Last year Mars Cycles’ Casey Sussman showed up as a first time builder and took home a People’s Choice award. This year, he brought a fleet built out with some clever features. The Trailside Companion sat front and center with the most obvious “upgrade” being, well, obvious. It’s the glittery paint, of course!
Wanna partake of the good stuff, then puff, puff, and give yourself a click past the break…
The TC is a flat bar gravel bike with special top tube vents.
It gives a whole new meaning to “bike packing”, and they said the frame had been tested. Perhaps not for safety, but tested. Don’t overlook the other features like a stealth seatpost clamp bolt and shaped chainstays.
This drop bar gravel bike showed off some fantastic paint along with an overall very clean design. The tapered headtube looked perfectly in place on the steel tubes…
…and the minimal, curved seatstay bridge was nicely incorporated into the paint scheme. Lots of masking details gave depth to the rest of the color.
Compared to the TC, this one’s inset rear disc brake mount kept it all a little tighter.
The paint across all their bikes was a real variety show.
This track bike was a mix of stainless steel and carbon fiber tubes.
And a fixie, just for fun.
MAP BICYCLES
MAP Bicycles sticks to a classic rando aesthetic, using fenders, racks and other touring accessories to give his bikes an upscale/old school look. New for the show was this mixte city bike with partial chain guard.
This touring bike mixed an urban camo paint scheme with solid sections for a rather unique look. Sticking with the hiding in plain sight theme, it used stealth wiring for the front dynamo hub.
See any wires? The hub shell and fork are the contact patches, then a wire hidden inside the fork leg runs up to the light on the front rack:
MAJACO
Majaco’s steel bikes ranged from a classic canti brake ‘crosser with lugged fork to a more modern disc brake version with tapered head tube and Easton’s massive carbon disc brake fork.
After working with his father in the aerospace industry where tolerances are super tight, builder Mark Combs decided to follow his passion and switch to building bikes, He moved to Austin, TX, and has been making them from True Temper OX Platinum tubing and other U.S. made parts since 2011.
