Sweetpea Bicycles

I have had many bikes over the years, and loved most of them in one way or another. There was the first bike I bought for myself when I graduated from high school. A white Trek mountain bike. At the time it was the grip shifters that had me smitten! Then there was my first real road bike - a beautiful 1970s steel touring bike handed down by a very dear friend of mine. And of course, there was the old Legnano I rescued from a scrap heap. That Italian racing beast was the first bike I ever put together myself.

As a messenger, I had an accelerated bike metabolism and after a few years I had had a lot of bikes in my life. But, to some degree they were all the same to me: cherished tools.

But there was one bike that struck a deeper chord. That was my handbuilt Strawberry racing bike. Initially, I didn’t think I needed it. I was a messenger, not a racer. This bike was not the kind you throw against a bike rack at the courthouse or subject to Portland’s rainy seasons. But my bike mechanic insisted that it was just my size, ready to be painted, and at his bike shop. In fact, he said, if I were to have a bike custom built for me, this would have been it. The only aspect of this bike that was up for discussion in his mind was what color I would want it painted.

Black with sparkles of course. I knew that for sure, even though I wasn’t yet convinced that I should buy the bike.

It was just a matter of time and seeing the black sparkly strawberry hanging in the bike shop before I admitted that I did need this bike.

It was beautiful. And even if it had ended up to be just another cherished tool, it would certainly have been worth bringing into my life. But here is the thing: this bike was not just another cherished tool. This bike fit me. Incredibly well. So much so that for the first time ever I felt completely and seamlessly right on my bike. It wasn’t the attachment you experience when you really like something. It is the attachment that you feel to your leg or your arm. And because of that, I experienced a joy in riding my bike that was entirely new. I had fallen in love.

Many years and many thousands of miles later, my Strawberry still makes me giddy. So when I designed my first Sweetpea, I asked myself what the Strawberry would look and feel like if it were a single speed cyclocross bike and went from there.

Does it feel the same?

Of course not.

But when I rode my Sweetpea for the very first time, I realized that I had captured that same feeling of connection that I experienced with the Strawberry - as if that joy had been there all along and was just waiting for me to build it into a bike.