NAHBS – Peacock Groove’s Gold Plated, Cut Out 29er Mountain Bike, Others

NAHBS 2010 – If there were an award for shiniest bike, Peacock Groove would probably just edge out Cherubim’s midnight blue/chrome ride for top honors.  This gold-plated 29er had some features to back up the flash, too, like a cutaway seat tube and some solid internal cable routing for both front and rear brake cables (you can see the line entering the top of the fork in the pic above).  The seat tube cutaway was matched by the space-making fork crown cutout, allowing a 29er wheel to clear an otherwise standard size fork, all in all making for a pretty compact 29er.

PG also showed off some other cool bikes with their own tweaks, colorfully displayed after the jump…

This picture just doesn’t do the bike justice…it was crazy shiny.  Note how small the frame looks with those wheels.  Hopefully it’s for a small rider (it’s a customer’s future race bike), otherwise there may be some toe clearance issues with the front tire.

…and a big gol’ chain!

Peacock Groove’s dropouts are among the fanciest at the show.

Interesting brake caliper mounts.

Rear brake cable pops out of the chainstay…

…and the front pops out of the fork, just visible at top of photo.

Here’s one way to get a super short chainstay and wheelbase.  Builder/owner Eric Noren said this is a low-stress section of the frame, allowing him to get away with the cutout design.  Speaking of Eric, I wish I’d had a photo of him.  You’ll notice bottles of PBR laying around in at least one of these photos, and his appearance is not what you’d call “fit cyclist”…but the dude could hammer.  At the Gold Sprints Friday night, he beat out taller leaner builders in his heat (including Craig Calfee) by a solid margin.

This single-speed road bike had a prismatic paint that changed colors based on the angle of viewing.

The main feature of this bike was the heavily curved stays with the bent dropouts.  The dropouts are pretty thick, and bending and curving them to the right angles is no small feat.

Peacock Groove builds road, mountain, cyclocross, touring and track bike frames, all custom fit to the customer, with prices starting at $1,500.  Kick-butt features like the skull tube cap below are extra: