Adrian’s custom Feather all road bike

Made by his mate in honour of his dad

Ricky

Feather is an old friend of mine

A long time ago we used to ride BMXS together and shared a flat in my hometown of Leeds at one point too

When he started making bikes I knew I had to get one off him so Ricky made me my first ever road bike back in  €  when I got really into it

That was my main bike for well over four years and I still ride it today but it’s now my old faithful winter choice dressed up in mudguards

I’d been mulling over the idea of retiring it and getting something more modern for a while when my dad passed away at the end of  

He was always outdoors and loved cycling so that gave me the impetus to commission Ricky again to build a bike in his honour

I get to see a lot of bikes at Cyclist  and I like to take pictures of the ones that catch my eye

Looking back through the gallery I’d assembled I noticed almost all of them were white so I settled on something similar for this bike

I kept the paint scheme simple but I had the ‘ Leeds Smiley’ ‡ a cultˆfavourite badge used by Leeds United in the €Š‹s ‡ on the seat tube because my dad was a lifelong fan of the club

As for the bike itself I wanted something I could ride yearˆround in large part because I don’t like indoor training

In other words a posh winter bike that takes mudguards but something that could also work for light gravel and fast road riding in the spring and summer

Given the intention to travel with this bike a lot too external cables at the front end were a must

The geometry is endurance roadˆbiased but the frame will clear ‘mm tyres and Ricky made it with a taller head tube so I could get away with slamming the stem without the stack being too low

This bike is one of the first Tigˆwelded frames Ricky has done ‡ he generally builds using fillet brazing or lugs ‡ but he has started a brand called WKNDR whose frames will all be TIGˆ welded which streamlines the manufacturing process and allows him to supply more customers

A build as bespoke as the frame

While Ricky was working on the frame I had plenty of time to think about the build

One of those white bikes I took a picture of was a Specalized Aethos so although I went for

a Feather I bought the S works finishing kit that the Aethos comes with because it suits my bike in a similarly classic way and had the stem colour matched to the frame

I’ve always ridden Shimano so choosing that as the core of the groupset was a given but overall my bike’s shifting components have ended up being a mish mash Nonetheless I think they work well together

I went for Ultegra Di levers because I’ve never really got on with the shape of the GRX levers The bulk of the gravel I’ll be riding will be pretty pedestrian and I have Shimano’s road levers on all my other bikes anyway so it seemed sensible to preserve that feel on this bike too Gearing wise I’m using a GRX rear derailleur on an ƒƒ „ cassette with an Ingrid CRS R crankset and „t chainring I wanted a gearing setup that could cope on gravel but provide big enough gears on the road which this does † I don’t need huge amounts of range I think the Ingrid crankset is really stylish and works well as the centrepiece of the bike

I settled on the Zipp ˆ‰ˆ S wheels after input from the Cyclist editorial team I was after a good value wheel with on trend specs that’s fast on the road but can be used with gravel tyres too and in that sense the ˆ‰ˆ S seems to tick all the boxes Likewise the Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tyres were about letting me go fast on the road while remaining capable off it

I’m really happy with how the build has come together The bike feels like a natural progression from my first Feather in that it’s much stiffer and has modern features yet in a lot of ways still feels really familiar

Having a brand new steel bike built for me by my friend and in memory of my dad means so much to me for a lot of reasons It’s beautiful to look at and it inspires me to ride more I rode my last Feather for over ten years and I know

I’ll be doing the same with this one

Ricky made me my first ever road bike back in when I got really into it

Commercial director Adrian has been obsessed with bikes since picking up BMX magazines as a teenager in the s before progressing to a fixie in the midnoughties and onto road bikes in the glorious year of   He can be found riding the lanes of Essex long before everyone else has got out of bed