Tomo Bikes

Author: joncyclet

  • Favourite build?

    At a recent event someone asked me what my favourite build was. That’s a difficult one to answer and probably changes over time or for different reasons but the one bellow is up there.

    I wanted to make one of these after seeing Paul Brodie produce a version of the Giraffe Bike on his excellent YouTube channel. Paul kept his pretty close to the original but I preferred to change the shape (length) slightly for a better fit and to ease traveling with it, I decided to make it foldable. It’s more Moulton than Brompton but it does make it appreciably smaller. I made this to show at the Brazin handmade bike show in Glasgow in 2024 and ended up finishing it on the day I travelled to Scotland so was completely untested. Can’t wait to take it on a proper tour.

  • Cyclist Film Festival

    What a great fun day with a visit to The Woods Cyclery, some tall bike demo rides before riding an untested route to Eastleigh for the film festival evening with Joel and Alex the producers of the Frankenbiking film. Local James came too which helped greatly with the navigation.

    The weather wasn’t that friendly and some of the off-road was pretty greasy. We had a decent amount of jeapody for a mini adventure, with some off-road dark downhilling, forrest bog trudge and closed road challenge.

    The organisers were kind enough to let us host a quick Q&A. We did have to clean our selves and the bikes to get them into the cinema though:)

    There’s 2 last shows in Piccadilly on Friday 7th and Westfield on Saturday the 8th for a really great programme of bike films. Checkout the Cyclistfilmfestival.co.uk website for the location and get tickets.

  • Frankenbiking @ Cyclist Film festival

    We were involved in the Award Winning Tall Bike film Frankenbiking last year since when it has won a number of awards. It is now included in the Cyclist Film Festival that is showing across the UK in Jan and Feb 2025 together with a great set of other independent and award winning films. The programme is over two hours long so if you want to see and support some independent bike films check their website for your nearest showing https://www.cyclistfilmfestival.co.uk

  • Custom racks

    Racks are one of the nice accessories to produce for a bike, as it creates a level of personalisation for the intended use of the rider. If it’s made bespoke for the frame it doesn’t need adjusters and can be honed down to a simple and effective form. We’ve done a few this way recently but this is the reason they cannot be mass produced. They do provide an extra special something as part of a bespoke build or give something old some extra sauce.

  • 3Rensho repaint

    Lewis has returned with a lovely old fluro green 3 Rensho frame. The paint was really faded and it needed a couple of repairs for a cracked seat tube and bridge. It was also in need of an appropriate fork so we decided to build a new one with unicrown straight legs. All covered in a fresh coat of green and the decals he had sourced.

  • Brazing 101 2025

    So 2025 started with a bit of brazing education for Sam in preparation for his new job. Good to learn a new skill and he picked it up real quick. Next time maybe some frame making too.

    It barely got above freezing on the day so we were both happy to huddle round the flame!

  • New Website is here!

    New Website is here!

    It’s always work in progress but the basics are here and we will start adding posts and more info. These will cover current and previous work and hopefully, eventually, include an online shop. Checkout through the menu above.