Builder Profile

Name
Builder Profile

Builder Statement

Custom steel bikes handmade in the USA by Damien Clark. If it isn't custom it isn't cool.

About Damien Clark

Damien likes bikes…lots and he’s been working with metal since he was a kid (Thanks dad, this is all your fault.) Following up a degree in art (sculpture to be precise), Damien went to the United Bicycle Institute in Portland to learn all the finer points of frame design and construction.

As a general rule of thumb, Damien’s bike may very well be beautiful, but they are meant to be ridden, hard, and crashed. He doesn’t really consider them to be art as they are functional and as a good former art student would tell you art has to be for it’s own sake. These are for the freakin’ fun of riding.

As to riding hard and racing, to quote the man himself, “I can’t make bikes go fast, but I can make bikes that go fast.” He’ll leave the making bikes go fast up to all you racers out there who want to win races for him.

Hand Crafted Bikes

Damien and Becky started Clark Custom Cycles to fill a void both in the local economy where there needed to be some local frame builders and in our own lives where outside jobs have very often wore us down with little reward. (definitely not a void in our free time which neither of us ever seems to have.) Now we work long hours because we love the work. I mean come on we get to build bikes and then send them to people who are thrilled because they just got a brand spankin’ new custom bike, made just for them. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Don’t get us wrong though, building custom bikes is no cakewalk and it isn’t exceptionally quick. Even with frames costing over a thousand dollars, there isn’t a huge pile of money in the bike-building market. But we are cautious, hard working and determined to bring beautiful, hand crafted bikes to those who will ride them.

We would be glad to build you a bike, and from our experience you’ll be glad too. So don’t hesitate, give us a call at 301.432.8454 and see when we can fit you in, and soon enough you’ll be riding on your very own Clark.

Braized vs Lugged

Here’s the deal, everything that is done to the latest carbon and aluminum bikes is done to make them ride like steel. For better or worse they got that one right when they started to build these two wheeled human powered vehicles, everybody just needs to get back to their roots.

Fillet Braized
Fillet Braizing offers buddery smoother joints and a little more flexibility in geometry. In addition the bike will fall apart in 400 years, but don’t worry. We’ll personally fix your bike at that point when it happens.

Lugged Construction
Lugged frames offer superb strenth and allow for ligher tubes to be used, in addition they have a beautiful artisan quality to them that can’t be matched. It’s old school baby…oh yeah.

Gotta love a good cross season.

For those uniniated into the grand world of cyclocross it is sort of a wacky hybrid between road racing, mountain biking, and a running steeplechase. As our good friend James Johnson once said (and another influence on the bike’s name), “Cyclocross is 45 minutes of cross my heart and hope to die that my heart doesn’t explode.”

Here’s how it breaks down. Hop on the bike, ride around a course that frequently includes all sorts of mud, water, dirt, grass, you name it. Then fly off the bike and run (bike in hands) across some nutsy bridge or whatever. Then do a flying leap back onto the bike. Rinse and repeat till the race is over, maybe no rinse though…it is more fun to stay muddy.

We’ve got two favorite types of cyclocross frames, the singlespeed and the 1×9. The singlespeed’s great for it’s simplicity as always…no shifting, no worries (and problems when the conditions get really freakin’ nasty and everyone else can’t shift because everything is coated in frozen mud.) The 1×9 is great when the weather is nice…gives you a few options for gearing without being overly complex or heavy. But then again, when it gets muddy and frozen…you can get a bit screwed

Crossmyheart #1

This is the original real deal first ever Clark Custom Cycles cyclocross frame. But it’s ever so much more…It’s got a bunch of road, touring, and otherwise general bike dna in the mix and has been used for all sorts of great riding.

Add in the S&S coupler kit and this thing can go anywhere, particularly good if you are spending time in both the Czech Republic and the Mid-Atlantic region. Happy little bits from Campy, Fizik, Ritchey, and a hand-built Chris King wheelset complete the package.

Crossmyheart Lucky #7

This particular bike is bike #7 from Clark Custom Cycles. And it’s got a Jack Daniels Lucky #7 inspired paint job to match. That and a white paint job on a cyclocross frame is just asking for a bunch of good muddy days…

Classic geometry makes this thing an object of affection for a long time to come and a S&S coupler kit keeps it mobile between the Czech republic and the good ol’ US of A. And as a special touch it’s even got sliding rear dropouts for easy singlespeed conversion.

This particular one is setup as a 1×10 (Cory, correct me if this isn’t the case) with a bunch of thompson, fizik, campy, and alpha q gear to boot.

Ain’t she pretty…

Shootout #1

So here is the first Shootout road frame. Finished at just about the wrong time of year for a road bike but hey. Things don’t always come to fruition right when conditions are ideal. This beautifully lugged piece of steel is equipped with an S&S coupler kit for easy packing and travel and as with all custom bikes from Clark Custom Cycles is tailored like a Savile Row bespoke suit. It just fits right…