Took a little lunch time walk to pick up my freshly repaired Hakkalugi from Elliot Bay Bicycles. Their in-house frame shop, Davidson Bicycles, straightened out the severely bent derailleur hanger, along with changing the rear dropout spacing from 135 mm to 132.5 mm.
Now I can run a rear mountain or road hub, allowing the use of the current XTR hub I've been running, and a road hub later down the road. Pretty handy, eh?
Elliott Bay is a smaller shop, but always has some interesting bikes to gawk at while visiting. There's some modern production bikes on the floor from Bianchi, Orbea and a few others. The really fun stuff comes from Davidson, or the older bikes - restored and original - sprinkled throughout the shop. A few examples...
Vintage restored Eddy Merckx and Colnago share a rack. Very nice bikes.
The Colnago sports this amazing blue paint. Looks even better in person, the pic doesn't do it justice. If I ever went for a custom frame, this would be the color choice.
Another classic, the restored vintage Masi. My bike shop days were in the early '80s, so these classic bikes look great to me.
There's usually a few used steel frames in stock to ponder and consider building up.
A new titanium Davidson competes with the classics for floor space. Super nice indeed.
Another Davidson, this one in the Randonneur style - 650B wheels and front bag included.
Vintage Cinelli anyone? Yes, please.
Elliott Bay Bicycles is a great shop to visit. For old school me, it's a "real" bike shop. How many shops still have a frame building operation in the back? Not many. If you're the old school roadie, a fun place to check out and talk with the folks running the show.
If I was in the market for a custom frame, I'd go for a Davidson. Steel frame and fork, plain lugs or maybe TIG welded. Race geometry, but room for fatter tires. Oh yeah, in that Colnago blue. Ultegra or Chorus build. Tell me that wouldn't be sweet.
Bill Davidson himself worked on my twisted Ibis frame, explaining what he did while I paid the tab. Modern off-shore production bikes are better then ever. Still, there's something to be said having a local frame builder - with decades of experience - repair and realign your steel frame.
The straightened Ibis Hakkalugi hanger glows with anticipation. Either that, or the camera autofocus can't get over its fascination with the carpet pattern. You be the judge.