So who is the BREW Dude?
The Brew Dude rides on
By Nick Legan and Brad Kaminski Published Mar. 1, 2012 Updated Oct. 30, 2014
Click here to see the original article! on http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/03/bikes-and-tech/the-brew-dude-rides-on_207698
Deep in the Appalachian Mountains, at the headwaters of the New River (the world’s second oldest waterway), a tattooed, middle-aged man full of vigor crafts some of the most interesting bicycle frames — and stories — in the cycling industry.
Steve Garn learned how to build BMX frames in 1973 and did so until 1977 when other pursuits led him elsewhere. A decade later the catalyst for creating his own brand came when his son needed a bike. After shopping around, Garn was disappointed with what he found and decided to build one himself.
So it was that in 1987, BREW Bikes was born. BREW is an acronym for Garn’s other business: Blue Ridge Electric and Welding. It has nothing to do with the local moonshine trade. Oh, and the 16” wheel BMX bike that he constructed for his son still hangs in his shop these days and serves as a reminder of his beginnings.
After the local Boone, North Carolina bike shop saw Garn’s creation, requests for other frames came rolling in. He quickly moved on to build road, time trial, mountain, cyclocross and touring bikes. Over the years Garn has created some of the most unique bicycles the industry has seen. Many of his ideas were later copied and more recently rendered in carbon fiber.
For Garn it’s always been about building fast bikes. In that pursuit, he explored different materials and building techniques. Garn was certainly one of the first (if not the first) framebuilder to use TIG welding to attach frame tubes. A natural-born welder, after years of watching others weld aerospace materials, he took a class at a technical school. The first day of class, he was out-welding the instructor. When the instructor asked him how long he’d been welding, Garn replied, “Oh, about 10 minutes.”
With a mind full of ideas, Garn began producing superlight road brake calipers. He said of all his varied designs, “I was always coming up with ideas, thinking, ‘this is going to make me money!’” His brakes are still some of the lightest ever made. Similarly Garn made steel hardtail mountain bike frames that were lighter than Trek’s OCLV frames of the time.
In the 1990s, radical BREW bikes began showing up at road races, track races, time trials and even at triathlons. Olympian Carl Sundquist raced BREW frames to several national titles.
In 1991, Garn showed his Superlight bike at Interbike. The dramatically sloping aero bike features an aerodynamic, narrowed front fork that uses a 30mm front hub (100mm is the industry standard). Amazingly, the Superlight also has internally-routing cables and a set of water bottle bosses on the seat tube, features that not all time trial bikes have today.
Designed specifically for triathlon, the frame has an elastomer between the tiny seatstays and the seat tube. VeloNews’ own Lennard Zinn saw the bike and questioned the elastomer. Garns answer was that a bit of suspension over the course of an Ironman would save the triathlete’s legs for the run. That’s forward thinking even today.
