Lifelong cyclist Carl Voss custom-built his latest bike by hand. Writer: Michael Morain Photos: Christopher Maharry In an era when you can order just about anything online — mass-produced, delivered to your doorstep — there’s a certain satisfaction in doing things the hard way. Des Moines city councilor Carl Voss knows this firsthand. The avid cyclist and longtime cycling advocate already owned a stable of finely tuned bikes when he decided to build one from scratch. Not carbon. Not titanium. Wood. The result’s a beaut, with a sleek frame of cherry and maple sourced from West End Salvage and finished to a glassy sheen. It looks like it belongs in a gallery, but it’s built for use. “It rides like all my steel-frame bikes,” Voss said. “I was just out on a ride this morning and was amazed it went straight down the trail.” The project started with a weeklong class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indiana. What followed was more than a year of trial, error, backpedaling and persistence, including multiple attempts to get the curved pieces just right. Voss traded about 70 emails with his woodworking instructor over 15 months and enlisted local collaborators to refine the design, source materials and solve various engineering puzzles. Even though the method was new, the mindset was not. Voss grew up around his grandfather’s millwork shop, Voss Manufacturing in Atlantic, Iowa, where the motto was simple: “If it’s made of wood, we can make it.” The new bike proves that right. It’s a nod to the “Voss Special” baseball bats his dad used to turn in the family shop for Southwest Iowa teams before World War II. A fox on the bike’s headbadge comes from the family crest, interpreted by the Indianola artist John Parker, whose steady hands added pinstripes in red and a green that reminds Voss of his dad’s 1949 Studebaker pickup. A few words hide underneath the frame: “Sand until the sweat runs up your arm.” Voss heard that line as a kid from one of his grandfather’s craftsmen while working on a small project. He remembers stopping to check his arm, again and again, to see if he’d done enough. Decades later, the lesson still stuck. May is Iowa Bike Month, when riders take to the streets and trails, including the Carl Voss Trail from Principal Park to Easter Lake. Its namesake will be among them, rolling along on something that not only carries him forward but brings a lifetime of memories along for the ride. ...read more read less