- I'm here at the Bespoked Show,
which is the custom bike show here in the UK.
So let's go and take a look
at what amazing goodies I can find, come on.
(happy music)
Now, some of you will remember this bike.
It will look familiar to you because I checked
it out on the tour Down Under.
It's the 51 Notorious McGregor.
It delivered a a knockout blow to me back then,
and it has done again now.
But, moving on, check out this one.
This orange 51. It's got written, well, painted
on the frame here, "Ride it like you stole it"
There's no one around, so I might try and steal it.
No, only joking, but what's really interesting on this,
I spotted it, and I thought, hang on a minute,
that's SRAM Red eTap HRD, but it's a one bi system,
but basically I think it's a bit of a hack or a bodge,
doesn't matter, though.
However, what I'd like, basically, those levers to control,
because they're not able to control a front derailleur,
how about this, a dropper post, instead.
So, 51 Bikes, if you're watching, try and integrate that
next time, worth a go innit?
So, I've just been speaking to Prova, the brand behind this
bike, and well, I just got this put in my hand.
It's basically, a stainless steel, 3D printed lug.
There's like honeycomb in there, not going to try and
eat it though.
Now, I was told that this lug is actually inside here
and I looked and I looked and I just could not find it
whatsoever, it's been basically silver-soldered then to the
top tube and it's invisible, you cannot see it all,
absolutely fantastic.
It's not the only place they've done it though, also done it
on the drop outs and also there's like a spigot of
stainless here inside of the bottom bracket shell
which extends into the carbon seat tube.
That seat tube, it's not the same diameter all the
way through, starts at two millimetres thickness and then
thins out towards its ends.
One final thing, actually, I'm just gonna mention on
this bike, it's not just made of Reynolds 953, it's also
made of Columbus XCR, so mixing it up a little bit and
that's something which the brand have been doing for
a number of customers, I do like that.
Right, I absolutely love a track bike.
Fixed gear bikes?
Well, yeah, they're track bikes too but, check out this.
Importantly, that's not magic, this is the
Karussell experimental steel frame.
Now, interestingly, at first, I wondered who on earth is
actually making tubes like this, and in fact it's just
the standard tubes like this so Columbus tubing.
And then, basically, you've got a steel sheet which is
wrapped around it.
Some extra little bits which were added on here:
A Berk Composites saddle, a Berk Composites number holder
and, apparently, the inspiration behind this number
just for a bit of show, actually comes back from rally
and stock cars, DTM cars, that kinda thing.
I think I looks absolutely fantastic, and the designer
behind it said to me he wonders how it would ride over
cobbles, because removing this seat tube, you may have
a little bit of give, there.
Wouldn't like to ride that over cobbles much though, myself,
just check out those disc wheels.
You might end up smashing them to bits.
Alright, I'm here, I'm checking out the very own bike of
Adeline, who actually runs the company, Mercredi, this is
her own Cyclocross bike that she's gonna race on
next season.
Now, first up, the name "Mercredi", I didn't know where
it came from and I kinda just took a bit of a guess and
I had to have it checked out by her.
I was wildly wrong.
Apparently, now she's actually from Wallonia, which is
a southern region of Belgium, and on a Wednesday afternoon,
actually on a Wednesday, the kids don't go to school, so
that's where the name comes from.
Mercredi is Wednesday in French, but less about that.
Let's check out, first of all, that frame is actually
powder coated and you can still see it on here, actually,
is the TIG welds, they do remain there.
Now, I spoke to Adeline and I asked her why they haven't
been filed down and she said, basically, it's not gonna
improve the ride quality, so why would you want to do that?
Plus, it actually shows a bit of a
craftsmanship that's there.
I must say, as well, those forks.
They're certainly not powder coated, they are wet painted,
and they match this: This custom fabric saddle.
I do like a bit of custom matchy-matchy, and hats off
to this, looks stunning, doesn't it?
(happy music)
I'm just gonna sit here for a while and admire this
bike from Demon Frameworks.
As bling goes, it's bling.
It's basically a glitter bomb, even the gussets in the
frame, here, glittered.
Glitter bomb.
Now, if ever you've been out riding on your bicycle
and you thought there was a pack of angry bees chasing you,
it's very unlikely it was a pack of angry bees, in fact,
probably just one of these hubs here from Chris King.
(metallic clacking)
Just have a listen to that.
Now those do sound certainly very loud.
Now, interestingly, just caught this bottle cage.
Basically, it's the first ever, that I've seen certainly,
of robot welded bottle cages.
If you look at how uniform and correct these welds are
on this cage, it's absolutely incredible,
as is the weight, 29 grammes.
I thought it was gonna weigh a lot more than that.
This is an Argon 18 Nitrogen Pro, and do you know what,
it's not any old Nitrogen Pro because this one is
custom painted but Colourburn Studio.
Now, Bobby, the guy behind them, is the guy who actually
painted that Superman López bike belonging to
Miguel López of Team Astana that we showed on the
GCN tech show, just check it out.
Now, it may from a distance not look all that impressive,
but trust me, this is super impressive.
The fade does in fact vary, depending what angle
you're looking at and it kind of reminds me of, basically,
looking up into the sky at night.
But, enough about that paintwork though just for the moment
because, yep, it's got the FSA WE groupset.
So, your levers, they are wireless so the only cables
coming out of them, believe me, are just for the brakes.
Now, they're matching up obviously to those derailleurs
which are then wired from a battery inside of the seat post
for the control unit.
And just having a little play around with it, seems to
be working really well.
You do actually set up the gears just on the
front derailleur, so there's no junction box, nothing
like that to actually play around with, just through
doing that, pressing the button, and then you can basically
use the paddle shifter on the brake lever.
I like it.
So, how do you fancy having some integrated handlebars,
but, well, you're not quite sure on your stem length?
The good news is, these bars allow you to actually
extend the length of your stem, how?
Ah ha, peel back that rubber and in here, basically,
you've got two kind of spacers which are serrated
and they slot, obviously, into place with one another,
bit like a jigsaw then you can put different widths in there
and then, in turn, increase the length of that.
I think that's absolutely fantastic.
Gotta do it up, though, to 40 Newtonmetres
which is obviously a fair bit but, naturally, you don't
want those coming loose, do you?
I like it.
And finally, custom painted bike stands, how cool is that?
Might ask him to knock me one up.
Now, if you're a forrester and you wanna use a bike as
your mode of transport, basically, to get around to your job
maybe this is the bike for you.
I'm absolutely blown away by it.
Well look, for a start, chainsaw mount.
You've got a bottle of Jägermeister in there,
nice to have a drink, water bottle,
can of Mountain Dew down there,
after all, you are in the mountains in the Black Forest.
A Pinion gearbox.
[Bike Owner] Open the gas tank.
- Oh, if I open up the gas tank, look at this,
make yourself a brew, maybe some porridge, who knows?
Plus, tool box on the back.
Inside of that tool box, I've already had a cheeky
little look, there's a grill, which makes me think you
could use it for a barbecue too.
Whoever has this bike it's like the MacGyver bike basically.
Mr MacGyver, this is your bike.
I'm here with the bike of Dan Craven who, of course, is a
friend of GCN and this is is Saffron frame, or complete
bike rather, that he's just used in the Commonwealth Games
down there in Australia.
Now, strikingly, first of all you're gonna notice this
paintwork is, basically, it's a nude frame so there
is no paint, how cool is that?
What they do, first up, is they actually polish the frame,
apparently it take a very, very long time.
I've seen the guy who's done it and, well, it looks like
he hasn't slept for a month probably.
And then they, basically, apply a vinyl of the manufacturer
onto the frame and then the vapour blast it, so it's kind of
like shot blasting but cooler, if that makes sense?
Now, it's TIG welded as well and that saves, compared to
fillet brazing, about 140 grammes.
I mean, that's quite a considerable saving, if you
think about it, especially obviously it's not a small frame
but it's not super large but it's enough to notice,
that is for sure.
Interestingly, this down tube, Columbus XCR, is the biggest
size so it's the most oversized one in the range,
and it doesn't look that big.
I think though, that if it was, in fact, put on to a smaller
size frame, it would certainly look bigger but,
it definitely looks in proportion.
And, obviously, it's got a full Campagnolo Super Record
wired, or cabled, groupset.
Also, just check out that GPS, that is electronic
not wind-up, basically, it's Omata, and that was one of
those crowd funding projects a couple of years back
and they've just started delivering.
I do like that for a bit of navigation.
Now, Saffron, they actually decided to use a
smaller diameter seat post than, probably, what some people
would like so 31.6,
27.2 in here, they've said because, basically, they've
handed this bike over to Dan and it's his for the
rest of his life, they think it's gonna give him a
little bit of extra comfort in his old age.
That's kind of them, innit?
He's not that old though, or is he, dunno?
Now I don't think I ever thought I would see a bike made
out of carbon fibre, wood and also steel.
Or certainly, not actually made into a bike that
you could ride.
So, here, this is actually some ash, so that's a type
of wood, obviously, and then it's steamed and then pressed
and rather like shaped, basically, into that shape
to allow you to have seat stays as well as a top tube.
And then, this is an ENVE Composites carbon tube
for your seat tube, and then you've got yourself
a stainless steel remainder of the frame, essentially.
But this bike is set up single speed, but, due to the
eccentric bottom bracket, here, and also different
dropouts you can put on place, you can actually run it as
a 1x11, for instance.
I think that's pretty cool, basically, because then
you do away with those long horizontal rearward facing
dropouts that don't necessarily do aesthetics
for bikes that nicely.
Then, tucked away underneath here, this is so cool
and I, luckily, spotted it, is a magnet embedded inside
that ash top tube where you can then store your Allen key
to remove your thru-axle. Ha.
Now, I'm here with a bike of Tom Sturdy of
the Bicycle Academy, and some of you will remember
that name because Si has been to visit him a couple of times
in the past.
Earlier on, you saw that bike from Provo and check out this,
this is basically using the same technology but using
titanium 3D printed lugs.
And on that Provo, I couldn't see exactly where those
steel lugs where but, luckily, Tom hasn't painted his bike
so I can see them and exactly how they work.
Plus, check out that integrated seat clamp, lovely.
Ah, you're still here, I thought you'd had enough.
Only joking, I could spend the whole day here in fact I am.
Now, many thanks to all of the brands for showing me
around their bits and pieces, I've been absolutely
shocked by some of the things I've seen,
but in a good way.
Now remember to like and share this video with your friends.
Don't forget as well to check out the GCN shop
at shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com.
And for another great video, the latest GCN tech show,
click just down here.