As a young kid growing up in Sunnyvale, California, Jeff Lyon found out that top quality bikes didn't come from a factory but were built by hand. He set out on a mission to discover how it was done. At the time, here in the U.S., nobody that knew the process was talking. The only place Jeff could find where anybody was willing to share the art of framebuilding with new builders, was in England. At the tender age of 18 Jeff flew off to England for what was to become a seven year chapter in his life. During that time Jeff was a category 1 racer, a member of the U.S Cyclo-Cross team and he and another rider broke some English tandem records. It was during this time that Jeff apprenticed under and worked with what could be one of the greatest frame builders who ever lived, Bill Philbrook. |
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Working together the two built frames for professional European racers as well as built experimental new designs for frames and tandems. In the process, Jeff developed a meticulous eye for detail as well as a series of original frame alignment techniques. Jeff's work became well know back home in the Bay Area of Northern California where he was exporting his frames from England. Jeff also sold tandems he designed and built to Bud's Bikeshop in Claremont, California. They later became Santana and now use the same single lateral design which had been used on the tandems that Jeff sold them. Jeff returned to the U.S. and later moved to Seattle and quickly established a reputation in the Seattle bike community where he lived several years before settling in the hills of Southern Oregon where Lyonsport is now headquartered. |