Meet Brandon Poser | Custom Bicycle Maker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brandon Poser and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brandon, do you have any habits that you feel contribute to your effectiveness?
I’d say that I have a bit of OCD. If I see something that has a bit of dirt on it, or if it the picture on the wall isn’t quite straight, I’m going to clean it or straighten it. It just must be right. Certain things might take me a bit longer to correct, but I’ll eventually get to them. It sometimes depends on how large of a project the correction will be. Having a bit of OCD isn’t really a habit, but it’s helped me make sure things are done right. I’m also a bit of a neat freak. I’m constantly trying to keep things as clean as humanly possible in everything I do. My wife will tell you that I’m always cringing when I see the messes my kids make. Whether it’s them eating, making a project for school, or making a fort from cardboard boxes outside with their friends.
Details matter. Small details matter even more. I’m always chasing perfection. Richard Sachs has said that imperfection is perfection. He explains that the idea that perfection in a bicycle frame is an abstract concept. No frame is perfect, and none ever turn out exactly as the builder envisions. Being a new builder, I’ve got a long way to go, but the chase is part of the fun.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My rekindled love of cycling started in 2013, when a friend of mine had suggested that we get some road bikes. After a brief thought (about a millisecond), I said yes. Having ridden road bikes a lot many years back I was immediately hooked, and I was all in. I loved it! I took my bike with me everything I went with work so I could ride as much as possible on my off time. I started reading anything and everything I could find on cycling. From workouts to health benefits, racing, and frame building. It was the racing and frame building part that really sucked me in though. During this time, I was cruising YouTube and came across The Vegan Cyclist. In one of his videos, he talks about entering your first race and said that if you want to race but you’re scared, that you just need to sign up and go for it. He also mentioned the fact that you’ll likely be crushed. Well, I entered my first road race and got smoked. I was next to last to cross the finish line, but I didn’t care. I loved it! I quickly found another race to punish myself in. I then searched out a cycling club/race team (Big Orange Cycling) so I could continue my racing endeavors. I’ve been racing ever since. Thanks VC! It was while I was racing that I became really intrigued by all the different bikes that I’d see at the events. I started researching and studying frame building. I read about the history, the different frame materials, joining techniques, geometries, components, etc. I was a sponge. Then in 2017 I had this crazy idea that I could build my own bike. When I told my wife, she looked at me like I was nuts. I found a few books and jumped right in. A great friend of mine gave me an oxy/acetylene torch set up, I found some tubing and lugs to practice with, and I started making some of my own fixtures for sub-assemblies. To make room in my shop, I sold my beloved 1964 Cadillac Deville and picked up some tooling to help makes things easier.
Fast forward about 6 months and after a lot of practicing I decided to take a crack at my first frame. I’m a little biased, but it came out fantastic! I would stare at it for what seemed like hours and examine everything that I would do differently on the next one. What I could make better, cleaner, more efficient. Then I made another frame, then another and another. Every frame I made, I tried to make it better than the last. On our local rides I had a quite a lot of folks really appreciating my bikes and a few even wanted me to make them one. So, I did.
By now I really thought I could do this. So, I looked at some frame building schools around the country and decided to go to Bohemian Frame Building School in Tucson, AZ. It was taught by the master himself, Dave Bohm. I had heard that it would be better to go to a frame school before you even make a frame, but I’m glad that I had made quite a few beforehand. It enabled me to make a lot of mistakes along the way. I was able to try new things on my own and see how it would either help or hinder my progress. I had gained a fair amount of knowledge on my own that when I was at school, I was able to take what I had learned previously and completely expand on it. I was one of a maximum of two students and I learned so much. Much more than I would have ever thought was possible. It was such a great experience and I highly recommend it even if you just want to build a single frame for yourself.
BAHL Cycle Works was born in September of 2019. People always ask me how I came up the name. It is the first initial of each member of my family; mine, my wife’s, my son’s, and my daughter’s. I wanted something that was personal and had meaning to me. I was once old that I needed to have an Italian sounding name for a bike company if I wanted to be taken seriously. I would tell them, “But I’m not Italian.”.
So far, it’s been very rewarding and challenging at the same time. With the pandemic happening about 6 months after I started, obtaining product has probably been the biggest hurdle. Whether it’s been building materials or components there have certainly been delays. I’ve had to overcome this by being painfully honest about lead times. I feel that most people realize that it wasn’t going to happen overnight and as long as I continued to update them along the way that they were happy. I don’t like starting multiple builds simultaneously but have had to put builds on hold because some of the tubing was either delayed or had stop being produced for whatever reason. Almost all of our frames that come back from paint then have to wait what could be months for build kits. It has started to seem like it’s getting better as of late, and I hope that trend only gets better with time.
To me, the best part of making bikes is hearing the feedback from my customers and seeing that they are riding their bikes like crazy. One customer told me that it was the best bike he’s ever ridden. And he’s ridden a lot. Heart strings pulled!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Being in central California we have decent weather so there would definitely be a couple days of hanging by the pool, enjoying the sun, having some cold drinks while we catch up on everything that’s been happening in our lives. Since the summers here are very hot, I think that we’d then find a place near the beach to rent in SoCal and enjoy the waves and soak up the beach lifestyle for a few days. Of course, a few days near the beach means that we’d have some nice long days in the saddle. There’s almost nothing better than riding bikes with your friends right along the beach and not having a worry in the world.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are several people that have a played a pivotal in my journey. The first being my father. Not only is he an amazing human being, but he is also solely responsible for sparking my love of cycling and bikes. I mean, I always had a bike as a kid, but he blew my mind and introduced me into bikes with gears and fast road racing bikes. He raced for Cuevas and Specialized when he was younger living in Hawaii, and I was so fascinated by his cycling/racing stories. I was so inspired that I saved up my chore money and was able to buy a Specialized Allez. I rode that bike everywhere. We lived in the Pacific Northwest at the time, and I didn’t really care how cold it was. I even used my dad’s old leather shoes that were way too big for me, but I didn’t care. The next person I need to give a shoutout too is my amazing wife. Without her support in my crazy endeavors, I wouldn’t have ever made it very far. I have a habit of becoming borderline obsessed with my hobbies/activities. My love of cycling was rekindled after my wakeboarding “career” ended and it’s been an amazing journey. Whether I’m in the workshop making bikes, or I’m riding my bikes training and racing, she’s got my back. She’s my ride or die and I can’t imagine my life without her love, encouragement, and motivation.
Lastly, I need to give a shoutout to ALL of the steel frame builders out there. I absolutely love looking through photos of their builds. Often times I’ll see something on someone’s build and it will inspire me to try to incorporate a similar feature on a new build of my own. One builder in particular, Dave Bohm, really inspired me. His work is second to none and without his tutelage at his frame building school, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Website: www.bahlcycle.com

Instagram: @bahlcycle

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bahlcycle