SaltAir Cycles is a cycling brand founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2014.
SaltAir Cycles builds its bikes in a weathered woodshed behind Matthew Nelson's house in Salt Lake City. Nelson has called the shop "a bit rustic," freezing in winter and scorching in summer. In 2017 the shed's work won him Best New Builder at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
Nelson practiced architecture for two decades first. "It was becoming harder for me to envision the next 35 years behind a desk," he told SLUG Magazine. He finished his first frame at the United Bicycle Institute in Portland in June 2011 and kept building, mostly for friends. SaltAir became a registered business in 2014, and that season Nelson built the bikes for his new cyclocross squad, painted Team Turquoise. In January 2016 he left his firm to build full time.
SaltAir frames are lugged or fillet brazed steel, made to order after a fitting that Utah Stories likened to being measured for a tailored suit. From first contact to delivery takes about three months.
Before he built a single frame, Nelson told SLUG, he had already started asking himself, "Can I commute to work and get rid of a car?" His commute is now the backyard.
In 2018, a year after being named Best New Builder, SaltAir won the President's Choice award at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
