English Cycles | Custom Bicycles

Posted by Rob on Apr 11, 2021

Stephanie’s FGC

Stephanie wanted a bike that would fit, inspire confidence on descents, fit tires up to 40mm, or 35mm with fenders. Oh, and fit into a checkable case for travel…… So I designed and built her bike around my ‘Folding Gravel Concept’ system. This adds discreet pivots at the chainstay/BB and dropout/seatstay junctions, with a telescopic joint at the top of the seatstay. With the pivots...

Posted by Rob on Mar 16, 2021

Verena’s e-bike

Only the third e-bike I have built, but super happy with how this one turned out! Verena is small of stature, and asked me to build her a bike to fit that she could use for errands and for towing the kiddie trailer. Shimano offer 160mm crank arms for the STEPS mid-drive motor, which is a good length for this rider and allowed for lowering the bottom bracket to match – making it easier to get a...

Posted by Rob on Feb 27, 2021

V3 disc frameset

This V3 (carbon integrated seatmast and carbon headtube insert) custom frame is paired to an Enve road disc fork, which matches the frame in allowing for up to 32mm tires. A Chris King headset joins them together, with a custom ultralight stem to match. The frame is setup for internal EPS shifter wire routing, with the rear brake hose also running internally inside the downtube. Lovely paint by...

Posted by Rob on Feb 14, 2021

Jeff’s road bike

I rode with Jeff back in the pre-pandemic days of NAHBS 2019….. Hopefully will get to ride with other people again some time soon! In the meantime, Jeff is all set for long solo rides without needing to stop anywhere, since his frame features four bottle cage mounts and internally brazed ‘hidden’ bosses for a framebag – he requested two size options custom made by Kaibab...

Posted by Rob on Jan 31, 2021

Lucas’ road disc frameset

Lucas asked me to build him a fast road bike, and was interested in having an integrated front end to allow for fully hidden cables and hoses. We originally wanted to use a full Enve system for this, with their new integrated fork, headset and bar/stem. Unfortunately some delays on some of the new parts meant that the final build has the Enve fork and bar, but with the ACR headset and stem from FSA. Looks...

Posted by Rob on Jan 18, 2021

Bowei’s V3 road bike

Bowei asked me to build him a lightweight roadbike for climbing and long rides. He opted for the V3 layout which has an Enve carbon seatmast and headtube insert. A custom cap allows for fine tuning saddle height. The frame has internal routing for the Di2 wires and the rear brake cable. The paint scheme was created by SvelteCycleworks, inspired by Bowei’s Husky. And then carefully applied by...

Posted by Rob on Jan 4, 2021

Andres’ gravel frameset

Andres’ first build was all in for aero road performance. This time he asked for a more classic, round-tubed build for gravel and all-road riding. So there is clearance for at least 45mm tires, or smaller tires with fenders. Andres decided to stick with a 1x setup which enabled maximising tire clearance. He intends to start off with running the new Campy Ekar groupset, but wanted a clean transition...

Posted by Rob on Dec 11, 2020

Shlomy’s all-road bike

Call it gravel, call it all-road, groad, the name doesn’t matter – Shlomy asked me to build him a fast bike with room for 35mm tires. Up front we have a US-made carbon fork from Allied, which plugs into a 44mm headtube via a Cane Creek headset. The toptube is custom ovalised and features internally brazed bosses for the Kaibab Customs framebag. The bottle cages were positioned low to allow...