Blewett’s ‘Made in China’ super bikes
MARK Blewett has a dream. It’s an 80s dream, a cycling and music dream in one package. The dream is to have Midge Ure, the former lead singer of 80s band Ultravox, jumping out of a cake, singing “Vienna” as his top-end bike, named the Ultravox in honour of the band, comes on to the stage through a mist of dry ice.
“I was a big Ultravox fan when I was 15,” said Blewett over dinner in Cape Town last week. “I’ve been in contact with (Ure). It was strange and amazing. BikeRadar, the website, did a review of the bike, and I got this e-mail out of the blue and it said, ‘Hey Mark, I saw the Ultravox on Bike Radar. It’s really cool. We now have a race horse and a race bike named after the band.’ I thought it was Neil (Gardiner, head of marketing, communications and wine buying for Swift) taking the piss out of me. I sent an email back, saying, ‘Ja, whatever. Who is this? Who is taking the piss?’ He e-mailed back, saying, ‘This is the real Midge Ure.’ His real name is James Ure. I thought he was going to sue me for plagiarism or something.”
Blewett, a former professional rider, is back in Cape Town, his hometown for part of the year, a break from Xiamen, the Chinese port near Taiwan, where his bike business, Swift Carbon, has its headquarters. Over the last five years or so, Blewett has set about designing and building bikes that have received rave reviews. They are South African bikes designed by a South African, a Dutchman, a German engineer and built in China. Once “Made in China” was a term of some derision, but Xiamen is the epicentre of the world carbon frame manufacturing industry. If you have a high-end European or American bike, chances are high it was built there.
Swift’s approach has been to be honest about where the bikes are made, taking advantage of the technology. The Ultravox road bike has been highly praised world wide, as has their Detritovore mountain bike. Marcel Wust, the former Tour de France stage winner who reviews bikes for ProCycling magazine, described it as having “perfect geometry”, and regarded it as “probably the best bike I have ever ridden”. He contacted Blewett after the review and asked him if he could buy the bike.
“I told him to keep it,” smiled Blewett. “That’s the best part of the whole brand; it’s people I have never met love the bike. From all those years ago being a South Africa boy who wanted to be like Stephen Roche riding the Tour de France, to having these people love our bike, is the greatest thing.”
Swift are the bike sponsor of Drapac, the Australian Pro Continental team, and Blewett played a part in getting them to sign rising South African star Dylan Girdlestone for the season. In 2015 there will be a South African on a South African bike riding in World Tour races, 20 years after Blewett made his professional debut.
“The bike and the business have grown organically,” said Blewett. “It was only after I met Rene (Baretta), the designer (from the Netherlands), and we started talking, sharing ideas on what I thought would work. I’ve ridden everything from steel to aluminium to carbon. I’ve never felt there was a product that had everything right. Steel had one characteristic, titanium another.
“That’s very much the theory behind the bikes, to get the balance right. Even now, we can’t make an aero bike, a superlight bike and an endurance bike. We need to make one bike that encompasses all those features. We wanted a bike that didn’t compromise on comfort and then stiffness. We took retro, 80s geometry and applied it to new age materials. That’s the balance. “
Blewett admits he is not a man who does balance well. He loves Cape Town and has a son there, but needs to live in China to give him focus. “I need the hardship of that,” he said. He also has a successful nylon bag company in China. It’s been five years of sacrifice, but Swift is about to make a major statement and impact on the South African and international cycling world.
There’s just one more thing, Blewett needs: “I just have this image of the Ultravox riding through dry ice, and this old wrinkly rocker jumping out of a cake singing, ‘Hey, Vienna!’ It couldn’t get much better.”