Still can’t believe we won best touring bike. This award has made my year! I’d like to thank Alli for making the plinths, Joe for designing the banner, Nik for building the wheels and putting together an awesome build kit and also insisting I make her an expedition 29er.  You can buy this Reynolds custom 853 frame and fork for 1300£. That includes a cycle fit with custom geometry and spec to suit your riding style and any single color paint with logos.

Here is the blurb explaining the bike;

I’v finally built Nik a bike, I’v been promising her a frame for years. So I decided to build her three in one. This is a 29er off road expedition tourer, road tourer and crosscountry front suspension mtb 29er. Ive offset the seat tube to tighten the rear end to 420mm and allow for 2.5inch tires! (most off the peg 29ers rear ends are 450mm!) This bikes main purpose is to be an off road touring frame, with frame, saddle and bar bags. With a bottom height of 294, ht angle 73, offset 51, trail 60. In road touring mode she simply puts 28c tires on it, and the bottom bracket height drops (to 265) and the trail (51mm) will be perfect for carrying weight on a low rider racks front and back. In cross country mode with a 80mm travel suspension fork on it the bottom raises and the head tube slackened to 68 degrees making it a crosscountry 29er mountain bike. boom!

Ed approached me about a year ago about a custom Randonneur. He wanted to run a front rack, full mudguards and dynamos front and back. Eds’ proportionality has quite a small torso when compared to his legs and therefore has to run small stems to get his reach right. By designing this frame with a 53cm top tube and a 57cm seat tube we were able to get his bars higher and shortened his reach to a comfortable position. As this is a randonneur we decided to go with the classic randonneur geometry, lots of rake/offset to get the axel under the bar bag, low trail which makes it easier to handle the weight up front, and a exceptionally low bottom bracket to give the bike stability, and of course 650b wheels with 42c tires for comfort. The front dynamo has a wireless connection which is cool and the dynamo wires are all internally routed.

photo by Gold Seal Photography

Thanks bespoked, what a huge honor, still can’t believe we won! Bags where made by Wildcat gear, check them out.

I’m finally building Nik a bike, I’v been promising her a frame for years. So I decided to build her three in one. This will be a 29er off road expedition tourer, road tourer and crosscountry front suspension mtb 29er. Ive offset the seat tube to tighten the rear end to 420mm and allow for 2.5inch tires! (most off the peg 29ers rear ends are 450mm!) This bikes main purpose is to be an off road touring frame, with frame, saddle and bar bags. With a bottom height of 294, ht angle 73, offset 51, trail 60. In road touring mode she simply puts 28c tires on it, and the bottom bracket height drops (to 265) and the trail (51mm) will be perfect for carrying weight on a low rider racks front and back. In cross country mode with a 80mm travel suspension fork on it the bottom raises and the head tube slackened to 68 degrees making it a crosscountry 29er  mountain bike. boom!

This bike was made for Will, who is going to cycle across south America. When designing this frame I put a lot of thought into the cycle fit and the geometry, so Will could comfortably put down long days in the saddle. The bottom bracket is… low and the front end has low trail to give the bike stability under load. The wheel base is supper long to again give the bike a stable feel under load but also give the bike comfort as the road will not always be smooth. My favorite thing about this bike is the Rohloff cable routing, usually when you run drop bars with a Rohloff hub you have to run a goofy adapter on the top of the handle bars for the shifter, which always bugged me, so when I found a way to mount the shifter at the end of the drop bars I got pretty excited. Photos by lookmums’ Robert Mason. Paint by Armertex

Here is my daily commuter, the fixed gear is low maintenance and the mudguards keep me dry and I put a dynamo on to light the way. Paint and lug lining is a durable powder coat done by the very nice guys over at Armourtex

I had Bobby Ashman in my shop a while back asking me questions about how I got into frame building, and he went away and put together this article for boneshaker magazine. Check it out!

here are some pics of some polo bikes I made recently

This one was for Jono, we went with a supper tight wheelbase and high bottom bracket, it turns on a dime which is handy for bike polo, you can check out a write up about it here

Made this bike for Joe, the curved seat tube lets him run bigger tires if he wants to, while keeping the wheelbase tight.

Tim came to me a few months ago looking for a custom frame. He basically wanted me to recreate his 90′s fixie conversion rock hopper into a Reynolds 853 fillet brazed custom frame. We sat down for a cup of tea, and talked about his likes and dislikes of his current bike. So I would know what features he wanted me to bring over to the new bike and what features I could leave behind. What he really liked about his old bike was how stable it felt, this was because the rock hopper had a long wheel base and a relatively low bottom bracket (when compared with other urban fixies). So when designing the new bike I set out to make a 26″ fixie that felt stable. I think the best part of this build was seeing Tim’s face after the first test ride! Thank you Tim for the many cups of tea, and the opportunity to build your bike

Thanks to Phil and Tessa for organising the Bespoke Bristol bike show. There were so many great bikes to look at and so many friendly frame builders to talk too. I showed my track bike/city bike. This is a really fun bike to ride. I gave it a longer wheel base then a standard track bike for comfort, the longer chain/seat stays give the rear end a bit more compliance. I also gave the bike a really high bottom bracket which makes the bike feel nimble in traffic. The end result is a really nice marriage of two ride characteristic.

This head badge was hand made by Nik, a ‘look mum no hands’ mechanic/aspiring frame builder, using an acid etching technique. It had a lot of interest at the show, good job Nik!