Breadwinner Cycles, a collaboration between well know builders Tony Pereira and Ira Ryan, debuted at last year’s NAHBS show with a solid if reasonable range of bikes. While they’re not giving up too much about what’s en route to Charlotte, we did get some teaser pics and a little update on their progress.
BIKERUMOR: What are your main building materials?
BREADWINNER: We use Columbus steel for all of our builds because of their expertise in metallurgy, consistent quality of finish and range of selection. We believe that Columbus tubes are the highest quality materials available. All our bikes will now come with our proprietary TITO dropouts, which feature durable stainless steel surfaces on wheel, derailleur and brake caliper interfaces to eliminate rust and add to the longevity of our frames. On our performance bikes, we have partnered with ENVE Composites to supply carbon forks. Their innovative design is the gold standard for carbon road forks and they compliment our frames well.
BIKERUMOR: What’s new with your company since NAHBS last year?
BREADWINNER: Since launching at NAHBS last year, we have been busy setting up our new workshop and working hard to build the best bikes we can. This first year has been filled with a few big challenges but we are proud to have hit our goals. We have delivered bicycles all over the world and continue to grow at a comfortable pace.
BIKERUMOR: Any killer custom bike builds in that time?
BREADWINNER: We have built a number of internal electronic shifting bikes this past year and they turned out great. It is hard to pick a favorite but the Lolo road bike is always a looker when it’s built up with Enve, Chris King and Shimano Di2. A few customers have chosen some custom paint options and it has been fun to see what they think a Breadwinner should look like. That said, the NAHBS builds that we just put together are about as killer as they get.
BIKERUMOR: Say a customer gives you free reign, where do you draw your inspiration for the best projects?
BREADWINNER: We both have decades of experience as mechanics and riders and we both have opinions on what works and what doesn’t so we work with each customer to build the bike to fit their personality and riding style. Every Breadwinner frame is custom designed for the rider’s fit and we pride ourselves on spec’ing the best components to fit the budget, the style of the rider and the aesthetic of the bike.
BIKERUMOR: What are you building this year that’ll draw a crowd?
BREADWINNER: We’re not ready to give away the big surprise for the NAHBS, but are excited to have two completely new models to launch, plus some changes to our existing lineup, including two new stock colors. Expect our interpretation of the “new” gravel grinder category, based on Ira’s experience as a two-time Trans-Iowa race winner and our thousands of miles riding gravel roads, to be a stunner. And, we’re super stoked to add a long travel hardtail mountain bike that Tony has been dreaming about for several years.
We will also debut a gorgeous disc-brake version of our Lolo road bike at the show and for 2014 will be offering disc brakes as an option our our Holeshot cross bike as well.
Additionally, we’ve updated our JB Racer XC mountain bike to a 44mm headtube to accommodate a wider range of suspension forks.
BIKERUMOR: Scenario: NAHBS introduces a new category called Mashups, pairing two completely different builders to make one bike. Who’s the yin to your yang, and what kind of bike do you think you’d build?
BREADWINNER: It is hard to answer this question since the two of us work together already. Would it be like a double date or would we be frame-building swingers on our own? Both of us have always admired the craftsmanship of builders like Mark Nobilette, Mark Dinucci and Chris Bishop, but that kind of skill is often only practiced on one’s own. It would be amazing to see how some of the Italian or Japanese masters work to build hundreds of frames a year.
