MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]

We’re entering the final straights here (not something I say often)

As is normal with stuff like this I’ve gone insane, from being quite relaxed and hands off about component choice to relentlessly searching eBay and friends parts bins to cobble together a bik…..

Umm sorry, I’ve just received a statement from the advertising department, I will now read this

Bikes are one of the last few contraptions people have connection too. As our lives are digitised in the cloud and ownership replaced with rental services, the acoustic bike is often the last remnant of an analog world for many. Out of all of mankind’s creations there are only a handful designed to bring people closer to nature and a physical world, the bicycle is one of them.

Bikes live and age like us, both made from carbon, both having an invisible expiry date where they succumb to their environment and return to the ground which built them. Maybe this is why we develop a connection with bikes, a sentimentality, bikes often reflect our lives and our needs, an opportunity to express ourselves; how we wish to engage with the world, be seen by it.

It’s with this idea we approach this project, to build a bike which reflects its rider, but not just in their needs as a cyclist, but the world the bike and themselves will exist within.

With this in mind I do not live in a world of current year SKUs and a revolving door of product releases. Either financially or ethically. Some would argue to state this while engaging with a custom bike project is a reflection of naïveté and hubris, but I would reject that.

Custom bikes, traditionally, were not a luxury good, not in the way we see them today at least. Much like many products prior to the introduction of consumerism we would buy few things from local craftsman and treasure them, repair them and reuse them. The initial outlay was large and we were not going to afford another any time soon so one should buy right and make do.

To me, going to small trades people i value with an idea is a way to capture some of this. Asking for a bike that will, hopefully, travel with me for some time, change with me as I do and my needs do.

We’ve written before how the frame does this and while a big part of the project, the frame is not the whole project. To use a rather overwrought analogy the bike frame is a piece of wood, sure the builder can provide the best wood selection, the highest quality of wood, the right wood for the job, but the final finishing and cutting of it, the presentation of that wood, really is decided by the crafts person at the end.

As anyone who has worked with wood before, they’ll have the understanding that you can buy a piece of wood for a project with a specific intention but as you start working with it, discovering it, your project will inevitably be shaped by the wood itself. You become responsive to what it’s telling you, what it’s providing, with the final project being a melding of intention and organic exploration.

When engaging in this project, being handed the piece of wood, I had intentions, but as I’ve been developing it, it’s clear the wood is guiding me into a direction which meets my needs but also respects its natural character at the same time

With this I have decided to use the 9 speed xt mech I own then order a 9 speed lx shifter for £10 off eBay and a 11-40 9 speed ztto casette. Placing a, used, 9 speed groupset with hope pro 2, 25.4 thomson on a new 2023 frame really conveys the "purpose" of the frame, which is the best of the old (26” wheels, rigid forks, up right geometry), with the advancements of today (TA/ ahead/internal droppers).

Building on the idea that frame building and serviceable parts can create a sustainable ecosystem. That custom bikes, built by hand, in a shed, using nothing more than drawn tubing, sweat and a hand torch can extend the lives of parts around us, can allow us to make use of the thousands of existing manufactured goods clogging up our cupboards, basements and landfills.

Doing this is not to just a personal reflection however, it’s also a reflection of an industry which forces us on a treadmill of consumption, not progression. Putting these parts on such a frame shows us that they’re still just as desirable as the day they were machined, that the features and intentions they represented at the time are just as relevant now as they were when they were new. That it is us who decides what we need, enjoy and desire, that this does not have to be dictated to us by an industry set on consuming resources, labour and people for financial gain.

These things take time yes, they take knowledge, both of which have a cost. However, the parts curated for the build have been, financially speaking, far less than if I were to have bought new, with the general quality of them much higher even if that’s just the general viability of future servicing or aesthetics of their finishing.

While ultimately this is a little overly verbose and most definitely masturbatory, what about the bike industry is not. If we’re here regardless, we might as well make it more accessible, sustainable and in the shape of us than the big 3’s share holders

Wow that was long? Wild someone at marketing spent their afternoon on that when they could have been in the pub? Sorry folks,

At least I know to argue for less input from corporate in my future contract negotiations.

Between me and you switching from buying 10 speed stuff to using what I already owned in 9 speed saved me £100!, much like the wheels and finishing kit, it was just cheaper and bills right now are expensive.