A bicycle built for you

Published 9:00 pm Friday, August 20, 2004

ZILLAH – Sean Mullin is an avid bicyclist. He’s also 6 feet 8 inches tall.

His height means most mass-produced bicycle frames don’t fit him.

“I searched bike shops pretty much across the country, and then I searched the Internet and I started talking to different companies and frame builders,” said Mullin, a rehabilitation and sports medicine physician at Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center.

No luck.

That is, until he found a Zillah entrepreneur with a small business based on his life’s passion – riding and racing bikes.

In a squat, windowless, cinder-block building, Oscar Camarena was putting the finishing touches on a custom bicycle frame for Mullin.

“In mountain-biking terms,” Mullin said, “I’m stoked.”

The story of how a custom frame builder hung his shingle in this small agricultural town started across the street from his workshop.

You can find Camarena at El Ranchito, surrounded by the sweet scent of traditional Mexican baked goods. His family purchased the restaurant, bakery and gift shop three years ago and sent their youngest son to manage it.

“I run this full time,” he said, “except when I get a (frame) order. Then I’m across the street.”

Camarena went to school to become a machinist. His career took him into manufacturing, eventually handling special projects for a company that made metal parts for machines that cut silicon wafers into computer chips.

Along the way, he served apprenticeships with bicycle builders and stored up knowledge he now puts to work for himself.

Simple Bicycle Co. builds custom frames – the metal structure to which the wheels, seat, pedals and other components are attached – for mountain, road and BMX bikes.

Each frame is built by hand to the specifications of the customer. Camarena measures each rider, discusses what kind of riding he or she does and the bike he or she is riding now. He even puts the customer on a “size cycle” – an adjustable stationary bike used to fine-tune the frame’s geometry.

He draws up a full-scale diagram of the frame on his drafting table and then begins to assemble the different steel and aluminum tubes on a jig. Each piece goes through a battery of machining processes to ensure that the angles are true and the surfaces are perfectly flat.

Camarena employs a skilled welder part time to put it all together.

The resulting frame fits its rider like a hand-tailored suit. But it costs more than many complete bikes.

“This is definitely a niche,” he says. “It’s not for everyone. Some people don’t want to spend $1,110 on just a frame.”

Camarena sold his first custom frame in March. His goal was to make a dozen sales this year.

He’s already sold 27. Only six have gone to local customers, with the majority of his business coming from California and the Puget Sound area.

Camarena has thoughts of expanding both his businesses, although for now some are more serious than others.

At El Ranchito, expansion plans include a Mexican grocery and meat market. When it comes to bicycles, Camarena said only one major specialty bicycle retailer serves the Yakima Valley and has considered opening a full-service shop.

For now, he’s sticking with frames.

“I do it because I love building bikes,” he said.

Associated Press

Simple Bicycle Co. owner Oscar Camarena works on a custom bike frame at his shop in Zillah.