Author Kevin Davee
While I’ve been around for a bit and have been an off and on cyclist since the 1960s, I consider the late ‘00s the beginning of my bicycle “renaissance”. By then carbon ruled the world, but I’d never gotten over the CrMo rigs of my youth. That steel preference eventually led me to my first Surly CrossCheck as my daily work commuter in downtown Fort Worth. My CrossCheck was a used custom build featuring a Sugino triple crank and way more low gearing than I needed but that heavy bike (I referred to it as “dreadnought class” and named it Grey Hare) was a beloved part of my daily life.
For some reason, possibly nothing more than the fickle desire for the new, I traded it in for a 2020 All City Spacehorse (base Tiagra build) as the pandemic raged. The Spacehorse was an okay bike in its factory configuration but I came to doubt the switch was wise and for whatever reason didn’t ride it as much as my other bikes. In early 2026, City Cycles owner Caleb Bryan suggested upgrading from the factory 2x10 drivetrain to a 1x “Mullet setup” (this instantly brought to mind the film, Joe Dirt, but actually an 11-52 MTB 12 speed cassette paired with a 42T single chain ring) and some other upgrades including hydraulic brakes, new Ritchey bars, Wolf Tooth bottom bracket, and SRAM Force e-shifting and cranks. This transformed the bike from ho-hum, whatever, to instantly become my favorite ride. As a steel steed traditionalist, I was a very hard sell to adopt electronic shifting but never looked back once I took the plunge, except well, I didn’t look back as much as I looked forward.
(Spacehorse with original drivetrain pictured above)
(Spacehorse with new mullet drivetrain pictured below)
I enjoyed the revamped Spacehorse so much I had to get rid of it. There were some things I loved about the bike but other things I didn’t and unfortunately were inherent limitations of the frame. Specifically, with 700c rims the tire width maxed out somewhere just a notch beyond 42mm (respectable but too tight to take full advantage of 2026 offerings), the factory geometry just didn’t feel quite as good as I wanted it to even with better sized bars, and frankly the 2020 All City Spacehorse is a heavy bike that could have benefitted from better tubing with size specific considerations had QBP deigned to go there. I will note that I still think the Spacehorse is a hell of a bike and excellent value in 2020 for $1600.
After a few months, maybe a little bored with my fleet of bicycles, I began exploring the purchase of another flat bar mixed surface rig and was leaning towards adding a Marin DSX 2 to the stable as just a basic fun ride. Caleb refused to sell me one. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. It turned out Marin was sold out with expected availability a month or so after that conversation. The true part is that Caleb knew a lot about my riding habits and style as well as my somewhat esoteric preferences (both performance and aesthetic) and said maybe it was time to explore getting a bike that would really fit who I was and how I like to ride. This was in no way “would you like fries with that” but more an invitation to explore ideas and potentially translate those ideas into tangible reality. What if I envisioned a “new and improved Spacehorse” which just might include a completely different frameset and some additional new components?
If you haven’t paid much attention yet, this is the part that may resonate with you. My experience with City Cycle on a custom-build collaboration was just that, a collaboration. I know about 60 % of what I think I know about bikes (and that may not be that much) so expert advice that fills my knowledge gaps while not eliminating my preferences is very helpful and very welcome. I kicked around a lot of what I’d call “brain farts” on ideas of the kind of bike I wanted to end up with and how that might translate into a frame choice as well as getting something that complemented unique aspects of the rest of my fleet in terms of riding choice. If you’re curious, I currently have four (almost none) other bikes (Surly Preamble, Kona Sutra, All City Zig Zag, and Esker Hayduke hardtail MTB…all of them steel frame bikes, i.e. my tastes are eclectic to put it mildly.)
I finally took the plunge and selected a Wilde Rambler frameset. It’s an “all-rounder” (meaningless cycling industry terminology) which put it squarely in the genetic lineage of my beloved Surly CrossCheck and the predecessor Spacehorse. In fact, Jeffrey Frane the founder of Wilde Bicycles designed the Spacehorse in a previous professional life. Honestly, I view a solid local bike shop as a huge community asset and try to purchase as much of my cycling products through them as possible. I think there are lots of reasons for this and you probably agree if you’re reading this. I’d encourage you to purchase frames through your LBS (e.g. City Cycles) if at all possible and practical and in fact to exercise a bias to companies that work through local shops. Having said that, my choice of a Wilde Rambler frameset meant that the practical path was for me to get it DTC. City Cycles rolled with that and encouraged me to have it delivered straight to the shop even though they didn’t make a dime off the transaction. A second element of flexibility as it affected my financial bottom-line on this project was willingness to “harvest” previous upgrades from the Spacehorse to incorporate into the new project when it made sense and didn’t compromise the project objective. I can’t compliment the shop’s flexibility and customer focus enough.
We worked together on component selection for the right mix. Sometimes this involved back and forth on the pros and cons. More often than not the expertise from the shop came to bear on possibilities I wouldn’t have thought of. I have the free time to invest in in-person consultation and the shop has the patience to encourage it. The design process was a lot of fun. Some great suggestions were implemented that helped me refine the incredibly precise vision I started with, “…uh I want it to be gravel capable, fast enough to take on group rides on pavement, really pretty, function flawlessly, suitable for bikepacking, really upright riding position just like my Kona even though that’s a completely different type of bike, and did I mention really pretty?” Some of these impact ride feel (e.g. Teravail carbon bars and seatpost, keeping the stack as high as possible with generous use of silver spacers, etc.), in fact basing the final setup on precise measurements of my Kona Sutra per my request. Some choices emphasized taking advantage of better components than the previous Spacehorse iteration (e.g. SRAM 10-52 cassette) while others were purely aesthetic choices such as the Brooks C-17 Special Saddle and the Kevlar reinforced brake hoses complementing the frame color. This build includes some decisions that might be characterized as “compromises” but that doesn’t quite fit. With the shop’s help I selected factory wheels (24 spoke alloy Reserves with DT Swiss hubs) that are good quality but certainly not highest end or lightest weight. They are visually striking and consistent with the build’s aesthetic. They are a good choice for what I want to do.
One of the things I appreciate about working with City Cycles is the candid input on advantages and sometimes limitations of particular components, which provides confidence on what I’m getting into. Sometimes the choices are tweaked to insure technical compatibility. A knowledgeable guide is essential in a custom bicycle build process. I’d summarize my experience this way:
- My personal “vision” for the bike was listened to and prioritized
- Tweaking component choices was explained, logical and stayed true to the end
goal - Input early in the project concept kept me from making choices I’d likely regret
- The end product is functional, aesthetically beautiful (see the pictures), and
unique to me
A little over a month since delivery I’ve put just over 500 miles on the Rambler (named Alphonsus by the way.) Will my City Cycle custom Wilde Rambler build be “the one bike to rule them all”? I don’t know but it’s the first ground up custom build I’ve ever owned and I’m having a lot of fun riding it which is why we ride bikes after all. If you’re interested in exploring a custom build (CrMo or otherwise), City Cycles is a wonderful place to make your Velo dreams reality.
Now, go out and ride your bike.
