Bespoked Bicycle Expo 2017 - 12 Picks from the Show

Brunel’s Old Station in Bristol opened its doors to the 7th annual UK Handmade Bicycle Show ‘Bespoked’ this past weekend to showcase the best of British and overseas handmade bicycles, components, and goods.

Over 100 framebuilders and designers had their craft on display, many for the first time, and the show certainly had its usual buzz, despite a few exhibitors looking slightly sleep-deprived after pulling all-nighters getting their frames show-ready for the opening day. It’s that deep passion for handcrafted bicycles of all shapes, sizes and tribes that differentiates this show from the industrial-scale likes of Interbike and Eurobike.

New exhibitors to the show were amazed by the setting and the amount of interest shown by the visiting public, and for those that did step into the Hallowed Hall of Handmade, it looked like they were really enjoying finding out about this growing movement in the cycling world, complete with the individual stories of graft and passion that lay behind each and every product at show.

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England’s very own Curtis Bikes had two new frames on show, an as-yet unnamed full suspension prototype and the Curtis ‘AM+’. The latter comes with an 83mm BB shell and a 148mm rear end, which Curtis claims to give a perfect 1x11 chainline whist keeping the chain away from the chubbiest of tyres. The factory spec is built for a 120mm fork with a 66.5° headtube angle, but of course the geometry can be tailored to your preference.

The full suspension prototype belongs to Curtis team rider Jim Davage, but it was eye-catching enough for Curtis to receive orders - and awards - at the show.

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Hailing from Leeds, the team behind Carbon Wasp brought along two of their latest frames: an aggressive hardtail and a full suspension rig, both 29ers.

The hardtail has a 67° head angle and 415mm chainstays, giving it a short back end and a relatively long front end, but of course, all of this can be customised to order. The downtube on this bespoke frame was a little chunkier than what you’d expect, and on closer inspection it turned out that the lower half of it contained an internal storage compartment, ideal for stashing a spare tube or a Clif Bar or two. It’s not a new idea of course, but a nice example of the uniqueness that custom designed builds can bring.

The full suspension frame was designed for all-day riding. It’s been in development for three years, featuring a suspension design developed by Carbon Wasp themselves. The frame is still in development, according to designer Adrian, and a few more changes are in the pipeline over the next couple of weeks, along with new carbon fibre handlebars.

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Not satisfied with being one of the UK’s premiere framebuilding schools, The Bicycle Academy are now making tools for framebuilders around the world. Their main offering, due to launch soon, will be a game-changing frame jig, simply named the ‘Low Cost Frame Fixture’. With current frame jigs costing builders around £3,000, The Bicycle Academy have managed to slim down production costs and are looking to retail their low-cost version at £500-800. This will surely make framebuilding a lot more accessible, and could shift the bespoke bicycle industry towards products that are within a lot more people’s reach.

Rather than having integrated measuring devices and custom extruded beams, the Low Cost Frame Fixture simply supplies you with a flexible metal measuring ruler that you can slot into place around the jig against built-in datums, to get your critical measurements. All the instructions are in the box but the assembly of the jig looked pretty straightforward thanks to each part being numbered akin to some sort of Ikea flat pack setup. James from Academy Tools who designed the jig, claimed that it was possible to have your jig set up and running in a matter of a few hours. The finish is raw steel (to save costs) and that in itself gave the jig a nice industrial look. Plus, at the end of the day you’re saving yourself over £2,000!

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Burf and Tam from BTR Fabrications were proudly - and quite rightly so, because she’s a stunner - giving the world its first look at their revamped and re-engineered single pivot, linkage actuated, steel full-suspension do-it-all trail destroyer, the ‘Pinner’.

It’s their second iteration of the design, featuring larger diameter lighter-weight Reynolds tubing, and is now available to order in four sizes, for both 26” and 27.5” wheels. In a move that mimics their full bike packages available for their existing ‘Ranger’ aggressive hardtail, the BTR boys will be offering a choice of two shocks on the Pinner, complete with component specs in line with those the guys choose to ride themselves. The ‘Tam Edition’ builds will run a Cane Creek DB Coil shock, with the ‘Burf Edition’ builds featuring a custom-valved Extreme Shox Storia Lok.

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Petor’s ‘Old School Trails’ bike is designed around riding and chilling out around the coastline, and it certainly looked like something that could have washed ashore on a desert island.

Originally trained as a sculptor, a few years back Petor discovered framebuilding and eventually moved out of London for coastal Margate, where he found himself doing a lot of riding by the sea and camping on beaches.

Now with his own workshop in Margate, Petor is busy building unconventional frames for unconventional people. His Old School Trails bike took him a mighty three days to design and build, and is based on Geoff Apps’ ‘Cleland’, which itself is based on the geometry of a 1950s/60s trials motorbike. Its 29+ wheels means it can roll over the most challenging terrain, its Pinion gearbox and belt drive mean it’s virtually maintenance-proof, its BMX handlebar means you’re in a more upright position to enjoy the vista as you ride along the sand and rockpools, and the tubes were individually nickel-plated inside and out under the copper finish before brazing, so it’s fully protected from any salty sea water.

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Bear Frame Supplies is a UK supplier of numerous frame parts, so if you need machined dropouts, bosses, heads tubes, you name it, Aaron and his wife’s business is the place to go. Having been a framebuilder himself not so long ago, Aaron realised making bespoke frames wasn’t sitting right with him, and after speaking to the likes of Adrian Bedford at Swarf, he decided to get into machining parts for the industry instead.

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The yet-to-be-officially-named short travel 29er from Adrian at Swarf was nestled on the end of the Bear Frame Supplies stand. The frame features many of the machined parts made by Aaron Ward at Bear Bikes and built-up, weighs in at approximately 30.8lb with a Cane Creek coil shock. It has a 67° head angle, 75.5° seat angle and 445mm chainstay. Like Adrian’s previous hugely popular but complex to build 26” Curve frame (as seen at Bespoked 2014), this teal powdercoated rig was one of the show’s biggest eye-catchers.

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After getting feedback from their customers who were seemingly perplexed at the amount of variety on offer by Shand Cycles, the guys behind the Scottish company decided to streamline their range to make things simpler for potential customers, and to help keep costs down in production.

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Award-winning designer and framebuilder Ted James had a variety of frames on show, including his iconic ‘rusty’ BMX. For mountain bikers, two frames stood out, one of which was a dirt jump/park frame, and the other an aggressive 142x12 bolt-through flat bar street bike with a custom made fork, based on a previous ESB (Extra Strong Beast) frame, all made from Reynolds tubing.

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After having built a Klunker-style frame for the infamous Hack Bike Derby last year, Toby from Toad was inspired to make a second, more modern 650b version with updated components, which he had on show amongst his award-winning touring bikes. Toby’s display bike was configured with a rigid fork and high-rise bars, but it’s equally at home with suspension forks and trail-style riser bars.

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Celebrating their 20th anniversary year, Czech Republic-based Duratec are masters of alloy production bikes, eschewing the mostly steel-built bikes at the show. They also develop custom carbon frames, but high-end 7020-T6 aluminium alloy is their material of choice. Like most of the others builders at Bespoked, they offer a comprehensive tailor-made service across their range of MTB, road, track, time-trial, CX, tandem and fat bikes, all with custom fit and geometry, and they work in partnership with UK-based Bicycles by Design. Amongst the carbon and alloy frames on their stand was the ‘Fat Jack’ fat bike, featuring super-clean lines, customised paint-job, and custom-shaped top and down tubes to spread load and reduce shock, leading to a more comfortable ride. In fact, all of Duratec’s frames are supremely elegant and clean, with an almost hydroformed look.

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The University of Iowa isn’t a name you’d expect to find at a hand-built bike show, but then again, this university is a bit of a rarity in that it has its own framebuilding program, and for the first time, they decided to exhibit at Bespoked. The courses they offer are pretty unique, especially as they count towards both the engineering major and the art major. Students in the first course build a steel frame, and in the second course choose their material and get more creative with their designs. Students come from all over the world, with hundreds of them passing through UI’s Hand Built Bicycle Program’s doors.

One of the academics from the faculty had his own titanium race bike at the show, the ‘ArrowHED’, having already put it to use in a race earlier this year. The bike is the third iteration of his design, specifically for use in winter ultra-races. The idea for the design centres around bringing any carried equipment towards the middle of the frame to help with weight distribution, and being a single-speed design (down to rider preference), if it suddenly snows, the rider can switch out the wheels to something more appropriate.

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MENTIONS: @BTRfabrications / @swarfcycles / @fraktiv

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