Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Bikes sold by American brands are often made in China and Taiwan these days, even if they have been designed in the USA. That includes companies like Trek, Specialized
and Cannondale, and we’ve also said goodbye to companies like Klein and Guerrilla Gravity.

But several brands are keeping the dream of domestic bike production alive, with road, gravel, and mountain bikes on offer. Allied Cycle Works bikes are built in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Moots Cycles, known for their titanium frames, has been handcrafting frames in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for nearly four decades.

Speedvagen is still operating out of Portland, Oregon, Lynskey is building titanium bikes in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Mosaic Cycles handcrafts its machines in Boulder, Colorado.

Brands such as these may be in a minority, but they’re Made In The USA with a focus on quality and style rather than price.

Richard Sachs CX

While the world of custom bicycle builders is populated with many legends, few have generated as much revere as Richard Sachs. With almost 40 years…

Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Bishop Bikes Supercross

There’s a mystical camaraderie that exists between bike messengers, but that’s not why I feel particularly awestruck by Baltimore’s Chris Bishop’s craftsmanship. There’s a level…

Argonaut Cycles

There must be something in Portland’s water supply that inspires so many of its young sons to take up the torch and start welding frames.…

Keith Anderson Custom

Keith Anderson is one of the most talented sprayers out there. I’ve been his Flickr contact for a while now and every upload just blows…

A single-speed GT Bravado from Germany

GT Bicycles’ Triple Triangle generates as much brand allegiance as Bianchi’s Celeste and looks like it means business even without any paint. Here’s a single-speed…

Horse Cycles

When I first laid eyes on the ‘Priest Sport’ from Brooklyn’s Horse Cycles, the first thing that sprang to mind was one of Picasso’s cubist…

Cannondale Track

There is something about the silhouette of a Cannondale that will always make me turn a shade of green—those oversized tubes, the suicidal looking dropouts,…

Bilenky Hetchins Tribute

You know Richard Branson’s Virgin empire started off in a record shop, didn’t you? Did you also know that the man behind the Hetchins marque,…

Vanilla Speedvagen CX

Nothing pleases me more than laying eyes on a bike that combines impeccable craftsmanship with well thought out graphic skill. The latest offering from the…

Greg Melms Project TL26

One theme that is concurrent throughout all bikes on The Spoken is that they have been created by artists. Greg Melms is no exception. An…

Klein Attitude

One of the more enigmatic marques mountain biking has spawned surely has to be that of Klein. It just goes to show that you can…

Stanridge Speed

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I’ll buy a bottle of wine on the strength of its label alone. I’m occasionally pleasantly surprised to…