Bike porn

They're called show bikes.

And most of them are small because just like shoes all being size 9 in press photographs because they look good, smaller bikes (in the 56cm area) look better than larger bikes... more balanced, better proportioned.

Not all of the bikes that were on display were show bikes though. 2 of the Mathers were for customers, Ted's bike for his mum is ridden by his mum. I didn't ask Rikki, but I'm fairly sure that not all of the frames he brought were just for show, and I'm equally sure that the Brother frames weren't just show bikes.

But yeah, the more extreme bikes to show off a particular thing are just for show and may never be sold to any customer who would ride it.

The NAHBS ratio on this is far worse. You clearly see that so many of those bikes aren't even practical.

All the Feather frames were customer frames bar the Rapha one (promotional piece / photo model for 'epic' ride stories) and the dark grey/purple road bike with mudguards and 'cross cable routing, which is for himself.

Agree that NAHBS is on a different level for showy-off look-what-I-can-do stuff but Bespoked is of course still a showroom for the builders, they're trying to attract attention/custom.

I'm not sure where the customer taste for retro/fancy/wank stuff has come from. Maybe people want something that is very obviously custom and not off a Taiwanese factory line. A luxury product.