Sizemore Bicycles

[Taylor]

My name is Grant Taylor Sizemore, everyone calls me by my middle name. I call my brand Sizemore Bicycle.

What I am building:

My goal is to connect with people like myself. I want to build people bicycles that can connect with their lives better than any other bicycle in the world. You ride one of my bikes because you understand what it's like to see curb and want to jump it, see a puddle and splash it, or see a corner and want to round it. I want to give my friends and allies bikes to get radical with... whatever that may mean, it's OK to get rad! At the end of the day, you lean your bike up inside your apartment and are proud to be the owner, idealistic...

People I look up to:

Jesus, Kelsey, Dieter Rams, Mark Gonzales.

I am located in Portland, OR. I only really know one other builder here.

UBI was my starting point, wait, no... Vanilla was my starting point. I read an interview with Sacha in a zine in my high school days. From that point, I knew what I wanted to do. I learned there was a school for learning how to be a framebuilder, and after a few years procrastination, I drove to Ashland and spent my two weeks at UBI. Accumulating tools took a little while, but a couple more years and I started to build in a corner of my Dad's 1920's warehouse in Tacoma, WA, I built my first few bikes there before moving to Seattle. I got way less done in Seattle than I had ever imagined possible, and after a year in my loft workshop I temporarily moved the shop back to Tacoma. At the same moment I was getting married and we decided to move to Portland. Here I am, I have a nice warm shop, a cool wife. I am building professionally, I could have dreamt this would happen, but in my dream it would have been a lot easier.

Are you technical?

My bikes mostly consist of TIG welded front triangles, filleted and classically constructed rear ends, and topped off with lugged forks. I use a 225sqft building in my backyard, a Henry James original jig, a Hardinge BB4 horizontal miller, a mix of files, a POS vise, an old craftsman lathe, torch, Miller maxstar, and a bunch of other junk. What I create, I believe to be strong, affordable, good looking, and simple.

Please ask me any questions you may have. I'll do my best to answer 'em.

Thanks everybody for reading, and Richard, Josh and the excellent dudes who make Velocipede Salon exist!

-Taylor Sizemore

Sizemore Bicycle
Journal
Twitter
Flickr
Facebook