The hand-built bicycle industry has flourished since the early 2000s, according to NAHBS chief judge Patrick Brady, publisher of the cycling website RedKitePrayer.com, who has written about custom builders for the last 22 years.

“Right now is the Golden Age in custom frame building,” said Brady before stepping onto the NAHBS stage to announce the winners of the show’s awards, which included Breadwinner’s Bad Otis for “Best Mountain Bike.” “There have never been more builders producing, and the quality has never been higher.”

Though thriving, the 100 or so builders in the hand-built bicycle scene make up about 3.3 percent of the overall U.S. bike industry, which was valued at $6.1 billion in 2012 and is sourced almost completely overseas, according to bicycle industry expert Jay Townley with the Gluskin-Townley market research firm and a report by the National Bicycle Dealers Association. In 2011, 99 percent of bicycles sold in the U.S. were assembled in Asia—93 percent in China and six percent in Taiwan.

Additionally, just four companies—Dorel Industries, Accell Group, Trek Bicycle Corporation, and Specialized Bicycle Components—own about half of the 140 bicycle brands available in this country, including Schwinn, Cannondale, Raleigh, Gary Fisher, Trek, and Specialized, Townley said.

Yet although custom-bike builders make up a minuscule segment of the market share, they have an out-sized influence in the industry more generally.

“Because everybody who works for a big bike company is ultimately a bike geek, and the guys who work for the biggest players still love to be here,” Brady said, “you’ll see touches, custom little things that builders have done that may ultimately show up in what the big guys do; it may be a better way to route the cables, a neat way to consider finishing a bike, or exciting new ideas about paint.”

“Technology is so accessible to a one-person or two-person shop or frame builder,” Ryan said on the NAHBS floor. “A lot of that innovation and creativity comes from a place like this. What you see here is way more forward thinking than what bigger companies can produce.”

“They have to do focus groups and have marketing meetings,” Pereira added. “I’m like, ‘I think I’m going to build a long-travel hard tail [mountain bike]—today!’”

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Unlike production bicycles that come off the rack in standard shapes and sizes, custom bikes are designed specifically for their owners’ bodies, riding styles, and aesthetic preferences. In determining the angles, rigidity, and flex of the frames they construct, hand builders take into account dozens of measurements and factors—everything from customers’ inseams, arm length and hip flexibility to whether they prefer a stiff ride for efficiency or a softer ride for comfort. The customer also has a say in the bike’s finish, color scheme and design.

People opt for custom because they like having something designed just for them, something no one else has, says Kentucky builder Don Walker, who founded NAHBS in 2005. They also choose custom because of the personal relationship involved.