TORONTO (BRAIN) — Start-up Canadian bike brand No. 22 Bicycle Company has hired four former employees of Saratoga Frameworks, which closed last week, and plans to open a production facility in upstate New York.
The team will be led by Scott Hock and includes Frank Cenchitz as head welder, Caleb Sesselman as welder, and Bill McDonald in finishing and paint. The four former Saratoga employees have a combined 53 years of titanium building experience at Saratoga, Serotta and elsewhere.
The team will produce all of No. 22’s models, including the recently revised Great Divide road frame, as well as frames under contract to other high-end brands. No. 22 had contracted with Saratoga to build some bikes before Saratoga closed.
“We are extremely excited about the opportunity to work with this team as the long-term manufacturing home for our bikes,” said Mike Smith, co-founder of No. 22. “We have been building our brand around the resurgence of North American craftsmanship, and the frames that Scott, Frank and their colleagues are able to build have us thrilled about this relationship. We feel privileged to be working with them to produce bikes that we can all be proud of.”
Smith and Bryce Gracey founded No. 22 in 2012. The brand offers a line of titanium frames and complete custom bikes. They are sold both direct and through dealers, working with Stage Race Distribution as its U.S. distributor and VAM Performance as its distributor in the U.K..
Gracey told BRAIN on Monday that company is looking for production space in the Saratoga area and expects to "be up and running and making bikes again in early April."
"Hopefully this will be a silver lining for these guys," Gracey said.
The brand’s lineup consists of road and track models, with a cyclocross model to launch later this season.
