Blaze Bicycles

Blaze Bicycles will build almost any titanium bike you can describe, with one exception spelled out in capital letters on its custom frame page: NO TANDEMS. Pierre Chastain designs and welds each titanium and steel frame in Moab, Utah. The shop cuts many of the small parts on its own CNC machines.

Chastain started building in Venice, California. Blaze dates its founding to 2008. At first he built frames for himself and friends, and "then I found more and more demand from customers," he told the US Manufacturing Report in 2021. In Moab he partnered with Chris Hill at Moab Classic Bike, and he later became sole owner of the shop, since renamed Bike Fiend.

Moab doubles as the test track. The shop rents out the bikes Blaze builds, which works as marketing for visitors who are not ready to spend $5,000 to $10,000 on a bike. A customer can test a hardtail by riding it straight out the door. Blaze built about 35 frames in 2019, each taking up to 50 hours, and about 55 in 2020.

Titanium is the main material, and the logos are anodized onto the metal. In 2021 Chastain said he planned to buy CNC equipment to make his own dropouts and other frame parts. The shop now machines its own dropouts, and it sells frame parts to other framebuilders, down to a $4.50 titanium water bottle boss.

It is still a small shop. Chastain said in 2021 that he would hire help for jobs like cutting tubes, though not welders. He also said his needs included funding and more space.

The Wulf, Blaze's trail hardtail, clears tires up to 2.8 inches wide and comes with an engraved head tube. Tandems remain off the table.