The Bespoked Handmade Bike Show is considered to be Europe’s premier bike show dedicated to custom handmade bicycles. This year the prestigious show took place from 14-16th October, having moved to a new location at the Lee Valley Velo Park in London, which allowed more people to turn up at the exhibition of the world’s most beautiful bespoke bikes.
Quirk Cycles
The paint job of this Quirk Cycles Mamtor model that Rob Quirk put on display is inspired by the concept of Kintsugi or “golden repair”, the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. It was designed and painted by Velofique. It is not a surprise that this bike won the best finish award.
All cables run internally thanks to the integrated system from ENVE, making this build not only beautiful but clean. The crank arms are 3D-printed, the same as some smaller parts like the dropouts and seat clamp.
Onguza
Dan Craven is a former pro cyclist and the owner of Onguza, a bike brand from Namibia. These steel frames are hand-made by three local builders in Omaruru and are already available, although in limited quantities, in most countries. In case you want a full bike they encourage you to travel to Namibia to pick it up, see the workshop and explore the country.
The paint job of the bikes speaks for itself, so they offer only one color option per model. For example, the paint of their Gravel Model 1 refers to the dominating colors in Namibia in May, when the land starts getting dry ahead of the winter.
Spoon Customs
Spoon Customs presented a collection of handmade bikes that shows the breadth and depth of their capability, being able to work with varied materials and budgets. As a good example, they unveiled at the show a fully custom, handmade, performance road bike with carbon wheels, wireless shifting, disc brakes, and a quality carbon finishing kit for under £5.000.
In the photo, you see the Spoon Customs Samm Dunn, hand-painted by Sam Dunn with acrylic paint, a brush and a cocktail stick. Updated and refreshed for the show, the bike is turned out in Super Record Mechanical 12 speed from Campagnolo and 60mm deep Bora WTO clincher wheels, together with a Chris King headset and Enve Finishing kit.
Sturdy Cycles
Sturdy Cycles was established by combining Tom’s lifelong love of bikes with his academic background in Aerospace Engineering and Sports Biomechanics. Tom displayed at Bespoked a varied line-up of bikes, and we would like to highlight the Elmar model, which got the best bike award.
This time trial bike made of titanium has 3D-printed crank arms and jockey wheels. Additionally, the tubes are joined using 3D-printed junctions particularly designed for this model.
Tailfin
There was also a build from Sturdy Cycles present in the Tailfin stand. Hand-built bikes are not made to be kept at home, and Tailfin displayed the full range of racks and packs they have developed over the years in tight cooperation with the professional and recreational riders of their R&D division team.
Prova Cycles
Prova Custom Cycles started in Melbourne seven years ago, and although they firstly worked with steel, they switched to titanium to take advantage of the possibility to work with different finishes.
This Kelly’s Mostro with custom bull nose bars was fabricated in-house and then received that purple haze anodizing by Nine Volt. Finally, they did the final media blasting and blended brushing of the titanium.
Sideways
SRAM awarded three different builders with an Inclusivity scholarship to allow them to be present at the show, and one of the beneficiaries was Viola Towsend from Sideways. She also got some SRAM components that she equipped on the bike he presented at the show, with a hand-made frame built from carbon fiber scraps from boats. It seems that they fitted very well together as it got the trophy for the best off-road bike at Bespoked.
