NAHBS 2016 -

Look, this isn't the first time you've seen this English if you've been following NAHBS coverage this year.  Hell, we've covered it on social media where it was our most popular post of all time.  But a 150px shot on your phone isn't quite the same as large-and-in-charge on your computer, so here it is in its full glory.

Unrelated to this bike, I think we need to talk about Rob English.  He's created some unreal things in the past, and while everything he puts out I think he means to have ridden, it's not uncommon for him to kick out a bike that's more art than sporting good.  This one, this is meant to be ridden.  Rob is also recently recovering from a crash that nearly ended his life.  It left him not only unable to ride, but unable to work for an extended period of time, so in reality we are lucky to still have him with us to see these creations.

Let's cover that rear end.  In typical English fashion he uses a mono-stay leading to impossibly-thin seat stays.  My eyes tell me, "that's gonna break" but my interactions with Rob tell me, "this dude knows what he's doing."

Glad we got that out of the way.

Moving onto the ISP, which can typically lead to some awkward and proprietary caps that could be hard to replace.  Rob took a slightly different route where he customized a Thomson seatpost, allowing infinite and micro adjustment and bomber reliability.

Next.

3 cages for bidons.  Why?  Who cares.  Don't need all three, pull off one.  Need a third, you're set.

Disc brakes are a slam dunk.  As in that custom painted par/stem combo.  Is that as practical as a separate stem and bar?  Nah.  But if it fits, so what?

Big ole Compass tires smooth out the road while the ENVE M50 rims ensure the wheels are plenty stiff.

And then there's SRAM's new eTap group.  This isn't an eTap review, we don't have enough time with it to do that yet.  But, eTap is the perfect group for this bike.  It's clean, ridding itself of wires.  It's light, it feels great.  The lever shape is spot on for my hands, and in the name of custom bikes, fit is everything.  No external batteries to figure out how to mount.

Oh, and it's pink.  And really fucking light.  It's not 9lbs like another of his bikes on display, but really, it's pink.