Yesterday we showcased Seaside, California’s newest bike shop, AMG Cyclery, a joint venture between husband and wife Alex and Alisa Gonzales. Today we’ve got a fun one! A collection of the bikes made by Jared Bourdeau, a local builder and employee at AMG Cyclery. They’re wild, they’re crazy, and they’re really fun to ride. Let’s check ’em out!
Jarod Bourdeau
Jarod Bourdeau went to UBI in 2012 to learn how to build bicycle frames. At the time, he was living in San Jose, California. Out on a ride, he broke his frame, which led him to call various shops in the area. He happened upon Silva Cycles in Campbell, California, where he fixed his bike. Over the next several months, he’d roll through the shop to hang out and eventually got a job working at the small shop.
Half of the bike shop was retail, and the other half was a mechanics’ space with a tiny frame repair area. Jarod worked there for years, adding rack bosses, cable guides, and various braze-ons. He spent countless nights there working unpaid to learn the craft of frame modification and framebuilding.
Later, he worked in his garage for nine years, perfecting his approach to bicycle modification and design.
Bourdeau and His Beautiful Bicycles
Jarod found early on that it was easier to modify frames than make a bike from scratch, and many of these builds are indicative of that approach. As we were talking through some of the bikes, he mentioned that altering an existing frame’s use case breathes new life into the bike. In doing so, the bike gets a new lease on life. While most of his projects are for customers who request frame modifications, he loves doing projects for himself.
Tall Bike
Spencer, our resident tall bike aficionado, has ridden a hefty number of tall bikes, freak bikes, and just plain ol’ weird-ass bikes, but he has never ridden a retro-direct tallbike. There are a lot of chains going every which way on this bike in order to allow both directions of crank rotation to propel the bike forward.
There are two gear ratios here; by pedaling the cranks backward, you get an easier gear, while pedaling forward will yield a more difficult gear. At the time, only pedaling backwards worked, which made for a very interesting way to mount the bike: Put the non-driveside crank at 9 o’clock, step up, and as you mount, pedaling the crank backward, you are propelled forward to gain enough momentum to swing your butt into the saddle.
The drivetrain is so distracting that you can almost miss the rear hub flange extensions made of cassette cogs – add that to the list of shit we’ve never seen before. Our hat is off to Jarod for this confounding contraption!
Neutrino BOB Cargo
To assemble this mash-up of a Velo Orange Neutrino and a BOB trailer, Jarod stripped parts of the Neutrino mini velo down to raw metal, cut new metal and the BOB trailer up before fillet brazing the pieces together again. He then found a paint that matched “close enough” while leaving the brass fillets raw and exposed.
Steering is assisted by a long linkage arm, carefully bent to clear the BOB trailer body and kickstand. The main steering head tube angle has also been steepened and integrated into the BOB’s structure, and the front fork is modified from the original Neutrino fork.
Bourdeau Mini Farthing
Perhaps the most unique bike in the mix is this Mini Farthing, which Jarod built by taking tubing sections to a local auto shop and having them bent on a mandrel. The rear wheel’s fork utilizes a Pacenti crown. What makes this bike unique is its use of a freewheel, whereas traditional penny-farthing bikes are direct drive with no coasting. Jarod commented that people feel drawn to ride this bike around since it’s not too tall and is easy to mount and dismount.
Surly 1×1 e-Clydesdale
E-mobility is changing how Americans interact with their cities. In a car-dominated world, e-cargo bikes present a unique opportunity for people to haul groceries or run errands on bikes that are less arduous to pedal, and bikes like this modified Surly 1×1 utilize the existing inventory of readily available frames, breathing new life into them. The Darren-Larkin-designed Crust Clydesdale adds a dose of utilitarianism to the platform.
These “rat bikes” are the soul of this very website, and seeing how Jarod modified this 1×1 made both Spencer and John’s jaws drop to the floor when they saw it.
Alex’s Bourdeau Bilam Gravel Bike
“When everything is said and done, it’s a completely different feeling when you’ve made something from nothing,” Jarod noted as we discussed Alex’s bilam and fillet brazed gravel bike. While Jarod loves modifying frames and breathing new life into them, he notes that building a bike from tubes takes a lot more time. Consequently, he is currently only building frames for homies and himself, but is always interested in talking to potential customers about commissions.
Alex’s gravel bike is made using the same process that British framebuilders first implemented and Tom Ritchey later perfected. Just like John’s Ritchey Annapurna, the seat cluster is bilam. Bilam is short for bilaminate: the process in which tubes are fillet brazed into a “faux lug.”
The most common place for bilam construction is usually the seat clusters. Bilam strengthens the seat post insertion area. This area can be potentially weakened or warped during fabrication due to the excessive heat. This Bourdeau gravel bike also features a hand-carved head badge and handmade UDH dropouts.
AMG Builds: Tyler’s Rock Combo
While Jarod has built all of the previously featured bikes, we have two projects from AMG employees. The first is Tyler’s Rock Combo commuter. Unfortunately for us, Tyler wasn’t in the shop that day. He was working at the Sea Otter Classic, but we managed to document his fun Rock Combo commuter anyway.
The 1989 Rock Combo was Specialized’s first foray into the drop-bar mountain bike. The Rock Combo only came about thanks to MTB pioneers Steve Potts, Charlie Cunningham, and Scot Nicol. These builders made production drop-bar mountain bikes for years before the bigger brands entered the market. The Rock Combo featured WTB-designed BB-1 drop bars, which had less flare than the RM models. John had the RM bars on his Steve Potts Dirt Drop.
Many may call the Rock Combo the “first production gravel bike.” As the original advertisement showed, the bike was being ridden on a gravel road. Tyler’s build spec is much more engaging, with colorful bags and a ton of personal flair. Well done here.
Alisa’s Bridgestone RB-T Commuter
“It never rains in (Central Coastal) California,” and commuter bikes don’t need fenders. Alisa’s Bridgestone RB-T has all the Rivendell DNA in a vintage package. The RB-T was introduced by Bridgestone USA in the early 90s as an entry-level touring bike. The RB-T is not as coveted as the MB-1 or XO-1. But its steel chassis and plentiful tire clearance are perhaps one of the Japanese brand’s sleeper platforms. Within the RB-1 “road bike” line, the RB-T was meant to take the rider further on mixed terrain.
Alex from AMG Cyclery worked with Alisa to craft the ideal commuter for her. She rides every day to her job on it along the Seaside Monterey bike path. She and Alex both are car-free, living on the Central Coast of California. It’s a bike like this that makes it all possible.
Tomorrow we’ve got a special feature of Jarod’s Bourdeau Vintage MTB Homage, so stay tuned!
Many thanks to the team at AMG Cyclery for the awe-inspiring afternoon Spencer and I spent with them. Coming off the hustle and bustle of Sea Otter, the time spent with Alex, Alisa, and Jarod served as a reminder of why we’re all in this industry together.
If you’d like to see these bikes in person, roll on over and visit AMG Cyclery.