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https://www.barrons.com/articles/pursuit-cycles-lightweight-carbon-fiber-bespoke-bikes-are-drawing-fans-across-the-country-01665159064

The frame of a Pursuit Cycles bicycle is made of carbon fiber and weighs just 1.5 pounds. A Strong Frames titanium frame is, by comparison, a heavyweight—three pounds. Both these companies were started by Carl Strong and, until recently, run out of a small shop the size of a two-car garage behind his house in Bozeman, Mont. 

Strong builds some of the world’s lightest bicycles, stripped down to only what’s essential to going as fast as possible, and sells them as one-of-a-kind customs for US$8,000 to US$15,000 to a very specialized audience. “Our typical customer is a very competitive middle-aged man with a Type A personality who might have raced bikes in his youth, and now that the kids are grown wants to get back into it,” Strong says. 

The bikes aren’t flashy to look at, though they often have highly individual paint jobs. Their unique qualities aren’t fully appreciated until you lift one with a single finger—or ride it. All in, it might weigh 15 pounds. It’s not surprising that Strong has a huge reputation in biking circles. Strong Frames dates to 1993, and Pursuit Cycles, which now dominates the business, to 2016. Strong came to building bikes from a long history of racing. 

“I grew up in Seattle and started out racing BMX and dirt bikes,” he says. “I built a minibike in shop class in ninth grade circa 1978 and rode it home. Later, in the 1980s, I got into motorcycle road racing.” 

Strong, 58, grew the earlier company rapidly, and had 10 to 12 employees churning out 1,000 bikes a year. “But I found I wasn’t making any more money than I had when we were smaller,” he says. “So I downsized—to 125 and then 50 bikes a year—and have hovered around that level for 20 years.” His is a very small team, with some part-timers. It’s also a family venture: Strong’s wife, Loretta, keeps the books and does some photography. The dogs keep watch. 

Luke Middelstadt, who studied at nearby Montana State, is Pursuit’s production engineer. He shows Penta a carbon process that starts with a small packet of sticky flat sheets he pulled out of a freezer. “That’s a bike frame,” he said. 

Working out of a small space filled with vintage machine tools, the company uses cost-intensive modular monocoque construction to fabricate larger frame sections in molds. The raw carbon sheets wrap around frame-part bladders (filled with a proprietary material to keep them rigid). The orientation matters: pull carbon-fiber sheets one way and they’re stronger than steel, pull them the other and they tear easily. 

The complex sections are bonded together using aircraft-grade adhesives, and then (with additional carbon fiber over the joints) cured with baking. It’s cheaper to bond lots of smaller pieces together, but the monocoque method produces a stronger, lighter bike. 

The leap from titanium to carbon fiber was a complex one. “Carbon fiber needs a lot of engineering,” Strong says. It helps that Montana State turns out a lot of specialized engineers. 

Jared Nelson, a product of Montana State but now an assistant professor in the Sustainable Product Design and Innovation department at Keene State College in New Hampshire, is Pursuit’s director of engineering.

“Building bike frames is inherently not easy, even with regular metal materials, but composites add a whole new level of complexity,” Nelson says. “Instead of starting with the shape, as in a metal tube, you start with a pre-impregnated sheet of carbon fiber and wrap it around a form to get the shape. And you’re not working with a material that responds the same way directionally.” 

Wheels, which are not made in house, are carbon fiber but with stainless-steel spokes—a solid carbon wheel would be subject to dangerous crosswinds. The bikes are one-of-a-kind. Order one and it will arrive in about three months, completed to the buyer’s specifications. 

Strong’s bikes are not garage decorations. Jon Davis, a magazine publisher in Fairfield, Conn., and his copy editor wife, Evelyn Rubak, own two Strong Frame titanium bikes, and have put thousands of miles on them—at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. Fifty-mile weekend trips are common. 

Davis has a 15-pound Pursuit carbon-fiber bike on order, and describes an extended process that included taking multiple body measurements, followed by expressing custom preferences on everything from the seat, top tube, handlebars, wheels, and gear cluster. Maryland-based owner Tim McTeague says, “Even though a Pursuit bike [and] frame is not inexpensive, it is actually no more—and sometimes less—than a top-of-the-line model from the big boys. And all the little things get attention, something often missing in today’s market.”

Davis adds, “There’s something neat about having a bespoke bike fabricated by a guy who makes only a few of them each month. I read every article I could find and watched every video before I dove into buying my first bike. Now I’m a superfan..” Pursuit cycles come in three basic models: All Road can handle any surface, including gravel and dirt; the Pure Road is designed for high speed on asphalt; and the Supple Road is a balance of the other offerings, with two sets of wheels recommended. 

Pursuit is soon to move to bigger quarters in Bozeman, but the company is not likely to change very much. The money that comes in tends to go back into the business to buy more tools and learn more techniques. Strong describes carbon fiber as just the next step up from titanium, and part of a philosophy of continuous improvement. That’s why the company is called Pursuit. “It’s about always getting better,” Strong says says. 

The frame of a Pursuit Cycles bicycle is made of carbon fiber and weighs just 1.

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