A place called the Plateau

If you haven't already, check out our introduction post to learn about what the Belmont is! The frames are arriving Spring 2025, go here to preorder!

With specs and geometry covered in an earlier post, here we’ll talk more about how the Belmont came to be.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we met the KBC crew in 2022 and decided to undertake the challenge of designing a bike together a little over a year ago. The teamwork process was a smooth one, with video calls every once-in-a-while where we’d ping-pong each other’s wish lists and notes about what we wanted out of this new model. Having similar tastes and backgrounds, it was surprisingly easy to agree on the final design, even when it came to choosing the graphics!

The name
Naming the darn thing was, as is usually the case, the hardest part of the whole venture. Our only rule at Bassi is that frame names should refer to a specific place — a city, a street name, a mountain, and so on. The place in question can be one we know very well and is very dear to us like Montréal, Rachel street and Bloomfield avenue. Or, it can also be somewhere new to us that left a lasting impression, and the image of that place keeps popping up in our minds whenever we think of the frame like Mont Hog’s Back in Gaspésie, QC, or Coyote Ranch in Baja California, Mexico.

The Belmont falls into both those categories. 

Obviously, this new frame designed with KBC would need to have a name that links both of our home cities. Belmont, on our end, refers to Belmont Park in Cartierville, formerly home to an amusement park for the better part of the previous century. Here’s an amusing listen about the park’s history.

Today, the park still gets plenty of use and is one of many green spaces one can link together on a nice, leisurely ride along the river.

For Keystone, the name comes from their famous Belmont Plateau, referenced in Will Smith AKA the Fresh Prince’s 1991 Summertime. The Plateau is, as the Fresh Prince put it best, where everybody go. The day after last year’s Philly Bike Expo, the folks at Keystone took us on a lovely detox ride through the park’s wide-spanning web of trails. That ride through Belmont was a wonderful way for us to bookend an intense bike show weekend and discover the place our friends at KBC call home. That ride also made clear to us that the park is an important hub in Philly’s cycling community, and general culture, and was more than worthy of a bike frame name dedication.

Lauren, the graphic designer behind the look of the Belmont, absorbed all the cues we gave her and came up with something that merges everything together beautifully.

Building and riding the prototypes

With prototypes ordered, received, painted and built, it was time to test! 

One such test was a ride halfway between Montreal and Philly, near Woodstock, NY. We met up with the KBC team and spent a day romping around the area’s rolling hills. It was fun to see how each of our builds differed and coincided!

The Belmont rode pretty much exactly how we expected. Everyone, once fit was dialed in, remarked on how comfortable and easy it is to ride. The low-to-neutral trail felt natural and stable, even more so with a handlebar bag. The sturdy frame inspires confidence when riding loaded, or when that dirt trail turns out to be rowdier and gnarlier than anticipated. 

Having taken it on a few Houde laps I can say that while it’s no racer, when spec'd with a lightweight build, the Belmont is absolutely capable of keeping up with the roadies. 

The Belmont is very capable of doing a lot of things, like a lot of our Bassi frames. The built in versatility of the Belmont means that it can take on many different configurations and evolve as your needs do, too. 

Plushy full-fendered randonneur?

Flat bar ripper?

Cruisy commuter?


Pared down gravel bike?

Yes, yes, yes & yes.
We designed the Belmont to be able to do a bit of everything, because our rides usually end up involving a bit of everything too. With the final tweaks made to the production frames, we think we nailed it and can't wait have them in our hands.

The official launch will be at next week’s Philly Bike Expo (Booth #3106, come say hi if you’re in town!). The frames will arrive this Spring, probably early May. Check out the product page here for the full specs.

Photos by Troy