Our Time at MADE Bike Show 2026
We are back home catching our breath from MADE Bike 2026, and now is the time to share how amazing the experience was. At Teravail we are bike nerds first and foremost. It was such a gift and an honor to collaborate with some of our favorite bike builders and to share the hallowed halls of Zidell Yards with so many friendly faces and talented makers. This year, we partnered with three frame builders to make bring show bikes to MADE. We also collaborated with the wildly talented Mullet Mechanic to fulfill Bike Pubes’ deranged promise of the Jean Bike (Jike?!) with some one-off denim sidewall tires. Let’s dive in!
(Photos by Miles Arbour)
Woodpecker Cycle Co.
Daren from Woodpecker made this Thick Mini Velo for our very own team member Jeremy. This bike stole the show at MADE with its unique stick shift mechanism controlling a Pinion gearbox and retro-futuristic aesthetic inspired by the Schwinn Stingray.
Because we love all bikes and builders, this build featured a select few Teravail parts – the dropper, (prototype) stem, and handlebars. It was covered in unique and innovative collaborative solutions from the fork that was a three-way collaboration between Woodpecker, Thompson Cycles, and Crust Bikes to the silent drivetrain using a belt drive, Pinion gearbox, and Onyx hubs. With all the boutique and made-in-USA parts like Paul Klampers and North Shore Billet cranks, this build showed that even mini bikes can be maxed out with special parts, The matte rust-inspired colorway blends Midwest aesthetics and earth-tone color inspiration that fits in anywhere. All that’s left is those unique brake rotors – what do they remind you of?
(Photos by Miles Arbour)
The Other Woodpecker
We also featured a Woodpecker gravel bike in the Teravail booth which featured select Teravail components on a customer’s dream build. Daren walked us through the bike and his philosophies on bikes and life. We learned a lot!
The bike itself is a custom gravel bike based around Woodpecker’s main gravel frame design, with clearance for a 29x2.2 tire, a UDH mount, 44mm headtube, and slightly higher axle-to-crown measurement in case the customer decides to swap on a gravel suspension fork. The bike features a 700x50mm Cannonball / Washburn tire combination. Daren reflects, “I bring a mountain bike philosophy to gravel, riding a different tire front and rear. In this case, it’s a grippier front and faster rear for the winch and plummet style riding we do in Washington.” The 50mm tires strike a balance between high-volume and faster rolling that provides a confident yet racy platform for a true gravel bike. There’s plenty of room for 2.2s if the customer decides to experiment with mountain bike tires.
The Feldspar flat top bars provide comfortable hand positions for long days on the bike and the Telec 27.2mm dropper post combined with a Telec Drop Bar Remote provide an extra bit of control and versatility to the steep descents in Washington and beyond.
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This bike was a true dream collaboration between Daren and his customer, and he shared how it came to be: “Customers usually know what they want, and they come to me because they know what I make and it aligns with what they’re looking for.”
“I make a bike that I would enjoy racing on and it turns out that other people would enjoy racing on it, too… I’ll make some changes within reason, without getting too far away from the vision for this bike.”
As for potential problems, Daren combines frame builder wisdom and modern technology to ensure all issues are worked out before the welder ever fires up.
“I model everything in CAD before I put it together, so I know the problems I’m going to have and I solve them in CAD before I go into the shop and weld the tubes.”
When pushed, we arrived at the final philosophy for building a custom bike: “Dream once, measure twice, cut three times.”
On a truly custom handmade bicycle filled with unique details, Daren was hard-pressed to pick a favorite. He landed on the new dropouts that his friend custom-makes, which include a flat mount brake solution, UDH, and the Woodpecker W logo. The paint job is a highly unique combination of a white powdercoat base, alcohol-based pigment, and decals + clearcoat.
As fans of all things custom bikes, we asked Daren what his favorite bikes at the show were. He replied, “There’s two, the Rare Earth aero gravel 32. And the Fiddlehead cargo bike, so many unique details and such a clean build.” And if you were wondering what kind of soundtrack leads to a bike like this, the answer is yacht rock. “Hall and Oates and after that it’s metal.”
If you want to hear Daren’s final hot take, you’ll have to watch the full video interview below:
(Photos by Miles Arbour)
Rare Earth Cycle
Brian Hall from Rare Earth Cycle in Wisconsin brought three very-polished 32-inch bikes to MADE. While the tire size itself could be the subject of dozens of blog posts (and spicy comment sections), we were stoked to see such an innovative frame builder approach three totally different bike styles with big wheels. From his Rare Berd mega gravel bike to Neil Beltchenko’s Gunni Flyer bikepacking rig to our collaborative show bike, the Crazy Cloud, there was a lot to see from Rare Earth.
The Crazy Cloud is Brian’s personal bike, and the details from the Intend inverted fork to the custom integrated cockpit to the Ozark Gravel Doom bell really stand out as the perfect mix of modern technology and timeless quirks and features. We loved sharing the 32-inch Camrock tires with the world and we can’t wait to see where Brian and Neil take them.
We caught up with Brian for a mini-mic interview about all of life’s most important questions:
Bender Bicycle Co.
Will Bender from Bender Bicycle Co. is a friendly neighbor to some of our team in Colorado’s Front Range. On recent visits to Fort Collins, we’ve spied Bender bikes casually locked up in front of coffee shops and seen rolling works of art gleaming in the sun on group rides.
When asked about the stunning paint job on the hardtail Will built for MADE, he said “I'm a huge color guy, so I really loved the way the paint came out and how the whole parts spec matches. The paint color is actually an old vintage Porsche color, and it’s one I have been eyeing for a bike for quite a while.”
In a sea of 32-inch wheels and zany experimental builds, it was refreshing to highlight one of our favorite bicycle configurations of them all: the 29er hardtail.
As for the philosophy of the hardtail as a show bike, Will explained, “The beauty of a hardtail is its simplicity and versatility. It's the bike I grab nine out of ten times, and the one I ride today I hope to be riding in 20 years. The reality is that [the industry] will always move forward with new tech, and standards, but I do believe that the current 29-inch trail hardtail is hard to beat.”
And because we believe in supporting and taking inspiration from all of our peers in this family-like industry, we had to ask what Will’s favorite bike at the show was. “I think my favorite bike was the new Scarab road bike, the Serena. Santiago and his team make some beautiful bikes.”
Since we didn’t get to stick a mini-mic and a camera in Will’s face for the show, we made sure to get his recent favorite music for the blog. The answer? “Anything from Frank Ocean.”
The Jeans Bike
Every single detail of this bike was crazier than the next. When we were hanging out with The Mullet Mechanic themselves at FoCo Fondo this summer, we discussed the idea of contributing some denim sidewall tires to their custom build that was being raffled off to benefit the Immigrant Defense Project.
Every detail from the State Bikes frame to the garment-dyed saddle to the denim bar tape and bar bag had the perfect ratio of klunker-to-custom, while Bicycle Pubes’ typical irreverent humor showed up on the downtube branding (“MAKE!”). With Enve wheels wrapped in custom blue jeans tires (jires) based on our new-favorite Updraft in 700x50 sizing, this was an epic exercise in what’s possible. We were so honored to get the invite to join in on this build and are so proud of how the tires turned out. Working with our entire engineering and manufacturing team (many of whom got to join us at MADE this year all the way from Taiwan!) to bring the jires to life was a prime example of how we aspire to show up and support builders and dreamers in the industry. We’re a scrappy team that likes to blend serious engineering and R&D with quick-turn custom details. Stay tuned to see what we learned from this project and how we can bring that knowledge to future tires…
Bikes we Loved and Teravail in the Wild
There were so many cool, thoughtful, and downright beautiful bikes at MADE. In the future we hope to expand our coverage and attendance at this event to further celebrate and support all of the amazing makers, builders, journalists, and riders who make this community special.
There were more amazing bikes than we have the space to properly highlight here – thankfully all of our favorite websites and magazines were there to make the memories last forever! Below is a brief gallery of cool details, fun builds, and Teravail bits we spotted out “in the wild” outside of our booth.
Can’t get enough of MADE? Checkout Bikepacking.com’s coverage about all the builders at the show!