At first, when Joshua Clark sent in photos of his custom Orbea Alma for our Reader’s Rides segment the Di2 hacks caught our attention. After reading through the specs and looking at the pictures however, it was the handmade carbon components that really piqued our attention. Like many incredibly talented people within the bike industry, it would appear that Joshua is incredibly modest simply pointing out that, oh yeah, I built those carbon parts too. As if that’s something every bike mechanic does in their spare time.
It wasn’t long before Joshua was sending us new photos of a few of the different saddles he’s built over the past two years. When he’s not turning wrenches in his bike shop, Joshua is turning out some incredible carbon creations that are built to order for his local customers – like this awesome checkerboard creation made for Pro mountain biker Payson McElveen. There’s plenty more where that came from after the break…
For someone who has only been producing composite saddles for two years, Joshua’s products have some impressive production value. Joshua builds everything from the saddles to the tooling with the exception of the carbon rails. He points out that they are the same carbon rails you will find on many other saddle including Felt and a few Prologo models since the tooling to build the rails would simply be too expensive and time consuming to create. Everything else though, is made in Ft. Worth, Texas, by Joshua himself.
While he prefers to ride saddles made from raw, unpainted carbon, Joshua has no problem making padded saddles which usually use goat skin leather. According to Joshua, “Tons of testing, trial and error, and lots of success has come from this project. Each saddle is different, and can be custom made for all types of applications; from the weight weenie roadie, to the often crashing mountain biker.” The carbon saddles are listed as ranging from 80-110g each with special editions for riders under 170 lbs as low as 70g!
As illustrated by the number of different designs, Joshua states he is continually searching for the best materials and processes that he can use to improve the final product. Preferring to sell the saddles to potential customers through his shop, Velo Gold Bicycles, Joshua dis have a booth with a number of saddles at the Texas Custom Bicycle Show.
Along with the saddles, Joshua has also built a few seatpost/saddle combinations. Stunning.
Saddles and seatpost/saddle combinations are the main focus currently, but much like the Orbea we saw Joshua is developing his own bar/stem combinations as well. Above, a drop bar/stem combo is coming to life. Thanks again to Joshua for sending these in, and if you’re in the Ft. Worth Area it would seem that Velo Gold Bikes is definitely worth a visit!
