Raphael Cycles

03.12.2013 John’s Godspeed

Rafi — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:37:29 +0000

This full dress touring machine in tinted grey powder was built, finished, assembled, and a week later after a few shakedown rides, packed up for several months of European touring. Godspeed. This is an elegant, big, and sturdy machine. Low trail front end, Pass+Stow front rack, great mix of old school and new school bits and pieces, Phil Wood laced to Mavic A719 rims round it off. Photography by Geoffrey Colburn. Full gallery here.

03.12.2013 special operations

Rafi — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:33:50 +0000

Size adjustable kids scoot machine. Kicking ass and taking names. 3 stem extensions, 2 wheel sizes, 1 long seat post. 2 -5. Photography by Geoffrey Colburn. Full gallery here.

03.08.2013 Teaching

Rafi — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:17:46 +0000

So. I’ll be teaching again this summer at CCA – a session of summer framebuilding. It’s a hot ticket, so don’t sleep.

Zoom.

03.07.2013 This is how I feel

Rafi — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 06:10:12 +0000

Some days.

02.01.2012 I’m Back

Rafi — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 07:46:11 +0000

I hate driving through the city sometimes.

11.21.2012

Rafi — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:18:25 +0000

Fresh images by the one and only Geoffrey Colburn keeping it hottttt.

HERE>>>>>>

11.07.2012 I seem to be bad at this / My Dad’s Bicycle

Rafi — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:08:52 +0000

Teaser shots. A bicycle is love.

Legit photoset in the works.

10.15.2012 – fresh images up on the site

Rafi — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 04:57:59 +0000

Check out the fresh images up on the main site – Geoffrey’s CX racer and Michael’s Street Tracker.

Some special ass bikes.

A real post to come in the near future. Things are busy and in full swing over at Raphael Cycles HQ.

10.01.2012 Work, Making Work

Rafi — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:17:21 +0000

Alright. Works in progress. Geoff’s team issue Chica Sexy CX race machine saw it’s first race this weekend. Michael’s Street Tracker took to the roads Friday afternoon. Picture sets coming up. Right now, I’m working on a very special machine – a bike for my Dad. He rides regularly all year round in Brooklyn, and though I’m pretty swamped with work right now, he’s coming out to visit SF in early November, and we all thought that it would be rad for him to have a new machine waiting for him on this side, to ride and enjoy for a few days on all the amazing rides that SF and the Bay Area has to offer. UOS PegoRichie Columbus tubeset, ENVE 1.0 fork. I’m doing some carving that I don’t usually do on the seat tube cluster, a little extra bling.

Things have really been moving along a hell of a lot lately. CX machines in season. Orders coming in. Bicycles getting built. I don’t have a “team” here at the one man show that is Raphael Cycles, but it would be great to give a shout to Geoffrey Colburn. Chica Sexy racer, pro wrench at Box Dog Bikes here in SF, photographer, and good friend has been shooting my bikes, building some wheels, lending a hand, and being a really rad supportive friend. So yea, ups. He has a glamorama new CX machine that hopefully we’ll see the shots of in a few days. Other bits and pieces. Learning to TIG weld. Going really well. I’d like to incorporate this into the frames – making it an option for race machines only, work a little faster and get some team machines out the door. TIG is quite the beautiful process, and I’m in love a little bit all over again. The fillet brazing is taking to new heights as well (classic folks I’ll never leave you) and the work is consistently and constantly getting cleaner, better, and straighter. It’s rad to see real process ad progress in one’s own work – hard won through love and sweat and frustration, but won. I’ll also be teaching a desig studio at CCA this spring, which is going to be a heck of a lot of work, but I’m really really excited to be in the classroom, teaching college level design classes. It’s been an aspiration for a long time, in some ways, and I think that the integration with my career as a frame builder will overlap well with having a more socializing and sharing medium (of teaching) to accompany it. I’m sure there’s more, but it’s time to get back to getting my hands dirty.

09.24.2012 And AGAIN. Boom. Fresh pics.

Rafi — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 04:21:37 +0000

Pictures. And AGAIN.

Photography by the ever rad Geoffrey Colburn.

This is also a particularly lovely image Geoffrey shot in my studio.

Busy as heck. Some explaining and more words sometime in the near.