B-Rad and his W.H. Bradford Plus Hardtail

27.5+ WTB Trail Boss 3.0 tires on a fully rigid chassis scream bike packing, but the carbon fork could use some mounts..

We caught up with our pal B-Rad, AKA just Brad, AKA Nemesis Brad while wandering the grounds of the Sea Otter Classic, where he was walking around showing off his latest creation, a fully rigid 650b+ hardtail.

Classic head tube badge detail

Brad has a background in building BMX and was at the front of the fixed gear freestyle thing for a long time with his brand Nemesis Project. His bikes are constructed using some of the lightest, strongest tubesets available; we like his stuff so much that we had to get one.

Custom stem painted to match with removable threaded inserts

He builds some pretty sweet bikes. These days Brad has been diversifying his builds based on his current interests, drawing upon years of bike geekery and taking inspiration from some notable classics.

Internal routing

With the W.H. Bradford line, Brad’s been focusing on creating frames suitable for bike packing, touring and exploring routes off the beaten path. This fully rigid 650b+ rig looks just about perfect for anything from bike packing to adventure touring. (though it looks like it could use a few more water bottle mounts)

Tire clearance on the Carbon Enve fork

Brad’s website doesn’t list any details of the latest creation – like many of our frame builder friends, B-Rad is notorious for having an incomplete website and infrequent updates, since they’re spending all of their time in the shop.

Dropouts on the Enve fork.

While we don’t have the technical specs handy, a quick spin on the grounds revealed it to be a quick handler, and would no doubt be a fun tool for exploring, though the BMX inspired tilt reveals it’s primarily been used for short distance rips.