Is there still a place for them in an industry where the big manufacturers are doing their level best to sell us ‘off the shelf’ sizes? Many consider that custom bikes are essentially dead. But they said the same about vinyl didn’t they…
This was our topic of discussion on our recent podcast. Give it a listen to find out what we discovered.
If you prefer a read, there’s a full transcript of the discussion below. Love to know what you think!
Ep 2: Custom bikes? Who needs 'em! – Cycling Demystified – Bike Fit, Mechanics and Soft Issues
SPEAKERS: Lee, Mat, Wei, Ev
Wei
Yeah, let’s talk about custom geometry who wants to go first?
Mat
Well, who needs it? Who How do you know if you need it?
Wei
Well, I guess it depends on kind of your different perspective. So I guess Ev, you have a different perspective, from like a frame kind of builders side of things.
Ev
I have a different perspective from most people.
Wei
And even between kind of bike fitters, we’ve got three bike fitters here. So, you know, there’s gonna be different kind of thoughts on that. But yeah, maybe I’ll kick things off with some thoughts on custom geometry. And just setting some of the scene I guess, like, I think custom geometry is kind of faded out a little bit, maybe there’s like less desire for custom geometry. At the moment, I get this kind of vibe that like people aren’t so concerned about kind of custom geometry is maybe they were maybe…
Ev
Shall I be the devil’s advocate, you don’t, you don’t need it anymore, ever since. Ever since the Giant TCR, which they kind of designed in order to be able to sell one size bike to more people, right? And then everybody started copying that slopping top tube, compact geometry. And all of a sudden, you didn’t need to tailor your bike size to you just change your stem or raised your saddle when they see posts. So
Wei
yeah, absolutely. I think… Well, I didn’t know that there’s always a time and a place but I feel like almost like with like kind of trends as well and certain flavours flavour, the month, flavour the year and so on, there’s always a better time for things or like a hiatus…
Ev
What do you have to say about that?
Lee
I tend to, I see it as like, an essential thing for certain people. So I don’t see it as something that like someone looks for, it’s usually as a result of like a bike fit dependent on the way they interact with the bike. So for example, myself, I have really long legs, so I have a 94 inseam. And I’m 187 tools that’s very long legs. So obviously my saddle height on a normal 58 bike has to be very high. So you can see my bike was over there, it’s gonna have a lot of excess exposed seat posts. It also means that obviously, we’re following the seat tube back towards the angle. So the setback is getting further and further back. And then my shorter torso can’t reach the bars. So generally speaking, I don’t fit that bike very well if you look at it, because I have to have the seat ran forward. Ideally, I’d like custom bike because of those reasons don’t make sense. I find that a lot with different people.
Mat
So I have the opposite problem today. I can’t get bikes that are long enough. So I got super short legs, ridiculously long torso. So what have I got like a 130 stem with 100 mil reach bars on top to reach that is about 395 and I’m still cramped
Ev
for you when you get out of the saddle. What happens then?
Mat
I just don’t.
Ev
Well, that sounds like a really tough attitude. Do you ever get out of the saddle? I never get out of the saddle.
Mat
Always right. But, so yeah, so here are two very different ends of the spectrum to candidates for custom geometry.
Ev
Okay, I’ve got another one. So I’ve got same length tibia as femur by my expert tape measure, measurements, which means that with all these don’t get me started on crank length, but if my crank length isn’t suitably short it just it doesn’t I can’t put any power out particulars like anything more than 170 it’s just completely power down. And with Yeah, and because of because of the long tibia, if I when I get out of the saddle, I’m way over the front of the bike so far over the front of the bike that if I don’t have an incredibly long and low position, I feel like I’m going to just fall over the front of the bike. So kind of that’s how my road position ended up being like really slammed was like it’s a compromise because when you’ve sat obviously you’re quite long but you find it
Lee
You find a way to make it custom but it would be quite nice for you because obviously that would be made for your particular dimensions
Ev
Yeah, I mean I would I would literally go for like a medium like a 54 centimeter frame in everything else except the top tube where I just had another centimeter on or even more you know, just to just to get a little bit more length or, or maybe just would be better to like mess with the seat tube angle or something to get my positioning. Does anyone has a custom bike? Yeah, yeah.
Wei
So that bike over there is a custom bike.
Mat
That’s probably the only one that fits. Yeah.
Wei
So yeah, and it was kind of built with certain things in mind as well. So I guess we’ve been talking about like, kind of custom bikes in terms of fit, and how it kind of relates to your body and your body proportions, but also about like, kind of how it rides. And so I guess that’s where some of the magic kind of happens in a custom bike in that it fits you really, really well. But also can ride or create a certain kind of ride feel, or kind of help you towards a certain kind of riding goal, that maybe you wouldn’t be able to get from, like a non custom bike, or it just kind of does everything better.
Ev
I mean, the idea is that you can, you can get your tube length and your contact points where you need them to be. And you can just adjust the angles a little bit. So that like Yeah, and like your head angle is not too slack, or not too steep or whatever. So that it right, the bike rides the same as it’s like supposed to do. But if you tried to off the shelf one, you wouldn’t be able to get your contact points in the right place without feeling jittery on corners.
Lee
Yeah, exactly. As obviously the stem would be where it’s designed to be. Yeah.
Wei
But then they kind of how did we all come to this point where we felt like he or you knew that you needed a custom bike? Like how did like the How did you figure out that? Because of those kind of…
Lee
I guess, the results of a bike fit. So I had a bike fit. And where I felt best was that and then if we look aesthetically at a bike, and we see that a saddle has been run forward with an inline post with not particularly slack, or slack seat angle, seat tube angle, and I’ve got a 90 mil stem, you know, it’s not the ideal fit just from that, really. But then if you move it, that’s actually I’d actually prefer to be a few centimetres forward as well. It just feels a lot better. On top of the pedal stroke, I feel like you know, a lot more relaxed in the arms. And it’s a result of just where I feel better in space. That’s yeah,
Wei
you’ve done a lot of riding on that bike. Yeah,
Ev
it’s amazing how the body gets used to stuff. Just give it time, train yourself into a certain position. Yeah, might not be ideal, but you know, and you’ll eventually get injured.
Wei
So there is a blurry line with them between like kind of what is what is ideal is ideal. I don’t know that I guess ideal can be a moving target as well, by like kind of what you’re suggesting you can train your body into a position so you can adapt your body to a position. So do you kind of adapt to around the bike? Or do you need the bike to kind of adapt around you? Or kind of put you in?
Ev
Probably a bit both, isn’t it? Yeah, like meet in the middle. There’s a certain level of okay, there are certain types of bike race bikes, they’re meant to be written in a certain position in quite an aggressive position. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever ride them because it’s aggressive. But if you are going to ride that bike, it’s probably advisable to ride it quite a bit. So that your body gets used to it and you strengthen up muscle groups in the right areas.
Lee
And also very fast as well. Otherwise you’ll have really sore hands. Yeah. Yeah,
Ev
Well, yeah, I mean, that’s another thing. I’m about weight distribution and speed. Everybody. Most people like, ride the turbo at some point, especially with Zwift and stuff. And you immediately you’ve got this bike is super comfortable. And you’ve been riding it for years, and it’s great. And then you sit on the turbo, it’s on me like, oh my god, this is horrible. Why would I ever This isn’t I have to change everything. And then you do when you get back out on the road? You go, no, no, no, no, it was fine. Because when you sat on the turbo, you don’t have a massive fan in front of you, like pushing you back into the saddle. Are you doing like maybe for like 30 35k or faster. Measuring the wind resistance, like it’s just putting you off balance. When you get on the turbo, something that you’ve put so much weight on your hands, you feel like you’re falling forward, you have to then you have to wedge up the front wheel. And then position is once again not ideal, because you’re riding like you’re riding on the flat but your saddle’s in your balls.
Wei
Nobody wants that. So I guess we’re talking about specificity. So we’re getting on to kind of how bikes can perform in a specific kind of way like But going back to like the giant TCR, then like is, is a kind of stock geometry specific enough? Like it sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? But like, is it? Is it good enough so that people can do what they want to do.
Lee
I would be better if you had companies like Canyon, and like Trek and Specialized where you can when you order the bike and especially Ribble, and you can choose things, but unfortunately, it’s obviously all made in Taiwan packaged and they just come as they are. But it’s incredibly wasteful, because obviously, you have to change up the bars and stems, the saddles, the cranks. So it’s a shame that we can’t have a little bit more control over that. And as a buyer, you have a bike fit, you know exactly what you need. It’d be amazing if you could just do that via a company that you pay three or four grand for a bike, which is what most people are spending. And it seems to make sense.
Ev
It’s the economies of scale, isn’t it kind of like you? How much did I need 1000 chainsets? Well, if I buy all the same size, I get them for a song, if I have to buy, and how many do I buy, if I’m going to buy like, all these different Chainsets, all these different chainring sizes, and all these things. And so it always, always comes down to cost.
Wei
But maybe we should make also the distinction between, say, a custom geometry bike, and then a bike that is customised. So we’ve, so the Canyon example is just talking about stock geometry. So you get six different sizes of bike, but you kit the bike out in different components, so that you make the bike fit a certain person. Whereas custom geometry is kind of starting from nothing building from the ground up, deciding what kind of shape bike would suit your body, welding tubes to make that kind of shape. And with a kind of certain vision in mind for kind of what the job of that bike would be.
Ev
It would be good to have more information out there about and I think a lot of custom builders, don’t, probably because they’re so busy welding, they don’t really have time to sit and you know, Do you can you can do, you can do geo charts. And you can say okay, this is the this size and this size and this size. And I’m going to this is going to have this size, length, top tube or whatever on these angles. And then when you’re customising it to somebody, it’s like we because you’re talking about bike fit versus geometry, right? They’re very intertwined. But the two very different things like geometry is how the bike is going to ride and bike fit is going to be how comfortable is going to be for you are going to be able to get power and stuff. But with custom geo you can you know, you’ve got things like wheelbase that makes a massive difference. head angle, seat tube angle, makes massive difference, front centre. what do you call it, setback, which as opposed to saddle setback, but yet get setback and like hell, the angle of the seat tube and stuff, those things can make a massive difference. And when you’ve got stock frames, like the TCR, or any basically modern compact geometry now you’ve got the connectors can still only be so many sizes. So there’s always going to be these people that just in between the small, small slash m medium, medium slash large, like although you know how many they’re going to do? How many? How much? how cost effective? Is it to do? Seven or eight different frame sizes instead of five? It’s not very cost effective for Yeah, companies do a massive things. That’s what custom comes in. Really? Yeah. But it would be good to have more information out there about what geometry really does, and why it works a certain way, you know, I know it’s a bit.
Wei
I did. I’m going to play devil’s advocate as well. And, you know, like maybe ignorant ignorance is bliss. Is there too much information? Like maybe people don’t even want to know about geometry? They just want to get on a bike and ride it?
Ev
Well, yeah, I mean, that’s where the marketing people come in, isn’t it? The thing is, the thing is, the marketing people want to sell the object, whatever it is. So what they do is they make up a bunch of stuff, and then they just write it down. And then they tell everyone, but they don’t know what it is they’re talking about. Unless they are, you know, experts in the field that went into marketing, which doesn’t happen does it really. But if there’s some science behind it, promise it’s all been done for how do you convince people that when I say this is science behind this, these geometries, why am I telling Truth and Canyon are lying, you know, whatever brand, the brand
Lee
The funny thing with custom is, we’re trying to take someone away from spending, God knows how much on Canyon that’s not going to fit in the first place. I spend most of my job doing that, because there’s people that want to spend a lot of money. But they’ve been so heavily marketed by brands like Specialized and Canyon that they want THAT. But that won’t fit or that’s given them pain. So as a result of making it better, they could spend the same way to have a custom bio, but it’s not as luxurious or exotic. And because they don’t know, certain brands that weren’t mentioned, but because they don’t know those, it’s not as exciting, even though that they’re gonna have more fun on the bike, and they’re gonna be a lot more comfortable, and it’s gonna feel better. They’re generally not interested.
Mat
Yeah, so ultimately, it’s a perception of our perception of value, isn’t it? What do you value? Do you value the object? The aesthetic, the integrated nature of modern super bikes, or whatever? Or do you value your time on the bike, your riding experience? Sure, you have a 12 grand SL seven, you know, you can ride it for half an hour, and you’re gonna have about back about for the rest of the week. Whereas, you know, a bike that fits you well doesn’t necessarily have to be a custom geometry, a customised bike, which has contact points that are kind of appropriate for your mobility, your flexibility, your riding style, all this kind of stuff. will give you a far better experience. Yes, it might not be the thing that you covet, that you can sit with a cafe and go oh yeah that’s a nice bike, isn’t it, I can’t see a cable, bangin’!
Ev
I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you who doesn’t love the integrated nature of modern mechanics? Yeah.
Mat
That’s a whole other conversation. But it’s like that perception of value, isn’t it? Like, what do you value most the experience of riding your bike? Or just the kind of the kudos of having a certain bike that looks a certain way? In a certain way…
Lee
Why does everyone hate cables? What’s the deal? I love cable?
Ev
Because I’m on rim brakes and cable and cable gears until I die, again just marketing, it’s just pushed. Yeah. I mean, there’s There are pluses and minuses. What are the benefits of disc brakes on road bikes? Let me… You look like the pros do now because they’ve all been forced into riding the disc brakes. And then now when they crash, it’s much faster. Because they reckon their brakes are so much better that they do at the last minute.
Wei
Just you wait till electronic braking comes in… No!
Ev
I know what the last thing. The last thing fly by wire to fail. Was that it’s fucking submarine? Yes, pretty. Yeah, it’s not No, no, God, no. No, please don’t do that is imagine like, okay, it’s fine. If you’re like your Di2 to battery runs out on a ride in Hertfordshire. But you’re going down a 15%. Decline.
Wei
All in the name of progress.
Ev
Oh, and then progress? Well, they’ll just have to get well, it’s like the infrastructure isn’t the conversation. You either don’t do silly things like fly by wire breaks, or you build more hedges, the bottom of climbs just to catch that Sunday cyclist?
Lee
Has anyone ever had a client? Sorry, just the bike fitters here, I guess. Might as well. But I’m just wondering if you’ve had a client that’s been like, really obvious custom kind of candidate, but you’ve had a particularly interesting fit. And you’d be like, yeah,
Mat
They’re like buses aren’t they. For ages, and then three come along at once. Yeah, there’s always kind of, you start to see things and you’re like, ah, yeah, if you just had like a bike that was, you know, a bit taller and a bit shorter, or, you know, a bit longer and a bit lower. You could run the stem, right, right in the middle of a spacer stack, you could have adjustment both ways. You know, we could get Yeah, all this kind of stuff starts going through your head. And it’s like, well, yeah, is optimal versus practical, isn’t it? It’s like, yes, you would be a great candidate for a custom geometry. And, you know, a really nice custom steel or titanium bike would be amazing for you. But let’s face the reality, you want to do a few laps before work on the morning. Go out for a long ride to the cafe with your mates on a weekend. And that’s pretty much it, you know? And yeah, so it’s kind of like that. That is a tough sell to someone who is kind of, you know, all they want is a Canyon Ultimate.
Ev
Yeah, they’re wanting what their friends have got. Because their mates have got it and
Mat
because they see like, you know people on TV like riding in, in, in the protests slammed? Yeah, exactly, yeah. But what is the main objective of your bike fit slam my stem back problem. Let’s revisit the ultimate versus practical equation,
Lee
So you’ve never had someone that you’ve kind of essentially not sold a custom bike to, but you’ve never had someone who has a particular, you know, maybe like something’s wrong with them,
Mat
like, we can always recommend never really kind of sell to. We’re here to give knowledge information so that our clients can make the best decisions possible for them. But yeah, it’s kind of sometimes you do get a customer who is a, a one candidate for a custom Geo, whether they, you know, take that advice or not, it’s kind of down to them. But you can, you can just show them the way. And it’s like, this is how good it can be. This is what is possible on you know, XYZ bike of your choice. It’s up to you, you know, I’m not going to make the decision for you. But I can lay all the options on the table for you to make a better informed decision. Sure. And that’s kind of the way, the way I kind of think about it really.
Ev
Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a jig that you could ride? Like outside? You can just like, just click and everything, just the geometry and the fit and everything that was you can ride it. That’d be amazing.
Lee
Tony Corke’s got one that’s isn’t electronic? And it kinda Yeah. So yeah, we just need to find a really light version of that. And we can kind of ride it…
Mat
at some point, really? Yeah.
Ev
Sort of guy up this boat a few years back, who made a mountain bike with the head angle was adjustable. Yeah, right. And it had like, clockwork keys that you do an alarm that you’d like something like that. And you could just like you can just dial it in. So you’re climbing and it’s like, it’s really steep. And then you come to a top of the hill and like slacken it out. And but yeah, but it also looked like it weighed 30 tonnes
Wei
of this like we’ve been talking about, it kind of requires a certain kind of level of
Ev
knowledge. You mean flip chips aren’t like, you know,
Wei
Experience in riding. Yeah. You know, like, if you, if you don’t know, like, what, like, a certain position feels like to ride versus another position to ride versus another position or even like, different bike that I have? Like, I mean, like, we’ve all been around, like, kind of bikes for a long time and so on. But like the majority of people that come in, so yes, like, I haven’t written like five different bikes in different positions. And, you know, like, how many bikes? Maybe?
Ev
Maybe you should have bikes, lots of different bikes.
Okay, yeah, no, but
Ev
like you say, at the same time, that stuff like is taking the piss out of flip chips and stuff like that, because a lot of them are gimmicks, but at the same time, you know, if there’s something that you can change relatively quickly, or it was mostly mountain biking, but we don’t do it so much in road bikes, but maybe we should, it’s like, if you had something where you could change your wheelbase, or you could change the canyon actually did that they actually had a fork where they had two different trail options, right? Not something you stop at the cafe and like take your plate, but some people don’t even get their wheel out. But you know, you could actually make it steeper or slacker, not that many people would ever do that, they will just leave it as it came out of the box and just ride it but having that option was like that was that was interesting. I like the idea of being able to for me, that would be fantastic. I’d love a bike where I can just change the angles just a little bit depending on my mood, or just to see what it feels like you know,
Lee
there are components you can get to kind of, I think Redshift do quite a few ones.
Ev
They did a suspension stem. Well the elastomer…
Lee
change that I mean that does affect quite a few things because when you had suspension you had like different angles.
Ev
It goes through the travel you know it’s deepens you’re sure your head angle, if it’s the stem one they also do a saddle one. But there are like a slight double edged sword. Some of these expensive bikes like the SL7 for example. They have like either like a one piece bar & stem or they have like a they’ll have a stem with what’s the bigger diameter now, one a quarter so I have that but it will come with a shim and the shim is also a wedge. So depending on how you can actually like change the angle and you can also changed the if you do it the other way. So it’s not a wedge, it’ll just change your, your actual reach a little bit. Yeah, a couple of mil or something.
Wei
But like, yeah, like it’s like geometry changes, I think, definitely, probably harder to for a lot of people to comprehend like the, I’d say the general rider hasn’t really put that much thought into kind of geometry, or like kind of how a bike should happen. Or they kind of even that kind of like option of like, what? Well, should I put it in this flip chip position? Yeah.
Ev
What happens when I do that? Like, the bike industry is famous for giving you options, but not telling you what they do. Oh, here’s the instructions, oh, scan this code and read online. I didn’t know I was gonna do.
Wei
But the most obvious example I can think of is like just dropper posts, like, you know, like that immediately. It’s like super fast, it immediately changes like what you can do on a bike, how you descend on the mountain bike, and so on, was appearing on the pro road circuit and stuff.
Ev
Yeah, they should totally do this for road bikes. What a great idea. Where else, where can we save weight so that we can make up for dropper posts?
Lee
When Matej Mohorič did that? I think it was a year and a half ago. Yeah, we were all like, everyone’s gonna start coming with drop. Yeah, they didn’t. Thankfully,
Ev
the timing and the manufacturers, you know, lead times are quite long. So they’re coming. I’m sure they’re coming in the next six months, I think you’ll start to, but it was. I bet the people behind that could like watch that wobble that you had. And as long as he doesn’t crash, then everybody will want one of these now. Yeah, well, you just be Tom Pidcock and just not need one. Yeah. But Tom Pidcock is what? Three feet, something like that he’s so low, his centre of gravity is so low. You watched that? Was it Chris Froome. Like who’s basically looks like a lollipop. Compared to Tommy, and Chris Froome is not a bad descender anymore used to be crap. But he improved like a tonne. And he was like, hold on, but like the centre of gravity is like, well, that goes that shows you straight off. You know how getting your centre of gravity and your position on the bike is really important. Whereas physics
Mat
is like, yeah, there’s certain laws of the universe.
Ev
Balance a tennis racket on your valve your hand, you know, it’s pretty good to have a tennis racket. And here’s to actually
Mat
zoom out further, he talking about flip chips, dropper posts, like adjustable geometries, like a lot of people that ride bikes aren’t even aware of how they’re positioned on a stock geometry. So how do you know that you’re going to need a cut on you know, you would be better served with a custom geometry. And that’s where us, the industry, quote, unquote, come in with this information. But the way the bike industry works, as we all know, we’re cynical old gits who’ve been in it a long time. The bike industry is probably the only industry which does the best job of shooting itself in the foot consistently and catastrophically.
Ev
Which part of the foot?
Mat
don’t want to go on to the next one? But it’s like, how can like you were saying earlier, how can we educate people to make better decisions? Without that extensive kind of, you know, years and years of riding a bike? And that’s kind of where I think we fall down a little bit.
Ev
You should be the first port of call. Yeah, like but that’s the thing I you know, there was a glory days of the bike shop industry where they had like, you know, jigs in there and a 16 year old who didn’t know what it was doing trying to fit someone else but at least it you at least you got to sit on a bike and you got to feel you got to feel something. Yeah, let me feel something I think
Lee
we can’t ignore that is a luxury, custom bike, you know, buying custom bike isn’t.
Ev
Okay, but let me put it another way. It’s a luxury until you get one and you realise that you’ve been missing out on just the basic enjoyment or convenience of having a bike that fits you properly, for however many years until you realise, like, you know, how, how many years before I realised that I needed shorter cranks? And then I got them and I was like, Well, I’m glad I spent that 400 quid. I’m poor, but I’ve got like, I can ride my bike fast.
Mat
perception of value again, isn’t it that way you place the value. Yeah, it’s like getting a customised suit. You’re not gonna turn up for your wedding in a suit from Asda would you?
Wei
What colours do they do? Potentially?
Mat
Yeah, but it’s like, I’ll probably fit all right, but it’s not going to be tailored. That’s kind of…
Ev
the process, which is a luxury, but also why, why shouldn’t you have like you’re getting married, you’re spending bicycle you’re spending whatever money you know, you’re spending however much money you you’re spending on a wedding or a bicycle or whatever, like the process of buying that thing and understand and understanding what it is you’re buying, you know, some people are geeks about whenever they’re going to buy something, I know that if I’m going to buy some item, some headphones or whatever, or new phone my algorithm for the next, you know, three years is like, how about this phone? I’m like, No, I’ve got the phone now. But I did spend a lot of time watching videos and reading up on different stuff. So I when it came to shelling out my you know, my cash, I got the right thing, you’re making a more informed decision. Yeah, way more informed decision. And the people impulse buying bikes,
Lee
knowing I think the process is one of the most beautiful things about custom bikes, I mean, I would send fit data, from what we get on obviously, the custom, it would go to, you know, a company, for example, in Italy or America, they would look over that geometry, they would look at the foot size, they would look at the weight of the person, they would look at what they want to do, their inseam, their height, all that kind of stuff that make up the carbon layup from you know how heavy they’re going to be, they would obviously, all that characteristics and the geometry that obviously take that consideration to overlap all that kind of thing with the correct crank. And then they would come back to me with the geometry, I would then send it off. Sorry, have a look at it relook at the jig, re measure everything, make sure everything’s perfect. And then send it back to them with it okay, or not okay. And then they send the design through that the person has designed themselves, or you’ve gave them help inspiration. And then they come back with a paint draft. And then they okay that and it’s yeah, it’s a wonderful thing, because then obviously, you get it in the shop. And it’s just something that person has made themselves and hopefully, you know, it’s completely unique. And something that will last forever, especially things like titanium. I’ve dealt with number 22 before and my opinion, they’re some of the best bikes out there because of the workmanship is just insane. And they’re really good at what they do. If I had the money, I would get a custom bike, but I don’t know.
Ev
Everyone that works in the bike industry. So what why can I have all this nice? Why would I got all this money then? So that’s the
Mat
full circle setting? Who needs a custom bike? Optimal versus practical? How close can you get to optimal with the constraints, life budget, like cost of living and all this kind of stuff? So yeah, it is a luxury. But again, it’s knowledge and information of guiding people to make a decision for themselves as to what is going to be best for them, their needs, their budget, all that kind of stuff. So I think, yeah, a lot of people could benefit from custom geometry. Do they necessarily need it? up for debate? Probably not
Ev
How much were your shoes?
Mat
The ones that I’m currently wearing, yeah, 60 quid,
Ev
Really? I thought they’d be a more expensive sports shoe make. I thought you’re gonna say 300 quid.
Mat
But let’s say you can take them out of Yorkshire. But you can’t take Yorkshire out of a man. Let’s, let’s try them out.
Ev
Let’s just hypothesise that they were really expensive. But you’ve been wearing them for a year, every single day. Well, so let’s say they were 350 quid. Well, that’s how much is that per day? And then suddenly the value of it becomes?
Mat
Yeah, and it’s, it’s our perception of value. But we’ve got to be practical about it as well. Yeah, like not everyone can afford a custom made bike. So in our business fitters, it is literally, like we’ve been saying, here are the choices that you can make, while making informed decisions. Now, obviously, as a custom frame builder, this is slightly, a slightly different angle on it. But you know, this is the discussion,
Ev
and that’s why we do standard sizes as well. That’s the thing, it’s like it, you get, I mean, the cost of full custom process is long and drawn out. And like you just described, you know, you have to take your time over and you have to measure twice, cut once, you can’t just bang it out as quickly as possible. So it’s also good, you know, 90% of people can do with a standard size off the shelf size. So why not just make a whole batch of those. You sell more bikes. But
Wei
yeah, and I think just with the number of adjustments that you can make through all the components, like yeah, you’re probably getting 90% of the way there and people will be you know, very, very happy with that. And so, you know, when, when do people kind of really want to get that kind of custom geo custom buy? Maybe it’s Yeah, after they’ve spent a good amount of time on a well customised kind of stock geometry.
Ev
What is interesting is exactly what you say you would think that your demographic of custom foot custom customers are going to be people that have been riding for years, have written several bikes, never really found one that really suited them fit them properly. And then they’re like, Okay, now it’s time for I’m retired. This, I’ve got all this money, and it’s time for a customer. But it’s surprising, like you get quite a few people who are not that experienced and go dive straight in to the customer thing. And in May, yeah, wow, a few times. And that always surprises me. Because I’m like, maybe you should just try off the shelf first, like, you know, maybe at all, like, you’ll save a lot, maybe you’ll save a lot of money and time. But that’s not to say that we would turn somebody down if they were like, but yeah, okay, so your attitude is fitters is good in the sense of, to me, it’s good in the sense that somebody will come to you, you’ll sit on the bike, and then you will consider their lifestyle, their budget, or the constraints and everything else and say, look, it’s, you know, a custom bike might be ideal for you. But let’s look at the budget and look at, you know, something that people need to talk about from the get go.
Lee
And it’s usually our stock bikes that you can make work, you know, yeah, there’s no, you know, but it’s just, it just depends on the individual, obviously. I think it’s just, it’s a really, it is a luxury, I think it’s,
Ev
I think, I think there was a It came from like, same with bike fitting how, you know, their legacy, the legacy of parts and components, ridiculously long cranks and, you know, massive stand over heights and things like that, you know, there was a time when all bikes were custom, right? You want to do go to a bike shop, and they would measure you up, and they would make you a custom frame like lugged raised, silver soldered, whatever. So now it’s become, instead of a necessity, it is a luxury. And that’s something to think about, you know, though, because there are still people as older people who the good remember the good old days, and they customers, what they that’s why when I buy a bike, it’s like, you know, they’ve only ever gone to a suit tailor to get there. Or maybe, maybe they’re not that many of those people have this, that’s certainly a bit you know, there’s always a resurgence of these trends. You could call them fats, trans fats, whatever you want to call them. It’s true, but some, some are long, some, some go on for longer than others.
Lee
You can also get fairly cheap custom bikes as well, depending on the material, you can get really nice steel bikes, I think steel frames, so it’s still a lot of money, but like 2000 pounds per frame, I think is crazy. That’s around.
Wei
Yeah, and there’s always going to be the kind of outliers or within the kind of demographics and physiology and all that like you know, we’ve got a mountain bike coming in for a guy who’s a six foot seven or something. Yeah, and like, you know, the only way we could get him to pedal well on a mountain bike was to go custom geometry. So you know, he’s such a big guy, that, you know, you just, it’s just gonna destroy everything else seat tube angle was way too steep. So there’ll be a really interesting kind of project to see in the flesh when it actually finally comes back as yeah, as you said, Lee, it’s just yeah, it’s really amazing when those bikes come back, and people ride them, and they’re like, Wow, this feels amazing.
Lee
Especially if they’ve never had anything that’s fit right, but also cause issues.
Wei
Yes. Like, I think I think those people almost self-select because they end up everything that they ride uncomfortable issues or, or it’s like kind of smaller riders as well, like shorter that riders I just really not very well catered for within the kind of bike industry, like, my wheel sizes are just all the same size and crank leg. So, like kind of very, there’s very minimal difference.
Ev
There’s a lot more because there’s so many more women cycling now. Yeah, on average, you’ve got more smaller people. Yeah, not that there aren’t small men. So, there are a lot more people coming to us, looking for the extra smalls and double xs and things like that. And then you have to having to adjust the geometry and suddenly you’re having to fit within these boundaries. And you’re realising that, oh, whales are too big. You need smaller wheels.
Lee
We also actually haven’t mentioned that. With stock bikes, obviously they’re all designed around like a 54. So, with those angles, and obviously you have extra smalls and then extra larges that have essentially the same angles, so they ride awfully. So that’s actually not the point we should say, like smaller people. And really tall people are probably prerequisite of being custom by a truck. Just because they just
Ev
feel rubbish. Well, yeah, like I was saying with a smaller wheels thing is like, you know, you get to a certain size, when you get small enough, suddenly 700 C is too big, you can’t because if you don’t want masses of toe overlap, you have to slug it out on the front, so much that it compromises the handling the bike, so you can go down a wheel size, of course, go down wheel size, but you won’t find the tires that you your friends are arriving, because they don’t make them you know, so it’s changing a little bit, but, and again, for the big for the big people, you know, it’s finding those angles where you don’t know how, and this is why it’s so important for the fitters to be really tightly involved with the manufacturers with the frame builders is because you like you can see a drawing of a bike, right? We all know what a bike looks like, you draw one in the CAD programme, and you look at it and you kind of go, that looks weird. This looks weird that head tube is too long, the top tubes too short. So, but then you put that person on the bike, and all of a sudden, it’s like, okay, the bike does not ride itself, it’s actually got a body on top of it. And that is really important to always maintain that relationship between the rider and the bike. And it’s not just too many people just looking at bikes sitting there on their own.
Mat
The bike is a tool to do a job, essentially. And a lot of people forget that. Yeah, yeah, it’s not an object. It’s so easy
Ev
to forget though, isn’t it when you’re just sitting in your living room staring at your bike and go oh, that slam stem looks so I can’t ride it.
Mat
Are you in? A practical man
Wei
Mat sits there and looks at his cables and go look at that practicality.
Mat
If that breaks, I can fix it in 5 minutes.
Ev
I do love that about cables. It’s just Yeah. I want to see it work I want on the outside.
Wei
Oh my god. We’re going to talk about rim brakes. You know,
Ev
are you better? I’m really old. Next episode, yeah, right. Well, we
Wei
got to like we I think that’s good.
Ev
I think that’s good. Let’s see.
Lee
42 minutes, what a load of nonsense!
If you like what you’ve read / heard, check out our other episodes of the Soft Issues Podcast HERE.
If you’re interested in building a custom frame yourself, check out the frame building courses on offer with our friends at Stayer Cycles.
