English Cycles | Custom Bicycles

Posted by Rob on Sep 20, 2023

Coz’s road bike

I have had the privilege of working with Coz on two previous bikes – a travel/gravel build and an all-road bike. To complete the set of dropbar machines, he asked me to build him a pure road bike this time. We settled on designing around 30mm tires, running on the (25mm internal) Enve 3.4 wheels. Coz has found the extra bottle mounts on his other bikes very useful, so we did something similar here,...

Posted by Rob on Sep 12, 2023

Nick’s stainless adventure frameset

Nick asked me to build him a frame suitable for bikepacking, with clearance for up to 50mm tires. We settled on using the Enve Adventure fork, which has the required clearance plus triple mounts for additional carrying capacity. Nick chose stainless steel for his bike, which is joined with silver fillet brazing. He also asked if I could do ‘fastback’ style seatstays, where the stays join the...

Posted by Rob on Sep 1, 2023

David’s all-road bike

David asked me to build him a lightweight road bike for climbing, that could also serve duty for some gravel riding with a tire change. We settled on designing around 32mm tires, whilst allowing clearance for 38s. An Allied carbon fork up front provides that clearance and is mated to the frame with a custom English headset that maintains a slim headtube whilst fitting the tapered fork steerer. The rear...

Posted by Rob on Aug 19, 2023

Phil’s road bike

Phil asked me to build him a light, comfortable bike with confident handling. He had a good fit that I could design around, and requested an integrated seatmast and matching custom stem. We choose to go with a US-made carbon fork from Allied, which mates to the frame via a custom English headset that fits the tapered steerer without using an oversize headtube. There is a modified Thomson seatpost for...

Posted by Rob on Aug 7, 2023

Jai’s FGC (Folding Gravel Concept)

Jai was able to come by the shop for a fitting, to get him seated comfortably for some overseas adventures with his travel bike. With some occasional knee pain mentioned we went to shorter cranks and made sure there was plenty of (low) gear range. The bike is built to clear 700Cx40 tires, with the Ritchey fork in front providing similar clearance, along with triple mounts for extra bottles or luggage if...

Posted by Rob on Jul 27, 2023

Full stainless steel road bike

There is something nice about an (almost) completely metal bike – this build has a little carbon at the crank, levers, derailleur and saddle, but is otherwise metallic, with a stainless steel frame, fork and stem. The frame has an integrated seatmast with a custom cap for fine tuning saddle height. There are direct mount bosses under the chainstay for the rear brake, with the cable routed internally...

Posted by Rob on Jul 21, 2023

Ivo’s road frameset

Ivo was able to visit the shop for a fitting, which allowed us to work together using the fit-bike to determine the best road riding position for her. I started by suggesting she try 155mm cranks; that felt like an improvement to her, and the rest of the position fell into place after various adjustments. The frame is designed to match with an Enve carbon road fork, joined by a custom English headset that...

Posted by Rob on Jul 15, 2023

Custom road bike

I designed and built this bike as a show bike for 2023 – my interpretation of the modern classic road bike. In keeping with current trends, it features fully integrated hydraulic hoses via Enve’s IN-Route system (bar/stem, headset, fork) and a T47 BB. Designed around 32mm tires, it can run from 28 to 35mm. Both frame and fork have hidden fender mounts. To keep the chainstays short with the...