By blackmountaincycles,
I didn’t want it. I mean, I don’t need another bike. If I never heard where it ended up and never saw it again, that’d be ok. But the question was asked “do you want it?” Of course, I want it.
In 2012, Geoff Halaburt, a long-time customer and friend was embarking on a new bike project. Two new bike projects, in fact. Charlie Cunningham was going to make a small production run of bikes. He’d gotten the bug to build a couple of bikes for himself – a road bike with some different front end geometry that he was curious about and a 29” wheel mountain bike. For a long time, Charlie was put off by the feeling that a 29” wheel was too big and unwieldy for the type of riding he liked to do – tight and twisty single-track.
Here’s what I recall on Charlie’s 29” wheel intrigue – in 2008, his wife, Jacquie Phelan, won a custom DeSalvo frame at Single-Speed World Championships in Napa for piloting the oldest bike at the race. With geometry input from Charlie, a 29” wheel frame was built. It would be for Jacquie, but also sized so Charlie could work out some ideas on how a 29” wheel would perform.
When you build a bike for yourself, you aren’t paid. A couple friends also got in on having a custom Cunningham 29” wheel bike built for them to help finance the project. When Charlie decided to also make a new road bike for himself, he reached out to one of them and said something to the effect “I’m already making one road bike, I might as well make two. Do you want one?” The answer to that question was a resounding “yes.”
Starting in 2012 and wrapping up in 2013, Charlie delivered two mountain bikes and one road bike for friends/customers of his. I got to finish building each one of those bikes. One of the mountain bikes left the country to live with its owner, but the other mountain bike and the road bike stayed in Marin County. I was tasked with their maintenance over the years. I’m intimately familiar with each of them. And they are truly lust-worthy. They were commissioned/owned by Geoff Halaburt. Sadly, Geoff passed away of a fast spreading cancer in October of 2021. Geoff documented the build process on Instagram at #2013cunninghams.
Geoff had impeccable taste in all things he pursued – photographic art, furniture, hi-fi, music, wine, and, of course, bikes. When the call came asking me if I wanted the Cunningham road bike, yes, of course I wanted it. A deal was struck and I took possession of it. Like the two Bruce Gordons I own that will always be “Bruce’s bikes,” this Cunningham will always be “Geoff’s bike.”
I’ve got about 300 miles on Geoff’s bike, #E5 GH (the serial number signifying the 5th bike of the E production series for Geoff Halaburt) and have to say it is a beautiful bike to ride. It climbs great, descends even better, and the brakes are absolutely the best brakes I’ve ever used on a bike. I’m not going to go into the “why does it work so well” performance of the bike using simile and hyperbole. That’s not really important, you know, forest for the trees sort of thing. It just does perform great and that’s all that matters. It’s not aero and it’s probably not particularly light (don’t know how much it weighs and I’ll never weigh it). It’s a 10 year old bike that was built with, at that time, parts that were already out of date. Yet, it’s an amazing timeless bicycle that I’ll ride for as long as I can keep riding. And each of those rides will also be with Geoff.
(What’s playing: Cowboy Junkies “The Trinity Session” – an album I received from Geoff’s collection)
#E5 GH
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4 responses to “#E5GH”
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Mike, Thanks for sharing the story of Geoff’s bike. I met Geoff for the first time at your shop in October of 2013. He stopped me at the door because there were ambulance personnel inside tending to a customer with a medical issue. We talked for a while, and when the excitement was over, we all had a Racer V (my first, and certainly not my last) before I went on my way. I saw Geoff several times after that, either at a NAHBS, or at the Philly Bike Expo. He always treated me like an old friend, and I only regret that we didn’t get to be old friends.
Thanks, John. As coincidence would have it, the EMTs were attending to the other guy who had Charlie build the 29″ wheeled mtn bike. Racer 5 was certainly his favorite every day beer and I can’t hear a Land Rover Defender without thinking Geoff is pulling up with Racer 5 beers in tote.
I 1st met Geoff when he arrived with Steve Potts and crew for NAHBS in Louisville 2015, Steve had asked if he could ship bikes to my shop On Your Left Cycles, of course the answer was yes. We had a decent snow fall which shut down the city but the show had to go on. Thats when I met Geoff, what incredible historian of bikes, he seemed to know a little about everything. Over the weekend we had NAHBS party which meant Geoff brought some incredible wine to share and many more stories. Over the next few years we ran into each other at bike shows, he was always excited about his next project and of course and the chance to share an incredible glass of wine or 2. I didn’t know Geoff that well but man I miss seeing him and talking about whatever. So stoked that his bike is being ridden.
Thanks, Drew. That sums up Geoff nicely.