Tomo Bikes

Tag: race bike

  • Bespoked Apocalypse Bike

    This was an amazing opportunity to get off the leash a bit. The bike was no more than a faint idea until 2 weeks before the event. We had to finish and prep the other bikes, do some other work and build this thing so didn’t get through every idea but I was pretty happy with the result and especially the lack of issues given that it had literally run for about 10 yards in a straight line before stuffing it in the car for the show.

    A few folks braved a test ride and this was the default expression of most:-) To categorise it, I think this is a Tall, Fat, Cargo, 2 Wheel Drive, Rear Suspension Apocalypse, Bikepacking bike.

    It was based around my son’s old fat bike, with some added bits of Apollo and Marin and a whole bunch 4130 tubes to glue it all together.

    The Apocalypse Bike built off had some ‘spec’ to built to but it allowed for some free thinking. As part of the event there was some racing, round a small car park and through a building! We did the practice lap with the 2WD in place but went all ‘short tail’ for the racing!

    Thanks to John Watson from TheRadavist for the photos. You can see his write up here: https://theradavist.com/2025-bespoked-uk-apocalypse-build-off/

  • Bespoked Gravel Bike

    In the rush to prepare for Bespoked, I finished up Sam’s Gravel race bike frame and built up with a fairly standard set of components, i.e. Shimano GRX. Most of the parts are what I had available and won’t be the final build but it gives an idea. I was super please that it got voted 2nd best Gravel Bike there especially considering the other bikes there.

    The frame is built from Columbus Spirit, Life and Max tubing. It’s designed for racing so has cables in places making the bike easy and comfortable to shoulder (flat profile top tube, hoses/cables on top of the downtime), easy to maintain (no internal routing) and take the current popular standards (T47 bottom bracket, flat mount brakes) and efficient (double ovalised downtube).

    The colour is transparent copper powder coat that should provide some toughness and also shows off the fillets:-)

    The tyres in these pictures Schwalbe Racing Ralphs in 29×2.25. Although they fit, it’s snug so a more realistic 2.1 or less would work in places that have mud. Can’t wait to see this out on the trail!