Jeremy SyCip was celebrating his 25th year of framebuilding in style at his booth this NAHBS. All three bikes shown, he had made for himself, with one still dirty from riding in Moab immediately before the show. The main jewel of the booth (because they were all solid and beautiful bikes) was his personal 25th anniversary bike, one of a series he will make available to the public…
The first SyCip frame (shown) was part of a collaboration between Jeremy and his brother Jay, currently with Chris King. Jeremy brazed the steel frame and accompanying fork and stem. Jay styled the assembly, adding flowers and the downtube signature. While they would go on to build and paint bikes together, Jay left SyCip several years ago to pursue a career with Chris King.
Rather than being steel, the 25th anniversary model at the show featured a TIG welded titanium frame and stem with a carbon fork, with internal routing for Di2, a far cry from Jeremy’s first attempt. However, Jay did take brush to tube to paint the familiar yellow flowers on the bike. Overall, it’s a sentimental and very modern tribute to that first bike.
There will be 25 bikes in all made for this run. Customers can choose the type of bike and whether or not they want the titanium stem to match. Chris King will be producing a special top cap for this production and each frame will come with a special, limited edition sterling silver headbadge.
When Salt Lake was announced as the show location for 2017, Jeremy and long time friend, Curtis Inglis of Retrotec fame, resolved to go riding in Moab before the show and each built a personal bike for this purpose. This is Jeremy’s 27.5+ bike, still dusty from the pre-show ride.
For styling, Jeremy worked with Ted Lincoln, a friend who specializes in Star Wars art. The frame is styled, appropriately, as a Landspeeder. For this Ted reinterpreted the paint of that vehicle around the not so similar physical form of a double triangle bicycle frame.
The result was compelling. “I don’t even know how he did that,” Jeremy said pointing out the bottom bracket cluster. Ted is also a master of inlay, there were several mother of pearl accents around the bike, including the headbadge.
Serving as the barrier between SyCip and Retrotec booths was this 27.5+ tandem Jeremy built for his family for rides around Santa Rosa as well as family overnight camping trips.
The frame features mounting interfaces all over for racks and bags, facilitating all kinds of off-road family adventure. It also utilizes Jeremy’s characteristic rear wishbone to facilitate a compact rear end.
(The year of the penny endcaps, for the record, don’t have specific meaning on this bike.)
The frame construction on the tandem is pretty interesting. It’s got a pierced lateral tube construction and a double boom. Most interestingly, Jeremy used custom cranks to pull the drivetrain chains all to the drive side.
Last but not least, to accommodate growing family members, the rear has an adjustable titanium stoker stem, ensuring that this tandem can be ridden for years to come.
