If you enjoyed our previous post about the winners of the Gates Carbon Drive design contest at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, well, here’s a second helping. Twenty-two builders entered the contest, and Gates’ judges picked seven bikes to receive more than $13,000 in cash and prizes. Here are some of the bikes that we loved, but which didn’t win. But hey, everyone’s a winner in the world of cool bikes.

That’s Corey Collier of Glissando pictured above. His entry was a work of art, mixing a laminated bamboo top tube and seat stays with titanium. Judges described it as “elegant.”

Connor Cycles entered a beautiful hardwood bike with a frame sculpted of laminated ash reinforced with kevlar.

Stijl Cycles is located in Richmond, Virginia, and they entered a 29er mountain bike with an Ironman theme (the bike’s buyer owns an iron foundry). Judges loved the style and color scheme.

Check out the Ironman head badge:

Steve Potts is a legendary builder based in California’s Marin County. Steve is known for his precision work with titanium. He built this belted commuter for a cyclist who wanted a low-maintenance, all-season bike.

Dean Bicycles, based in Colorado, is another brand known for its titanium frames. Dean entered this full-suspension mountain bike with a Rohloff internal hub. Want it.

Speedhound is based in Minneapolis, and has a growing following in the Twin Cities. Builder Chris Cleveland rides his entry below.

The Speedhound features an innovative gunmetal blue stained finish.

Legacy is a new brand based in Chicago. They built a refined city commuter with hub brakes and the works for urban fun and style.

Chicago chic! Look for her on the streets of the Windy City.

Singlespeed cyclocross bikes are a popular category for Carbon Drive because it gobbles up mud and is lighter than a chain. Several builders submitted cross bikes in the Gates contest. Below is the entry from Predtor, based in SoCal. This bike actually was raced in the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships. It cleans up nicely!

Mosaic, based in Boulder, brought this sweet ti cross racer:

Blaze was the third entry in the cross category. Check out their orange dirt machine:

Sweet bars and saddle.

Paketa builds magnesium rockets and is known for its racing tandems. Check out the Carbon Drive and Carbon Drive timing belt on their double-belted contest entry:

Stephen Bilenky of Bilenky Cycle Works in Philadelphia is a legend in the City of Brotherly Love. He entered this sophisticated commuter made for all-weather riding:

Next up are several belt drive builds that weren’t in our contest, but which turned heads on the show floor. First up is Stinner, which showed an adventure touring mountain bike with a Rohloff hub and belt–the same combo that last year’s winner of the Tour Divide rode to victory. Here is Matt Stinner posing with his creation.

Geekhouse displayed this sexy CX bike:

And now a few more shots of the winners (check out this previous post if you want to see more hero shots of the winning contest bikes).

English Cycles won for Best Belted Adventure Bike. Built to race the Tour Divide from Canada to New Mexico, this bike can be disassembled to fit into a suitcase for travel and features custom packs for carrying everything needed for a long lonely journey down the Continental Divide.

Judges liked the bike’s ingenuity, but also the stealth black badass aesthetic.

Boo Bicycles, the bamboo specialists, won for Best Belted Fatty for their fat bike with the sweet ti fork.

Muse had one of the loveliest bikes on the show floor, and builder Lyle Harlow took home the Primal Wear prize for most beautiful belted bike.

Paragon Cycle Works won the Best Belted Mountain Bike category. This bike had a boatload of innovations, including this quick-release tensioner that they are calling the Toggle Drop.

The fun-loving lunatics at Ti Cycles won for Best Belted Cargo Bike. We love this beast!

Sycip took the prize for Best Belted Commuter for their gentleman’s town bike with Shimano Di2 electronic shifting paired with a Carbon Drive.

Co-Motion won the Shimano Alfine prize for best Carbon Drive/Alfine internal hub build. It features Di2 electronic shifting. Purple rain…purple rain.

Last but not least, our great friends over at Oskar Blues Brewery, the canned beer specialists who kept NAHBS attendees well lubricated and having fun, showed off their fat bike in the Gates booth. Snowbound cyclists rejoice: now you can charge the slush and snow without having to worry about getting a rusty chain.

If you are hungry for more images (all shot by ace Gates photog Tim Lucking) check out the Gates Carbon Drive Flickr set. It has 200 images and closeups of all these bikes.

See you all in Charlotte, NC, for NAHBS 2014!

The 2013 North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Denver last weekend was a showcase for the world’s most beautiful and innovative custom bikes. Gates Carbon Drive, in cooperation with Shimano and Primal Wear, awarded seven prizes in multiple categories. The winners of the second-annual Gates Carbon Drive Belt Drive Bike Design Constest are shown below, followed by the winners of the Shimano Alfine prize and the Primal Wear prize.

Best Belted Cargo Bike: Ti Cycles, extreme cargo carrier:

Portland-based Ti Cycles pulled out all the stops with this one. The bike features two Gates Carbon Drives plus an electric assist for hauling heavy loads. And with its two belt drives, builder David Levy made sure to note that it has 100 percent more belt.

Best Belted City Bike, Sycip Designs, gentleman’s town bike:

Jeremy Sycip’s city bike combines amazing aesthetics with practicality. This bike is an all-season commuter that features a low-maintenance Carbon Drive paired with Shimano’s Di2 electronic shifting system.

Best Belted Mountain Bike: Paragon Machine Works, 29er with Pinion gearbox:

Judges loved the integration of several fantastic technologies on this singletrack ripper. The bike features a Pinion gearbox with 18 gears and more than a 600 percent range for burly and low-maintenance shifting. The guys at Paragon also devised a clever quick-release tensioning system that allows for rapid removal and re-installation of the rear wheel into the dropouts with a mechanism they call the Toggle Drop.

Best Belted Adventure Bike, English Cycles, Rainbow Tour Divide:

Rob English, pictured at top, built this extreme ride for a customer who plans to race the Tour Divide from Canada to Mexico later this year. With custom bags and aero bars, an Alfine 11 internally geared hub and a spare sprocket on the front wheel allowing it to be run as a singlespeed, this bike is ready to conquer.

Best Belted Fatty: Boo Cycles:

The bamboozlers at Boo Cycles have been leading the trend toward using bamboo as an alternative frame material. Fat bikes are increasingly popular, and Boo’s fat bike with Alfine 11 internal hub shifting is built for blasting through winter snow, sandy beaches or jungle mud.

Best Carbon Drive/Shimano Alfine integration: Co-Motion Cycles, City View:

The City View could be called the commuter bike of the future. It features Shimano’s Di2 electronic shifting system mated with Carbon Drive. Pedaling to work or the grocery store has never been more pleasurable. Bring on the purple rain.

Primal Wear/Gates Carbon Drive Most Beautiful Belted Bike: Muse Cycles, Rhythm Roadster:

The Rhythm Roadster took top honors for its practicality and aesthetics. It features integrated racks and a Shimano Alfine internal hub, and some sweet styling all around. It’s almost too pretty to ride.

Thanks to all the builders who entered our contest, and to our distinguished panel of judges: Bicycling Hall of Fame member Ron Kiefel, Mountain Bike Hall of Fame member Travis Brown, University Bicycles founder Doug Emerson, Mountain Bike Hall of Fame member Joe Murray and Bicycle Colorado’s Dan Grunig. We will post more photos over the coming weeks of Carbon Drive bikes that didn’t win our prizes but which were worthy works of art nonetheless.

All photo credits: Tim Lucking

U.S Bicycling Hall of Fame member Ron Kiefel, above, is among the legends of bicycling who will attend the North American Handmade Bicycle Show to judge Gates Carbon Drive’s innovative belt drive bike design contest. Other judges include Travis Brown, Joe Murray and Doug Emerson.

Kiefel rode for teams including 7-Eleven, Motorola, Coors Light and Saturn during the 1980s, when road racing underwent a surge in popularity in the United States. Kiefel won a stage in the 1986 Giro d’Italia, competed in seven Tours de France, won a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics and garnered multiple U.S. National Championships. Today, Kiefel runs Wheat Ridge Cyclery outside of Denver.

Mountain Biking Hall of Fame member Travis Brown, above, is one of the greats of American off-road riding. His accomplishments include a NORBA National XC title, an appearance at the 2000 Olympics, two Singlespeed World Championships, five Colorado State Cyclocross Championships, ten appearances at the UCI World Championships, as well as 2005 and 2006 Marathon National Championships. In addition, Brown helped Trek develop many of the parts and bikes in the company’s product line.

Joe Murray, pictured above back in the day, was one of the great American racers during the early years of mountain biking, a two-time NORBA National Champion and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee. In 1984, Murray began one of the great winning streaks in American mountain biking history. He won eight straight races that year and 15 overall. In 1985 he won 12 times in a row, a streak unmatched by any other male mountain biker. After racing he went to work in the bike industry and has designed bikes for Fisher, Marin, Merlin, Kona and Voodoo.

Museum in the Rafters from University Bicycles on Vimeo.

Doug Emerson is the founder of University Bikes in Boulder, Colo., one of the best bike shops in Colorado–and anywhere for that matter. U Bikes, as it is known to its devoted customers, is a 10,000-square-foot shop with a staff of 55 that sells more than 3,000 bikes per year. Emerson’s passion for cycling runs deep, and his store is filled with historic bicycles that hang from the rafters. Watch the film above, Museum in the Rafters, to see him talk about the many historic bikes in his collection.

Winners of the Gates Carbon Drive contest will be announced on Sunday, Feb. 24, from the main stage at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. If you plan to attend, make sure to visit the Gates booth, # 717, to see some gorgeous custom bikes featuring Carbon Drive.

Attending the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (Feb. 22-24 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver)? Come drink some Oskar Blues beer, hear music from Chain Station (we’d prefer if they were called Belt Station but so be it), and participate in some bike-related hoopla at our after-party. The party will be at Blake Street Tavern on Friday Feb. 22 starting at 7pm. We will have drawings for bike swag, with all proceeds benefiting Trips for Kids and Bike Denver. There will even be some sweet custom belt drive bikes to ogle.
If you are attending the show at the convention center, make sure to visit the Gates Carbon Drive booth. We will have some beautiful custom belt drive bikes on display, and there will be lots of belt drive bikes in booths around the show.

The Mezzaluna Mixte from Muse Cycles

Are you a custom bike builder? A fan of beautiful handmade bikes? If so we hope to see you at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Denver, Feb. 22-24. Gates Carbon Drive will have a huge booth featuring some of the most beautiful belt drive bikes ever created. For the second straight year Gates is also holding the Innovative Belt Drive Bike Design Contest, which will award more than $13,000 in cash and prizes to custom bike builders.

Two of our close bike industry partners, Shimano and Primal, have stepped up to sweeten the prize pool for the design contest. Shimano will award an extra $1,000 to the winning bike that best integrates an Alfine internally geared hub with Gates Carbon Drive. Primal, the Colorado-based cycling apparel company, will award a set of 10 free custom team kits to the bike builder with the most innovative and artistic bike entered in the contest. These prizes come on top of the $2,250 in cash and Carbon Drives that Gates will award to five winning bike builders.

The Primal prize will include 10 Race Cut or Sport Cut jerseys, plus 10 Prisma bibs or shorts. Check out their work at www.Primalcustom.com. Primal makes the kits for the Team Gates Carbon Drive singlespeed mountain bike and singlespeed cyclocross teams (mtb jersey pictured below).