The United Bicycle Institute is located in Ashland and Portland, Oregon, which goes a long way in explaining the high concentration of fine handmade bicycle builders found there. You can expect to learn virtually everything you need to know about assembling and maintaining the beautiful machine and this randonneur is the graduate project of a UBI student.
Shu-Sin completed the frame building class at the Ashland campus just over a year ago, but it took him a year of filing, painting and assembling to bring it to a ride-able state. He put a great deal of thought into it: Shu-Sin, apart from being the first three letters of his first and last names, was the penultimate king of Babylonia — this provided the inspiration for the paint.
“The head badge is a modification of a relief on a palace wall in current-day Iran. It depicts the protective creature, the Lamassou (a man’s head, body of a bull or lion, wings of an eagle). They usually appear as a pair of stone statues at the city’s entrance to protect the inhabitants. The color was also chosen to reflect the predominant color of the region where Babylon once stood.
“I’m as proud of the rear light as I am of the bicycle. I designed, 3-D printed and assembled the light from plastic, glass/metal lens and put the guts together. I hope you like the images. The bicycle rides as a silk sheet in the wind!” Shu-Sin doesn’t have any plans to set up shop, but what a reward to create a bike like this by hand. Find out more on the UBI website.
