NAHBS 2010 – Signal Cycles was among the contingent of builders representin’ the Pacific Northwest, and in fact they crated their bikes to the show with Vanilla and others.
They only had a few bikes on display, but man were they sumthin. The orange city bike you see here was built up with some old school XT thumb shifters and derailleur, Paul vee-brakes and chrome fenders for a great wet-weather bike. The blue rando/touring bike in the background was one of my favorite paint jobs of the whole show, and they had a great 29er hardtail in candy apple red.
Hit ‘more’ for all the pics…
Yeah, retro grouch. An aching thumbs up for the friction shifter lever.
Lugged frames from Signal Cycles start at $2,200, and fillet brazed steel frames like this start at $2,000. Lugged forks are $250, and fancier uni-crown forks are $300.
The paint’s so good, it almost looks wet. In addition to the shipping crate, Signal shares the same paint shop as Vanilla.
This one’s two-tone blue with white racing stripes and accents is just great.
While the geometry and spec suggests touring and commuting, everyone knows racing stripes make things faster.
A thoroughly modern drivetrain and Chris King road hubs don’t hurt, either. More detailed paint jobs like this one raise the price of the bikes a bit.
There was really nothing fancy about Signal’s bikes…just well executed frames and clean paint designs complemented by smart (or interesting) component specs make them very, very appealing. That, and founders Matt and Nate were very friendly and easy going.
Check out the offset on that fork crown! It’s weird how 29ers are starting to look so normal that we’ve gotta check the tire size in the photos before we edit them down just to be sure. Yep, this one’s a 29er.
Signal also had the first bike anywhere to show off the all-new Corsa Concept wheels (see this post for more info on the new U.S. made wheel company), which oddly enough were shown on a ‘cross bike despite not being officially warrantied for cyclocross yet:
