http://vanillabicycles.com/http://vanillabicycles.com/about/butteredmuffin.shtmlWhen it comes to bespoke bicycles, Michael Maharam happily calls himself a dilettante. A lifelong collector of one-of-a-kind bikes from around the world, Maharam, of the New York textile company of the same name, recently made friends with a true expert — Sacha White, a master builder who owns Vanilla Bicycles in Portland, Ore. Together, they conceived an exhibition devoted to the work of craftsmen like White, who make a living cutting steel, welding and filing for weeks on end. (‘‘You wouldn’t want to be their manicurist,’’ Maharam says.) The show, ‘‘Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle,’’ which opens May 12 at the Museum of Arts and Design, collects 21 of the finest contemporary examples from America and abroad, from charming, Old World road bikes to aggressively styled titanium and steel mountain bikes. On the gallery’s back wall, a set of drawings by the design firm 2×4 explains how bicycles are built. Maharam hopes the exhibition will open up the city’s bicycle culture to more people. ‘‘One reason bicycles have become so popular is because manufacturers are making the well designed and beautiful accessible to the masses,’’ he says. ‘‘This is the epitome of the well designed and beautiful.’’
Mike Flanigan, Alternative Needs Transportation (A.N.T.), Holliston, MA.
• Jeff Jones, Jeff Jones Custom Bicycles, Medford, OR
• Dario Pegoretti, Pegoretti Cicli, Calonazzo, Italy
• Richard Sachs, Richard Sachs Cycles, Warwick, MA
• J. Peter Weigle, J. Peter Weigle Cycles, Lyme, CT
• Sacha White, Vanilla Bicycles, Portland, OR