We managed a quick Friday nighter whilst the weather was good. Packed up the Tailfin bags and a dash into Sainbury’s then trip down the river to a local secluded camp spot for some food, chat and snooze. Then early start back for some frame building action on Saturday. Perfect.
I was lucky enough to get an invite to the Brooks factory open day so wanted to take along something new with a UK manufactured link.
I had just about finished the 32er frame in time, after a slightly challenging paint job and had loaded it with as many UK supplier parts as I could including Ratio Technology rear mech, Middleburn cranks, Brooks saddle and grips(obviously), USE stem and seat post, Bentley Components bag mount and a host of Hope Technology parts.
As my first 32er it’s now time to test it but so far I’m very happy with how it’s riding.
After last years offering, I thought I’d go small this year, not least of which because of shed space! The Apocalypse build off has some rules, that change every year. A few things led to the design of this. I still had some ex rental bikes that needed a use. The fact they were shaft drive seemed perfectly bullet proof. The rule that scored an extra point if the wheel base was less than 100cm drove the mini velo design (although not being able to change the chain stay length because of the shaft drive didn’t help matters). I had a knackered old snowboard I had been waiting for an excuse to use on a cargo bike so seemed perfect for cycle truck duty here. And lastly I wanted to use some of my Tailfin bags for their Apocalypseproofness.
From donor bike to full cycle truck mode. It grew a rear rack from an elephant bike and a custom set of handlebars that were really comfy and more than enough accessories. Now the event is over I think it will get a lick of paint, ‘reduced’ slightly and be pressed into service as an actual cargo bike for local stuff. Very tempted to try it for a bit of bike packing too:-)
GCN Tech review of the Apocalypse bikes – very fair;-)
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/
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!
I made a very decision to go to Bespoked in Manchester in 2025 and was so glad I did. Lovely time meeting people, customers, builders, media and suppliers. The bikes seemed to go down well too. We got 2nd best gravel bikes, 2nd best Apocalypse bike and lots of nice comments about the Giraffe bike.
Big thanks to everyone we met, took photos and especially the organisers for an amazing show. Bravo.
For my entry into the recycle project, where we took old city bikes and gave them a refresh for a future useful life, I (obviously) did a bit of fabrication.
I chose to do some frame changes, to make it look a little more unisex, add some branding, a custom rack and some paint in a hardwearing coating in BMW Mini Orange.
As well as new frame builds and repairs, it’s also great to be able to save things from going to scrap. I had the chance to rework a number of city bikes that had come to the end of use under a contract.
It was especially nice to do this a number of other likeminded folks so I donated a few for others to make their mark and see what we all came up with. Big thanks to Dave from @Dave.bike, Marlon from @babyldn and Felix from @thebikefelix for being up for it.
The party piece of these bikes is they are almost maintenance free with shaft drive, hub gears and drums brakes. I wanted to give mine a slightly more unisex look, tidy up a few ugly features and add some carrying capacity (and add some branding:-). This should become our family go to the shops bike.
This was a built a long time ago but still fun to get it out for a spin. I love the idea of Mini Velos as a bike that takes up less space still rides well. Great for shed space or fitting in a flat. This one has an old Dura Ace 8 speed set up (because that’s what I had) and I like the look of it!
It has a mixture of Columbus tubes and some really tight geometry for sneaking through the traffic as I used to use it commuting. To be honest it would be helped by some wider tyres in town, given the condition of the roads but these ones make it pretty lively. It was originally built to take to a bike show and did a great job of steering people over to the stand.
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.
