Engin 29er

Drew from Engin Cycles started in the bike industry twenty years ago – first as the owner of Wissahickon Cycles – slowly building up the knowledge and tooling he would need to support his dream of becoming a custom frame builder. Starting his shop in 1995, eventually Drew came to a point in his career as a bike shop owner where he could do one of two things; either grow his shop into a size few bike shops ever see or fulfill his dream of making one-off bike frames. Drew explained it best during the course of our conversation when he said, “I didn’t want to just buy and sell stuff. I wanted to make stuff.”

It was an evolution for Drew to arrive at the Titanium 29er that he built for us; one that included participating in the genesis of the T47 bottom bracket, a standard that provides more welding real estate when working with larger Titanium tubing that also gives customers the option of 30mm crank spindles. Drew set this particular frame up with trail geometry, opting for a 68.5 deg head angle, 72.5 deg seat angle. He takes a holistic approach to all the dimensions of the bike, giving this frame a 12” bottom bracket height, keeping it low enough for stability but not so low you’re destroying your pedals or cranks on trail obstacles. When it came to chainstay length Drew pointed out “I’m not in the camp that thinks everything should be one way or another. I look at the entire bike, and the rider that is going to be using the bike, to make sure they have proper weight distribution and handling characteristics for how they’re going to use the bike.”

Engin build in a nutshell:

• Whisky 41w rims laced to Industry Nine hubs

• Whisky No.9 MTN fork

• Whisky No.9 31.8 Rise handlebar

• SRAM XO1 build kit

• Enduro T47 bottom bracket

• Rock Shox Reverb post

Check out Engin Cycles @ www.engincycles.com/