As far as beautiful bicycles go, Baum Cycles are one of Australia’s greatest exports. The quality of workmanship and the spirit that Darren Baum imbues within each custom frame is beginning to garner an international reputation, to the extent that California’s Above Category Cycling are proud to distribute them amongst North America’s cycling cognoscenti.

Baum Cycles are native to the southern Australian state of Victoria, which is a cornucopia of fine cycling terrain. The landscape rolls and burbles with mountain ranges and hilly vistas, coated with forests of eucalypts populated with echidnas, wombats, koalas and wedge tail eagles. It’s a hard countryside and a Baum is the fruit of its topography.





Those hills and ranges are also home to thousands of kangaroos, enough to be considered a pest by local farmers, but their pelts are valued for their natural suppleness and strength. Another Victorian native, Mick Peel of Busyman Bicycles, deftly turns them into custom handlebar tape and reupholstered saddles, which look perfectly at home on a Baum, matched to the customer’s colour preference.

Marin County’s Above Category Cycling is a bicycle boutique that has an exclusive arrangement with Baum Cycles. A Baum is ideally matched to the Californian environment and this titanium-tubed Coretto is a perfect example of their robust and refined nature. The Above Category team made sure it was kitted out as it deserved, with a reliable and sophisticated build.

Campagnolo’s 2015 Super Record EPS gruppo is the pinnacle of shifting technology, the result of a long history of innovation and development coupled with ergonomics and performance. The icing on the cake is an upgrade inside the bottom bracket shell to CeramicSpeed‘s Black Coated BSA axle, which, apparently, has received a virtual standing ovation from the customer.

The rest of the build is just as top-shelf: a Lightweight Obermayer wheelset, a custom Baum 3T stem married to a 3T Ergonova LTD handlebar, the Busyman-covered fizik Arione R1 carbon braided saddle, Look Keo Blade 2 titanium pedals and two titanium King Cages. Even the paint is individual: the proprietary Baum GTR scheme has been accented with the shop colours of Above Category.

Head to the Above Category Cycling website for ordering information.