It’s a tool.

I see bikes as tools. Tools for exploring the landscape. Tools for racing. Tools for you to expand your horizons and meet new people.

I want this blog to be a window into my rationale for building bikes and the thought processes behind the decisions I make. When you commission a bespoke bike you are entering into a very trusting relationship. You are asking me to interpret your bike shaped desires into a tool to bring you joy/adventure/release. Therefore you deserve to know what I value in a bike.

A well made bike should be designed for a purpose, but it should also be built well enough for you to subvert that purpose and take it somewhere else. There’s so many compromises in the creation of a frame and considerations of handling or feel that it is impossible to create a bike that feels the same on all terrain. For example, if you have a city bike that allows you to flit through tiny gaps in traffic on tarmac it is going to bite you when you take it off road.

Handling is dictated by a number of different measurements, but because no two riders are the same no two riders are going to be seeking the same kind of handling or have the same level of experience. As we talk through your build I’ll find out more about your experience, the type of riding you’re planning, and the various component choices you’ll be making. In order to provide you with the best possible riding experience I will be looking at how your needs are affected by changes in headtube angle, fork rake, stack and reach (amongst many other things).

I’ve wondered for a long time about making forks for every build and have finally decided that every build will come with custom steel forks, unless you ask for carbon. There’ll be no extra charge for the forks. But carbon forks are so much lighter I hear you shout. Yes, yes they are, but are they as much fun for me to make and do they let me dial your handling and geometry to perfectly match your expectations? In case it wasn’t obvious, no.

I know that carbon is much lighter, but the set fork options available are all based on specific rakes, normally 45 or 50mm this means that I am altering your frame to get the handling characteristics you seek. Now this might be fine for you, but if you have a particular design aesthetic in mind or if your bike fit dictates certain measurements then the creation of a custom fork allows me to do that. Not to mention, internal routing, dynamo routing, mudguards, or rack mounts are all options you can have.

If you would like to know more about how I can build the perfect bike for you. Get in touch using the details at the bottom of the page.

Utility

Bicycles are the greatest invention of humankind.

OK, medicine, agriculture, and the written word have all been great too, but the bicycle brings an unmatched joy to our lives.

There’s a freedom you get when you ride a bike. Others have written innumerable words about the joy of riding, but it is worth talking about because it is inspiring. You get to be free, go where you like, go faster than you knew possible, see different places, and go on adventures. All of this happens under your own steam and is facilitated by the utility of your bike.

Utility is a strange concept. Utilitarian things are not always considered beautiful. There’s an argument that function and form must meet and be matched for something to be truly beautiful. I don’t know that that is true, but I do know that bicycles provide an astonishing level of utility whilst also being incredibly beautiful.

That utility is often defined by a label (gravel, road, CX, MTB, enduro, track, triathlon, etc.) and the wider industry would have you believe that each of these bikes does a slightly different thing and shouldn’t be used for any of the other activities because it simply won’t perform. I’d love to be able to tell you that this is true and that you need to order a fleet of bikes from me, but the reality is, that some of the most fun is had by stretching the utility of your bike and taking it places it should not go. Just look at the Rough Stuff Fellowship, 19c tyres and carrying up mountains and across muddy fields. There’s a whole world of adventure out there if you stretch the utility of your bike.

Lots of these blogs will be about how great bicycles are in a myriad of different ways, but I suspect I will be returning to utility in more detail over the next few weeks and months.

If you've got a challenge in mind and you need a bike for it. Send me a message or give me a call.

Entanglement

Interesting stuff happens around the edges. At the inflexion point between you and the bike, you and the landscape. The entanglement between the parts of the bike and what you do with it, the result being the search for joy. 

The joy of riding, racing, adventuring, just being active. 

What appears simple on the surface is complex. Take the frame building. Or an adventure. Or finding a path through the woods. 

We find patterns and routes through things based on experience, knowledge, skill, and the input of others. Frame building is, on the surface, a fairly lonely activity. You stand at a bench and work with some metal to produce a bike. It doesn’t appear to require input from anyone else, but it does. It needs you, the rider. It needs the skill of the framebuilder to understand the materials and translate your preferred characteristics into dimensions for your bike.

There’s this discussion that happens, we talk about where you want to go with your bike, and what you want to use it for. What excites you about the bike you can see in your head? I think that’s the real joy of building the bikes, a match of form and function. I get to build this thing that will make you smile.

If you're interested in having a bike that excites you, get in touch.