Issue 02 Spring 2016
the uk handmade bicycle show
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BESPOKED 2016 PREVIEW / THE EVOLUTION OF CYCLE TOURING TRANSCONTINENTAL RACE / cycling west coast USA HACK BIKE DERBY / THE FORAGER / TOAD custom CYCLES
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A Celebration Of H andm ade Bicycles Step inside the wonderful world of handmade bicycles at Bespoked, The UK Handmade Bicycle Show Europe’s biggest showcase of handmade bicycles and their makers is taking place in Bristol over the weekend of the 15th -17th April. 100 of the world’s finest artisan bicycle framebuilders and bicycle goods designers will gather under one roof in the historic building of Brunel’s Old Station in Bristol, bringing with them exquisite handmade bicycles and fine cycling components, apparel and accessories, many unveiled for the first time. Bespoked is the creation of Phil Taylor, Stroudbased framebuilder and passionate cyclist. When Phil set out to make his own bike in 2009 he started thinking about why there wasn’t something along the lines of NAHBS (The North American Handmade Bike Show) where UK framebuilders could promote their work to the public, as well as swapping ideas and building a community. He realised the need for an event in the UK to promote the international art of the handmade bicycle. Phil, along with wife Tessa, organised the country’s first Bespoke bicycle show at the Bristol Paintworks in June 2011, with 40 exhibitors. So popular was the show that the next year they moved to the larger venue of Brunel’s Old Station in Bristol. In 2014 Bespoked took place at the Olympic Velodrome in London, with over 120 exhibitors from as far afield as the USA, Australia and Taiwan. Last year the show returned to its Bristol roots spanning two venues: Brunel’s Old Station and Arnolfini Centre for Contemporary Arts, where they held The Constructors’ Challenge – an exhibition of bikes built for a purpose greater than getting from A to B. The winner of the challenge was the Velopresso fully integrated coffee tricycle. Now in it’s sixth year, Bespoked remains a celebration of handmade bicycles and the artisans who make them. It is the place where public, industry and press come to meet the independent makers and designers of the bicycle world. Framebuilders and cycle visionaries come from as far afield as Australia to show their latest creations, and are on-hand to discuss visitors’ bicycle dreams – be that the lightest titanium road bike built for speed and comfort, a robust adventure bike for weekend expeditions into the wild, or a cargo bike from which to run a business.
“So what is a handmade bicycle and why do I have to have one?” you may ask. A handmade bicycle is designed and made by the hands of a bicycle frame builder. A bespoke handmade bicycle is completely unique, there will be no other bicycle exactly like it in the world. It will be made and finished to your exact specification so that it perfectly fits and suits you and your riding style. With a bespoke bicycle, the options are limitless: custom racks, wider tyre clearance, bespoke bar-stem combos, the paint-job of your dreams with your name on the top tube... the list is endless. Having a bike custom-made is, quite simply, incomparable to buying something off the peg, even an eye-wateringly expensive high-end stock bike. At Bespoked most of the bikes on show will have been commissioned by individuals, and are the result of a partnership between customer and maker. With so much exciting new talent around - Hartley Cycles, Toad Custom Cycles, August Bicycles and Quirk Cycles to name a few - this year’s show promises to be the best yet. Alongside them will be the more established names of Swallow Bespoke, Shand Cycles, Enigma, Robin Mather Cycles and Demon Frameworks, all of which lead innovation in standards in the bicycle world. Many bikes on show will be previously unseen – Bespoked is the highlight in the framebuilders’ calendar and they all work hard to bring something special to the show. As well as classically beautiful bikes built for the road, track, mountains and town, you can expect to see the unexpected: from groundbreaking design to alternative visions from people who think outside the box. There will also be handmade cycling accessories, components, apparel, footwear, art and literature on show. Five of the UK’s bicycle framebuilding schools will be exhibiting, hoping to inspire you to build your own bike. An exciting program of talks will be taking place over the weekend (see www.bespoked.cc for details), the premier of The Hack Bike Derby film will be screened, and London cycle cafe Look Mum No Hands will be serving coffee, cakes, beer and more. All this in the UK’s first Cycling City. How fitting.
Fancy building your own bike?
experience necessary. At Bespoked five of the country’s top schools will be on hand to help you decide on the right course, whether it’s to build a first bike or advance your skills.
Choose from one of these top framebuilding schools
If you crave an even deeper connection with your bicycle than commissioning a custom build, a growing number of courses are on offer to guide you through the whole process of designing and making your own steel frame, with no previous
A typical five-day course will begin with a bike fitting session to ensure your bike is a perfect fit for you. You’ll learn the basics of frame geometry and design then you’ll start cutting and mitring tubes. You’ll learn to braze and, under close supervision, work through each step of the construction, the fitting of parts and the alignment, tracking and cleaning of the frame. By the end of the course you will have built your very own bicycle frame, and gained the skills necessary to go on and do more. Bicycles by Design in Telford were the first to offer week-long bicycle framebuilding courses back in 1993. The courses are taught by experienced framebuilders Peter Bird and Robert Wade, who produce the Swallow Bespoke frames. Courses are taught one to one using hand tools and jigs to make a made-to-measure lugged steel frame in just five days. They also offer wheel-building courses to complete your hand-built bicycle. bicycles-by-design.co.uk
Bespoked opens to the public on Friday 15th April from 2pm to 7pm, Saturday 16th April 9.30am to 6pm, Sunday 17th April 10am to 4.30pm. Advance tickets are £10 from bespoked.cc or £15 on the door.
The Bicycle Academy in Frome offers framebuilding courses and skills master classes for novices, enthusiasts and pro’s, and fully equipped workshop hire for those who don’t have their own. They specialise in teaching and offer a range of courses covering all aspects of bicycle design and manufacture. Set up by Andrew Denham, a mechanical design engineer who loves cycling, with Tony Corke, Ted James, Robin Mather and Paul Burford (BTR fabrications) on the illustrious list of staff. thebicycleacademy.org Downlands Cycles are a very established training centre running six, eight and 11 day framebuilding courses in the Kent countryside. They also offer a longer Level 3 VRQ course, and a tailored Professional Development Programme for those considering setting up as professional builders. Courses are taught by skilled framebuilders Bryan Jackson and Martyn Hay, who produce the Invicta brand of custom steel frames. You can even stay onsite in their bunkhouse to enjoy some local riding and homemade food. downlandcycles.co.uk
The Enigma Frame Building Academy was launched in 2014 by Enigma Bicycleworks. Responding to growing public demand for these courses, Enigma has opened its workshop doors to beginners. Students can build their own steel frame under the expert guidance of master framebuilder Geoff Roberts. You’ll also get an exclusive tour of the Enigma workshop, 8000sq feet of bicycle design, brazing, tig welding, shot blasting, painting and finishing. enigmabikes.com At Reilly Cycleworks occasional one-off courses have become regular monthly events offering a comprehensive and customisable package. Frame builders Mark Reilly and Adrian Parry share their enormous wealth of experience to help you build anything from a sprightly new road or track frame to a mud-loving cross/gravel or hardtail mountain bike. They’ll contact you as soon as you book on the course to advise you on the design of your frame and the options available. reillycycleworks.com
Cover image - Shand Cycles
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H ACK bike derby Hack it, tack it, build it, race it: recreating the early days of klunker racing in a forest in Somerset It wasn’t Northern California in the 70s, as the biblical rain and 60 mph winds reminded us. But the weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of the 16 framebuilders invited to take part in the first Hack Bike Derby over a weekend in February. The Derby is an annual two-day bike race event with a different type of bike and race proposed for each year, organised by Andrew Denham of The Bicycle Academy in Frome. The theme for this first year was klunker – harking back to the early days of mountainbiking in 70s California when legends like Gary Fisher, Tom Ritchey and Joe Breeze would use “part scavenger hunt and part black art” to put together the ‘klunker’ bikes they raced down mountain trails, invariably crashing spectacularly. The rules of The Derby are simple: participants make their own custom-made klunker-inspired mountain bike, build a course and then race them. The bikes must be made as cheaply as possible - preferably under £300, the dropouts must be ‘hacked’ (made) by the rider, the bike must have only one gear, 26” wheels, no disc or V brakes and no professional paint jobs. Stock car rules apply – if another builder thinks you have an unfair advantage you have to be prepared to swap bikes for a race. And what bikes they were! James McLean says in the film Klunkerz: “The relationship of klunkers to mountainbikes is like primates to humans, they’re not the same but they are related.” This was apparent in the fleet of idiosyncratic machines that the framebuilders created for the event, many with Frankenstein qualities. Andrew says he was “inspired by klunker racing, stock car racing, banger racing, gumball
rally, cannonball run, racing bikes around the park with your mates when you’re ten, building wooden go-karts, sitting on a skateboard and racing each other down a hill.” The Derby had been an idea in his head for three years, or perhaps since he was 10, setting fire to jumps in his back yard and filming himself and his mates jumping them. “It’s an opportunity for builders to make some bikes for the hell of it,” he says, “to meet up and ride with each other, race, let our hair down, to get creative in a less formal way, and most importantly, to have fun.” The weekend started with everyone mucking in to build the trails for the dual slalom and the timed downhill races. The axe quota was high – Tom Rowan of Rowan Frameworks even had one strapped to his bike. As night fell fires were lit and lightbulbs illuminated to mark out the dual slalom course through the woods. It was like Armageddon with the rain hammering down, the wind howling, all around was thick, thick mud and bikes slid round the berms. Mounds of smouldering hay bellowed out smoke, and a blazing fire jump marked the finish. Everyone spent the night in the forest and Sunday dawned bright. After a few cups of coffee and bowls of granola, the timed downhill race was on. The course was a narrow tree-lined singletrack with tight turns interspersed with jumps. There were a few spectacular crashes from Ted James (Ted James Design) and Tom Donhou (Donhou Bicycles), who suffered a dislocated thumb and damaged wrist during a collision with a tree, which knocked him out of the running. The final race was a Le Mans style mass start on the
fire track cutting through the forest. Paul Burford of BTR Fabrications was the overall winner, taking the trophy for the best finishes in all three events. To see the Hack Bike Derby klunker bikes and
to watch the premier of the film by Alex Rankin, head to Bespoked – The UK Handmade Bicycle Show from 15th – 17th April (bespoked.cc).
into the wild design by Loop Wheels (made in England) that helps to give the bike a smoother ride on rough ground, and a dynamo hub powers a USB charger and lights, so it can be self-sufficient in generating its own power supply. The bike is fully equipped with foraging tools including a mushroom knife, a sharpening stone and a foraging hook for getting those hard to reach treats. The locally-made detachable wicker picnic basket on the front rack carries up-cycled cooking pots and pans, plates and utensils made from (100% recyclable) pine tree fibres, a chopping board crafted from old boat decking, stainless steel water bottles and Thermos. But the pièce de résistance has to be the fire pit BBQ, for cooking all that foraged food in the beauty of the environment where you found it. Carried in a specially made pannier on the nondrive side of the bike, the foldout BBQ it specially designed to not damage the woodland floor. “I’d always wanted to build a cargo bike” says Darron of Sven Cycles, “but the catalyst for the
A bicycle for foraging and cooking on the go By their nature, every handmade bicycle is special. But every once in a while one comes along that gets you really excited, and The Forager is one of those very special projects that ignites a fire literally and metaphorically. Built by framebuilders Darron Sven Coppin and Andrew ‘Mog’ Mogford of Sven Cycles for chefs Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall and Gill Meller, The Forager bike has everything you need for
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collecting and cooking wild food on the go, as well as being a fully functional utility bike to help with the day to day running of the River Cottage working farm. The aesthetics of The Forager were inspired by the classic British Series 1 Land Rover, which you can see in the bronze green paint job and bespoke canvas bags designed and made by Restrap in Yorkshire. The front wheel is a revolutionary
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project was The Constructors’ Challenge at last year’s Bespoked - The UK Handmade Bicycle Show. It was a challenge to create a bike that serves a purpose greater than getting from A to B. This was the thing that made me think about it. So I dropped Hugh’s people a line and he was into the idea. It evolved from there.” “I’m incredibly pleased with The Forager,’ says Hugh. ‘It’s a brilliantly skillful and imaginative piece of engineering. And, even more importantly, it’s a joy to ride! I’m very much looking forward to a full-scale two-wheeled foraging expedition as soon as the first green shoots appear in the hedgerow!” If you fancy one for yourself then The Forager, fully equipped, will set you back a very reasonable £3,900. The bike will showcase at Bespoked - The UK Handmade Bicycle Show in Bristol from 15th to 17th April, where Darron from Sven Cycles will be talking about it on the Saturday. To book tickets head to bespoked.cc. svencycles.com Photos: Jonathan Gooding
bespoked times
bespoked B uilds nothing compares to a bespoke handmade bicycle, there will be no other like it in the world. here is A small selection of unique handmade bicycles designed and made by independent framebuilders. more bikes of this calabre will be on show at bespoked - The uk handmade bicycle show in bristol from 15th - 17th april.
Enigma
Hartley Cycles
Legend
Toad Custom Cycles
Mawis-Bikes
Hallett Handbuilt Cycles
Saffron Frameworks
Dear Susan
AOI.CYCLE
Winter Bicycles
Keim
Craddock Cycles
Demon Frameworks
MerĂŠnyi Bicycles
Saffron Frameworks / Kosuka bespoked.cc
Rusby Cycles
Llewellyn Custom Bicycles 5
bespoked times
adventure
touring through time
Two ladies take a break during a bike ride in the snow c1950’s
Has cycle touring really changed that much in the last 140 years? The CTC’s Tony Upfold charts it’s evolution from the first recorded longdistance bike journey in 1869 The oil-powered lamps have given way to LED lights, the tweed trousers have morphed into figure-hugging Lycra and cool wraparound sunglasses have left goggles in the shade. As for the bike itself, who wants wrought iron and wood when you can have a custom-made machine in steel or titanium? Cloth-backed maps and sepia-tint photographs have evolved into GPS and GoPro – and when it comes to keeping in touch on your travels, you might find Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram a little more immediate than sending a postcard. Yes, cycle touring has changed beyond recognition over the past 140 years. Only it hasn’t changed at all, really. At the end of the day it’s you, on two wheels, out in the open air, exploring the world with a spirit of freedom and adventure – just as it was in the 19th century. You only have to look at a dictionary definition of the word ‘tour’: A journey for pleasure in which several different places are visited. And there can be no more pleasure than when that journey is done on a bike. Whether you go it alone or in a group, it’s liberating because you choose not just where you go, but how you tour and on what. The pannier-laden tourer cruising quiet lanes between campsites or Youth Hostels became a time-honoured image because it was, and remains, a relaxing way to travel. But the growing popularity of off-road, bikepacking and go-anywhere gravel bikes has made tarmac-free touring more practical than ever. We can probably thank John Mayall for getting the wheels rolling on the whole concept of exploring the great outdoors on a bike. On 17 February 1869, he set off with two friends from Trafalgar Square in London, bound for Brighton – the first recorded long journey in the short history of the bicycle. He overcame the poor, pitted roads of the day to complete his 53-mile trip after 15 hours – an “extraordinary velocipede feat” reported by The Times. Mayall’s timber and iron cycle weighed 93lb (42kg), three times the weight of an average bike today. London-
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Brighton has since become perhaps the most cycled distance route in the UK, although not many of the thousands who ride it each year tend to wear the leather boots and frock coat favoured by moustachioed Mayall 147 years ago. The advent of the safety bicycle in the 1880s saw touring really take off. Unlike its predecessor, the penny-farthing, the ‘safety’ had two wheels of equal size and was propelled through a gear attached to the rear hub. Cycle touring had already become well established by the time the ‘safety’ appeared. Indeed, it was popular enough to support the formation of the Bicycle Touring Club in 1878, which became the Cyclists’ Touring Club five years later and is now known simply as CTC – the oldest transport and tourism organisation in the world. This era also saw the birth of the legendary End to End ride, as a pair of cyclists covered 896 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 13 days in 1880. More than 5,000 people are now estimated to make that same trip each year, usually over nine or 14 days. The End to End has since been joined on the challenge calendar by the likes of the Coast to Coast, Ridgeway, South Downs Way and Lôn Las Cymru Trail – to name but a few. The early cyclists’ sense of adventure soon took on global proportions. In 1896, British travel author John Foster Fraser left home to pedal around the world with two friends, covering 19,237 miles and visiting 17 countries. He documented his epic journey in the book ‘Round The World On A Wheel’. Today’s adventure tourers are inspired by the likes of Mark Beaumont, who recorded his record-breaking 194-day circumnavigation of the globe in ‘The Man Who Cycled The World’. There was also a fashion breakthrough in the 1890s which made life a whole lot easier for female cyclists as they started wearing bloomers, rather than the voluminous dresses of the period which could get caught in the wheel cogs. The 1920s and ’30s were a boom time for cycle touring. New workers’ rights meant paid
holidays, often spent cycling, and the growth of the keep-fit movement also heralded a new form of two-wheeled test – the one-year challenge. Astonishingly, the women’s one-year world record still stands and the men’s was only broken on 4th January this year. Camden-born Billie Fleming set the women’s mark of 29,603.7 miles in 1938, a distance Nottingham’s Kajsa Tylen aims to beat in 2016. The incredible distance of 75,065 miles, ridden by Britain’s Tommy Godwin in 1939 on a steel bike with four gears, was finally overtaken at the start of this year by American Kurt Searvogel. Godwin and Searvogel rode more than 205 miles every day for 12 months. For those more inclined to cover that distance in a week, back in the 1930s the Cyclists’ Touring Club advertised an all-in tour for £3 10sh, staying at hotels recommended by cyclists. The Youth Hostel movement also arrived on the scene and proved immediately popular. Eighty years later, CTC Cycling Holidays and Tours Ltd sell an average of 1,200 holidays a year, mainly to Europe but also India and the Far East, and are just one of dozens of travel companies who specialise in a vast range of cycle trips, whether it’s a charity ride across Cuba, a jaunt from London to Paris or a sportive such as L’Etape du Tour. This growth of organised cycle holidays started around 1980 – a natural development following the heyday of touring in the 1950s and 60s, when people plotted their own routes and arranged their own accommodation. It is estimated that British cyclists spent £120million on 450,000 organised cycling holidays in 2006 and another 2.5million people included some cycling activity in their annual holiday. Clearly, cycling is big business – and the key word in 2016 is choice. Cyclists used to tour on what they had, which meant that the default clubman’s bike was something of an all-rounder – not unlike, in scope at least, the adventure road bikes or gravel bikes of today. Now bikes as a whole have evolved and diversified to fill lots of different niches. You might tour on an expedition tourer with a steel frame and 26 inch wheels, a classic 700C British tourer with a drop bar, a cyclocross-style adventure road bike with bikepacking bags, a fat bike, a Continental-style trekking bike, a folding bike or any of lots of other kinds of bikes. Basically, you can select a bike that fully optimises the kind of touring that you want to do. You can even get it made especially for you. Steel remains the go-to material for touring bikes. It’s durable and strong, and the extra weight scarcely matters when you
factor in luggage. If you do want a lighter frame, there’s aluminium or, for those with deeper pockets, titanium. While bike types have diversified, bike groupsets have polarised around road bikes and mountain bikes, and in general the specialisation has meant that it’s become harder to mix and match. Flat-bar tourers are fine, they can use mountain bike gearing. Drop-bar tourers have to make some compromises between low-enough gearing and ease of shifting. Another issue for tourers is that the industry has, like Spinal Tap, been turning it up to 11 when it comes to gearing. This has meant more steps between gears rather than a wider range of gears. As 11- and 10-speed trickle down to the lower price points it has made it harder to source quality 9- and 8-speed components – which can be more durable. Epicyclic gears, on the other hand, are better than ever, with Rohloff already popular among those with deep pockets and Pinion perhaps about to become so. It isn’t just the bike which has benefitted from advances in technology. Lightweight materials and fabrics mean you can still carry as much kit as before but at a fraction of the weight (and cost), not to mention keeping dry and warm in thin, insulating clothing. When it comes to carrying that luggage, bikepacking bags have introduced a retro look, attached as they are to the handlebar, seatpost and frame by straps – much like the old days. Which just goes to show that while much has changed, an awful lot has really stayed the same. Whatever bike you use, and wherever you go, most of you out there are touring, whether you want to call it that or not. On or off-road, you can admire the scenery, stop where and when you want and still travel a reasonable distance in a few hours – keeping fit and healthy in the process. To tour is to explore. Just as those Victorian pedalling pioneers were doing all those years ago. CTC, the national cycling charity, helps people to start cycling and to keep cycling – providing advice, campaigning for improved cycling facilities and supporting all cyclists, irrespective of age or ability. We have 67,000 members and are introducing an exciting new look in 2016 which reflects that we are cycling in the UK. Membership benefits include cycle product discounts, £10million third party insurance, cycling legal helpline and a warm welcome at thousands of UK rides and events. Email: membership@ctc.org.uk Tel: 01483 238301 Website: https://www.ctc.org.uk
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adventure
A beautifully hard bicycle race A personal account of the gruelling 4000km transcontinental Race Number 3 from the legendary Muur van Geraardsbergen in Belgium to the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul. by russell stout of shand cycles The feeling of dejection was total as we sat on the platform waiting for the 09:50 train to Milan. We’d been on the road for a week, but any thought of reaching Istanbul was over as I texted race director Mike Hall to say we’d scratched. We’d actually made the decision 12 hours earlier, but after giving it one last go we knew our hearts just weren’t in it. As we sat in the sunshine we reflected on the enormity of the previous days. It was difficult to comprehend how far we’d come, having embarked on the mad dash from the flatlands of Belgium to the very western edge of Asia. However, for us, this year’s Transcontinental Race was not to be. The race started at midnight on the legendary Muur van Geraardsbergen in Belgium with cowbells, flaming torches and rowdy townsfolk, as Fraser [Glass of Shand Cycles], myself and 173 other riders headed into the night, unsure of what exactly lay ahead. Our heads full of apprehension in our ability to reach the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul before the official finishing party in 14 days time. The first nights’ riding was relatively uneventful and after an hour’s snooze in a churchyard around 5am, we were woken by rain and in no time it was bucketing down. Back on the road, we were nearing the French border when I managed to slip, crashing to the ground closely followed by Fraser riding over the top of me. As it was wet we had on all our gear, which saved the worst injury, but I was pretty beat up with deep gravel rash to my knee and backside, a grizzly puncture wound to my forearm and a badly staved thumb. Fraser was not fairing too well either with a pulled Achilles, aggravating an old injury. We patched ourselves up and continued, sore but in one piece, and were relieved to reach our target for the day with the first 300km and 20 hours of riding in the bag. A few more long days brought us towards the first checkpoint on the summit of Mont Ventoux in Provence. Our planned schedule had us climbing early morning, but as we were now half a day behind schedule we expected an uncomfortable ascent in afternoon heat compounded by 150km in the legs. Slowly we ground our way up the notorious climb and enjoyed the sense of relief in reaching the summit, rewarded by spectacular views and kind words of support from the checkpoint team. Inevitably, what goes up must
come down and we had further rewards careering through pinewood forests to Sault in the early evening sun, Fraser’s superior descending skills leaving me for dead on the corners. By now the cracks were starting to show with hands and backside raw from 14-hour days on the bike, further compounded by injuries from the crash. All the time the race clock was ticking and we knew we were falling behind schedule and it would be difficult if not impossible to make up time. We reached checkpoint 2 the next night after riding through spectacular landscapes with mountains growing more and more impressive as we pushed further into the Alps. The climbing was hard but it was good to be away from the dull monotony of rolling farmland and to have the scenery and change of pace take the mind off physical discomfort. Arriving at Sestriere around 10pm another TCR checkpoint team were in the hotel lobby to greet us and stamp our carnets. Race director Mike Hall happened to be there too and I had a quick chat about how things were going. He warned about the Strada dell-Assieta that lay ahead the next day, telling tales of punctures and general carnage. I thought I could detect concern he might have made this year’s race just a little too hard. The hotel had kindly put on rooms at discounted rates, so after scoffing some pizza nearby, we made use of the luxury to get clean, replace dressings and get a good sleep for the day ahead - a pleasant change from roughing it in a bivi bag. We were up early and after stuffing faces (and pockets) from the breakfast buffet, we wheeled our bikes into the cool mountain air and towards the Strada. In no time we were off paved road and onto gravel winding through sweet scented pine trees onto the old military road than runs along the high alpine ridge from Sestriere to Susa. The views were spectacular and we took delight in skipping along unpaved roads similar to our favourite roads in Scotland. However, the fun was short lived and as we descended the 2,000m towards the valley below, our spirits sank as the heat became oppressive and we knew we were in for a long and tedious slog across northern Italy. The headwind had picked up too and as the adrenalin of the morning faded, we returned to flat monotony and aches
and pains as we rolled through agricultural flatlands and industrial towns and cities. By now we knew there was no chance of reaching the finishing party in time and we’d also be cutting it fine to catch our flight home. It called for drastic action so we decided we’d miss the Vokovar checkpoint 3 in Croatia and take a ferry to Montenegro. Two ferry crossings across the Adriatic were allowed in the race rulebook and although there’d be a penalty for missing a checkpoint, we knew we’d effectively abandoned the race. Our hearts were heavy as we deviated from our route and headed for Ancona, battling the wind and the dull monotony that comes from 15km stretches of flat, straight roads through fields of maize and mosquito infested drainage ditches. Monotony was compounded further after running out of GPS maps (I’d only installed enough map tiles to cover our planned route) so now there was no virtual targets on the GPS screen to play mind games with – which is about all you can do when focusing on pedal stroke for hours on end, and regularly changing hand and seat position to ease discomfort. And so came the night of our decision to quit, sitting on the terrace of a gelateria café, drenched from another of the thunderstorms that had followed the continental heat wave. We had
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covered just under 1,800kms, but there didn’t feel much point in carrying on if we couldn’t technically finish the race. Fraser had family he was missing deeply and I had commitments to think about too, so it was rather emotional to make the final decision – especially after months of training and the patience of loved ones, colleagues and supporters who neither of us wanted to let down. In the end, however, it came down to just the two of us as we shook hands and finished the box of jellybeans we’d been munching. Josh Ibbett eventually won the 3rd Transcontinental Race after riding 4,239km in an astonishing 10 days (9 days, 23 hours, 54 minutes to be exact). 175 Racers departed from the Muur van Geraardsbergen and with only half the field finishing, it proved to be a much tougher race than anyone expected. It took a while to get over the disappointment in scratching, but as I’m writing this I received an email yesterday to say my application for 2016 has been accepted. The route for 2016 looks totally fantastic and with more mountains will take a very different race strategy with just as much commitment as before. An exciting prospect for sure. shandcycles.com transcontinental.cc
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adventure
W est Coast Epic Matthew Mcfarlane and his wife Saki embarked on a largely unplanned 56 day tour of West Coast America by bike, which saw them hiding panniers up trees, having a Spanish shower at the Marin Museum of Bicycling and being given food by strangers. Ted James was the man to listen to my ideas on the build for this trip. We had been on a good few off-road shreds together and our chats about frame and fork designs had left me inspired and in awe. The result was a Reynolds 853 copperplated tourer with S&S couplers. The S&S couplers meant I could break down my bike and fit in checked-in luggage, rather than a pricey bike bag, leaving only two pannier bags to walk on as hand luggage. My wife, Saki, and I had only ever been on one bike tour before, nine days on the west coast of Scotland back in 2014. Saki, who is a painter and illustrator, wanted to visit her sister who had moved to San Jose from Japan. I was only willing to go if we could do it on bikes. To counter my suggestion, Saki said she’d do it on bikes if she could have an exhibition in San Francisco. So that’s what we did. We flew straight into Seattle and hung out there for a couple of days to acclimatise and pick up some essentials - a solar panel charging device, sleeping bag liners and a new fuel pump, then headed downtown to board the ferry to Bainbridge, a small island which is great for cycling. The first night we camped at Fay Bainbridge Park. As we were setting up our tent a local family who had been having a 4th July picnic walked over and offered us food. We couldn’t believe our luck. That night we ate roast chicken, mashed potatoes and a summer berry crumble pie with cream. In the morning we packed up and headed
the door Saki was being mobbed by a bunch of locals asking her where she was going, how long have you been travelling? Have you seen the Hoh Rainforest? Where have you come from? Are you with a charity? Everyone was so friendly and interested in where we were at in our travels, and trying to help with directions - almost too many conflicting directions. All I wanted to do was get to Port Angeles. If only I had planned this trip properly my poor wife and I wouldn’t be lost. Just then a really nice lady introduced herself. She was a godsend. She’d done some touring around the peninsula and told us how to get there and even gave us an old map from her car. We left the supermarket to catch a bus to Port Angeles. It might not be everybody’s cup of tea boarding a bus with your bike, but when you realise you’re lost and there isn’t much to see as the rainforests are blocking your view inland, it’s not such a bad option. Being out on the peninsula on a bike was not as straightforward as I’d thought - there weren’t many back roads near the coast, or further inland. A few hours later we were in Port Angeles. We loaded up the bikes and headed up Hurricane Ridge – our first serious mountain climb. It was five miles to the campground from the base of the mountain and 17 miles in total to the summit. The first night we stayed behind the ranger station because the campground was full and we heard there were bears and they were keen on human food. Climbing to the summit of Hurricane Ridge took nearly four hours from the heart of the hills.
North West. After a quick stop in Poulso, a small port town with Scandinavian/Vikings roots, we headed up Big Valley Road to Kitsap Memorial State Park, a 58 acre campsite with sweeping views of Hood Canal. Crossing the Hood Canal was amazing. When I think of a canal it doesn’t look anything like a giant river. This thing was bigger and faster flowing than any canal I have ever seen. I’d heard lots of stories about the bridge, and it was busy, but luckily it was gridlocked and we cycled down the hard shoulder in peace. The ranger at Kitsap had told us to find Paradise Bay Road as this would take a lot of the Route 104 off our route. Paradise Bay Road took us all the way into Port Ludlow Bay, which then turned into Oak Bay Road. This is when we started to get a little bit lost. Luckily we saw a supermarket so I popped in to see if I could charm a map. Leaving Saki outside with the bikes, I didn’t find one single map in the place. As I approached
We didn’t hang around at the top as Saki was worried we might lose our camping space or worse, a hungry bear might scoff our food. The ride down was another challenge. Some of the corners have no barriers and heading down a mountain at high speed for 12 uninterrupted miles with 8% on some of the switchbacks was starting to make me feel light-headed. The next day we headed west for Lake Crescent. It was heaving with people and usually I wouldn’t enjoy myself as much but the lake was so big you could slip off and find your own private beach. Even with the screaming of people jumping off cliff faces and the speedboats in the background it was still a well-deserved relaxing night. The next morning we woke up to a very orange sky. It was like this for the whole day, there were major fires over in Canada on Victoria Island and smoke had blown over. We left Fairholm along the 101 to get to Forks. This was our first experience of logging traffic and we quickly opted out of
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riding any more on highway 101. From Forks we took the bus right down to the bottom of Washington State to a place called Aberdeen, an old logging town that had fallen into bumsville. From there we took the Astoria Bridge over the border into Oregon. We were now on path to join the Columbia River, heading down on Route 30 all the way into Portland and the Chris King factory to pick up some hubs and have a tour of the workshop. From Odell we took a nice winding route through Parkdale to Mount Hood Timberline Lodge, which was used for the opening credits of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The Pacific Crest Trail that runs along the west side of Warm Spring Reservation was an absolute joy, but at the same time a bit sad to see the natives of this land holding on to a reservation area. We followed the Deschutes River out of Warm Springs onto Redmond. We covered a lot of mileage that day, 80 odd miles, bit it was only because of the wind pushing on our backs the whole day. Bend, Oregon was amazing and we had been told about a really nice route to get us down into Chemult through the Cascade Lakes National Scene Byway. The byway was mind blowing. We hadn’t seen anything like it since we were out on the Peninsula on the Olympic Mountain Range. In the end it took us two days from Bend to Chemult, where we popped into a ranger station for a local fire road map, then got seriously lost taking a further two days to get to Crater Lake National Park. Waking up on the ridge of Crater Lake I thought: life can be so simple when all you think about is food and somewhere safe to sleep at night. We took the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway to Klamath Falls. This was the best bike ride my eyes have ever seen, a 500 mile byway from volcano to volcano. There was so much to see on this byway. At this point Saki was getting anxious about her up coming show in San Francisco, so, as much as I wanted to stay cycling on the Scenic Byway, we boarded a train over the border into California to her sister’s house in San Jose. After Saki’s show opened we did some more touring, to Big Sur, Santa Cruz, Big Basin, Boulder City, San Francisco and Fairfax, the coolest place in California. We went to the Marin Museum of
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Cycling where we met Joe Breezer’s wife. She let us use the toilet to have a Spanish shower, which is washing yourself top to toe using the sink. In total I don’t think we did over 1000 miles but Saki is adamant we did because of all the getting lost and detours. It’s funny, I remember cycling in the wrong direction with her for a whole day and then cycling all the way back the following day to get on track. The bike was amazing. Faultless. I had the best of both worlds: the gentleman and reprobate. On the whole 56 days I only came off the bike once and that was because I wasn’t using my brakes on a switch back. I thought I had it under control but before I knew it I was off the bike and rolling down the side of the hill. So many parts of the trip were my favourite, but the most memorable is passing through the High Cascades in Oregon and hanging out in Marin County, going to bicycle manufacturers Phil Wood and Chris King. But the outdoors wins hands down every time. Back in London I really miss the big open sky. We experienced a lot of ups and downs. I never quite understood why you would cycle uphill for five miles, go down for two miles then up again. I still definitely had the best time ever on the bike with my very patient wife. For lots more pictures and videos of Matt and Saki’s trip, check out Matt’s Instagram: @beautyandthetour For a bike like Matt’s go to tedjamesdesign.com
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meet the m aker We talk to award winning framebuilder Toby Gallagher of Toad Custom Cycles Tell us how the name Toad came about. Toad is my nickname. When I was really small I would write my name everywhere, but occasionally I would get the ‘b’ mixed up with a ‘d’, so Toby became Toady, and soon Toad. I wanted to put my name on my bikes but Gallagher was going to cost too much in the paint shop, so I went with Toad. How long have you been building and what got you into it? I’ve been frame building since 2012. I was looking for a way to get out of the 9 to 9 desk job I had as an architect, I love physically making things and architecture was going more and more digital. I had always been tinkering with bikes and I felt frame building would be a good progression from that. What defines your style as a framebuilder? I think I am still looking for my style, I didn’t want to pigeonhole my self too early. I approach each project rather like I would when I worked as an architect, starting with the concept design and then putting it together stage by stage. I suppose, in a way, I am an architect of bicycles now. Who or what has inspired you? I really love how the digital age has allowed people to be more open about what they do. The framebuilding community is pretty close and so we are all inspired by what others are doing, and that pushes us all to do better and bolder stuff. It is incredibly generous that so many framebuilders share what they do and how they do it, so many questions are answered, many queries resolved. There is a rich pool of talent in the UK at the moment doing some incredible work, it drives me to be better. You work only in steel - what is your tubeset of choice? Difficult question as each tubeset has its merits, but I think my absolute favourite would have to be Columbus Zona. It is a very versatile tubeset
with which you could make any bike, from a 29er MTB to a sleek roadie. Yes, it isn’t going to be as light as some of the more slender tubes or as stiff as some of the stainless offerings, but it is very easy to work with, brazes beautifully, and doesn’t break the bank - great for making test or prototype bikes. How many frames have you built and which has been your favourite? I have lost count of all the frames, but of the ones that have gone out the door I am up to number 24. I think the Eroica build (above right) I exhibited at last years’ Bespoked has to be my favourite, just because of how unusual it was by todays standards. I spent a lot of time looking at old pictures from the 1960’s just to make sure I was getting the details all right. I think the plan changed direction six or seven times during the build: which brakes am I going to use? Where will the pump go? Do I route the brake cable through the stem? It isn’t often you can just make changes as you go along.
including their mitering fixtures. What is your favourite tool or piece of machinery and why? It has to be the Anvil jig, it is very easy to set up and use, a real time saver.
Have you had any outlandish requests? A bicycle to cycle to the park with the dog in a basket on the front - 20” front wheel, 26” rear... that was a fun one and did actually get built. I also did a small town runaround using the Loopwheels that were exhibited at Bespoked in 2014. There is a cool quadricycle on the drawing board at the moment that I hope will go ahead as there is a lot of engineering I need to get my head around to make it work, and I love that sort of challenge. What machinery and tooling do you have in your workshop? As far as tools go, I am in a bit of a transition. Up until now I have essentially only used a hacksaw, a drill and some files, but I have recently moved into my new workshop in Cambridge and have been tooling up a bit more to help the business grow. I have had the Anvil jig since 2012, but have recently added a few more of their tools,
How did it feel to win the public vote at Bespoked 2015? It was amazing. It was a long weekend and on Sunday afternoon I was pretty tired and was in the middle of stuffing my face with a chocolate croissant when I heard my name on the speaker. It took me a while to understand what was going on, and I had to rush over to accept the award, making sure I didn’t have any crumbs in my beard. I was a bit nervous about showing a 1960’s inspired bike, with all the super contemporary stainless/electronic/disc bikes around, but the public really engaged in the vintage bike. It was great to see the smiles grow on people’s faces when they saw it. It made the weekend very special indeed.
What is your weapon of choice? Weapon of choice at the moment is the gravel bike I exhibited at Bespoked 2014, it is just so versatile. I have 28c tyres and mudguards on for the winter months but I’m looking forward to shedding those once the weather improves in the spring. If you weren’t a framebuilder, what would you be? I hope I would still be making things. I have made a few bits of bespoke furniture for family and friends, like coffee tables and floor lamps, so I would probably focus on that a bit more. I would definitely try to avoid going back to the commute-desk-commute life that I had before frame building though.
What can we expect to see on your stand at Bespoked 2016? I will definitely be showing a disc road bike with
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If someone wants a Toad custom bicycle, what’s the ordering process and how long is your waiting list? An order will always start with a conversation. I will need to understand what you desire in as much detail as possible so I can quote accurately. Once the quote is in place a deposit can be made and then we can really get down to business. I can build from existing dimensions, but I prefer to see the rider on their bike so I can make sure they are riding the best possible position. From then it’s pretty straightforward: design the frame, order the tubes, cut and braze the tubes, send to paint, collect remainder of the quote, send to the customer. The waiting list is a few months at the moment as I am a bit behind thanks to the workshop relocation.
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a very specific paint job that I hope is going to look killer. The client is taking the bike on a ride from Paris to Berlin in May, and the route has inspired the paintwork. I don’t want to give away too much, you will have to wait until the show. I have a few options for the other bikes, but there will be a maximum of three bikes on my stand so I will need to choose carefully. Where is your favourite place to ride and why? My favourite place to ride is on the hills out the back of Kintbury, West Berkshire, where I first started Toad. The land crumples up into this little networks of hills and valleys, and there is some amazing riding with little or no traffic. There is also the infamous Coombe Gibbet climb, a nasty 16% climb up to the hangman’s gibbet on Walbury Hill - a good test to see if you are in good shape for the summers riding. The move to Cambridge has changed the landscape a bit. Flatter is the adjective of choice. I am still looking for the best places around here, there are some hidden gems.
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