After decades of building bicycle frames and the iconic New England segmented fork design, Portland, Oregon framebuilder Chris Igleheart has closed his business. Chris moved to France to ride bikes and enjoy life.
Chris started building and welding for Fat City in the early 80’s when mountain biking was in its infancy in the US. He made the now-legendary segmented fork design for early Fat City mountain bikes, and was deeply involved in New England cycling culture. His connection to bicycle framebuilding can be directly connected to other famous east coast builders like JP Weigle and Richard Sachs.
Chris moved to Portland, Oregon in 2012 where he continued to build his own frames and forks. He worked next to Joseph Ahearne at Page Street Cycles, welded for Breadwinner Cycles and built many forks for happy riders around the globe under the Igleheart brand.
Fellow framebuilder Ira Ryan of Breadwinner Cycles says “Chris is one of the kindest and most humble humans, and also a damn great welder.” The Breadwinner Cycles and Igleheart shops were across the street from each other in Portland.
Breadwinner Cycles purchased some of the fabricating machines and materials and will continue to build segmented steel forks to the same standards that Chris became famous for.
MORE INFORMATION
More info about Chris’ story can be found here: ahearnecycles.com.
