Exclusive first review of the Bridge Bike Works Surveyor

I don’t think Mike Yakubowicz was exaggerating when he said he had spent hundreds of hours working on the design of his bike. He mentioned this fact while we were on a mixed-surface ride this past October, each riding a Bridge Bike Works Surveyor. Yakubowicz and his business partner Frank Gairdner started Bridge, based in Toronto, roughly three years ago. They planned to build a carbon-fibre bike in Ontario’s capital—and I mean make the whole thing, not just design it in Canada and rely on manufacturing abroad. When I visited the Bridge facility in March 2022, Gairdner, Yakubowicz and their team were working on the moulds for the Surveyor. This past fall, I got my hands on the first media test bike released by the company. It was pretty special to ride a bike that was made less than 5 km from my home.

Yakubowicz, who also runs Blacksmith Cycle, has helped many riders choose their dream machines. He’s guided them through spec choices and myriad geometry options. When it came time to design the bike that Bridge would build, Yakubowicz wrestled with all the details himself. It was similar to what his customers do, but he had a blank slate and the bike had to have a broad appeal.

The designer was after a specific set of features. “When we started the project, I would say this all-road category wasn’t represented as well as it could have been,” he said. “I think you’re now seeing more bikes like ours, which gives us a little more competition, but also says we’ve been on the right track. To speak to the big picture, you usually have your race bikes that are really quick handling, but usually don’t have more than 30 mm of tire clearance. Then you jump to more endurance-style bikes with 35 or 38 mm of clearance and that tend to have stable but slower handling. It’s like your choice has been either a race bike with little tire clearance or an endurance bike that’s not super responsive. The Surveyor is made for long days in the saddle. What makes our bike unique is the geometry and handling profile is closer to a race bike, but the tire clearance is closer to a gravel bike.”

The Surveyor can run 40c treads, so you can build it up as a capable gravel…