The Frame Builders: Bingham Built

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Brad Bingham is a riding legend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Brad may seem clairvoyant, but it is his 25-plus years of working with avid cyclists, merged with his history of piloting and racing his own frames, that’s made him the master designer he is today. Frames that bear his name can tear phone books in half, while virtually floating over any and all terrain.



Sliding, skittering, slewing, scuffing, flying. 


It’s no small feat that when Brad was welding for Kent Eriksen Cycles, he also was competing as a professional mountain bike racer. In 2015 he placed 14th in the Mountain Bike National Championships pro men’s field, fourth at the Fat Bike World Championships, and second at the Fat Bike National Championships.


Things that really do make a difference. 



If it’s true, as Malcolm Gladwell claims, that it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft, Brad overwhelms it. He estimates that when he worked at Moots, he welded between 4,000 and 5,000 frames (after 4,000 he stopped counting). After leaving Moots, Brad went to Kent Eriksen Cycles and won the Best TIG Welding award at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) several years in a row. He has also won many other NAHBS awards, including Best Titanium Construction in 2013, Best Road Bike in 2014, and Best Gravel Bike in 2016. 


These are dazzling frames that emit sparks of human ingenuity and craft. Throw your leg over one and you’ll find it’s like meeting a pipe organ at point-blank range. 


Based in Steamboat Springs, Brad Bingham fabricates his frames with titanium. Ti is his signature material because it welds, shapes, and bends beautifully, lasts forever, and needs no paint. It’s light, strong, and resilient, making it the ultimate material for frames. Part of what sets Brad’s bikes apart is the full-suspension frames, which have a ton of engineering and custom-machined components. 


These are frames that are known for their beautiful ride quality, truly unique designs, and perfect “stack-of-dimes” double-pass welds that are sweet as angel kisses. Brad has taken that look and elevated it to a nearly robotic consistency. Because he uses high-quality titanium, he can manipulate it into complex shapes without compromising its structural integrity. This ability was key when Brad collaborated with Kent Eriksen to design the Kent Eriksen Cycles Husky, which unlike any other bike the two of them made together, needed to have chainstays to clear the five-inch tires and the drivetrain. Plus, titanium allows Brad to customize the placement and style of weld-ons, offering up simple, clean elegance. 


Today, Brad creates a variety of beautiful handmade frames—from road to mountain, tandem to touring, cross to commuter, gravel to bikepacking, and more. Only titanium can produce such a super smooth and lively ride. If you’ve been riding carbon, you may be surprised how comforting a 40-plus-mile-per-hour descent on a metal bike can be. There is a reassuringly stable feeling a rider gets from well-made Ti; combine it with racy geometry, disc brakes, and the unparalleled craftsmanship of a Bingham, and you can push your limits with incredible confidence.


  • Faster, better, badder. Sampling these forces.

    Every Brad Bingham bike is 100 percent custom built to each customer’s specifications. Whether you are best described as a weekend warrior, a fanatic, an enthusiast, or a racer, with John Drake’s decades of sage wisdom and experience building up these frames into complete bikes—with a nearly unlimited number of components to choose from—and with Brad Bingham making a frame just for you, you’ll have a bike to meet your specific needs, one of the best ever and always. Amen.