The Open Road “Character Driven” Helio Ascari

Maker and artist Helio Ascari wears the Open Road 6X in Fawn and the 1865 Distressed Open Road Royal Deluxe at his studio in Pound Ridge, NY. “The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever built on the planet—the most humble. I wanted to take this as a statement through my art,” says Ascari Bicycles founder Helio Ascari. Though he is naturally humble, his bikes are anything but. Made completely by hand, they’re finished with brass, copper, exotic woods and his signature leather string wraps with an artisan’s level of detail rarely seen in the modern, mass-produced world. “Nothing compares to the touch of our hands. To work with your hands, to make beautiful things—if you don’t keep standards high, if they disappear, who’s going to tell the story?” For Ascari, continuing that tradition and telling that story has meant moving to a new country and learning a new language from scratch. “I’m a gaucho. I was born in the south of Brazil, near Argentina. The gauchos are the cowboys of South America,” he says, “I grew up in the tradition, the hat, the boots. But our styles change. When I moved to America I was very into the Band records and very into Levon Helm, the drummer. I saw an Elliott Landy photograph of Levon in Woodstock wearing a hat, and when I met Levon at his Midnight Ramble, he was wearing that same hat. I was so fascinated.” Ascari soon scored his own version and added it a sizable vintage hat collection that includes several vintage Stetsons. “When I put on the Ope