MADE 2024: Our 10 favourite builds from the world's largest handmade bike show

Zidell Yards, South Waterfront, Portland, Oregon, USA, Planet Earth. 

Fleetingly, Portland was once again briefly the centre of the known bike universe (Vuelta an España, who?) for a weekend of bikes, shenanigans and pleasantly overcast skies. This year’s MADE show built on last year’s success with improved lighting, less guano, and even more world-class builders.

The three-day event, which ran from August 23 to 25, once again used Portland’s industrial waterfront as a stunning backdrop for handbuilt bikes from around the world. We picked a few of them to share with you here. 

Several of the featured bikes were built for fellow bike industry members present at the show or otherwise connected. These are folks who know bikes inside and out and ride lots, and frequently have stories to share about the whats and whys that went into each build. We also looked for bikes that offered something new or different, covered a range of applications, and came from unusual places. Come along for a quick world tour with us!

English Cycles TT Mk3

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This TT bike was one of the standouts of the show. It was made by Rob English, for Rob English, and has yet to be ridden. English built this bike after being approached by Enve who wanted to showcase the not-yet-available TT cockpit as ridden by Tadej Pogačar and Team UAE Emirates. 

English has built TT frames for himself previously, but this one has some new tricks up its sleeve. First up is the crankset, from which English removed 16 millimeters of the spindle to reduce the q-factor. He designed a nifty eccentric saddle rail clamp that allows for some saddle height adjustment on a one-piece integrated seat mast. 

The front end of the bike is even wilder: there’s no steerer tube and the fork, basebar and stem are all one integrated unit made of aerospace-grade drawn tubing, with a hidden steering limiter. The frame itself is only 24 mm wide. Mind blowing stuff. 

Scarab Cycles Delft Chiva

The next stop on our world tour brings us to Colombia, with Scarab Cycles’ hand-painted Delft Chiva gravel bike built for Kogel Bearings’ founder Ard Kessels. Photographs can’t really capture the depth and intricacy of these designs, but they are stunning. 

The paint scheme is a mashup of the blue and white of ceramic tiles from the Royal Delft factory in the Netherlands with the ornate painting style of a Colombian Chiva bus. This bike is intended as a no-holds-barred gravel racer and features an integrated Enve front end and Classified’s Powershift handlebar remote-controlled hub-based gearing system that allows for impressively wide gear ranges while using a 1x drivetrain.

Onguza Bicycles Goat

Now for a quick trip across the Atlantic to Namibia, where this Onguza Goat was hand built and painted. It has elegant lines, clean internal cable routing (the line runs seamlessly over the bottom bracket), and gently bent seat stays. This is a modern steel gravel bike, executed perfectly. 

This bike was on display in the Brooks England booth, which intentionally selected a mix of builders from around the world that it knew wouldn’t be able to attend the show. Brooks has long been a fan of Onguza founder Dan Craven for his approach to racing while he was a professional, and representatives from the iconic British company were happy to have an Onguza on hand to display some of Brooks’ saddles and bags. 

Everywhere you look there’s a fun little detail or homage to Namibia: the animal pattern inside the fork, the custom top cap, and the paint color itself all blend together to create a seamless whole. This particular bike is on its way to a customer in California.

No. 22 Bicycles Reactor Aero

And we’re back to North America, this time to the Great White North. Toronto-based No. 22 (manufacturing is headquartered in New York state) made BIG waves with this bike when it was announced earlier this week. The Reactor Aero is currently just a prototype, but No. 22 hopes it will have production models ready for purchase in late 2025. The bike is 3D printed in one piece, vertically, from the rear dropouts to the head tube on an enormous 3D printer. 

The only non-titanium part is the seat tube, developed by July Bicycles. Each frame takes a week to print. Production techniques may change somewhat before the final version is ready, but No. 22 intends to maintain this form factor, which has undergone substantial CFD analysis. Weight currently sits at 18+ lbs, but the final version will be closer to 16 lbs, depending on size. Retail price is not yet set, but expect it to be in the ballpark of 10K USD for frame/fork.

Monē Bikes Minnē Monē

Next, we’re heading south to New Mexico. 

The Minnē Monē is the latest iteration of builder Cjell Monē’s kids model. It’s not cheap, but it does a nifty trick: it grows! Utilizing the same frame, the Minnē Monē starts life as a balance bike, then, with the addition of a longer seatpost, taller handlebars, cranks, pedals and brakes, it magically turns into a capable little 16” wheeled ripper. 

Kits are available for either iteration, or everything all at once. Like Monē’s other bikes, the Minnē Monē has a cohesive aesthetic with visible brazing and clean lines. These are bikes for shredders of all shapes and sizes. 

Seeker Bicycles Steel CX

Time for a quick jaunt back to the PNW. 

Chris McGovern has done it all in the bike industry: pro racer, coach, soft goods manufacturer and bike builder. Seeker Bicycles is McGovern’s latest venture in steel production, including gravel, cyclocross, mountain bikes, saddlebags, and soft goods. 

This particular bike is McGovern’s personal race bike, which is a UCI-ready CX bike featuring Wolf Tooth’s brand-new integrated headset (which is light and has an impressively low stack) and dropped seat stays. 

The best part? It has an exact twin, but in the reverse paint scheme: cyclocross racers need pit bikes! It was good to see a proper ‘cross bike out there; this is PDX afterall. 

Lost Workshop Steel Gravel

Next stop: Australia. 

The Lost Workshop is a husband and wife team from just outside Melbourne, Australia. This very clean steel build is a customer’s retirement present to himself and features builder Ian Michelson’s own 3D printed designs for the seat cluster and rear dropouts. 

These 3D components have ingenious designs that make bike building faster and more accurate: locating nubs to keep from twisting and a pre-split clamp design that removes additional steps from the brazing process. 

A built-to-match steel fork and painted stem are topped off with a custom head badge by Jen Green of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

SaltAir Cycles Pinion Gearbox Commuter

Back stateside and on to Salt Lake City, Utah, home of SaltAir Cycles. Builder Matthew Nelson came to MADE with several of his fillet-brazed steel creations, one of which was this belt-driven Pinion Gearbox commuter bike for a customer in Salt Lake City. 

This build uses TRP’s SMART.SHIFT technology, with integrated brake levers and shifters connecting to the gearbox at the bottom bracket shell. This bike serves double duty as a daily commuter with slick tires and fenders, but it can also be outfitted with up to 2.6-inch knobby tires for gravel and bikepacking adventures on the weekends. 

All of Nelson’s creations are one-off customs, and it’s clear he has an impressively wide range.

Firefly Bicycles Road Plus/Gravel

Now we head east! Boston-based Firefly Bicycles didn’t have a booth at MADE this year, but Bicycling Magazine’s kiosk near the front of the show featured one of Firefly’s titanium bikes designed for Deputy Editor Tara Seplavy. This bike was initially built as a test mule for Shimano’s latest GRX Di2 release, though Seplavy has since switched it over to a SRAM build. 

The geometry was strongly influenced by Cervelo’s 58 cm R5CX bike, as ridden by Wout van Aert, and the bike utilizes several 3D printed components: the rear dropouts and chainstay yoke are both printed, as well as the fork crown and dropouts. This manufacturing technique allows Firefly to build forks of almost any length and rake to suit any geometry characteristics required.

Baum Cycles DBM

Finally, we head back Down Under for our last featured bike: Darren Baum of Baum Cycles’ personal DBM gravel bike. It’s designed specifically for the steep climbs and chunky gravel Baum rides while exploring powerline trails around Brisbane and fits 2.25" tyres comfortably. 

According to Baum, he’s been building bikes like this for a long time but has never previously offered it as a regular model, and making a drop bar bike with tyres this large has only really made sense in the last 5+ years since XC tyres started blending higher volumes with lower tread profiles that roll quickly and are enjoyable to ride on pavement. Typically, tires this wide would necessitate wider bars to bring the steering geometry into a comfortable range, but by lowering the bottom bracket height (this model has 80 mm of BB drop), everything works harmoniously with narrower drop bars and a slightly shorter stem.

 This bike looks super fun to ride!