If you’re fortunate enough to be heading to Bespoked Bristol this year — The UK Handmade Bicycle Show — make sure you stop by the Winter Bicycles stand. Eric Estlund will be there with one of the hottest looking hardtails we’ve seen this year.
Traditionally, Eric has specialized in elegant, functional, and exceptionally well-designed tourers, randonneurs, and bikes for the everyday cyclist, but the new Winter Bicycles Geländerad also shows he knows how to put a good looking shred sled together.
Geländerad can be literally translated from the German as mountain bike, though it looks like a helluva lot of fun in any language. It’s a nod to the early, simpler days of the sport: the curved top tube and seat stays are reminders of the klunkers MTBs were born from.
Eric managed to wrestle the most gentle of arcs into the top tube, which extends from a prototype Paragon tapered headtube, through the seat stays to meet the thru-axle dropouts. The seat tube has also been massaged into a slight curve also.
The wheelbase and head angle combine into a very huckable frame, and while it’s currently set up as a single speed, tensioned by an eccentric Co-Motion BB, it’s easily converted to a 1x drivetrain, thanks to braze-ons for the rear mech and dropper post.
Even as a single speed, it looks like an honest and reliable build: Eric put it together with an FSA SL-K build kit, Afterburner brakes and Stan’s CB7 carbon wheels mounted with Schwalbe rubber. Up front is one of Eric’s beautiful custom stems.
A simple, iridescent green prism flake paint job covers the unfiled fillet brazed frame, applied by Custom Powderworks. It proves Eric’s mantra of letting his frames speak for themselves — and we’re looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
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