WEIRD & WONDERFUL
Three fantastical bikes from Bespoked, the UK’S handbuilt show
Stick your head in at Bespoked, the UK’S handbuilt bike show, and you’re met with a wave of passion. From the still-warm welds to the fug of fresh paint, there’s a heady atmosphere created by the love and pride exhaled by the creators inside.
Based in London, Howler’s
Billy Dye first started making frames in 2018 after a Bicycle Academy frame building course. His full-suspension Fenrir bike sat proudly on the SRAM stand at Bespoked.
The Wolf on the head tube hints at how Fenrir is named after the beast in Norse mythology, but there’s nothing Iron Age about this steel high-pivot machine with its very ‘2021’ idler
Every fabricator absolutely lives and breathes their handiwork. Ask away and you’re hit with a multitude of intimate details and rapid-fire enthusiasm, with little talk of marketing or monetisation. Heck, many frames haven’t even been ridden yet; superceded by the thrill of showcasing the latest creations.
HOWLER FRAMEWORKS FENRIR
wheel. Billy has developed the suspension concept and linkages through a partnership with design consultant Alex Desmond (who also helped tune the Coal 84 here). Working for Orange and others, Alex designed the Orange Phase AD3 featured in the October 2021 issue.
The pair designed the 27.5in bike for a coil so it’s a straight progressive curve through the 150 or 160mm travel, depending
Our three-bike pick ranges from flavourde-jour full-on enduro weapons to svelte XC whippits, and covers a wide range of manufacturing pedigrees, encompassing both experienced builders like Ra and relative newcomers such as Howler and Coal Bicycles. on shock stroke. The Fenrir claims 138% anti-squat, a 27mm rearward axle path and lowered pedal kickback. The middleground geometry consists of a 64.5° head tube, 75° seat tube angle and this medium equivalent has a 410mm seat tube and 446mm reach. The 6mm BB drop is higher than most, but Billy says this should avoid crank strikes and the bike settling too low when climbing seated.
Made from 4130 cro-mo, the Fenrir uses shaped Tange chainstays, but the finished version will likely use Reynolds butted top and down tubes to save weight when it launches next year after testing.
Like many others, Billy hasn’t had time to even ride his creation yet. “I’m itching to ride it now, I didn’t want to crash it before the show,” he says.
RA BIKES .12 ENDURO MACHINE
North Yorkshire-based Ra Bikes only had a short hop to Harrogate to show its latest creations, including this longer-travel .12 bike. Ra main man
Rafi Richardson is a local ripper who’s evolved his full-sussers from primitive single-pivots into complex machines sporting alloy linkages and formed steel tubes; all entirely hand-crafted in a workshop on the family farm.
This totally new enduro rig shares the same suspension/shock wrap-around design as the Ra .20 trail model available already, but ups rear travel to 165mm. There are 435mm chainstays (with a 180mm Zeb fork), a head angle a tad under 64° and 78.5° seat angle.
Rafi tunes and designs all the suspension himself and the .12 has “a more progressive leverage ratio than any enduro bike you can currently buy,” he says, with a 3.2:1 ratio at the start of the stroke and 2:1 at bottom-out. This delivers the desired ride feel of “really supple off the top and then supportive all the way through the travel,” Rafi says.
The frame is made from stiff T45 aerospace tubing, chosen as it can be formed for required packaging and stiffness. The .12 model also uses a
COAL BICYCLES ’84
With gold suspension links and oodles of Kashima, Coal Bicycles’s shiny bright ’84 model was a real head-turner at Bespoked. Gavin White’s brand name is a nod to the mining community he grew up in.“my dad were a miner and my grandad went down the pit at 12 years old – it’s all a big part of my heritage,” he says.
Anyone old enough will know
1984 as a landmark year for the Nottinghamshire industry that’s no longer a big employer, and many younger lads like Gavin ended up doing jobs like fabricating. Working in 30mm main pivot axle and oversized 46mm Enduro Max bearings (that’s essentially a press-fit BB), together with a steel cage support to tie the CNC’D in-house upper links and shock together. This means the rear end can drive the coil shock cleanly with no twisting.
In cherry red, the .12 looks fantastic and totally ready to rip. ra-bikes.com oil and gas and also welding bikes for other UK brands built up Gavin’s skills and he ended up setting up Coal 18 months ago to “do my own thing and make something distinctly different and contemporary compared to most UK steel full-sussers,” he says.
Like at Howler, Alex Desmond consulted on suspension design, and delivered a twin-link layout with floating shock with linkages machined by independent UK brand Rideworks. A flip-chip on the lower shock rocker can convert the 29er to mullet without affecting geometry, while also upping travel 10mm to 170mm for the smaller 27.5in rear wheel.
The ’84 uses Reynolds 853 tubing throughout, except 4130 cro-mo seatstays and braces. Gavin chose geometry that’s “not particularly out there” as, with a BMX background, he wanted something playful and lively.
The first production run of 20 frames will feature “an extra brace and ovalised tubing zones,” he explains. Gavin is hoping to be able to offer the frame for around £2,600 including shock. coalbicycles.com