FREE SHIPPING on Soma Bikes!

Our partner shop American Cyclery picked up a bunch of 2015 Soma complete bikes and are offering FREE SHIPPING (UPS Ground within the lower 48 states) now thru December 31st.  You will need to put "Soma Complete Free Shipping" when checking out to get the shipping fee waived!!! http://americancyclery.com/collections/soma-bicycles

Specs for the 2015's are up on www.somafab.com.

The Double Cross Complete for 2015 (not offered in 2014) comes with bar end shifters, Sugino XD crank, SunXCD rear derailleurs, and big 700x38c Kenda tires.  Steerer tubes are cut extra long and bar tape comes uninstalled to give shops more opportunity to fine-tune the builds. Polycarbonate BMX "test" pedals come with each bike.

The ES Complete comes with Sugino Alpina cranks, SRAM Apex shifters/derailleurs, and Soma HwyOne Bars.
Handy and practical SRAM 11-32t 10-speed cassette, because 11-25t on a non-racing bike doesn't make sense.

The 2015 Buena Vista complete comes with the awesome Sycip Wonder Bars. SunXCD rear derailleur and indexed
9-speed thumbshifters,

This is the first time we are offering the Soma Grandonnuer as a complete.

The Double Cross Disc complete comes with Avid BB-7 disc brakes, SRAM Apex, and our
popular HwyOne compact bend road bars.

More Rosebud Builds

Some more build pictures from Rosebud.

This one was build up for Cheryl Waters (incidentally my favorite DJ). If you don't listen to the Mid Day Show on KEXP you probably have horrible taste in music.

Another classy white and gold build with some serious color coordination.

Sram bar end shifters on thumbie mounts.

Reinforced fender bridge.

BQ style Honjo Daruma install.

M.A.P. light bracket.

3 Happy UK Soma Bicycle Belles

I wrote to you a few years ago trying to buy a Soma Mixte frame. You didn't sell to the UK then. I kept thinking of ways to get a  frame here then discovered last year that you were supplying James at Fine-ADC in Edinburgh. So here are the results:  not only me (in yellow) but mother and sister too. We get stopped and asked where we got our bikes. We are all delighted with them. Everyone should have one Soma Mixte frame road bike.

Elizabeth,

Denham,

United Kingdom

Buena Vista from Carytown Bicycle Co.

Here's a great build from Carytown Bicycle Co. in Richmond VA. Check out the video of the build they posted to their site.

http://carytownbicyclecompany.com/2012/01/sarahs-soma-buena-vista/

Bicycling Magazine Reviews Our Mixte

Sorry I don't have a larger photo.
See page 74 on Dec. issue.

We sent Matt at Bicycling a Buena Vista back in August. They put together a really knock-out build with with our 3-Speed II Bars, Yamada saddle, IRD Defiant Triple Cranks, New Xpress skinwalls, Deco rack and EuroTrip fenders. This is what Matt had to say....

While I admire the beauty of many cruisers and town bikes, some feel frustratingly sluggish. Meanwhile, speedier townies seem to sacrifice the good looks or loungelike comfort I consider essential. The Buena Vista bridges these gaps. It's essentially a road bike that's easy to throw a leg over, thanks to the mixte design. The Tange Infinity steel frame and fork and the high-volume tires ride smoothly on all but the roughest roads. The frame accommodates a range of components; I built mine with a mustache bar and a three-by-eight-speed drivetrain using down-tube shifters for a retro vibe. A drop bar and integrated shifters would look equally at home and would make the bike suitable for longer rides. A number of attachment points let you outfit fenders (it accepts up to 28c tires with fenders; 33c without) and racks, which I took advantage of, easily carrying light loads around town.

Bicycle Times Magazine: First Impressions on the Buena Vista

Karl Rosengarth, gear editor at Bicycle Times has been reviewing a Buena Vista for three months now. He shared his first impressions back in January, but we forgot to re-post it. Please check it out HERE.
The build is also sporting a number of other Soma goods including New Xpress tires, Euro Trip fenders, Ensho saddle and Sparrow 560 bars. Oh...can't forget this.... he also has our "Burrito Powered" Hell's Bell.

Dear Bicycle Times-bound Buena Vista: It was fun while it lasted

Dark, sleek, a touch frisky...we will miss you

Check out the Soma Eurotrip Fenders look nice over Soma New Xpress 700c's in Terra Cotta... The rear wheel is a Soma Iggy Wheel w/ Sturmey Archer Wide Ratio 8 speed hub. Needless to say this setup is perfect for wet winter weather...

The Soma Electric Saddle in Dominatrix Black adds some edge. The cable routing is right hand to front brake; it's cleaner and what Karl at Bicycle Times requested. The handlebars are our Soma Sparrow Handlebars in the 560mm length with Cardiff Julian Leather Grips in Black. The shifter is a Sturmey-Archer 8 speed twist shifter. Brakes are Dia-compe 610 brakes. It's set up pretty upright, but they can easily go less upright by flipping the bar and moving it down one spacer.

So long Buena Vista!!

Don't ask us how we figured this out

This is pretty cool though, huh? You can do this with any spring-strike Crane Bell (the Karen or the Sakura) and an m5 boss. We got a kick out of it..

Looking Fine - Ready To Roll Fashion Show

Some pictures from the Momentum's Ready To Roll Fashion Show in Portland. This show was quite unique because it wasn't just put on for the bike crowd or bike industry. It was part of Portland Fashion Week, so you had fashion industry folk and style makers getting possibly their first taste of bike couture from Sheila Moon and others.

Does this mean Nike will launch a tweed cycling line next fall? Go to Bike Portland for the full story and more photo coverage. Thank you to Veloce Bicycles for the wonderful job of building up the Buena Vista and Smoothie used for this event.

Photos by Jonathan Maus, Bike Portland
Link to the show program(PDF)

Back in town

We survived Vegas, and there is never a better time than Interbike to make lots of new friends and catch up with old ones.

We won't go into any serious coverage, because there is no shortage of that sort of thing on the interweb already. Favorite so far: Urban Velo's coverage. Just the week before Interbike we got a visit from Brad from Urban Velo when he swung by our office, and he is an all-around solid guy. We ran into him at the show but didn't get a chance to grab a beer; he was off to post web coverage. Brad and Jeff are a couple of the hardest working guys in the bike business, and when you grab (or download) a copy of Urban Velo, it shows.

We had an opportunity to meet some of the awesome folks behind all kinds of different projects. Shorty Fatz was on hand with a bunch of their beautiful and unique hand-built frames. They were sharing a booth with Phil Wood.

Soma saddles and forks on three of their bikes (they dig our straight-blade track fork)






















Ortlieb's booth was full on innovative and well-executed products. They had a new medium brown colored version of their Back Roller Plus which will look great with a classy touring build or a more rugged "get lost in the mountains" build (as well as being highly functional). Their removable harness allows panniers to be used as an off the bike backpack is another awesome feature, and watching them demo how the whole assembly snaps together quickly made me wonder what I had been doing commuting without the system. We of course can't neglect to mention the awesome treatment they gave our Buena Vista frame:























































Those are actual wooden rims, and Chris over at Ortlieb took the time to fill in the lugs at the seatstay junction and crown with silver paint, as well as some gold on the Nitto S-83 lugged seatpost.


A couple of us were riding bikes around the show, and getting them there was a time-consuming and costly affair. Here is a box marked fragile with directional arrows, and the subsequent care shown by baggage handlers. (This resulted in a couple spokes getting broken on a DA track wheelset):



Couple random videos from Vegas:

Pro men's crit final corner, last lap where the race leader goes down for the lose:



Jason from Superb, barspinning his department store cruiser that he happily returned at the end of the week:



How can you talk about Vegas and not mention racks? Hey-oh!

More seriously, we brought home some of the new Gamoh front cargo rack.

- Tough black powdercoat
- Wood slats
- Bottle opener
- Made in Japan

Buena Vista Meet Xtracyle

A new shipment of Buena Vista's has arrived and we will be shipping backorders shortly.

Thought this was a good time to share one Buena Vista story with you.

Maynard Rabara is the proud owner of a Buena Vista mounted to an Xtracycle Free Radical. He calls it "Stretch II".
Here is the story in his own words, edited only for length...

"Months ago, as an expecting father, I'd wanted the Xtracycle Free Radical (along with the Xtracycle Pea Pod childseat unit), in conjunction with a mixte frame to be our grocery running child hauler. The idea here was that with the childseat on the back, I wouldn't want to kick my leg over the rear of the bike and unwantingly to kick my child in the face, but instead to step through the frame while the bike was loaded. [Ed. note: Seriously, kicking his kid in the face would be a stoning offense...she is that cute!]

I'd shopped around for several step through's and mixtes, discovering that most modern frames were bland or ugly (with the exception to a few, like the Gary Fisher Simple City), and that vintage ones were weak (my initial build was a Fuji S12S mixte) due to their lower grade steels and thinner tubing; causing too much flex when the Free Rad was loaded.
Most of the stronger ones (Reynolds or Columbus quality) were harder to come by used. Other retro modern frames like the Rivendell mixte, Velo Orange or Ibisu were way out of my price range.

The BV was just what I needed in terms of budget and quality of steel and rigidity. I had a (Reynolds) Double Cross that I could have used, but again, I wanted a frame that I could step through.



Now the bike sees weekly grocery duty, and as soon as my daughter can wear a helmet, I'll be shuttling her around town for doing daily activities and for hill rides."

Maynard's Flickr page

Buena Vistas Have Arrived

Our mixte frames are in the warehouse and we will be shipping all backorder frames to shops beginning Monday. We apologize for the long wait our customers have had to endure.

Notes:

• The Buena Vista is a true mixte with the double top tube/stays.
  
• This is not just for the ladies. "Mixte" (pronounced "MEExt") is French for "mixed" or "unisex"and fully envisioned for both men and women from the beginning. North Americans have come to pronounce it "mix-ty". Both are acceptable to use.
  
• Ride characteristics/geometry is somewhere between road sport and touring
  
• An oversized butted downtube makes this frame stiffer than the mixtes of the 70's.
• Removable decals make it easier for you to customize your ride
  
• Four sizes to start: 42, 50, 54, 58cm
• Horizontal dropouts w/hanger allows you to run it with a rear derailleur, with internal geared hubs, or single speed
• Downtube shifter bosses
• Rack and fender braze-ons
• Bosses for single bottle cage

Special Notes on Tires and Brakes:

• The 42cm is designed for 26" wheels and 73mm reach brakes(Tektro R-556/Rivendell Silvers) are recommended. They can also use Dia-Compe 750 center pulls if you can find a long enough straddle cable. Recommended tire width: 1.25" - 1.5"(38c)
  

• The 50-58cm sizes are designed for 700c wheels and 57mm reach road brakes are recommended. Recommended tire widths: 26c - 35c (Both frame and fork are drilled for recessed brake bolts, so Dia-Compe MX-806 with old hardware are not compatible) 650b conversions are possible but we recommend speccing tires that will not change the BB drop appreciably.
  (Modular cable stops for the "top tube" bridges allow you to run the rear brake housing a few different ways.)

***Because we only got a small amount in, we are reserving stock for bike shops and we are not putting this on the Soma online shop yet. Please inquire to special order from a local bike shop.

Win This

Well not exactly win like in a raffle. And not exactly "this" one pictured. A comparably-built version of the not yet released Buena Vista mixte will be on the auction block at SF Bike Coalition's Winterfest shindig on Dec. 7. So you have to bid to win it.

Follow the link to get more info on attending or volunteering at this bash.

The custom fixed gear build will be Soma'd out with Oxford bars, Leather Double Toe Straps, Shiner Wheelset Hellyer Cranks and other goodies. American Cyclery will also be donating some parts on it along with their consummate building skills. If the display bike is not your size, you can exchange it through American, though we must warn you that production models are not slated to arrive until January.

Soma Mixte Frame

This idea for doing a mixte crossed our conference table almost a year ago. Time sure flies.
And hopefully in 3 or 4 months, the first production will be here.

For most of you, we don't have to explain ourselves of why a mixte is desirable these days. For those who are going a "mix-what", here's the Sheldon Brown glossary entry:

"A style of lady's frame in which the "top tube" consists of a pair of small diameter tubes running more-or-less straight from the upper head lug, past the seat tube, and on to the rear fork ends. A mixte frame thus has 3 sets of rear stays, instead of the usual two. A variant on the mixte uses a single, full sized top tube running from the upper head tube to the seat tube, but retains the middle set of stays. A lady's type bike that lacks the middle pair of stays is not a mixte....
In French, "mixte" would be pronounced "MEExt", but normal U.S. bicycle industry pronunciation is 'MIX-ty'."

Though Sheldon and others may see the mixte as a ladies' bike, it was
actually designed to be uni-sex. 'Mixte' suggests 'mixed' use. And we have been seeing all types of folks tooling around on vintage mixtes rescued from garage sales or eBay. A mixte can make an excellent commuter and light tourer. You can load stuff on the top of your rear rack and not worry about how to get your leg over the load, because you can mount from the front of the seat.

Enter the Buena Vista:

While we wanted to replicate a thoroughly traditional mixte, we wanted to change two things.
1. Make this compatible with readily available modern components.
2. Give it a sport touring geometry instead of lazy comfort bike set up. If the owner puts drop bars on this, we want him to be able to crank on this.

A more genteel set up is still possible with the right bar and stem. This will be a frame and fork only and we imagine this will be a fun project build for many of you.

- Four sizes - X-Small, Small, Medium, Large
- The Small to Large will fit 700c tires with 57mm reach brakes
- The X-Small will fit 26" tires with 73mm reach (Rivendell Silver side pull/Dia-Compe Mod 750 center pull) brakes
- Both will fit 650b tires with appropriate swaps to brakes and wheel
- Eyelets for fenders and racks of course
- Compatible with road hubs or mountain hubs
- Primary decals will be on top of clearcoat and thus removable
- Tange Infinity double butted CrMo tubes


First batch will be 'Bacardi White'. Second run color is up in the air (maybe black or a dark color). Any opinions?

UPDATE 9-01-08: We have pushed back the release date of the mixte. Sorry to those who have been waiting patiently through the summer. We are looking at January 2009 release date now. The frame will be viewable at Interbike at the Bicycle Technologies Int'l (BTI) booth.
UPDATE 2-10-08: We hope to get a ship date this month. We apologize for the wait. We want these here more than you do honestly. Will let you know when we know for sure. Pictures of the prototype are up on our Flickr site.