Bespoked Bike Show is a celebration of all things hand made, hand built, weird and wonderful.
Here’s our favourites from this year’s Bespoked Bike Show in Bristol.
Curtis Thumpercross
The Curtis Bikes Thumpercross is the first DH bike from Curtis in well over a decade. Yep, that was a surprise to us too!
Curtis built this one for their man Jim Davage because, Gary says, “it was time we went hardcore”. The ‘Metal Sex Special’ has 8″ travel with a 63° head angle. It’s currently a one-off prototype but once Jim has done some testing it’ll be available to order.
Eighteen Bikes 9 hardtail
Eighteen Bikes are a brilliant bike shop in the Hope Valley, Derbyshire. Alongside all the usual bike shop stuff they hand build their own steel hardtail frames.
Whilst Eighteen Bikes make full custom geometry frames, they also do their own ‘Workshop Series’ with set geometry. The Eighteen Bikes 7 is the 27.5″ wheeled version and the Eighteen Bikes 9 is their 29″ version.
Both bikes, the 7 and the 9, are all round, do it all hardtails and come in 4 sizes. They’re £900 for a frame or start from £2200 for a complete bike.
ARBR RB2 prototype
Will Soffe raced the ARBR last year and the latest iteration has just appeared – the ARBR RB2.
The bike has a 64° head angle with 160mm travel front and rear. It’s made in a carbon fibre mould and is autoclave cured. It’ll be released in the summer. Thanks to Kris Ram for the photo of this one!
Starling Cycles Spur
The Starling Cycles Spur is an absolute monster. It’s a long travel, coil-shocked, steel-framed gear box enduro crusher.
It’s built around the Effi Gear gear box and is, for the moment, a prototype. After a bit more testing Joe is hoping to put them on sale.
Also on display from Starling is the new Flyer, a properly lovely little bike. This one is a pub bike, Klunker and BMX-basher that’s designed for anything you’ve got the balls to do with it. Love it!
https://www.starlingcycles.com
Spray.Bike bicycle spray paint
Spray.Bike make this super cool, bike specific spray paint. It’s designed purely for spraying bikes with a heap of options include metalic and fluro paints. The gold frame above was create by spraying the paint into a paddling pool and dipping the frame into the pool.
Push Industries HC97 Damper
The Push Industries HC97 is a like-for-like replacement for your Rock Shox Fork with a Charger 2 damper. It drops into your fork and replaces your Charger, promising to offer much more low-speed compression and allowing very quick and very smooth performance. It offer 28 clicks of high speed adjustment (versus 4 on the standard version) and 28 clicks of low speed (versus 12 on your
Push reckon that this is their “smallest but mightiest product” and “one of the biggest performance upgrades” they offer.
https://www.pushindustries.com/products/hc-97
VY Works Sequence carbon downhill bike
The VY Works Sequence downhill bike is an absolute beauty… and might just be our highlight of the show.
Vladimir Yordanov grew up in Bulgaria before moving to the UK to study product design. He spent years breaking DH bikes, learning what he liked and understanding what a bike needs to go fast. Interestingly, he designed a carbon high-heel shoe at university and then moved to designing road bikes, tri bikes and eventually downhill bikes.
His prototype is one of two bikes currently in existence, with this one being tested by Junior DH’er Matt Foster.
So far, Vlad doesn’t have a website but you can follow him on Instagram here.
Sturdy Cycles
Created by one of the Bicycle Academy team, Sturdy Cycles are absolute beauties.
The frames are made, similar to Atherton Bikes, with 3D printed lugs and titanium tubes. The frames are built with custom geometry, with the angles set by the 3D printed lugs.
Why? Why the hell not, it’s beautiful. It’s also light, very precise and offers very accurate customisation. It also allows Sturdy to build frames exactly to your weight and riding style. Beautiful.
https://www.sturdycycles.co.uk
Ted James Designs Titanium Kid’s bike
Ted James is a properly cool dude. When he’s not hand building frames, he’s shredding a BMX, digging dirt jumps or building a pool in his back yard for his kids to skate.
Ted’s titanium kids bike was built for his 8 year old son. It’s made from broken and reclaimed titanium frames, with the top tube and stays donated from a Lightspeed frame. Ted reckons his lad loves it and they’re off to Bike Park Wales soon.
You can read our interview with Ted James here.
https://www.tedjamesdesign.com
RideWorks Robot Stem
Made in Coventry, the RideWorks Robot Stem is 35mm, mega wide and designed for 31.8mm bars. It clamps down the middle with bolts up front so you don’t wreck your knees. Oh, and of course, it looks sick.
