled through the expo hall. Sacha obviously didn’t know me or Roark and I nervously introduced myself and told him about our new track bike. After a few minutes Sacha strolled by our booth, looked at the bike, and commented “that is nice”. Other exhibitors that know Sacha mentioned that he is quite reserved and that his comment should be taken as a very big compliment.

Richard Sachs – Richard Sachs Cycles. I also met Richard Sachs who is also one of the best with 25 years in the frame building business. He was very happy to check out our bike and mentioned that he would be happy to answer any questions that we had about how to market our bikes. It is nice to receive an offer from one of the giants in the custom bike business to help a small and largely unknown company such as Roark.

Kent Eriksen – Eriksen Cycles. Eriksen’s name sounded familiar but it took me awhile to place the name with the history. Kent was the original founder and then employee of Moots bicycles and he eventually left them to build custom bikes under his own name. It was very nice to meet Kent and his wife Katie – we were impressed with each others craftsmanship and we talked quite a few times during and after the show. The best part of the situation is that we are basically competitors in the custom titanium bike world. It is nice to have competitors that are gracious enough to exchange compliments.

What the award means to Roark

Winning the best titanium bike award is probably the biggest compliment that we could ever receive. Nearly all of the best custom titanium bike manufacturers were exhibiting at the show such as; Seven, Independent Fabrication, Merlin, Eriksen, Strong, NTP bikes, Titus, and Kish Fabrication. To come out on top of these great names is a dream come true. In addition, the exhibitors at the show placed the votes for each specific category. It is good to know that we received votes from the best frame builders in the world and hopefully this award will greatly enhance our brand recognition.

Comments from the designer about our track bike

This bike was designed and built with 3 things in mind; I wanted to build a track bike to pilot around Major Taylor Velodrome, I wanted Roark to get noticed among the great builders and consumers, and I wanted to walk away from the NAHBS show with the best titanium bike award. It is very easy for a non painted titanium bike to get overlooked at this show due to the many classic lugged and beautifully painted steel bikes. I love titanium but must admit that the beauty of a lugged classic bike is untouchable. In an effort to get noticed we chose to go with a number of features that would make our titanium bike stand out. The concept of the bike was to go high tech with the frame and wheels but to have an old school/classic theme to the components. Most importantly the bike had to look great (okay – beautiful) and it needed to portray the idea that it was a super sleek race bike. Here is a break down of some of the custom features of this bike:

The Frame: we started off with our full aero frame and added a few options. We fabricated an extended seat tube with an ultra custom cutout design that better shrouds the rear tire. This seat tube was probably the toughest part of the build and it was highly regarded at the show. Shaping and forming titanium is very tough and the material is unforgiving. Keep in mind that our titanium bikes are not painted and tackling a forming and welding operation of this magnitude is very tough. You have to get everything perfect the first time because the ability to cover up mistakes and weld distortion with paint is not an option with titanium – it’s like doing auto body work without the use of body filler! I believe that many builders noticed this and gave us votes because of this difficult fabrication.

The Components: we chose many old school chrome plated components and other items that complimented the colors of the bike. Japanese component manufacturers such as Sugino, MKS, Nitto, Hatta, and Izumi all left their mark on this bike and portrayed the idea of a dedicated track bike. And we all know that the Japanese know a thing or two about track bikes! Well it’s not quite a dedicated track bike - there is another story to this bike that you haven’t seen or heard. I also wanted to train on this bike and there is another set of wheels (Suzue FF hub with Velocity Deep Vee’s), a fork with a brake installed, and a lever for the bars. Did you see the bottle cage bosses on the seat tube? There was a reason for them!

The Details: ah yes – the copper plated and custom machined items! The copper plated badges add the classic look to our frame and to my knowledge it is the first titanium bike that has incorporated badges. The copper color really accents the beauty of the titanium finish without being too bold. We added a custom machined copper plated seat post to go along with the extended seat tube. By the way – this seat post design has about 1.5cm of height adjustment (many people asked at the show so now you have the scoop). Laser etching the customer’s name in Roark frames has been the standard since day one. We took this personalization process one step further and CNC milled the signature into the copper top tube band. The King headset was chucked in the lathe so that we could get rid of the anodized color and then polish it to a mirror finish. I couldn’t believe how easy this was and how well it turned out – and it was a 7 year old headset. Last but not least were the conical (bullet) shaped bar end plugs.No way could we use some chrome plastic plugs on this bike! We designed and made some out of aluminum and they were a hit at the show….and yes we may manufacture and sell them. Please call us if you’re interested in some (many already have).

The Wheels: I am lucky to have a friend in the paint business – Nate Pfeiffer. We worked together for years as Design Engineers and he shot these Zipp wheels in his spare time. I literally drooled and almost fell to my knees when he ‘unveiled’ these wheels to me. I never imagined that they would look so good! I also need to give credit to my lovely wife Rachel for choosing the perfect paint colors. You must see these wheels in person to get a real look at the color shift paints – the colors shift from red to gold. I have not seen one picture of the wheels that does them justice!

What does this bike mean to you?: I look at this bike and loosely compare it to a concept car. It shows what Roark can do and it has incorporated features that can be used on your next bike. What Triathlete wouldn’t want the custom seat tube cutout on their aero rig? Who wouldn’t want a bike that carries a subdued “bling bling” factor like this one? Most importantly, it is a fully functional showpiece that will be ridden and raced. Every custom item on this bike will be available to Roark customers. The badges were made of aluminum and were copper plated but the options for this treatment are endless. If so desired, these badges can be painted, anodized, chrome plated (black chrome!), gold plated, silver plated etc….many, many options! Tell us what you want – we can build it!