Blackett Ditchburn

Off to chroming, next the paint scheme

After exhaustive searching, I've finally found a chrome platers that I think will do a fine job on my frame, and on Friday I duly handed it over for a couple of weeks. I had a very welcoming reception at Premier Plating Works in Walthamstow. All the outward signs are that this is a great company that cares about every job no matter how small.  I sincerely hope I'm right...

They're going to polish and then plate the forks (right up to the top) and the rear triangle up to the brake bridge.

All that means I have to start making some conclusions on finalising the colour scheme.  As inspiration, I'm using this pic of a fantastic Bottechia, having found a very similar bike in the book Italian Racing Bicycles by Guido Rubino:

I'm not chroming the front lugs, but may just outline them...  All comments or other suggestions most welcome!

Et voila...

After a week of concentrated effort, this is the result. A Columbus Spirit steel tubed bicycle frame made by me, inspired by Italy and the era when I started cycling.

Last night I travelled back down the M40 with this gently cossetted in the back of the car, and reflected on a week that had given me an experience unlike any other. No email or mobile telephone, none of the freneticism of Soho and work, no wrestling with the arcane abstractions of advertising planning.  Just me, a bunch of metal tubes, and the inspiring presence of Peter Bird and Robert Wade to gently encourage (and correct) my progress as necessary. 

And in case you're in any doubt as to their palmares in this regard, just take a look at Robert's bike...  If my finished result gets anywhere near that much wow factor I'll be very happy.

For the uninitiated to the world of bespoke bicycle, that frame is uniquely made to fit me, and my preferences. It's been an exercise through which I have had to make myriad choices not available by buying 'off-the-peg'. I specified the clearance gap between back wheel and seat tube; through careful fitting it has a steeper-than-usual seat tube angle; my rear brake cable will be routed to allow for the UK convention of having one's back brake to the left hand. I chose all the lugs, and it's my hands that filed them to blend in with the frame more smoothly. It's my choice to have a sloping-toppped fork crown as an Italian reference to Cinelli.  I have the satisfaction of knowing - because I did it - that all those joints are as well-finished on the inside as they are outside.

I have a long way to go before this emerges as a complete bicycle.  First I have to clean up around all those lugs where bits of braze have been left.  While I'm at it, I can complete the hand finishing with a small file and emery paper. Then the forks will be chromed, as will the rear triangle up to the brake bridge. Then I will have to paint it. Since it's to be ridden from Rome to London, I've created a brand to celebrate:

Similar tongue-in-cheek references will be hidden around the finished bike!

For now, though, it's back to the real world. But I mustn't forget profound thanks to everyone at Bicycles by Design. It's been an amazing week. I only hope the finished article lives up to the passion and pride you have in your work!

It's real, we're going to make it

Things came together today - in one long session of intense heat (and yet more intense concentration) my fledgling frame came into being. There's much left to be finished tomorrow, but I think we'll make it.

It was a good moment, popping that wheel into the rear dropouts to find it in perfect line with the rest of the frame. (Note the neat closeness between wheel and seat tube - that's the kind of detail you can choose when you build one of these for yourself!)

The end of the day was helped by the detail in the next picture coming together after much fiddling, filing and shaping:

That is a neat 'fastback' seat clamp sitting at the top of the double-taper seat stays. As I'm learning fast - where bespoke bicycles are concerned God really is in the details...

Much of today's activities were watched by a very attentive guy from Bikeradar who was investigating the wonderfulness of the Bicycles by Design emporium. I hope my patient tweaking and shaping wasn't too boring to watch!

I'm much looking forward to my triumphal drive back down the M40 tomorrow with a retro-styled steel racing frame in the boot after five days focused effort. However, there's still immense amounts of work left to turn it into a bicycle to ride with pride from Rome to London.

Why?

The velocipede to end them all made great progress today. Early on I had the satisfaction of completing a triangle - one that begins to look like a bicycle may happen...

It felt like a private triumph. Today was more relaxed, more involving, more satisfying. There was nothing completely new today - the fear of the basic processes of frame construction have been replaced by something resembling a routine: cutting tubes to elegant shapes so they fit together snugly; brazing is becoming more familiar; cleaning and blasting the metal in preparation for joining almost dull.

Here's the head tube, showing the result of the cutting and fitting processes. The top tube and the down tube fit snugly:

Cutting tubes like that is not straightforward. They have to be cut exactly to length to fit the frame size that was determined by a careful frame fitting by my ever cheerful mentor Peter. And both ends need to be shaped to fit around tubes crossing them at awkward angles. So the process is to find the right shape then carefully cut it back until the perfect fit is found.

It's painstaking, absorbing work. It helps me to appreciate the work of the artisan. I'm transported away from idea-based work and into an almost meditative concentration on making.

And after all that effort, my cutting expertise will not show on the finished bicycle. Only I will know what lies below those elegant lugs. Only I will appreciate the patience and time required to get things just right. I didn't take a short-cut. I'm pleased with the final snug fit that has been achieved. As I leave Rome bound for London I'm anticipating a unique satisfaction will come from knowing exactly what lies within. 

Perhaps today's collected satisfactions are part of the reason why I'm here. I like making things. And I like cycling. Sooner or later they were bound to collide.

Tomorrow will be exciting: it's the point of no return as the frame brazing starts.

Two days down, three to go

This is the Jackfield Tile Museum, on the site of the former manufacturer of those familiar tiles so beloved of Victorian architects and celebrated as 'period features' in so many estate agent house particulars. And just behind this facade is Fusion: the craft centre that houses Bicycles by Design where I'm building my bicycle. 

Jackfield is just a short walk from Ironbridge - made famous as the 'birthplace of the Industrial Revolution'. While this grand claim embellishes the truth slightly, it is where Abraham Darby first successfully smelted iron through the use of coke rather than charcoal.

I stopped the car this morning to have a look at the remains of one of the first major iron smelting works:

It's the Bedlam Furnace, one of the very first coke smelting works in Britain.  As I got out of the car I was struck by the blackness of the ground underfoot. Even though it was abandoned in the 1840s, this site has left its mark on the environment.

The whole gorge that is home to Ironbridge and Jackfield reeks of its industrial heritage. Where once it was the 18th century equivalent to Silicon Valley, today it is pursuing a rejuvenation with an eclectic mix of tourism and small, artisan makers of all kinds of things.

One of which - Bicycles by Design - is my workplace for the week. I had a great day today, progressing the bicycle to be made by Blackett. (Carefully supervised by the patient uber-craftsman Peter Bird).

Dropouts (the bits that hold the wheels in place) have been brazed to stays:

I've started seeing progress, of seeing the parts joining together, shaping tubes to fit each other. It's a satisfying process that demonstrates to me of the delight there is in making things - the delight that motivates so many craftsmen and artisans to work so hard when the pickings can be so thin in our machine age. By the end of the day, the cross bar was a snug fit between the steerer tube and the seat tube - the whole thing beginning to resemble the shape of a bicycle. Tomorrow I'll shape the downtube and see the front triangle taking shape.

Two days in I'm living the artisan life of the bespoke bicycle maker. Tomorrow will see more progress and, no doubt, an even steeper learning curve...

And so it starts

It's Monday morning.  I've just driven for two and a half hours to spend the week with the tubes, castings and large file you see spread on a workbench in a room at Bicycles by Design in Ironbridge, Shropshire.  

I've come here to make my own bicycle. And in June this year, I'm going to ride this bicycle from Rome back to London, and then home to Hambleden. It's my way of making it a bit more of an adventure, a bit more of a challenge.

Already that challenge has become absorbing. Since booking my course back in September I've had choices to make about the components required to make a bicycle (the tubing, the lugs, the little extras that hold cables and things).  

I've had to think about what I want to build, what inspires me in a bicycle.  That stimulus has lifted me to examine the fundamental appeal of the bicycle. It's a humble, elegantly simple means of getting about. One that has suddenly become popular. Now the bicycle has become a piece of urban jewellery - a 'street' statement, an extension of the individual.

I've decided to build something inspired by Italy, that has racing in its design.

And it will be blue.

This blog will tell the story of my week, of the process thereafter to get that pile of tubes, and me, to the long ride home from Rome, and maybe a little after.