What goes into the making of a Karpiel original?
These are not bikes designed by cost-cutting engineers who stare at computer-simulated models all day in small white rooms  They are not built in massive factories by assembly-line laborers who do not ride downhill or freeride bikes. They are not ordered in bulk from companies who mainly weld ladders and turn out weed-whacker parts.

These bikes are built for the love of riding, handcrafted by people who can feel the potential of the bike in the precise cut of its tubing and the luster of its welds. They are built by people who believe there is a harmony in the way a good bike is constructed, a perfect fit in its geometry and a perfect feel to its weight and balance under a rider. But more than all this, Karpiel bikes are built to deliver unparalleled performance on rough, steep trails with a level adjustability superior to any other bike on the market.

The first images of each new model are always painstakingly drawn by hand. Every part, every detail is drawn and redrawn until the bike acquires
a unique style and life of its own. Through the lines and measurements,
a new bike will define itself as an individual, a downhill bike, a freestyle bike, a park bike, a bike with a hunger to achieve what its predecessors could not.

After line drawings have been completed, a cardboard model of the bike is constructed. Unlike computer models, a cardboard model allows the designer the chance to feel the geometry, the curves and the lines and the critical points of construction with his own hands before it goes to CAD and emerges in a virtual world.