The story of the Allotec A32, aka Bassi’s first fork crown
Running a small bicycle frame and parts brand is a lot of fun. Aside from combining my passion for bikes and at least half-justifying my decision to go to design school, working with Bassi means we can sometimes take on funkier projects I know would not be possible with many other brands or industries. Bassi is not only a business, it’s also a partnership with four owners including myself. While that might sound like a lot of cooks in the kitchen, we see eye-to-eye on many things and almost all big decisions are agreed upon unanimously. As a big credit to them, my partners have more often than not given me “carte-blanche” to do whatever I want, and have basically always greenlighted my new product ideas. When Julian and I went to the Taipei Cycle Show in 2023, we were excited to finally meet the folks at Allotec. Of course, Bassi has mostly used Allotec fork crowns, seat lugs and drop outs since our inception in 2009. After a short chat, the idea of making our own investment cast goods came up and they agreed. Gears immediately started turning! Of all the cast elements used in bike construction, fork crowns seemed like the most interesting area to start. On one hand they contribute so much to a bicycle’s silhouette and visual identity (it’s called a crown after all!) while also having pretty tight technical constraints within which to work. From steerer dimensions and fork blade shapes, to fender and tire clearances, strength tolerances, molding constraints, and so on. Shortly thereafter began the process of soul-searching, sketching, 3D-modelling, going back to sketching, back to modelling (this, a few times over), to eventually a 3D printed prototype before finalizing and validating the design with Allotec’s engineers. We initially wanted something for a (tentatively) upcoming revamp/revival of our archived road frame, the Casterino. The brief was to include clearance for wide(r) tires and it needed to look road-y, sporty, fast. Mocked with fork blades, a 48mm tire and Honjo H80 fenders The result is an airy and light biplane design with a touch of drama. The sloped shoulders, the arched bottom and pointed blade sockets are nods to gothic revival architecture which features heavily in some of Montreal’s best known landmarks. The upper plane has a forward offset to give the crown a sense of direction, movement and speed. Like a bird flapping its wings. It was inspired by some of our favourite fork crowns and features generous clearance for tires realistically up to about 50mm. In an era of carbon and 3D-printed metal, lost wax investment casting is still such an impressive way to make things. Here’s a look at how it works, courtesy of Daniel Yang from Artefact. Our fork crown, as minimal as it is and at a mere 139 grams, still exceeds stringent ISO testing requirements. Moreover, once the mold is paid for, the cost of production is impressively low. With Allotec’s manufacturing approval, they also provided the quote for making the mold and producing the crown. Now, at that time, we were barely starting to carry framebuilding supplies. If you know what we do here at C&L / Bassi, you know we have many irons in the fire, as it were, basically all the time. A quick calculation of the amount of lugs we’d have to sell to a very specific and niche market in order to break-even made us flinch. We had a lot of other exciting projects on the way that couldn't all be done at once, choices had to be made. Luckily, in the same email detailing the production costs, Allotec offered to make the mold for free (!) if we agreed to them making the crown available in their catalogue to all their dealers. After much discussion, we decided to play it safe. In contradiction to what it means to be a designer we ultimately "gave" Allotec our design and thus agreed to dissociate our name from our creation. I must admit, it was a little painful when I first started noticing “our” fork crown pop up in my Instagram feed. Framebuilders from all over the world quickly started using and highlighting this new, anonymous Allotec offering. After some time though, I flipped my thinking: “Wait, framebuilders from all over the world are using the crown, including Brian frickin’ Chapman!” It now warms my heart to see the little crown I spent so many hours staring at and pondering be appreciated by people I admire. Machined for 1" and 1-1/8" steerers. Being a small brand usually requires never skipping an opportunity to advertise your name, but sometimes you have to let some ambitions go. In my view, having this crown out there, albeit without our name on it, is better for our mission of promoting classic steel bicycle design and manufacturing than letting it die in my sketchbook. So spare us a thought the next time you see an Allotec A32 out in the wild! For framebuilders keen on using one, they're available here! Studio shots by Troy.
A guide to our steel materials
Before Given that one of our long-term interests at C&L is in keeping quality, interesting bicycles in the world, we’ve kept in touch with a lot of people in the frame building and repair world. Whether it’s having the local blacksmith repair an eyelet on one of our personal bikes, or asking the award-winning three-person framebuilding company to make a run of peculiar custom frames, it’s always been interesting working with our friends who know how to make stuff! Eventually we came to the point where we saw that we could bring together two worlds, using our contacts in the steel manufacturing industry in Taiwan, to turn C&L into a convenient and, more importantly, local source for raw steel products for bicycle frames. As it’s become more difficult (it was always more expensive) to work with US-based suppliers, our on-hand steel has been appreciated all over the country and it’s encouraged us to expand what we can offer. After If you’re a professional framebuilder you probably don’t need this breakdown, but it’s good info for everybody, and even if you never intend to weld a single piece of metal to another, it’s still interesting to see what goes into your bike frame! First off are the main tubes, forming the front triangle of the bike. These are the most complex ones to make. We sell tubes made of 4130 CrMo steel, a specific high-strength alloy that’s ideally suited to bicycles, since you can make them quite thin while keeping them strong enough to support a whole person. There are even fancier, recently-developed alloys of steel which you might know by brand names, and these can be useful when building frames intended for more demanding or specific applications. Those are often heat-treated and require special handling or techniques while welding them, to achieve even higher strength. The main tubes are thinner in the middle section, and thicker at their ends where they’ll be joined to other tubes. This is done by forming the tubes on a mandrel and drawing them out with massive forces, which results in the strongest possible tube without a welding seam which might weaken the part. Steel bike tubes are really fancy it turns out! This makes the tube “swaged” or as it’s commonly called “butted”: a double-butted tube has a thicker butt at both ends, and is swaged in the middle. Triple-butted is a bit of a misnomer but it means the two ends are different thicknesses, usually for a seat tube. Traditional road bike frames were made from pretty small tubes, with 25.4mm and 28.6mm tubes being common, the smaller one being the top tube which is less stressed. These days it’s much more common to see 28.6 and 31.8mm tubes, and often 34.9mm tubes, the latter mostly seat tubes for ATBs. A larger diameter tube is more rigid than the equivalent wall-width on a smaller diameter. Our seamless double butted toptubes and downtubes come in 25.4, 28.6, 31.8, and a few 34.9mm outer diameters, in a few lengths which can be cut to the right length. For seat tubes, we’ve got 34.9mm with a 1.6mm butt thickness at one end, and 1.0mm thickness on the rest (stout!) and 28.6mm thickened to 29.8 at the top, with thicknesses of 1.2, 0.6 and 0.9mm - that’s a triple-butted tube (three thicknesses). That 0.6mm minimum thickness on all our tubes is really thin, but it’s not as ultra-flexy super-light as you’ll find on some fancy custom road bikes. Partly that’s ‘cause it’s expensive to make the thinner stuff, and also because for a practical bike which you’ll be using often, thinner tubes are inconvenient: they’re easier to dent. Head tubes. No fancy thin-walled steel here! The head tube is also important but that one’s always quite a thick tube. It’s really short so that doesn’t add much weight to the total frame, and it needs to be thick because it’ll have the other tubes welded to it, as well as holding the headset cups and working with the fork steerer (also now available!). We’ve got 34mm and 44mm headtubes (inner diameters), for threadless headsets. Ironically we’re not yet set up to provide the parts for threaded-fork frames (30mm tubes and threaded fork steerers). Other parts of the front triangle are potentially lugs, fancy-shaped sockets that can hold the tubes together: head lugs, bottom bracket lugs, and seat cluster lugs. Those are for bronze-welding the tubes into, a very traditional way of building a frame. These are the first parts we’re seeing in this overview which are cast: wax is formed into the shape of the part, then a sand mold is made around the wax. The wax gets burnt off (“lost wax”) and then molten steel is poured into the now-empty mold. The result is extremely precisely-shaped, complex parts with a very good finish, requiring relatively little filing or polishing. Our lugs, as well as other complex parts like dropouts and fork crowns, are made by one of the world’s top lost-wax casting factories. You’ve definitely seen their castings on many, many bicycles. Speaking of dropouts, the rear ones are joined to the front triangle by the rear triangle! That’s the seat stays and chain stays, going from the rear hub to the seat-tube/top-tube joint and to the bottom bracket, respectively. Often those tubes aren’t as complex an internal profile as the main tubes, though they can be. A more straightforward, though still drawn seamless, straight-profile tube is often used. The same is true of the fork blades, where a straight-profile tube can be ovalized and gently curved to form the fork blades. They’ll join the steerer tube using a fork crown (another fancy complicated casting) and have cast dropouts at the other end for the front wheel. Often, however, blades for a rim-brake fork meant to be lightweight will taper from a larger top to a much smaller end. Steel tubes joined with molten bronze - this example is a bronze fillet rather than a lug If you’ve joined all these parts together (using bronze or silver brazing filler, or TIG-welding them) you now have a bare frame and fork. Most of the time that frame will need to have more bits welded to it: disc or cantilever brake mounts, bridges, cable guides, rack or fender eyelets, water bottle eyelets with optional reinforcements, kickstand plates, a front derailer braze-on, or even a casting made for splitting the frame to accommodate a belt drive. After all that frame steel, we’re not even done… some of it is for making custom parts and accessories. The 25.4mm and 22.2mm tubing can make handlebars with a bit of bending, and the 10mm tubing is for building custom racks. What a lovely walk around a bike frame that’s been! Given how many ways of building a bicycle we’ve seen, I’m sure we’ll never have everything someone could need for every frame, but we’re constantly growing the breadth of what we offer framebuilders from one year to the next, because we love seeing people build and repair and modify their beautiful machines.
Nitto Racks, Explained
Who’s Nitto? Simply put, they’re one of the last remaining great components manufacturers of Japan’s bicycle boom in the 20th century. Their specialization is, by choice, narrow: excellent stems, seatposts, and handlebars. All those are components they know they can make to higher standards than anyone else in the world. As almost a sideline, they make the very finest modern versions of traditional French racks, welded from tiny tubular steel and nickel-plated. Like all their components, the design is done carefully and manages to find beauty in subtle differences of curve and angle, while their quality control tests exceed internationally-recognized standards. Header image: Rivendell Platypus with Campée 650F, including basket tied to the platform A Rivendell Joe Appaloosa with Campée 650R, pannier wings removed To get an overview of Nitto’s racks, we can split them into two categories: Tourist racks and Randonneur racks. Most of these serve great for other uses like city riding and bikepacking, but they're designed a certain way, so that lens is useful for us. The Tourist Racks are large. They’re designed to carry enough gear to go bicycle camping relatively comfortably, and to be pleasant to cycle with all day long for weeks at a time. For stability, they bolt to secure spots pre-welded to the frame, which means they have a bit more hardware which adds weight, though this is mitigated by the lightweight tubular construction of the racks themselves. Many cyclotourists in the C&L crew can testify first hand, these racks are worth the high asking price: they stay beautiful and solid for a shocking number of years and kilometers of riding and touring. International touring icon Kellyann Marie, captured on Ektar film with pink Soma Saga and Nitto Campée 650F Our friend and ex-colleague Kellyann, above, has been riding their Campée Front since 2020: Newfoundland (and some Labrador), Iceland, Europe twice, Florida thrice, Eastern Divide from Florida to Montreal, and many more smaller adventures. Their one regret, in their words, is not getting the rear to match when it was in stock at C&L. I’ve seen their bike recently and I’m astonished that the rack looks almost like new after so much use (and so many flights!). There are basically three Tourist racks, and a couple of size variations. Campée is the flagship model. It’s the full package, attaching to dropout eyelets and to somewhere on the fork blades or seatstays: cantilever bosses, threaded eyelets, P-clamps, what have you. They can also help support fenders, and you can do bags on top and on the sides: the wide side-wings help stabilize full pannier bags, and are easily removable to save space and weight if you’re not going full-tourist that day. Many also use them with a basket strapped to the top, as you can see in our bike photos. Nitto Campée Front It comes in front and rear versions (designated F or R in the product name) which is pretty self-explanatory. A lot of us like the front, since a slightly heavier front than rear load tends to handle better on bad roads (why isn’t front-loaded touring the default? It’s a bit less aerodynamic. Up to you if you care). Nitto Campée Rear There are two Campée sizes: 27 and 650. The 27 fits bigger-wheeled bikes, be they 27-inch, 700C, 27.5”, etc. They might not work with super duper maxed-out 29ers, mind you. The smaller 650 is made for 26-inch and 650B wheeled frames, and probably fits if you have skinny 700C wheels. If in doubt, measure from the specs on the product page! MT-R20 Rear Rack MT-R20 Campée is a bigger-platformed, simplified rear rack, designed for smaller 26-inch and 650B wheeled-bikes, though there’s clearance for non-super-huge 700 wheels too. The simplicity lowers its price, and it’s just as well-designed and finished as the fancier models. The Randonneur racks are teeny-tiny, and quite light! Randonneuring is a sport where cyclists ride far and quickly, not in a group, and where the point is to finish, not to win. Therefore riders tend to want to carry a little bit of gear, like repair tools, light jackets, and food, but without adding too much weight or interfering with handling. Reliability is important since a broken rack or bag can cause a rider to not finish an event they’re trained for, and the rides are so long that they inevitably have long sections far from help. Therefore, Rando racks are bag-support racks. The bag would generally also be attached to the bike, though it’s not mandatory. It’s a belt-and-suspenders thing, but also helps distribute the weight a bit more comfortably. They’re also used for city bikes, where a little bit of extra cargo capacity is always useful. The Rando racks aren’t meant to be really weighed down with a full load of groceries, but can help carry your everyday bag. The racks are pretty popular and they take Nitto a really long time to make because of the fine, precise welds, so they can be out of stock for many months (this isn’t a C&L thing, all Nitto distributors have this!). It’s a good idea to plan ahead for your bike build. The M18 Rando is the traditional model that’s adaptable to most bikes that have mounting eyelets. It attaches to the fork blades and to the fork crown. The cargo capacity is 5kg (11lbs, that’s a large sack of all-purpose flour from the grocery store) so it’s not meant as the primary cargo rack, more of a bag support or lightweight basket-rack. The M1 Mark’s Rack is like the M18 and has the same weight capacity, but was co-designed with Rivendell to be a little more adaptable to different bikes. The double stay setup lets you attach it to more forks, and would in principle make it a bit sturdier, though the point is the mounting flexibility. You can mount it front or rear. The R14 is also a bag rack, but for the rear. For example, it greatly enhances the stability and capacity of something like a Carradice Camper bag, which can sway a lot if it’s weighed down and doesn’t have extra support. Since it’s larger and the stays triangulate it better, the capacity is almost double the M1 and M18, at 9kg (20lbs), and the weight of a rear bag would normally be supported by the saddle and seatpost, not just by the R14. This rack can sometimes be installed on the front, but it’s not made for it so it’s up to you to see if your specific bike works for this. Rivendells often do and so does the Hog’s Back. Other rando racks from Nitto exist and we occasionally have them, like the 32F. That one is the lightest one but is super-specialized, since the mounting stays aren’t adjustable. It fits the Bassi Belmont super easily but if your bike’s fork design is much different, you’re out of luck. Do you want to use these racks with a basket? No worries for the Campée models, have fun and express yourself, but be more careful with the bag-support Rando racks. It's super doable but it's easier to overload the rack if you're filling up a basket than a small bag. Stick to the smaller Wald 137 (or even the half basket) and be aware that other, stouter racks might be better suited to heavy basketfuls. All the mounting struts for Nitto racks are interchangeable! Their diameter is 7mm, and we try to stock a few lengths since depending on the exact project, the stock ones might not be perfect. They’re not hollow, but rather are aluminium rod, so they can be bent a little bit and cut to size where needed. Since they’re all the same diameter, there are also accessories available for the stays, like light mounting brackets. The hardware included with Nitto racks is also top-shelf stuff, they don’t like to take a chance that anything could vibrate loose. That said, always check the bolts’ tightness before a ride, especially if you load your racks with close to their maximum capacity. A safety strap leading from the rack to your handlebars is recommended for front racks, since they can be extra dangerous if they fall into your wheel. Most of the racks come with P-clamps in case your frame doesn’t have welded, threaded mounting points. Like all the included Nitto hardware, they’re very high quality, but if you’re using them please keep an eye on them especially if you’re near the load limit for the rack, they’re less stable than proper eyelets. As always, let us know if you have questions about our racks! Your local bike shop can get Nitto in Canada exclusively through C&L Cycles distribution.
Best of Bassi 2025
We've had a wonderful year at Bassi, with touring fans worldwide continuing to love the steel bikes we make. Hog's Back frame arrival We restocked (and sold out!) a small run of frames this year. Not to worry, we've got more coming in the same colours very early in 2026. Bobby's Touring Coyote This is exactly what this frame was always meant to do! This year it distinguished itself on a massive trip to rural Colombia that killed other bikes (looking at you Vince...). The breakdown he wrote is thorough. Nitto Bassi Bobby Bar Speaking of Roberto's fine industrial design work, the Nitto-made version of the Bobby Bar came out this year, with its 25.4mm clamp area allowing many more bikes to use them. Plus since they're made by Nitto they're even more good-looking than they were. Keystone + Bassi Prototypes We teased these early this year after riding them last year: the prototypes for what would become the Belmont were educational and really helped us figure out what we and Keystone wanted on the final design. We wound up selling most of the prototypes but we (and maybe Keystone) have a couple left. The Belmont frames landing Our collaboration with Keystone Bikes of Philly was finally real! We had some frames air-shipped so we could launch them at the Philly Bike Expo and a few weeks later the whole batch arrived. This all-road fast bike has proven really fun to build in various ways but is really comfy with drop bars thanks to its high stack. Belmont launch at PBE 2025 Everything came together just right for our booth at the Philly Bike Expo: the air-freighted frames landed less than a week before the show and the complete demo bikes were being assembled at Keystone Bikes until the day of load-in at the convention centre. We were in Rando Alley with some storied framebuilders and bike companies and had a wonderful time showing off the new bike. No, you're not seeing double in that photo: we repainted and rebuilt the prototypes just in case the production frames didn't ship in time. Belmont stock builds We co-ordinated cross-border parts availability to be able to offer the same stock build at an affordable price at both C&L and Keystone: a handsome, quick randonneuse ready for adventure on any road you can think of. Le Montréal arrival A long-overdue restock of Le Montréal frames landed late this year, with some minor quality of life improvements. That's a lot of models we got in this year, holy cow, I just realized. We decided to showcase a bunch of different builds to demonstrate the frame's versatility, it's a really impressive all-rounder. Troy and Julian put together a one-off custom That's it in the photo above. The Japanese M's Bar is of course ideal for a city ripper like this, as are the DTH BMX tires on a 26" bike like the smaller Montréals, but we also needed to test some prototype hubs and cranks. So far so good, look for them to be available in 2026! This beaut is still available to buy, FYI. Simon talks revision history on the frame It's what I decided to keep as the closest thing to a road bike in my stable. Given that I swapped from a 52cm V2 frame to a 55cm V3 frame I figured it would be a good chance to go over how the development over time of the Montréal mirrors our place in the wider cycling industry and exemplifies our frame design philosophy. Ben's retro racy big boy This bike is unique in impressive ways. It almost feels like a cyclocross machine but made for city biking! The Memento rack is super powerful and the drivetrain and Paul mini-V brakes must feel so good. And yes folks, that is indeed a vintage Selle Idéale saddle. All compliments for that one go straight to Ben please. No reading link, but for sure open that picture in a new tab to look at the details. Sam's Montréal A classic bike mechanic's special but he put together a lovely collection of parts for this build! It's on a V2 52cm frame and is a sterling example of the custom city builds we've made over the years. Paola's Rachel Paola hand-picked her own components when she visited Japan, then had us put them on a bike. The effect is superb! Adam Bell caps We've been buds for many years and have worked with him the whole time, so why didn't we have him design a cap for us? We don't know either, it's weird, but we remedied it this year! He's probably the best designer doing it today, and the results are excellent. Antoine's black-and-gold Hog's Back The blingiest Hog's Back we've built? Quite likely. The parts are nice of course but it's all the yellow-gold anodized parts that do it. Marianne's Purply Hog's Back It's a classic colour combo with this colour frame, but this is a really fun and thorough interpretation! Tyler's Demo Belmont Sometimes a staff member has a good idea for a one-off fun build and we let 'em at it. This one's available at our 75 Villeneuve W store. Path Less Pedaled reviews the Belmont After riding it for months and discussing it in public a few times, Russ from the PLP youtube channel just released his final review of the Belmont, and he was as kind as he was fair! Julian went and picked up the review bike once Russ was done with it and rode it around Europe, and it's now home again.
Best of C&L 2025
Here's our little wrap up of things we're proud of and had fun doing in 2025. Before starting, though, thanks to you for being with us this year! It's important for us that we can be the bike company that Canadian cyclists can rely on and enjoy working with for their bike needs. A particular nod to all the local Montréal cyclists who come to us with special projects and interesting frames, you'll see plenty of those right below! Coffee rides This year Cory and Lauryn have been stepping up to help me lead the coffee rides on the weekends, and it's been good fun to follow them to the destinations that interest them. Our regulars and our occasional visitors are always a beam of sunshine in the morning. Thanks chums! Panasonic custom This is a made-to-order frame that its rider went to a lot of trouble to get, and brought us to complete the build with excellent road-bike components. Oli's Bike One of our mechanics' bikes, for his super-long-distance rides. A real inspiration for the day-after-day cyclists out there. Roaduno Triplette This tringlespeed build was for a cyclist who came into the shop and couldn't help making goo-goo eyes at the Roaduno frames we had on display. It's a fun and silly concept and we're really happy that Rivendell produced it, and that riders got the vibe. Bill's winter bike Bill's one of our most experienced mechanics, and for a few years now he's been branching out into framebuilding to a level of quality and detail that's very impressive. This winter bike of his is a legend. Bobby Bar by Nitto This year we launched the Bobby Bar collaboration with Nitto. They made a 25.4mm version of the bar Roberto designed for the Hog's Back, so that it can be used with even more stem setups. Not to ring our own bell but it's one of the prettiest and most comfortable flat bars around. Velo Orange in Canada This year we and Velo Orange got to talking, and agreed that Canada would be well-served by having bike shops be able to buy VO from a local distributor instead of having to do the import-paperwork-tango every time. We're really happy to be working with them, they're friendly and professional people, and their bike parts really work with what we do. Vince's Mutt Vince also took a framebuilding class and this bike he built has now gone through its paces. Vince has some good things to say about the design choices that worked and those that didn't. Cory's Raleigh It's a vintage one with all the right colour bits. Also did you know that Cory's from Brighton? There have been hints. Blue Lug and Fairweather This is a 2025 but also 2026. We love what Blue Lug makes and sources, and their Fairweather brand of bags is really pretty but also well-designed and made in-house. We've been increasing availability of everything Blue Lug this year and it'll continue next year. Brooks repair The word's gotten out: we fix Brooks saddles. The leather isn't repairable but when people break hardware or rails, they know to send it to Simon who'll get their butt on comfy leather again. Frame repairs We keep it low-key (JD does not keep it that low-key) but we actually repair and modify bike frames, it just makes sense to keep bikes on the road even if we love selling new frames. Our J-D adds brake posts, fixes stays and tubes, adds eyelets, and a surprising amount more. Paint job not included but it's fun to do it yourself and add a touch of contrast to your paint job. Julian's twin Miyatas Ask Julian about his bike collection sometime in case you want to see him blush. Somehow he put together these Miyatas, a road bike and a mountain bike from the same year and with the same paint. They're close to original and are good bikes. The matching cap was a gift from a good bike industry buddy. The Skatepark Tour On Saint-Jean day Julian organized a tour of some of the city's good skateparks and despite the heat, a bunch of you came with! It seemed fun even though I only caught them at the tail end when they all looked like they needed an ice cream or twelve. There's no link to the story just yet but keep an eye on the website, it'll be up very soon. A good way to keep abreast of what 2026 will bring is to follow our socials or read our newsletter. See you in the new year!
Bicycle Repair and Empowerment
You know how some things took a long time coming back since the pandemic? The mechanic classes at C&L are (were) one of those things. Initially, we wanted to bring them back last year, but personal projects got in the way, so we’re quite happy to be able to offer them this year. I believe education is a key element to having a healthy bike community. It may sound like an odd thing to say coming from someone working in a bike shop, but I do believe cyclists gain from not being too reliant on bike shops. Knowledge and education mean cyclists are more autonomous in their bike's maintenance, which helps reduce maintenance cost, and gives them more confidence in making educated decisions. I believe the word is “empowerment”. In an industry more and more driven by complicated systems and new tech, education is even more important to try to keep the bicycle as accessible as possible. Our classes have different levels so that they can better cater to your needs, and the small groups of 4 participants per class mean we can pay proper attention to the particularities of everybody’s bikes. If you are looking for a comprehensive class that will start from the basics and progress to more complex operations, while learning a couple of insider tricks along the way, this is the one!Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions; we’re always happy to accommodate however we can and keep an eye out. We’ll be adding dates as the classes fill up!
Newsletter 5th December 2025
Newsletter 05/12/25 Hello, hello, hello, The acknowledgement that it’s winter still hasn’t settled within me yet, unlike the snow, which has firmly settled outside. All auspices point to a long and cold winter, which will hopefully only make the spring and summer all the sweeter. There is, of course, one respite in the frozen months: the holidays! Since Yuletide is upon us, we thought we’d put together a little list of items that would make for some great stocking fillers for the bike-maniac in your life. No time like the presents Here are twelve of our staff's picks for holiday gifts (no need to read into that number) brought to you by Jaydee: 1: The Flip FuelWhether it’s for a bikepacking trip or a coffee outside, this little device will allow you to combine all those nearly empty fuel cans into one, freeing up a bunch of space in your pack. No wonder it’s Lauryn’s fave. 2: C&L Titanium MugAt home, at the office, during a coffee ride, or on a trip, this ultralight and snazzy titanium cup will support your caffeine addiction wherever you go.These coffee accessories will have you caffeinated all the way into 2027. 3: Anything Blue Lug!Everything these folks make is cute and fun. From the reflective triangles to their seat basket pads, you’ll definitely find something even the most geared-up cyclist doesn’t already have. 4: C&L SoftgoodsWe have totes, caps, T-shirts, and hoodies in all sizes—maybe even a few workwear jackets left! 5: Fauna Cargo CagesSolid, light, made in Canada, and 14% off when you buy a pair! What’s not to love? 6: Cable Cuffs & Ghooost FlowersLooking for an elegant way to manage your cables? Both of these options are handmade and cute AF! The Ghooost flowers are made by @GHOOOST in Japan, and the cable cuffs are made by me (@devolution514) by silver-brazing recycled bicycle chain parts right here in Montreal. 7: Quad Lock ProductsAt the price of mobile phones these days, you shouldn’t gamble on dubious phone mounts. We’ve tried a plethora over the years, and this one reigns supreme—standing above all the others. Really, stop playin’! 8: Voilé and Austere StrapsThese things are to cycling what Tupperware is to a kitchen: you always need a bunch, in all shapes and sizes. 9: Crane Bicycle BellThese beautiful bells, made in Osaka, Japan, have some of the most pleasantly noticeable sounds you’ll ever hear. Some of the brass ones can ring for up to 15 seconds! They’re guaranteed to make heads turn. After all, isn’t that what bells are for? 10. AeropressDon’t be fooled by its simplicity and compact size—this coffee press may become your most valuable tool on the road or even in your everyday kitchen at home. 11: Brooks Seat CoverAlright, confession time. I may have learnt the hard way that just because someone might need something, that doesn’t mean it should be made into a present. (Ask me about the toolbox incident of Christmas 2004) But hey—if someone rides a Brooks and it’s looking a little… vulnerable… This could be a clutch stocking stuffer. But, proceed at your own risk. 12: Water BottlesWe have so many fun ones! Tabasco tribute, Vermont maple syrup, C&L—hell, we even have a Kewpie Mayo one!!! Servicing the Christmas Spirit If none of JD's suggestions tickle your fancy, why not, in fact, get your name on the starting grid for one of Vincent's mechanics classes? Vincent: Our first series of classes is in full swing, with one or two classes per week and a good number of happy students. I always find it interesting how the same class can go in very different ways depending on the number of participants, their prior experience and their respective bicycles. I think a major advantage of having a maximum of 4 participants is that I get to spend time with each one of them and help them learn the particularities of their bicycle. It’s one thing to learn the theory behind how to adjust a derailleur, but every bike is different and the “correct” way of doing things rarely works flawlessly in the real world. As I’m writing this, the mechanic class level 2 in French next Sunday is full, but there are a couple of spots available for the English class Sunday December 14th! That being said, if you know someone who missed on that first batch of classes, here’s a good way to cheer them up: offer them a place on our Mechanics Course! Whether it’s for our flat repair class, mechanics level 1 and 2, or our wheelbuilding class, it’s the perfect gift for anyone you know who expressed interest in bike mechanics. The preorder is open for any date, and additional dates will be announced early after the holidays. For more information about our various classes, consult our website here. The Path Less Pedalled As some of you may have seen, our very own Julian has been on a european adventure over the last couple of weeks, cycling from Girona to Marseille with a couple of pals. In Girona, he swung by the kind folks at Path Less Pedalled, to talk all things Bassi, Belmont and bikepacking. If you haven't seen either of the videos with Julian, I highly recommend checking them out! The Parts Swap, ex post facto, from Vincent's pen: Holy moly! What a blast that was! Sunday November 16th was our second annual Parts Swap Meet, and I think anyone would agree the event was a success. The flow of attendees was pretty much relentless throughout the day and the turn up was actually impressive, considering the mix of snow and rain going on outside and nearby events like Expozine and others. The little church’s basement was packed most of the day with an alluring amount of niche and weird bike parts of all eras and categories. Even though I’ve been told most participants didn’t sell that many parts, the feedback I get the most is that everyone was very happy they got to chat and just hang with fellow bike nerds. I personally see the Parts Swap more like a social/community event rather than commercial or with the intent of selling as many parts as possible. People also seemed to appreciate the other, non-bike related attractions. The noodles served by Sun Ramen were so delicious and perfect for such a cold and wet day, and the beers from Projet Pilote made for a nice little relief in the late afternoon. I even got to discover a very cool tattoo artist, Onsight Tattoos, who had a number of awesome bike-themed flashes and got to ink a couple of people. As the de facto event planner at C&L, with little experience in that regard, I always find it daunting to organize something of that scale. How do I know if people are gonna like it? How do I make sure people are gonna come? What is it they want to see? So many questions are spinning in my head during the weeks leading to the event, and the result seems to be that whatever it is we’re doing, it’s working. I’m very grateful for everyone who got involved in the organization and during the event, and for every single participant and attendee who made this event possible. Myself I had little time to walk around and chat, but I still got to see so many familiar faces, meet new people, and see satisfied people leaving with a handful of parts. It’s hard to tell what’s in the bank for next year. Every time we’re doing it we’re learning new things and finding ways to improve it. Do we want to make it grow? Can this be done while staying accessible and free to attend? Could it be merged with something else? We’ll see, but on our end it’s clear it’s an event we want to see happening every year and make it a tradition
Philly Bike Expo 2025!
Philly Bike Expo was a blast! We travelled down to launch our newest frame, the Belmont, a collaborative effort with our pals Keystone Bicycle Co. In the two weeks leading up to the show, we were all a little on edge. When we projected ourselves launching this bike at the 2025 Expo, an idea that came about nearly at the inception of this project around a year ago, we never expected how tight - albeit perfect - the timing would be. With a “mid- to late-February” ETA, with an emphasis on the letter “E”, each week leading up to the show without having the bikes on hand was a little more stressful than the last. Our manufacturers, pros we’ve been working for since 2009, pulled it off and we collectively sighed in relief. After a week of staring at the tracking number slowly making its way from Taichung to Taipei to Jamaica, NY, to Philadelphia, they showed up and we celebrated! This was Wednesday, the booth had to be set up by Friday. Keystone snapped a couple pics of the frames before assembly, then got busy with some choice builds using choice parts from all our favourites: Paul Component, Microshift, Grepp, Ultradynamico, Swift Industries, Nitto, Busch & Mueller, and more of our favourites! The results were fantastic, and we couldn’t be happier to share them with the public at the show and across the internet, too! Zach shared the story over a groggy breakfast burrito to Nic Morales from Bikepacking.com and we’re thrilled to be featured in their coverage of the show. Our booth was very much flower-themed, to match with the snowdrops on the bike’s head tube decal designed by friend and Bassi rider Lauren West. We had fun totes and tees for sale (available online soon!) and got to hang out with friends, bike heads, industry folks, and chat about bikes for a whole weekend. The dream! Another highlight, of course, was visiting all the other booths vendors had set up to show off their latest and greatest. We were conveniently located among friends and legends in the new “Rando alley” area of the Expo. It was oh-so-special to be so close to the folks we look up to: Chapman, Coast, Rivendell, Wake Robin, and JP Weigle, to name a few. Wanna reserve a Belmont? Stocks are very limited! Pre-orders are live, if you’re in the US hit up Keystone’s website, and if you’re in Canada or elsewhere, we’ve got you at C&L Cycle. We’re back in Montreal, ready to answer questions, talk builds, and take your orders!
A place called the Plateau
If you haven't already, check out our introduction post to learn about what the Belmont is! The frames are arriving Spring 2025, go here to preorder! With specs and geometry covered in an earlier post, here we’ll talk more about how the Belmont came to be. As mentioned in an earlier post, we met the KBC crew in 2022 and decided to undertake the challenge of designing a bike together a little over a year ago. The teamwork process was a smooth one, with video calls every once-in-a-while where we’d ping-pong each other’s wish lists and notes about what we wanted out of this new model. Having similar tastes and backgrounds, it was surprisingly easy to agree on the final design, even when it came to choosing the graphics! The nameNaming the darn thing was, as is usually the case, the hardest part of the whole venture. Our only rule at Bassi is that frame names should refer to a specific place — a city, a street name, a mountain, and so on. The place in question can be one we know very well and is very dear to us like Montréal, Rachel street and Bloomfield avenue. Or, it can also be somewhere new to us that left a lasting impression, and the image of that place keeps popping up in our minds whenever we think of the frame like Mont Hog’s Back in Gaspésie, QC, or Coyote Ranch in Baja California, Mexico. The Belmont falls into both those categories. Obviously, this new frame designed with KBC would need to have a name that links both of our home cities. Belmont, on our end, refers to Belmont Park in Cartierville, formerly home to an amusement park for the better part of the previous century. Here’s an amusing listen about the park’s history. Today, the park still gets plenty of use and is one of many green spaces one can link together on a nice, leisurely ride along the river. For Keystone, the name comes from their famous Belmont Plateau, referenced in Will Smith AKA the Fresh Prince’s 1991 Summertime. The Plateau is, as the Fresh Prince put it best, where everybody go. The day after last year’s Philly Bike Expo, the folks at Keystone took us on a lovely detox ride through the park’s wide-spanning web of trails. That ride through Belmont was a wonderful way for us to bookend an intense bike show weekend and discover the place our friends at KBC call home. That ride also made clear to us that the park is an important hub in Philly’s cycling community, and general culture, and was more than worthy of a bike frame name dedication. Lauren, the graphic designer behind the look of the Belmont, absorbed all the cues we gave her and came up with something that merges everything together beautifully. Building and riding the prototypes With prototypes ordered, received, painted and built, it was time to test! One such test was a ride halfway between Montreal and Philly, near Woodstock, NY. We met up with the KBC team and spent a day romping around the area’s rolling hills. It was fun to see how each of our builds differed and coincided! The Belmont rode pretty much exactly how we expected. Everyone, once fit was dialed in, remarked on how comfortable and easy it is to ride. The low-to-neutral trail felt natural and stable, even more so with a handlebar bag. The sturdy frame inspires confidence when riding loaded, or when that dirt trail turns out to be rowdier and gnarlier than anticipated. Having taken it on a few Houde laps I can say that while it’s no racer, when spec'd with a lightweight build, the Belmont is absolutely capable of keeping up with the roadies. The Belmont is very capable of doing a lot of things, like a lot of our Bassi frames. The built in versatility of the Belmont means that it can take on many different configurations and evolve as your needs do, too. Plushy full-fendered randonneur? Flat bar ripper? Cruisy commuter?Pared down gravel bike? Yes, yes, yes & yes.We designed the Belmont to be able to do a bit of everything, because our rides usually end up involving a bit of everything too. With the final tweaks made to the production frames, we think we nailed it and can't wait have them in our hands. The official launch will be at next week’s Philly Bike Expo (Booth #3106, come say hi if you’re in town!). The frames will arrive this Spring, probably early May. Check out the product page here for the full specs. Photos by Troy
Introducing the Belmont
We have a very exciting, all-new frame model that's arriving soon! The Belmont was designed in collaboration with our friends at Keystone Bicycle Co. based in Philadelphia, PA. We'll be officially launching it at this year's Philly Bike Expo. While they've been Bassi dealers for a while, we met the KBC crew IRL the first time we visited Philadelphia for the Philly Bike Expo in 2022 and immediately hit it off with the team's wonderful members. Here at Bassi, we were starting to wonder what the next step for our lineup should be. We'd been entertaining our desire for a more road-oriented tourer with all the modern trimmings - just the things people keep asking us to "update" the Hog's Back with (never gonna happen, sorry). As a small bicycle manufacturer, we always seriously question the introduction of a new model considering the effort and financial investment involved. Finding out the Keystone team was keen to collaborate was just the push we needed to get the wheels rolling! The folks at Keystone regularly participate in long-distance randonnée events, with a few of them having done the infamous 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris event multiple times. We were eager to design a frame fit for that purpose! The result of our serendipitous joining of ideas is a versatile, comfortable and capable frame that'll be a perfect companion on sporty road rides, randonnées, gravel rides and light tours! Here's what they have to say about the process:We have been fortunate to build and ride a lot of bikes over the last couple years and have done a lot of thinking about what the perfect bike could look like. Together, we designed a bike that is perfectly suited for randonneuring but is also able to handle gravel riding, light touring and other circumstances where you might need to carry some luggage. We prioritized features that would help make the bike comfortable for an all day adventure, including internal dynamo routing, fender compatibility, rack mounts, and of course the signature Bassi shoulder strap. We were excited to team up with Bassi so that we could utilize their experience designing and riding bikes to help make our collective dream a reality. The Belmont The Belmont is made of 4130 ChroMoly tubing. It was designed around 650x48B tires with fenders and can also clear 700x45C without fenders. Other key specs include: Thru-axle dropouts front and rear Flat-mount brakes, ø160mm minimum 68mm BSA threaded bottom bracket shell Replaceable aluminum derailleur hanger Internal dynamo light routing front and rear Internal rear brake routing to allow for downtube shifters 1-1/8" straight steerer A reasonable amount of rack and fender eyelets Eyelets for our signature shoulder portage strap Frame and fork MSRP: 1500$CA / 1050$US Arrival: April 2025 Here's the geo chart: Details Here are some close-ups of the prototypes we've been riding. The main differences between the frames pictured here and the final production are the inclusion of an integrated seatpost clamp and internal rear brake routing, but only along the downtube. The reason for the latter is to get the housing out of the way in order to use downtube shifters and leave more room for bottle cages! More prototypes Pictured throughout this article are the prototypes we've been testing with different colour schemes and build ideas. We tried a few different configurations to test clearances and ride quality with both 650B and 700C tires. Before anyone gets too excited, the 2.22" Sim Works Super Yummy tires on the raw prototype are indeed too wide and caused some tire rub under spirited off-the-saddle efforts. 650x50B (aka 27.5x2.0") should be fine, but we're still calling max clearance at 650x48B with fenders which is plenty! In 700C, 42mm tires fit with fenders, 45mm without. With the help of our talented graphic designer friend Lauren West, we landed on the final look of the Belmont. Here are a couple teasers (we gotta keep some of the surprise for the big reveal!): We're calling them Sage and Wine. It was really fun to find all the common threads between our two cities when thinking about the Belmont's identity. More on that, and the name, in the next post! Keep an eye out for the reveal on Philly Bike Expo weekend on March 8-9 (we'll be in booth 3106, come say hi if you're in town!). Photos by Troy
Newsletter for October 2024
Fall Sale! and other news Hello! We're back for our occasional newsletter appearance with some updates that just might pique your interest.First is, of course, your early-access discount code for our fall sale! This is our only store-wide sale of the year, and newsletter subscribers get three extra days and first pick.We've also got some teasers for what's coming in the next few months and next year for Bassi and C&L Cycles. They're in high demand right now because of a very good article in a US magazine about them, but Rivendell frame inventory is pretty good! We've got several models and sizes in stock.Roadunos, Susies, and Joes Appaloosa are available across the size range, and Sams Hillborne, Clems, even Platypuses are available at the extreme sizes.They're one of the few things not discounted, sorry, but there are one or two blemished frames as of writing this, if you want a deal on one. Use code VELOLOVE for 15% off almost everything! The end of Summer sure comes at ya fast sometimes, so it's already time for a sale!From today to October 27th, almost everything is 15% off, in-store and online. This includes hot ticket items like Bassi frames and completes; big upgrades from our favourite brands like Nitto, MKS, Sim Works, Velo Orange, Brooks, and others; accessorizing with bags, lights, clothing; and anything else you might need for your bike.Discounts will apply automatically in-store but for online use discount code VELOLOVE Additionally, we'll be hosting a big in-store event to top it off on the weekend of October 26-27, where deeper discounts for in-person shopping only will get you even more bang for your buck. See you there!There are one or two conditions: in-store discounts cannot be combined with other offers or discounts, the highest discount level will apply. In-stock inventory only - that means special-ordered items, backorders, and pre-orders aren't discounted, nor are any labour or custom jobs. Shipping flat rates and promos still apply, but extra discounts aren't offered on shipping costs. Rivendell frames and parts aren't included in the sale. Coming soon Some things to look forward to this Winter: Winter hours We'll be switching to our Winter schedule as of October 29th, which for the stores means: Sunday & Monday: Closed Tuesday - Friday: 10am - 6pm Saturday: 11am - 5pm Our web team will maintain their usual schedule of Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, year round. Black and Tan Hog's Backs are coming back! A black one, and a tan one, that is. As a little change up from the recent flashy colour trips, we're bringing back the stealthy matte black with yellow and purple lettering, and the ever popular sandy beige with purple lettering. They're being finished up as we speak and will hit the water sometime in November, so expect them early in 2025.We'll also have the very in-demand black Hog's Back forks available for sale individually, though in the meantime we've counted what's left of previous runs and have some coloured ones available for sale. We've been prototyping... ... a new frame we designed in collaboration with our friends at Keystone Bicycle Co. in Philly! We're still a little hush-hush about it, but expect to hear more once we nail down the final production details. Fingers crossed, it'll arrive mid-February 2025. If you've been by our Rachel store recently, you've probably seen the prototypes, but here's the long and short: Rando / drop-bar touring / all-road geometry: Very comfortable and stable, particularly with a front-load, with trail figures being in low-neutral territory 1-1/8" threadless fork, thru-axles, flat-mount disc brakes Clearance for 650x48B or 700x45C with fenders Fender, rack and bottle cage mounts all over, without going overboard Dynamo routing for front and rear lights This pic was taken on our little prototype camp weekend during a beautiful ride through the Catskills last month. This bike is going to be great for long-distance all-road riding in comfort, loaded or not. More soon, promise! Nitto Bobby Bar The Nitto-made version of our Bobby bars might arrive before Spring, and we can't wait! These feature the same 30º backsweep and tight bends as the Taiwan original, but span 750mm with a 25.4mm clamp and of course feature that characteristic Nitto dull-bright finish and shiny red "HEAT TREATED" sticker we all drool over. They'll be available in silver and black. More coffee rides Though they won't be scheduled as regularly as the Summer outings, expect the occasional call to gather throughout the Fall and Winter! What we've been up to We held our first parts swap! It was super fun! Thanks to everyone that came by, and everyone that participated! A particularly big thank you to staff member Vincent who came up with the idea and organized this event. Zamalek held down the food department beautifully with some delicious Tunisian sandwiches and of course their tasty hibiscus drinks. Memento (top) revealed the bike they're taking to Bespoked in Europe which they finished the night before the swap. The build was sponsored by SRAM's Inclusivity Scholarship, check out their interview on The Radavist here. Go Memento! Gurp Stitchwork (left) showing off their high-quality, high-tech wares. (right) A small glimpse of the beautiful vintage goods on display. If you do social media, follow us there for announcements about these kinds of events. Staff Christmas-in-September party Last month we held a little Noël des Campeurs-style Christmas campout party, also organized by staff member Vincent. Thanks Vince! Also a special shout-out to Danny for lending us the big cargo bike, we'd have been parched otherwise.It was a wonderful way to close out the Summer season and see everyone before they go back to school/winter jobs/travels. We always have a really good team but some years the vibe is extra special! That's all for now! Happy riding, enjoy the fall colours and the remaining weeks of nice cycling weather, and we'll see you when the studded tires start going on the winter beaters.
Clover's 10 Lakes Hog's Back Lap
Photographer and bikepacker Clover Fedoriuk-Russell recently toured Powell River's 10 Lakes route, and told us all about the trip, the route, and her new bike! I’ve mostly owned toodle-around-town, half rusted vintage road bikes, but it wasn’t until I moved from a sleepy surf town to the mountains that I really threw myself into the beauty of two wheels. Half interest, half necessity of finding an activity that wasn’t surfing, bikes have been a recent and full identity shift. After having a low quality, intro gravel bike, I decided to up my game and set out on building up a bike for myself. I was searching for something vintage looking, but modern. Something with flash but not too flashy. I wanted the style of a retro road bike, with the ease and flair of modern components that I could take anywhere and could handle most off-road missions. After what felt like months of scouring the internet, I finally found the Hog’s Back. There she was, 54cm with a bright orange decal, waiting in her Sandy Beige glory. So started I my bike build. And needless to say, building a bike is pretty fun. The tinkering, tailoring and fine tuning turned out to be some of the more frustrating, but rewarding parts. And after a few days of taking things apart and putting them back together again, my dream bike was finished, and trip planning started. I grew up on the coast of British Columbia, always driving and rushing around from town to town and fighting to escape the summer tourism chaos. As much time as I have spent in the coastal towns and the tiny islands between them, I have never properly slowed down and explored the familiar corners of the BC coast. Qathet (also known as Powell River) was once a stopover town, but much of my family lives there now, which encourages me to spend time in this hard to get to area. It wasn’t until I started taking cycling more seriously that I really got to explore Qathet and other coastal places the way they are meant to be seen - with two feet and a heartbeat. The Powell River 10 Lakes Overnighter is a 1-2 night loop following a dusty logging road that circumnavigates the Smith Range and Tin Hat Mountain. Still active, the logging road has call points, working trucks, and mid week rec site traffic. I think that I can speak to most environmentally minded people, that logging roads and rec sites hold an incredibly opposing place in outdoor activity. Remote recreation sites on picturesque lakes, away from society, unplugged from your daily life allow for serene presence with nature, but are only made possible to access through cut blocks and logging roads - a reminder of the long and controversial logging industry of British Columbia. But that debate is for another time. Qathet is a historical blue collar town seemingly stuck in time. It is tucked away in the middle of Qathet Regional District on the West Coast of British Columbia. With unbelievable sunsets and the cutest old houses that you’ll ever find, Qathet is cut off by water on three out of four directions, and is a challenging place to get to no matter which direction you start from. But the perk of being far from the stresses of a bustling epicentre is the calm that a small, artful community invites in. Qathet is home to an underground punk scene, a bubbling outdoors community, not to mention some of the best samosas that I have ever had. And isn’t that the key to bike packing? To escape the noise and find the best snacks. The 10 Lakes Overnighter takes you on a Forest Service Road, skipping along a series of lakes, up and down the dusty road with more than enough choices for a summer dip. We set out from downtown Qathet and made our way to the FSR past Duck Lake. The road was mostly cruisey and we were lucky that it looked to have been graded the week before. This meant an easier time on my 700x40c tires, which handled well enough trying to keep up speed on the rocky downhills. Initially we planned on completing the route over two nights, but the recently graded road and the handfuls of trail mix helped us power through the dusty 100km loop. Going counterclockwise, the first part of the loop is nothing to write home about. The wide road is a nice ride, but gives no reprieve from the 35 degree afternoon sun. After four hours of riding through the hottest part of the day, we chose the next rec site of Nanton Lake as our first lake dip. Nanton Lake was a smaller goose-filled lake with old growth stumps scattering the waterside that held an eerie reminder of an elephant graveyard. But we found a nice picnic spot and we were happy for the cool off beside some buzzing bees and wildflowers. We checked on our route and decided that Dodd Lake would be our destination for that night. The Powell Lakes Loop has so many spots to dip into the woods and camp, that we really didn’t have a particular plan heading into the adventure - our goal for the trip was to test our gear, unplug from the world, and drink coffee by a lake. After a few more hours of riding, we arrived at Dodd Lake just in time for an evening swim. Thanks to a welcoming neighbour, we set up camp in one of my favourite camp sites to date. Tucked between the trees and the lake, we forgot about the long, hot ride that some might only see as type two fun. After we unloaded our gear and pitched our tent, we went for a celebratory ride around the campsite. We came across a group of Powell River locals that drove past us on the logging road several hours before, with an expression that could only say “What the heck are these two up to?!”. They had driven their 35ft trailer up there to get the best spot for their weekend camp trip, and when I told them we biked “just from downtown,” they laughed and I could see they thought we were bonkers. Still, they offered us a cold one and we went off to check out a little lakeside trail that was hard to miss. The Powell River 10 Lakes Loop is also home to a popular canoe trail that takes you through the lakes. There are a few sections that the water doesn’t connect, and travellers need to portage their canoes between the bodies of water. We followed an incredibly fun and beautiful single track portage trail through the sunset to nearby Ireland Lake. I think that ride was the highlight of the day. Back at camp, we searched around for a bear cache, only to end up stuffing our HMPL bar bag with our food and stringing it up the tallest branch we could find. After a peaceful and moonlit sleep, unplugged from service and reality, with only the buzzing bees and the unforgettable sound of the Swainson’s Thrush to bring in the daylight, we had a couple slow coffees and packed up camp to beat the afternoon heat. Not too far down the road, we encountered another portage trail. A bit over the tenacity required of a dusty logging road, we decided to test our luck, hoping it would be like the last trail we so pleasantly encountered. After a few twists, turns and big roots, I felt bad for the campers that trekked by us with their canoes overhead, huffing it up and down the hilly and winding trail, avoiding old growth stumps and mossy mother logs. I also missed the predictability of the logging road, but was happy to have a break from the already too hot heat. Once we came to the end of the slow, steep trail, the need for speed kicked in and we raced down the road to catch up on lost time. Powering through, I was impressed at the fully loaded bike’s capacity to wind through potholes and the chunky grown-in FSR. A few lakes over, we took a short downhill and found ourselves at a secret hut pleasantly named “Pog’s Place.” Quiet and off the main road, we were more than happy to sit on the dock and munch on apples and cheese to our hearts' desire. After a few hours, the sun was at its hottest point and we thought it would be a great time to make our way home. After stopping off at the next creek for water, we rode through the late afternoon, dreading the final hill. All I could do for this part of the day was check our GPS to gauge how big the hill was and how I was going to convince myself to not walk up it. Two things helped in this, one - GPS is sometimes wildly inaccurate which boded in our favour, and two - we were on a mission with Ice Cream as the prize. With nearly 15km left of our 100km ride, it felt good to get back on pavement again. The ride was short but sweet and hot but fun. Testing out the Bassi frame on some pretty typical terrain for the BC coast, it’s safe to say that my dream bike can handle that heat and dust, but still look cute as heck on its way to a well deserved ice cream at the end of a ride. Clover followed the route researched and published by Natalie Jones and Bikepacking.com
Group Rides, a retrospective
Summer is for bike rides, and we’ve been hosting plenty of them! From seeing seldom visited parts of the city, to meeting so many new people and spending more time with familiar faces, our group rides have been a fulfilling and enjoyable experience for all us here at C&L. From the first snowy ride, to the huge Patriot’s Day outing, the format and intention hasn’t changed: relaxed, easy-going, short rides to somewhere nice, outside. Our group rides are always at an extremely social pace for those wanting a unifying outdoor experience. We love the regulars that never miss an outing, and it warms our hearts to see so many new faces from one ride to the next! In a world seemingly dominated by tech innovations, marginal gains, plastics and microplastics, it’s nice to remember that cycling can also mean going slow, taking in the sights and keeping it simple. With all that said, the composition of C&L Cycle is still pretty homogenous with the rest of the industry, being mostly comprised of cis white men. It’s easy for us to call ourselves inclusive, but that’s not really how that works, right? Though we strive to listen, make space and think beyond ourselves, we recognize that blindspots may still exist. We’re therefore committed to being open to receiving criticisms, comments or concerns. Coffee rides are for everyone! Cycling is for everyone!
Newsletter for May 2024
Season's start at C&L Cycles Howdy to all! I hope all's well at yours and that, like us, you've finally been able to start enjoying the warm weather and the longer days of sunshine. We've certainly been finding any excuse to go for a ride!If you're reading the newsletter the weekend we send it, come ride bikes nice and slow with us this Patriotes Day Monday! Bring coffee, snacks, and your usual delightful mood. See ya (not too) bright and early! Everything is fairly lovely on our end. Like every year, the shops turn into a madhouse and our Web section goes into overdrive (that's gear three on a Sturmey-Archer AW 3-speed hub FYI), but it's important to us to take a little time to keep you updated on our whole situation.Our store schedules are back to full-time AKA 24/7 service. Okay not quite, but you can always find our up-to-date schedule here.Our shipping and customer service operations are the same as ever, M-F 9 to 5.Here's the table of contents for your newsletter reading: New stuff and important restocks Our Philly Bike Expo flagship bikes for sale Some services you might find useful Group rides for hanging out and having #coffeeoutside The annual Cutty Cap Challenge scavenger hunt New bike stuff that's cool and that you'll like Springtime: it's not just the lilac and apple trees flowering, it's bike gear offerings too! There's way more than this, but it'll do for starters: Tumbleweed, who've got the hottest off-road style parts, with their wide comfy bars and super solid and sensible racks. We also order in their adventure-biking frames by special arrangement! We're the sole Canadian distributor for Nitto, with their elegant parts and accessories and little bike jewelry which show up a few times a year. We got handlebars, stems, seatposts, and various bits, but the standout is absolutely the perfect Campée Rack. Nobody does Classic French quite like Japan. Some Rivendell frames are already on the way. This Spring it's three different models: Clem Smith Jr. mountain-bikey frame (already in stock), the all-rounder extraordinaire Sam Hillborne and the last chance ever for a Susie W. Longbolts/Wolbis Slugstone. Later in the summer we're also expecting Joes Appaloosa and Roadunos. This isn't me trying to sell you something, it's the honest truth: don't wait if you want to get in touch and line up a build, we've got enough frames coming but your size or colour choice aren't guaranteed to be available. Some are already spoken for. Cutty Cap Challenge 2024 This Saturday May 18th (that's tomorrow if you're reading this right when I send it, but you might have all weekend for the scavenger hunt) you're invited, thanks to our volunteers (me, Vince and Tyler) and Ride With GPS, to the annual International Cutty Caps Challenge. It's basically a big fun treasure hunt and it's our second year working on it. You can find the details right here, and the map and clues will be published Saturday at 8AM sharp! Chill group rides We started organizing groups rides to drink coffee together under the open skies, and it went great! This second year we've already been out a few times. Everyone's welcome no matter what kind of bike you have or riding you usually do. To get info go right here.You should also join our Ride With GPS group! Our routes are there if you want to ride them yourself, and our upcoming rides are on the calendar.These are all, of course free events with no sign-up! Post-Philly Bike Expo Our flagship Bassi custom builds that we brought down to the Philly Bike Expo in March are now available to purchase and to try out at our Rachel St. store. Five top-notch one of a kind builds from the big velocipede faire, now right here in town. Some fine services you may want to partake in Custom bikesSpeaking of custom, you might know that a great many of the new bikes that come out of our two shops are heavily customized to the rider, if not a unique build. If you've got some dream bike in mind that just needs some expert attention, by all mean reach out by email! It'll be the clearest and quickest way to work everything out, since at the store it gets really busy and we probably won't have time to really get into it as well as you need without being interrupted.Complete Bassi bikesIt's worth a reminder that we've got some ready-to-ride bikes packed with impeccably-chosen parts (I say as the person who chooses half of 'em). For instance, the Hog's Back now has refreshed builds in both models, the Tourer and the Wiggler. We've also got some options for completes of all our other bikes: the improved Bloomfield V2, the Rachel, Le Montreal and the Coyote.WheelsWheelbuilding is one of the specialties we offer of which we're the proudest. We've got a wide selection of hubs and rims, and all our spokes are cut and threaded in-house to the exact measurements we need. Contact us or drop by the stores to plan your next wheels! Spray.Bike You maybe heard of this? We're the Canadian importer for Spray.Bike rattlecan paints, made to be super easy to use at home. We've got some pretty complete sets of instructions and tips up on the ol' website!Well, the news is that we're now set up to offer bike painting services! We're still getting everything set up, but we can provide the basics and can adjust if you've got a more complicated job in mind. If you don't have the time or inclination for arts and crafts, we're there to help. That's it for today! We've got such a strong and expert team in 2024 at both shops, in the design department, and at customer service, and it's so exciting to work with you all to make cycling even cooler in Montréal and in North America.Bikes are neat, don't forget to ride 'em all!
Philly Bike Expo builds
This being our first time going to PBE as exhibitors, we spent quite a bit of time daydreaming and debating about the best way to showcase what we're about. We had a lot of fun putting these together! These are all for sale, by the way, though only for in-person pick-up at the end of the show: Sunday March 17th 2024 at 3pm. Hog's Back - 51cm A modern day classic! We pretended this 26x2.3" tire'd Hog's Back was an early 80's touring rig and threw all the old favourites at it: non-aero brake levers, downtube shifters, a triple crank, and shiny silver bits. Hog's Back Flat Bar - 58cm With this neon red Hog's Back build, we riffed off the Wiggler stock build but with a spattering of special bits as upgrades. The Anchor bar, courtesy of pals Stridsland, handbuilt stout wheelset with Ultradynamico rubber, and full dynamo lighting make this Hog a midnight wheelie machine! Rachel - 55cm The soft blue Monet Rachel's colour has been a hit since it landed last year - it's subdued enough for very tasteful builds, yet shimmers greens and yellows out in the sun. We went for a classic assembly with homages to our good friends Crumbworks, Memento, Gurp, and Sim Works on this one. Bloomfield - 53.5cm We love giving carte-blanche to our staff to come up with a fun build every now and then. We asked Emiliano how he would build a Bloomfield and we think he nailed it! Featuring Simworks Getaround bars, Ultradynamico tires in a Rosé and Cava combo and Dia-Compe cantis and levers, this Bloomy looks like a ton of fun for zippy commutes and silly trail rides. Le Montréal - 58cm Here at Bassi, we have a love of mixing old and new, serious and silly, road and mountain, and lots more. This build is an archetypical example of that variety, with features that might seem old-timey to some, like leather contact points, an all-metal cockpit and lots of silver bits, alongside modern features like carbon brifter blades, a wide-range transmission, and chunk tires. Coyote - 17.5" This build was thought up for fast off-road rides, with a nod to the classic ATB and XC styling we all love. Paul levers and brakes provide tons of ultra-reliable stopping power, and the dingle speed drivetrain keeps things simple. Low maintenance is the name of the game for those grab-it-and-go outings. And, in the spirit and mixing old and new, it must be said that thru-axles, dropper posts and tubeless tires complement square taper bottom brackets, cable-actuation and rigid forks beautifully, actually!
Hog's Back stock builds updates
These new specs are more versatile than ever and, in our opinion, are more representative of what the Hog’s Back can do, and do very well. The new configurations have been revised from the ground up to offer the best off-the-stand versions of the Hog's Backs we could imagine, for a great price! Wiggler V2 Pick the 1x, flat-barred Wiggler for funky trail rides and off-road excursions (but keep it mellow, plz). The Wiggler V2 stock build changes feature our wide and swoopy Bobby Bar, MicroSHIFT XCD 1x11 transmission and our new 38t 1x crank. Click here for more details about the Wiggler V2. Sporter V2 Pick the wider-geared, drop-barred Tourer for comfortable yet fast long-distance rides over mixed-terrain. The updated Tourer features silver Salsa Cowchippers, MicroSHIFT 2x9 bar-end transmission and our Compact Double 46/34 crank. Click here for more details about the Tourer V2. As always, each stock complete is lovingly built at C&L Cycle by our expert staff.