Last year, Mosaic gave their bikes categories, providing a starting point for customers, and they added a disc brake road bike option and more mountain bike variations. This year, the story’s all about their dealers. As proof, we actually received the photo above from Prestige Cycles in the UK before we ever got the answers back from Mosaic’s Aaron Barcheck. It may not look like much yet, but Prestige’s Stephen Roche promises it’ll be on display in Charlotte with plenty of boutique UK components, an amazing paint scheme and a Di2 build. With a raw frame weight of just 1318g, it’s a pretty good starting point.
BIKERUMOR: What are your main building materials?
AARON: Mosaic Cycles builds with Titanium, Steel and Stainless Steel.
BIKERUMOR: What’s new with your company since NAHBS last year?
AARON: Throughout 2013 and into 2014 NAHBS Mosaic continues to work hand in hand with some of the best Custom/Handmade supporting bike shops in the Nation and now globally. We’ve added new Mosaic partners in Chicago (Velosmith Bicycle Studio), Toronto (Blacksmith Cycle) and Brisbane Australia (Crankstar Bespoke Cyclery) to name a few and are excited to bring the brand to new areas.
For the product side of things we’re offering our framesets now as a carbon module with Enve stem/seatpost and a Ti module with Mosaic built titanium stem and seatpost! Also launching at NAHBS will be a gravel grinder model, something we’re built for years but never put a name on. Around these parts of the country (Boulder, CO) the Gravel Grinder is King with so many dirt roads and riding potential all year.
Since winning the “best Cyclocross Bike” category at NAHBS 2013 we’ve continued to spread the good word about great performance characteristics of handmade titanium and steel cyclocross frames with our sponsored race team “Team Small Batch” and having our award winning XT-1 bike make it’s first appearance in the National Cyclocross Championship this year in Boulder. Nat’s was so good this year!
BIKERUMOR: Any killer custom bike builds in that time?
AARON: Too many to count! Some of our favorites are the attached XT-1d Shimano Ultegra Di2 ready, or the TT-1 travel road bike with a killer gold paint job, or the MS-1 650b mountain bike with did with a classy Lady’s color scheme. Full photo shoots on our Flickr site too…
BIKERUMOR: Say a customer gives you free reign, where do you draw your inspiration for the best projects?
AARON: Step one: I go ride and ride hard and long somewhere in Colorado. Mountain bike, hit the mountains. Road Bike, choose any epic route right out the door. CX, the race scene around here is intense. This is usually enough inspiration on its own. Step two: Dip into my bucket list of bikes, bike styles, paint schemes, color combos, favorite components, new tech, design elements and frame characteristics that I want to build for myself. (this is a very long list, I’m becoming somewhat of an addict) Step Three: Pick all the attributes that will work best for this particular customer and put them together in a very thoughtful holistic way that attains good fit, great handling and personal aesthetic. Step four: Build, Ride, Repeat…
BIKERUMOR: What are you building this year that’ll draw a crowd?
AARON: For us, NAHBS is about more than just supporting our brand, its about supporting the community that supports our brand! So this year, we partnered up with some of our best Friends and Mosaic Dealers to show people what the Bespoke Bicycle experience is all about. We’ll have seven bikes on hand that show not just how we build bikes but how we work with our Mosaic Dealers to build bikes. Each one will be different and eye catching on its own and will range from Road, to Road Disc, CX, Mountain, Ti, Steel, Di2, EPS, you name it. It will be a truly unique year for us at the show. Partners include Pro Peloton (Boulder, CO), Above Category (Bay Area), Velosmith (Chi Town), Blacksmith (Toronto), Prestige Cycles (UK), Crankstar Bespoke Cyclery (AU). Also a special charity bike built with Fizik, Shimano and crankbrothers that will be Auctioned by The Pro’s Closet raising funds for the National Inclusion Project, a non for profit that supports Children with Autism.
BIKERUMOR: Scenario: NAHBS introduces a new category called Mashups, pairing two completely different builders to make one bike. Who’s the yin to your yang, and what kind of bike do you think you’d build?
AARON: Hmm, how about Ben with Argonaut. I think his style and approach are very close to mine creating hand built performance rigs, just in carbon. We would probably build one Ti/Carbon bike to rule them all…
