English Cycles | Custom Bicycles

Posted by Rob on Jul 4, 2022

Serge’s FGC

When Craig Edwards of EE Cycleworks suggested that his excellent brake design could be modified to offer greater tire clearance with the same performance, building a travel bike was one application I thought it would be perfect for. Traveling with disc brakes can be fine, but the chances of a rotor getting bent or having a problem with hydraulics seem higher than the ease of having a rim brake. And with...

Posted by Rob on Jun 19, 2022

Patrick’s gravel bike

Patrick asked me to build him a gravel bike, with a 1x drivetrain and clearance for 45mm tires. The frame features an oversize, bi-ovalised downtube from Columbus to keep this size frame stiff. This matches to the oversize headtube and a custom ovalised toptube. A Cane Creek headset matches to an Allied carbon fork. Patrick decided to use mechanical disc brakes in the form of Paul Klampers, with the rest...

Posted by Rob on May 27, 2022

Coz’s road disc

I built Coz a travel gravel bike a few years ago. This time he asked me to build him a more road orientated bike, but still with good tire clearance. Full internal brake hose routing was requested, so we used an Enve handlebar with an FSA stem and headset along with the Enve integrated AR fork. For long rides there are four bottle cage mounts and hidden bosses for the Kaibab custom framebags. Coz liked the...

Posted by Rob on May 14, 2022

Matt’s refreshed road bike

I built Matt’s bike back in 2016 – he has put it to good use, and wanted to give it an update and refresh. A few modifications were required to the frame – removing the brake hose entry at the headtube, removing the front derailleur hanger, and increasing the rear rotor clearance to allow for a 160mm. Then swapping out the fork for the new Enve Integrated model, along with their...

Posted by Rob on Apr 30, 2022

Colby’s FRC travel bike

Colby asked me to build him a road bike to travel with, which is what the Folding Road Concept is for! Rim brakes make packing for travel easy – the rear cable can be disconnected, and there are no rotors to worry about getting dinged in transit. Using the excellent EE brakes allows for at least a 30mm tire to fit. Wireless shifting with SRAM eTap means no additional cables to deal with, and makes it...

Posted by Rob on Apr 16, 2022

Ben’s Great Divide bike

Ben is a local endurance racer who asked me to build him a bike to race the Great Divide route on. This is a mountain bike route that runs from Canada to Mexico through the Rocky Mountains. The bike needs to be able to handle various terrain, be comfortable and carry equipment to be self-supported. Ben wanted to go with dropbars for the multiple hand positions offered, and opted for 2.3″ tires to...

Posted by Rob on Mar 29, 2022

Azmil’s stainless V3 endurance road

Azmil asked me to build him a bike for covering long distances at a good pace. He opted for the V3 design with an Enve carbon seatmast, in this case with the rest of the frame being full stainless steel. The hoses and Di2 wires are fully integrated, hidden inside the Coefficient handlebar, Enve stem and fork, FSA headset and the frame itself, with a T47 BB shell providing the internal space required. For...

Posted by Rob on Mar 10, 2022

Ray’s V3 rennovation

Almost ten years ago I built this V3 road bike for Ray. It was English #59! I have since built him a few other bikes, and he decided it was time for a refresh of the original. An over-torquing of the seatmast cap had lead to a crack in the carbon seatmast, so this and the carbon headtube insert were removed, which also allowed for use of heat for the other modifications, before fresh carbon tubes...