Toronto’s No. 22 Bicycle Company launching titanium frame-building facility in New York
When the custom frame maker Saratoga Frameworks closed down last week, the founders of Toronto’s No. 22 Bicycle Company were caught off guard. Mike Smith and Bryce Gracey, who have been designing and producing titanium bikes for close to two years, had arranged an order of roughly 20 bikes from the New York-based manufacturer. Those frames are still in limbo, but future No. 22 bikes seems to be in good hands: Smith and Gracey announced Monday that they are hiring four former Saratoga employees. Smith plans to head to New York Tuesday to find a home for the new manufacturing endeavour.
“We’re starting a new facility,” said Smith. “It’s not going to be under the same roof [as the former Serotta factory, later Saratoga facility]. It’s going to be in the same part of upstate New York. We’re going to fully own this as a No. 22 manufacturing company. Our bikes have a long-term home. We’re going to be making our own bikes. We’re opening it up to contact manufacturing from other brands as well.”
Smith and Gracey started to move their production from Lynskey Performance, in Chattanooga, Tenn., to Saratoga around October 2013. While the pair was happy with the frames they were getting from Lynskey, Saratoga offered a more streamlined manufacturing process because it is one of a few companies able to anodize the titanium frame components in-house. The employees at Saratoga also offered a high degree of craftsmanship. “Lynskey makes really good quality bikes. But when you look at them side by side with the bikes coming out of Saratoga, it’s awesome: the Saratoga welds are so much tighter, more consistent and more even. It’s the difference between a larger-scale production place like Lynskey and one of a real boutique manufacturer.”
“There are definitely are titanium bikes coming out of China and Taiwan with a huge spread of quality. S0me are very good. A lot aren’t. But in the U.S., the experience is pretty much unmatched. Titanium bikes only really came out of the U.S. for a really long time. You have the old-guard guys. Where else are you going to find a guy with 23 years of experience just making titanium? Frank [Cenchitz], our lead welder, has been welding bikes for 17 years. You just can’t replace that. So, we wanted to secure that and keep building our brand around stuff that is North American-made and made to a super high standard.”
Joining Cenchitz in the new facility are Scott Hock (team leader), Caleb Sesselman (welder) and Bill McDonald (finishing and paint).
The 2014 version of the No. 22’s Great Divide is set to launch this week. It retains the same geometry as the 2013 version, but has shed a few grams. No. 22 has road and track bikes that come in various builds. A cyclocross bike in in the works.
