2026 MADE Show tech gallery, part 2

I mentioned yesterday that I was going to go a little narrower and deeper in my coverage of this year’s MADE show, and that sure turned out to be an awfully prudent decision. Now in its fourth year, it seems like MADE has really hit its stride, and the show was seriously busy today – like, hard to make your way through the aisles at all because of all the people, let alone with a bike in tow. Trying to shoot the whole thing like I would have in years past would most definitely have been an exercise in frustration.

But man, were there still a whole lot of great stuff to uncover: so many tales of how a particular bike became a part of someone’s life, or how another was the manifestation of someone’s thoughts and ideas. These truly aren’t just bikes; they’re often little insights into people’s souls, and luckily for the rest of us, these folks are more than happy to share their stories with us.

I hope you’re enjoying this style of coverage, because I certainly am – and there will be more to come in the days ahead.

Anyone who’s followed me for a while is well aware that I’ve got a huge soft spot for cargo bikes, and so when I spotted this cargo bike in the Fiddlehead Cycles booth, I had to learn more from builder Justin Foote – and oh my, the attention to detail that went into this thing is off the charts.

Foote says this bike was commissioned by a client in San Francisco who rides his daughter to preschool each morning, goes back home to switch bikes, and then rides into work. Instead of all of that back-and-forth, he was looking for something that could do it all in one go. But in addition to being functional, it also had to be fun to ride, as well as reasonably light given the hilliness of the area (and keep in mind this bike would not have a motor).

The two quickly settled on an Omnium-style cargo bike. A custom rear rack would accommodate a Yepp child seat for now, but then could be converted with motorcycle-style pegs and a pad for when the client’s daughter gets bigger. Up front is a large platform for hauling work-related gear, with a suspension fork underneath to help keep the loads stable.

Since it’s impossible to swing a leg over the back with a passenger on board, Foote designed the frame with a low standover height so it can be mounted like a step-through, while the steering linkage makes for an unusually tight turning radius despite the bike’s overall length and wheelbase. And if even tighter maneuvers are required, the reinforcing tube behind the steerer conveniently sits almost perfectly at the bike’s balance point to serve as a handle.

As for the weight, well, realistically there’s only so low you can go on something like this, particularly given the customer’s request for Pinion’s wireless electronic gearbox drivetrain, a dynamo front hub with Supernova LED lights at both ends, a RockShox dropper seatpost, and a flip-up cargo deck for easier storage. But the Gates belt drive is pretty light (and also virtually maintenance-free), the custom-built wheels are actually surprisingly svelte, and of course, the front and rear fenders are made of carbon fiber. All in, the bike comes in at a pretty reasonable 20.9 kg (46 lb) – not bad, all things considered.

“It rides really well,” Foote told me. “It has road bike geometry, and it feels like a road bike when you’re riding it, but yet it’s still very comfortable to ride.”

And dare I say it also looks incredible with that positively delicious two-tone paint job.

I’m not sure what this client does for a living, but when this is how you get back and forth to work each day, I’d imagine that makes the idea of heading into the office just a little bit easier.

Peter Verdone isn’t well known in the mountain bike world as far as consumer-facing stuff is concerned. He doesn’t sell bikes or frames, and his name isn’t paraded about like Dave Weagle’s is when it comes to suspension. Instead, the designer and engineer typically works more behind the scenes with other brands and builders on various projects.

“I don’t sell anything but ideas,” he told me.

Verdone does have a reputation within the industry for being rather outspoken, though, particularly when it comes to mountain bike frame geometry, and it takes but one look at his personal T-65 Starfighter 29er hardtail to get a feel for where his head is at.

The most obvious trait is the ultra-long front end. How long, exactly? The 858 mm front center places the front wheel more than 30 mm further out than what you’d typically find on a XL-sized trail bike with a similar 160 mm of fork travel – and that’s despite Verdone standing an average 1.78 m (5’ 10”) in height.

“One of the things I’ve been trying to do is focus on where my front tire contact patch is and trying to place that exactly where I want it,” he explained to me. “If you move your center of mass further behind [the contact patch], it results in a smoother feel even though the front end is tracking better. It’s kind of like when you get on a bus; smart people sit in the middle between the wheels. There’s efficiency to be gained from that, especially when you’re going downhill.”

But while many brands achieve longer front centers through a combination of progressively slacker head tube angles and ever-lengthening reach dimensions, the Starfighter measures a comparatively steep 68°. According to Verdone, this eliminates the floppiness normally associated with modern long/low/slack geometry, while also retaining more agility when things get tight. Yet to maintain a proper fit, Verdone has built his own three-piece cockpit, featuring a TIG-welded chromoly center section with an effective 0 mm stem length and bonded-in ends set at a generous 18° of backsweep (and they’re made of titanium for extra comfort).

“I’m not doing it just to do goofy handlebars; I’m doing it to adjust the geometry, according to parameters and things that I desire.”

Meanwhile, the rear end is similarly radical, though for the exact opposite reason. It’s extremely short with a horizontal rear center dimension of 405 mm, or about 5 mm shorter than a Specialized Tarmac. The clever arrangement of small-diameter tubes and 3D-printed parts not only affords generous clearance for wider trail tires, but also a narrower stance that allows Verdone to run SRAM Rival road crankarms so he’s less likely to catch his platform pedals on various trail obstacles. Oh, and since the hardtail setup can more easily be paired with a perfectly straight seat tube, Verdone is able to run a super-long 240 mm-travel dropper seatpost.

True to form, Verdone doesn’t mince words in terms of his motivations here: “Long rear ends are sluggish and slow, and they feel shitty.”

Combine all of this together, and Verdone says the mega-long front end and super-short rear place his center of mass exactly where he wants it to be for the steep and technical downhill terrain he likes to ride, all with the inherent pedaling efficiency and reduced maintenance that comes with a hardtail format.

Is Verdone right, and everyone else wrong? That scenario obviously seems unlikely at first, but then again, the stems on trail bikes from mainstream brands are getting ever-shorter, and we’ve also started to see more riders using 0 mm setups, specifically for the reasons Verdone has outlined. So perhaps the answer is more like… maybe?

“I don’t know why other people aren’t into it.”

You can find even more technical details on Verdone’s Starfighter philosophy here.

I’ve been regularly attending custom bike shows for 20 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me how the bespoke community has an uncanny knack for being well ahead of the curve when it comes to trends.

Take wider tires on drop-bar bikes, for example. While clearance for 57 mm-wide (2.2”) rubber is now virtually considered a requirement for a modern gravel setup, Brian Chapman of Chapman Cycles did just that (and more) for David Wilcox, who currently handles customer service and operations at Enduro Bearings – only it was ten years ago, and back when Trek was outfitting its first-generation Checkpoint with 35s.

“Brian’s a good friend, and he built a bike for me 15 or more years ago when he was at Circle A Cycle and we were both in Providence [Rhode Island]. He’d always told me that if I ever wanted another bike to let him know, and we’d figure it out. I was eventually living in Portland and I was doing a lot of riding from home into the national forest, finding trails on a map, and wondering if I could ride it. So I wanted a bike that would pedal on the road to get where I was going, but also be able to rip on a trail that was of unknown quality to the other side. I was like, what if we built a bike that had 27.5” mountain bike tires, a drop bar, and disc brakes, and he was like… huh.”

Chapman at this point had already developed his rather distinctive style of steel bikes – “modern frames for vintage souls” – chock-full of traditional elements like lugs and fillet brazing, steel forks, down tube shifters, quill stems, custom racks, and his truly lustworthy custom-built cantilever rim brakes. And so needless to say, the idea of building what was essentially a drop-bar mountain bike with big knobby tires, thru-axles, and disc brakes was definitely going against the grain. But hey, a friend is a friend, right?

The fillet brazed frame features a mix of lightweight Columbus and Dedacciai chromoly steel tubing. The steel fork is based on a vintage Specialized Stumpjumper crown that Chapman reamed out and retrofitted with a 1 1/8” threaded steerer tube, oval-profile blades, and heavily modified Paragon Machine Works dropouts. It’s equipped with a range of braze-ons for cargo cages, racks, and bags. There are ports for the dynamo-powered front and rear lights. There’s a dedicated fitting on the non-driveside seatstay for a mini-pump. The clearance is designed such that Wilcox can easily switch between 47 mm-wide road rubber with fenders, or 2.35” mountain bike tires with room for mud.

It’s proven to be quite the versatile machine. Wilcox says he uses a more modern Esker full-suspension mountain bike for dedicated trail riding, but his tried-and-true Chapman fits the bill for every other type of pedaling in his life. Running late for work? Looking to do a long hundred-miler to the coast – or even a two-hundred-miler? Want to bust out a quick lunch loop? Wilcox says it’s been perfect for that and more, including a bikepacking trip he and his partner did in Italy a couple of years ago.

Perhaps most importantly, Wilcox says his Chapman fulfills his riding needs so completely that ten years on, there’s not much he would change were he to do it all over again. Sure, a few things have been updated here and there (such as the SRAM wireless electronic drivetrain and the RockShox Reverb AXS wireless dropper seatpost, for example), but as for the frameset itself, it brings him just as much joy today as it did a decade ago.

“It’s pretty great the way it is,” Wilcox told me. “I think eventually as I get older, maybe the bar drop is going to be a bit much and so maybe it won’t fit me as well, but I think some of that can be modified. I don’t see myself asking Brian to make me another one.”

FYI, I was able to find Chapman’s original blog post on Wilcox’s bike, and you can find additional details and images here. It’s a fun read that I highly recommend checking out.

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