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ENVE’s 4th annual Builder Round-Up: A master-pieces’ show

The American brand ENVE has always focused on supporting framebuilders, bringing their creations to the next level by providing components that perfectly complete them and result in truly outstanding pieces. A way to promote their work and celebrate their mastery was to bring them together in what has become a recurrent event. This year, on June 24th the 4th annual Builder Round-Up took place at ENVE’s headquarters in Ogden (Utah, US) bringing together a stunning collection of bikes from more than 20 of the most noted custom builders around the world.

Nearly 500 people attended the bike showcase that featured tours of the manufacturing facility where all of ENVE’s rims are made and wheels assembled. In addition to the bikes on display and tours, food, music, and singletrack racing on the ENVE test track created a complete cycling party for everyone. The following day, 300 riders took part in the already established 100-mile GRODEO gravel ride that started and finished at ENVE’s HQ.

Bikes on display

The beauty of this meet-up is that all frame builders prepare special bikes to show their best pieces of art. It is about the manufacturing skills, either steel welding or carbon assembling, but also the selected components, the chosen geometry, and the finishing paint job to give the whole bike a unique appearance. This is why, when comparing all the featured bikes, we could see clearly different pieces as the builders’ imagination can be endless, the only requirement was to finish them with ENVE’s components like forks, wheels, and cockpits.

In the Round-Up we could see road bikes with a more traditional geometry from Alliance, Isen, and Moots, but also a rounder top-tube geometry from Retrotec. These were shown next to the carbon road models from the custom builders Bridge, ENVE, Festka, and FiftyOne, which had wider tubes with finer transitions at the tube junctions.

The most popular category was gravel bikes. Aside from the shiny carbon Pursuit bike, all gravel bikes were welded frames. Breadwinner put together an old-style bikepacking bike with a straight fork and dynamo wheels. The orange Horse bike was the most colored one, since the builders from De Salvo, No. 22, Saltair, and Sycip opted for a varnished finish with some paint details. The Scarab‘s bike needed to be closely examined as it featured a detailed paint job that contrasted with Weis’s one which, despite the simple finish, was a clear example of welding mastery with asymmetric and oversized seat and chain stays.

Not being limited to the type of bike, some artisans challenged themselves and brought mountain bikes to the show. From Rizzo we could see a full-suspension bike, Sage built a dirt jump machine to have fun in the pump track, Ritte created a single-track cruiser, and Chumba opted for a MTB-looking bike with drop bars. Two bikes harder to classify were the creations of Speedvagen and Mosaic, cruiser bikes with flat bars but wide tires for riding off-road or through the city.

Photos: Ian Matteson