11 highlights we loved from Europe's largest handmade bike show

Bespoked is Europe’s largest handmade bike show, highlighting the best custom and independent brands in cycling. It’s where the handmade bike community gathers to share their best work, and showcase it with the public.

I tried to avoid the distractions of the myriad cargo bikes, mountain bikes, and e-bike solutions on display (with some exceptions due to the sheer awesomeness of what I was seeing) and instead focus on a selection of highlights that stood out to me as a big road and gravel bike fan.

Cycling Weekly was also asked to judge the ‘Best Road Bike’ category, requirements of which meant we spent more time with certain bikes.

The show has always been early to the party with experimental paint. Creativity is always high in this area, but this year, as the screws tighten for many, so do the gears in the minds of the never-quit community here. Newer technologies like Cerakote, an advanced ‘military-grade’ ceramic coating is everywhere at this show now, with builders reporting excellent results and time savings thanks to the rapid ease of application and far higher abrasion resistance than 2k or wet paint finishes.

Another apparent theme here, which has been echoed elsewhere in the industry, is the interest in adventure cycling, bikepacking, and the road less traveled. Tyres are getting wider here as elsewhere, but the utility and creative thought going into packing ever more of your life onto your bike starts here. The innovative and well-made luggage solutions from Tailfin and Wizard Works are regulars here too and worth a look.

Petor (and his community) feels like cycling’s answer to the fictitious Hollywood gym owner, Peter LaFleur, defying the odds and triumphing over the wider industry’s villainous rival, White Goodman, in Dodgeball.

Here in Manchester, Bespoked is every-bit a weekend feel-good movie about the underdog triumphing over the corporate megalith. In this little corner of our weird and wonderful cycling world, this still-energetic, welcoming, and open corner of cycling culture is a powerful tonic, and it's not to be missed.

If you’re not doing anything today, you could do a lot worse than skipping the club run to get down to the show to soak up the last-day vibes.

If you’ve missed this weekend, the show continues in Dresden, Germany, in October, where the incredible energy of the local community there, meets the Bespoked Caravan like the Carnival has come to town!

Meteor Works

Meteor Works is just one part of Lee Prescott’s interest in cycling, but perhaps it’s this breadth of experience in the areas that matter most to understand how to make a good bike that makes his work stand out.

He’s an experienced fitter, mechanic, writer, and product designer, and it shows. He designed the geometry of the bikes shown here, fitted them, fabricated them, and even painted them himself. Every aspect is executed to a high degree of technical competency. We singled-out his work for third place in the Best Road Bike category.

Gregario Cycling

Gregario is a team based out of Turin, who are using algorithms and app-based technology to allow you to scan your own body at home, to produce a dataset that feeds straight into the individual mould development of your own custom-made frame.

I was told the frame they were using to showcase the technology is market-ready. While the design and development process, which allows anyone, anywhere in the world to access their services, was clearly the tech they wanted to push, the underlying frame concept is a really standout design, featuring a stem and bar with a negative-degree stem coupled to a riser section on the handlebar. The seat tube wrapped the rear wheel in a more extreme way than I’ve seen before, with setback restored to sensible levels through a ‘lay-forward’ seat post clamp arrangement.

Aero integration at the head tube and into the fork crown looked advanced, although the language barrier prevented me from going into more detail. I’ll look into this one and report in more detail at a later date.

The bike was equipped with Campagnolo’s Super Record Wireless. Of course.

AEIGHT BIKE CO.

Aeight bike co is run by Glen Whittingdon, a UCI-ticketed professional mechanic and racer. If you’ve ever attended a Hot Chillee event, you will likely recognise his friendly, bearded face. He’s also an accomplished bike designer and fabricator.

His AXE ‘Sand Racer’ was an absolute knockout in person. You can find it on Schwalbe’s stand, alongside other strong work. The bike is more mountain bike than gravel bike, but it deserves a mention for the sheer quality of the build and its visual impact. The bike looks like it can go anywhere and wants to.

It was possibly the most aggressive and visually integrated bike on show, so it’s little surprise it picked up an award for Best Finish, awarded by paint and finishing experts Ian Patterson (formerly of Cole Coatings) and Jack Kingston of Kingston Kustoms, who these days is the go-to gun-for-hire for all the best custom builders.

Apocalypse Bike Build Off

Not since TBA’s Hack Bike Derby have we seen framebuilders come together to show what can be done when talented bike builders go ‘Scrap Heap Challenge’.

The result was some of the most ridiculous, smile-inducing, and worrying insights into builders’ minds. Recurring themes were, of course, self-sufficiency delivered through integrated hunter-gatherer, prepare, and cook technology, to more considered integrated lighting, charging, and e-propulsion systems.

If you’re a Specialized die-hard who worries about the length of their socks, this section won’t be for you, but I’d urge anyone attending to spend some time looking really closely at the details on these bikes. Behind the art-school or comic-con styling is significant evidence of considered engineering minds at work here. In some cases.

Mason Cycles

Mason is more bike company than framebuilder, but their bikes continually show up at Bespoked and are a supremely valid and welcome addition, such is the integrity of Dom Mason’s detailed approach to product design.

He’s an expert on both design and fabrication, and the polish in the final product would trick some into thinking this is not an artisan brand at all. Behind the contemporary finishes and sharp styling is always a very well-made frame, fabricated in small batches by his trusted builders – to standards as high as any of the established or truly bespoke builders in the room.

We have a new Mason ISO 2 in for review soon. But for now, you’ll have to make do with a photo of this good-looking gravel build, which immediately put me in mind of a resto-modded classic Defender. Tailfin gear has always impressed Cycling Weekly, and is well designed – well worth a look if you’re considering upgrading your bikepacking setup.

Cotic Cycles

Cy Turner from Cotic is widely regarded as one of the nicest guys in cycling. He’s been quietly working away to build and establish Cotic from his workshop in the Peak District for twenty years.

Today, he produces some of the most accomplished examples of genuinely British design and engineering in the UK cycling industry. He is to his corner of the universe as Simon Mottram of Rapha is to British apparel, or Will Butler-Adams of Brompton is to British manufacturing, just on a much smaller scale.

FEATHER CYCLES

Ten or twelve years ago, the resurgence in handmade bike culture that had come about in the UK was underpinned by a handful of uber-competitive, creative new builders. Established names like Robin Mather, Rourke, or Curtis competed alongside new entrants, Saffron, Donhou, then Hartley, and others.

Feather was a founder member of that Brat Pack, and every year at the handmade events, shots would be fired, and one or the other would go home with armfuls of rosettes, distributed between them as reliably as Trek or Specialized pick up World Tour victories.

Depending on which flavour of "Best Road Bike" the judges prefer, the rosettes still pass around the same heavyweights pretty reliably, and this year was Ricky's year again. He was awarded Best Road Bike for his modern steel racer, in a stunning Tottenham Hotspur-inspired paint design that was so new, the customer hasn't even signed off on it yet.

Ricky Feather has always delivered work on his own terms, and in that spirit, he made a shock announcement earlier this year that he will be stepping down in two years, after just fifty more frames.

If you want one, and think your proposal for a dream build might qualify for a slot, get in touch now, as the window to own a Feather Cycle of your own is closing.

Wizard Works

Harry and Ve of Wizard Works are a joy to meet, work with, or buy from. These people are who they say they are and do what they do, for the love of it. The passion and care they put into their everyday work spills out of every product they make and sell. Their gear is some of the best-looking and most functional available anywhere in the market, and it’s all made by themselves in their own workshop, right here in the UK.

If you don’t see something that does exactly what you need it to, talk to them, and they’ll make it for you. Where else can you find brands like this?

TED JAMES DESIGN (TJD)

If Bespoked is about community, Ted is one of the personalities that glues it together. An ex-pro BMX’er who was there right at the start of fixed culture in the UK, he landed in London when London needed a pirate with an engineering mind. He could make rad bikes that wouldn’t break and could marry a BMX to a petrol lawnmower effectively, on no sleep.

He’s been featured in The Guardian for his penchant for recovering and eating roadkill, and his stories are legendary. Make no mistake, though, Ted James is one of the most accomplished and naturally talented engineers working in European cycling today.

Everything that makes it to his stand each year does so through sheer force. Where others need to rely on sophisticated CAD and drawings, Ted relies on his brain, communicating with his hands with the creativity of an artist and the precision of a CNC lathe. It all comes out of his head. He’s a consummate problem solver and a bicycle engineer of no equal.

Sturdy Cycles

If you’re into nice bikes and have heard of 3D printing, and you haven’t come across Sturdy Cycles, then you must have been living under a rock.

We awarded his Cerakote white titanium road bike second place in this year’s Best Road Bike category. In our opinion, the bike is so considered it was hard for us not to award top honours, but with the classic form of the road bike arguably so clearly defined, the technology and sheer brilliance of what Tom Sturdy is able to achieve, couldn’t quite trump the clean, classic, dazzling cool of the Feather.

If Tom’s bike is Harry Styles, Feather’s was one of Harry’s heroes joining him mid-set to send the crowd wild. Had Feather stayed at home, Tom would have killed it on his own.

We have just tested his SC-G Gravel bike off-the-peg bike. A full review should be out this month. Spoiler: it’s very good.

CICLI BARCO

The Barco family was for years one of Italy’s best-kept framebuilding secrets. Since 1947, the family has been quietly crafting what, for many in the trade, are regarded as the best stainless steel bicycle frames available anywhere in the world.

For some years, the Barco family worked for Scapin before composite manufacturing largely took over Scapin operations and sidelined steel. Alberto and his brother Maurizio saw the opportunity to set up on their own, and Cicli Barco was born.

Today, the family manufactures for a select group of high-end brands who value their expertise in stainless steel, specifically XCR. Their client list is closely guarded, but it proves there is no one more qualified to handle this material than Barco, anywhere.

The Barco gravel bike shown here is a great example of their highly proficient TIG skills, married to their elegant approach to design, finished in a mixture of polished stainless steel and paint, with an integrated front end. The dropout, in the already ultra-clean house style, has been developed to integrate perfectly with a UDH system and was the standout detail of the show for me.

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The man behind the show...

This year’s UK event took place in Manchester on the last weekend of April, in the partly restored Victoria Baths, recognised as Britain’s finest historic municipal swimming pool. It’s an unlikely venue to showcase the UK and Europe’s finest handmade bikes.

Petor Georgallou, Bespoked’s owner, has in recent years reshaped the event to broaden its reach and appeal. The choice of venue is just one part of how he is challenging both his community and the wider industry to think differently and come together to meet the myriad challenges the industry faces.

His creativity keeps this show going despite the challenging economic backdrop and once again, the show serves as a safe space for those thriving, surviving, or inspired to start in an industry where the rewards are deeply satisfying but the artistic and commercial struggles are real.

Notably absent are the trappings of a commercial show. Detailed, free-to-attend talks led by industry stalwarts such as Tony Corke, on behalf of the International Bike Fitters Institute (IBFI), are interspersed with inspirational appeals from The Gaza Sunbirds para-cycling team. Incredibly advanced 3D-printed technology and innovative gearboxes are shown alongside a wondrously creative collection of ‘Apocalypse Build Off’ bikes made from off-cuts in someone’s shed.

Big brands do come too, but they leave their corporate stands at home. Schwalbe tyres, a long-term supporter of the show, uses its influence to bring in small builders with outstanding work who might otherwise not have been able to attend.