Vince Colvin of Chumba Handmade Bicycles

Zap (Zapata Espinoza) interviews Vince Colvin of Chumba Handmade Bicycles at the 2023 Master Bike Builders Show in Bentonville, Arkansas. @ChumbaUSABikes @masterbicyclebuilders Check out more at the . #masterbikebuildersshow #masterbicyclebuilders #handmadebikes #handmade #framebuilders #bikefabricators #bikecreations #bikewelders #bicycle #custombicycle #bicycleshow #visitbentonville #bentonville #cycleofinfluence #WaltonCollege #UARK Partial Transcript: Zap: One of the, there’s a few beautiful bikes here. This is one of our beautiful bikes here and down in Bentonville, the Chumba. Over the years I’ve been reading about them to my name is a mountain bike brand. Really, I remember back when it got its original original original original original George Washington, like roots back in SoCal, out of the bike beat bike shop. And that’s when I first knew Chumba was a young, starting out brand, but it’s gone. So far. It’s a whole new bike company. And that’s why we’re here to find out more about Chumba today and find out what they’re doing. So let’s find out what do we do? What do we need to know about Chumba? Yeah, my name is Vince Colvin, one of the owners of Chumba. And it’s my day job. So it’s our passion projects in our careers. But yeah, we’ve been with GEMBA. Now for 10 years, five years ago, we took over ownership of it and changed a lot of the creative direction of it just open up a lot more customization options with the bikes, right. And, you know, we’re predominantly known for mountain bikes, single speeds, like really durable products that people trust for bike packing. We’ve had a long, long standing ambassador, team that has done like extensive Ultra racing on the bikes. So it’s kind of like our core. And then, you know, about four years ago, we started getting into more gravel as another option. And then new for the show here. We are kind of releasing our new all road bike, which quite a few of our current gym owners and customers have been asking for. And just you know, coming to the site looking for it. And where’s your road bike? And yeah, so we we enjoy that kind of riding as well. So we wanted to offer something for those folks. And yeah, yeah, brought to the show, show of hands where you were, you were telling me you’re in New Mexico now? Or Austin, Texas, Texas? I’m sorry. Yeah, Mexico is awesome. Mexico. So I mean, and Austin has his own kind of bike culture going on down there. What is sort of like in terms of when you’re thinking about Chumba? What you’re trying to represent to the outside world? Like, how would you describe that to to people? Yeah, I mean, as a company, like, we, we build really simple frames, you know, like, the complexity is really in the mechanics of the system that make the bike, you know, effective as a, you know, all the componentry. Yeah, but frames we feel just need to be highly functional, highly compatible. And, you know, because of that, our goal is to make bikes that will last a long time, people won’t want to just buy the next one from us to replace it. We want people to connect with their bikes, create a story with them, and keep them over a long time. And that’s part of why we brought in all those different customization options. So we can do customize geometries on any of the models we’ve got. We’ve had currently six models, this new one now brings us to seven and eight, because every bike we do we offer in titanium, and in steel, okay, next. And everything we make is fabricated in the US. We make the majority of our frames in Austin, Texas, in house Nice. All of our tubing is entirely all mitered in house. Austin are their staff member here. He’s our lead production crew member and he does all of our mitering and yeah, so I mean, our our big thing we’re kind of known for is really durability and high compatibility, and becoming more known for some of the aesthetics as well. Yeah, so this bike has some fun things. We’re doing all the anodising work here in house that’s one of my roles with the company. It’s so it’s so it’s just done so nicely. And then it’s like it’s it’s like just It’s soft, but yet when you get here and look at you see toptube seatstays and just the way that logo jumps out, it’s it’s subtle, but still got a really nice impact.