Ben Spurrier at Condor

Condor’s head designer discusses the past, present and future of the bicycle, from the commuter’s hack to the silver screen

Cyclist: What does a typical day as head designer at Condor involve?

Ben Spurrier: Well, there isn’t really a typical day. There’s all the bike design – refreshing existing bikes or creating new ones. Then there are things like the team [Jlt-condor], which means creating new branding, new kit, a new bike and all the graphics for the team vehicles, plus little things like accessories – we’ve just done an Ass Saver and team cap. I also do a lot of custom bikes for people, about 150 a year, anything from a simple colour to a ground-up custom design. It really varies, from a one-off time-trial bike built for a guy for whom money is no object, to a custom Ti Condor for TV presenter Jon Snow. He’s so tall we had to use a section of seat tube for the head tube, as the standard head tubes aren’t that long.

Right now I’m working with a customer who wants a bike with S&S couplings [where the frame screws together in two halves]. That will need a whole frame drawing from me, and I’ll work on the bike together with our production