NAHBS 2010 – Capricorn Bicycles, built by Bradley Wilson in Minneapolis, MN, had a healthy mix of bikes ranging from mountain to road, mixte to commuter, including this great gray-blue one with a front basket rack and fenders.
After working for Waterford Precision Bicycles as a framebuilder and various other mechanic and delivery jobs having to do with bikes, Wilson decided to start building bikes himself in his parent’s basement in WI. Now, he’s set up in his own (real) shop in Minneapolis building frames out of U.S.-made True Temper Cromoly Steel tubing.
Check out a variety of his builds after the break…
Capricorn also makes handcrafted racks from 4130 aircraft tubing. The tubes are shaped, cut, mitered, and brazed by hand then given a powder coat finish, stainless steel hardware (where needed), and are treated for protection against the elements. He builds them from light action to heavy duty depending on the user’s needs.
Check out the little headlight mount on the fork…it’s a standard handlebar mount light, but the new placement lets you keep your cockpit clean. Rack attachment points on the fork crown are pretty slick, too.
The double chainstay wasn’t done for any particular performance purpose, but they sure look sweet. Bradley builds the bikes after hours and on weekends while holding down a “real” job during the day, making the craftsmanship all the more impressive.
His Mixte has some swoopy top tubes and seatstays with matching diameter chainstays.
It’s also decked out with the new Sturmey-Archer friction shifter.
Crammed into his booth was a nice orange-and-blue cyclocross bike (just something about that color scheme we like…) and a green rigid 29er.
Check out the nice headtube/downtube lugs that double as a reinforcing gusset. The front part of the lug around the base of the headtube blends into the joint at the base of the downtube for unique look.
This was a fairly unique way to do the sliding dropout.
This bike is a design work in progress. Bradley says he’s working through the details with this test build to create a single-speed/fixed/geared commuter bike that (obviously) can be run with any sort of drivetrain you want. The frame it designed to be a ‘do everything’ design that’ll work with drop or flat bars and any combination of racks and fenders you may need.
Capricorn bikes start at $1,100 and are built to your measurements.
Above and below, you’ve got mounting points for anything and everything.
Multipurpose dropouts so you can run what you brung.
