Welcome to the inaugural MADE Bike Show in Portland, Oregon. We’ve gathered our favorite road bikes at the MADE Bike Show 2023, with bikes from builders like Mosaic, Officina Battaglin, Victoire Cycles, and more.
This collection focuses on the faster drop bar bikes on display at the show. Officina Battaglin brought their Portofino R road bike with a bright and proud chromed finish. No. 22 Bikes brought a purple anodized road bike for those of us who keep saying their bikes “could use a bit more purple ano.” July Bicycles is bringing carbon construction to custom frame building using a filament winding technique rare in the bicycle industry. Oh, and there’s a whole lot more here that caught my eye.
Officina Battaglin made the trip from Marostica, Italy to the show with a pair of their bikes. This one is the Battaglin Portofino R with its cromovelato (anodized chrome) finish. The Portofino R is made of steel with oversized lugs. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)Battaglin really nails the details here, with the Battaglin badge fading slowly into the paint. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)The custom Battaglin stem features the same finish as the rest of the steel frame. If you really wanted to, you could get the brake levers in a matching cromovelato finish. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)The ‘R’ out back denotes the frame’s dropped seat stays in a chrome finish. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)Mosaic Cycles showed off a range of color-changing paint options across their lineup. Look at the bikes in one way and they look like this. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)Switch angles, however, and they look quite a bit different. The range of colors is intended to make the often-daunting paint selection process just a bit easier. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)The new Mosaic RT1 ITR (Integrated Thick Road) has quickly become Mosaic’s best-selling road bike. The added tire clearance and fully-hidden internal cables are a big reason why. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)M0saic is well-known for its paint schemes, and this white paint with tie dye finish looks phenomenal. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)The RT1 ITR is designed to fit a 34 mm tire with room to spare without sacrificing any road handling. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)They really went for it, and I dig it. Also, we need more purple anodization. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/Velo)Victoire Cycles made the trip to MADE from Beaumont, France. This custom road was one of three bikes at the show with the Columbus Trittico integrated cockpit. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Victoire receives custom top tubes and downtube tubing from Columbus for their XCR stainless steel. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO) The top tube is flattened in profile, while the downtube is almost triangulated. It makes for a wonderful look. The hidden seat cluster looks fantastic as well. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)This bike was one of the most impressive bikes I saw at the show, and details like the metal head tube badge is a big reason why. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Talk to just about anyone at the show about their most favorite bikes at the show, and many will point to this ‘Magdalena’ paint scheme from Scarab Cycles. The intricacy of the details are wonderful. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The ‘Magdalena’ scheme is said to evoke the handmade maps and cartography used to explore the Magdalena River in Colombia. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The Scarab logo stands proud on the head badge. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Sage Titanium brought a number of bikes, but one of my favorites was this Barlow allroad bike built with the new Campagnolo Super Record groupset that we rode earlier this year. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)This Barlow features hits of the italian flag to complement the aforementioned Campagnolo group. Besides that, however, it’s all about the satin black finish. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Black on black, y’all. Even on the head tube. The Barlow fits a 40 mm wide tire and is their bike of choice for fast gravel roads or the ever-popular all road bike. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)No. 22 Bicycle Company brought a number of show stoppers as usual. While many had their eyes on their new Drifter gravel bike, this anodized purple Reactor really felt special. This one features internal cable routing, a carbon seat mast to complement the titanium frame, and components including a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset and Partington wheelset. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Sorry, had to wipe the foam away from my mouth. The matte against the bright anodized finish contrast feels timeless. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)No. 22 historically knocks out the details, and this small detail – the angular seat tube bridge – feels luxurious. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Sorry, I was foaming at the mouth again. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)July Bicycles is relatively new to the scene, with a relatively rare offering: custom carbon construction that’s lightweight but stronger than msot carbon fiber frames out there. How are they doing it? By making their own carbon fiber from the thread, an extremely rare process in the bicycle industry. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Most carbon bicycle manufacturers start their carbon construction with pre-made sheets of carbon fiber. But starting at the filament (like a string) before making them into tube shapes allows July to really dial in the frame’s ride quality, literally to a thread level. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)July’s logo is printed onto a No. 6 carbon fork. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Hardly any logos here. Just in front of the Princeton Carbonworks wheels is a small July Bicycles logo just atop the bottom bracket area. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Ioklin Frameworks shared their ten years of frame-building expertise with this road bike frameset, again using the new Columbus Trittico internal cable routing. This is the Integrated Disc Road with paint done in-house as well. The rest of the build features a Token wheelset and headset, with a Campagnolo Super Record Wireless drivetrain. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)I’m a sucker for seat stays that join just behind the seat tube as seen above (called fastback seat stays). They’re hard to do right but this looks good. Most of the time it’s done with filet brazing, but Ioklin does it with TIG welding. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The mountains in the head badge evoke the riding found in Taiwan, with lots of steep climbs followed by fast, technical, and tight descents. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Circa Cycles sought to build frames as efficiently as possible without sacrificing on build quality, and they settled on lugged and bonded aluminum. This Circal All-road bike features a Whisky fork, Sram Force eTap AXS drivetrain, and HED wheels. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The CNC machined lugs provide a purposeful look. Interestingly, the seat stays are bolted in, with the caps bonded in place. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Circa says that just about anything on their frames can be laser etched, complementing the clean head tube logoing. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)Albatross Bikes brought their Builder’s Special. There are plenty of neat details here, including the steel seat mast, the extra-long seat stays paired with rim brakes, Sram Red 22 mechanical shifting groupset, and the flattened top tube area. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The shift cables remain external on the downtube, while the brake line is fed internally through the flattened top tube. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)My favorite part of the bike has to be the extended seat stays. Rather than stopping at the seat tube as most bikes do, these continue far past the top tube. The brake caliper mount is then placed in line with the seat stays and reinforced underneath. It may not be the most efficient frame design, but it looks fantastic. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)This isn’t custom, but it is a bike that really stood out to me. Velo Orange brought their Rando frameset, a small-tubed steel road bike aimed toward long-distance comfort that comes from steel tubes that flex and move with you as you ride. This bike was built with the gamut of Velo Orange components, carbon rims with Velo Orange hubs, and a Campagnolo Chorus 12-speed mechanical rim brake wheelset. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The seat stays are about as thin as they get for a steel frame. The top tube is again quite thin – just 25.4 mm external diameter, with a 25.4 mm or 28.6 mm downtube diameter depending on size. It’s all kinds of details you’d rarely find on a road bike, and even rarer on a steel road bike, but almost unheard of at the sub-$1000 US price point the frame and fork come in at. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)The metal head badge and lugged fork make the bike feel special. (Photo: Alvin Holbrook/VELO)
