STRANGE OLD TIMES

First of all, I hope everyone is doing well doing well with everything we have had going on the past year.

In all honesty, I thought it’d be the end of Feather Cycles last March. It had been a fairly quiet couple of years and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a touch worried. As it happens, I have had the busiest year I have had in around 5 years or so. I say this in more of an extremely grateful and relieved way than in a braggadocios one. I have been thanking my lucky stars. As with so many small businesses, I was entitled to no Covid-19 support from the government and so to say I am thankful to those who have ordered over the past year would be a massive understatement.

The test for me has actually happened more recently due to the shortage of bike parts available, and I’m probably speaking for every builder and shop in the UK when I going this up. Once again though, my customers have been super understanding and incredibly supportive through this.

As a result of this, I have had to implement a bit of a change to the ordering process for new builds. Things aren’t changing entirely, but if you are interested in ordering a build this year I will very happily talk you through the changes I am having to temporarily make in order for builds to run smoothly. Please call or email me if you would like to chat about a bike, and I will do the explaining and answer any questions you may have.

Aside from business, one of the highlights of the past year for us here at Feather HQ is that we finally adopted another dog. Rusty came to us from Bulgaria via Wild At Heart Foundation and has been an absolute diamond of a little brother to our rescue collie Skye. He’s a super cheeky one and fully thinks he rules the roost, so fits in perfectly with us.

In more important bike related news, there are going to be some way overdue updates to the website in the next week or so. Starting with James’ stunning modern classic. Click the image below to see more and read about James’ build.

For now, I will be keeping the lugs crisp and the fillets smooth.

Take care out there people!

THE LITTLE TALE OF THE FEATHER CYCLES WAITING LIST

Feather Cycles has been my absolute passion for a third of my life now, it’s had some extremely high high’s and in all fairness, nowhere near as many lows. I have met some incredible people through the industry who I hold very close to my heart, it has led to some incredible trips, has had me at fitness levels I could have only ever dreamt of, has given me an incredible feeling of achievement on the few occasions I have been handed awards at shows when I have been up against incredibly talented competition. I have even been asked on occasion to be a judge myself. Thinking about it, it’s all quite surreal to think of everything I have done over the last 11 years, when prior to that I thought I would be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of my life. But, regardless of all of the above, the fact I am able to do something I love for a living, something I absolutely thrive on and am happy to give 100% every single day, no matter how tired I am from the endless 12-13 hour days, nothing comes close to that feeling of being able pay your way without that guaranteed monthly pay cheque, even if it is the typical modest wages that I’m any artisan will be able to relate to. Seeing the smile on the clients face at the end of every project trumps everything.

The reason for this post is that over the last few months, it has been drawn to my attention that many people believe I have an outrageous waiting list. I have spoken with a number of people who have mentioned that they never even bothered to contact me due to them wanting a bike much quicker than they thought was possible from myself, even though Feather Cycles would have been their number one choice. In actual fact, the last 18 months to two years have been the slowest and most difficult I have had in terms of bringing in new work, despite having the most experience of my life. Not only that, I have a great tight knit team of talented individuals around me who are on exactly the same page as myself, and as a result, we have been creating the best bikes in the 11 year history of Feather Cycles. All the way from the bike fitting process, to my own borderline OCD frame building process, to the unrivalled paint work - we put quality over profit every day of the week. This is what has led to such consistency over the last decade and is something I am incredibly proud of.

From day one, it was always my intention to craft the best bikes I was capable of, and with every build that leaves the workshop, make sure the next one is better than the last - the sentiment remains to this day.

My approach to marketing Feather Cycles has always been an honest one. No smoke and mirrors, what you see is what you get. I have always held pride in not hiding anything. When I have exhibited, I have always used customers bikes and have never built anything specifically for a show, this way it shows potential customers exactly what they can expect from me. The same goes for my social media posts, I show what I am working on day-to-day and try to express the extent I go to with each and every build and have even found myself worrying that quality doesn’t speak for itself these days or even wondering if my work isn’t up to the standard people expect any more, but that’s probably just the occasional paranoia that comes with spending too much time alone, overthinking and being overly critical of myself.

Since moving into the my new workshop in September, I have been building 3-4 bikes for every new order that has come my way. It’s been playing on my mind a lot recently, especially after hearing first hand of the belief of long waiting list and I thought I should make everyone aware that in the last 6 months, my build queue has dropped from roughly 9 months to around 3 months but is rapidly becoming shorter. Had I not have had a very slow 3 months over the last summer due to loosing my workshop with just a few weeks notice, and spending a lot of time organising a brand new workshop build and moving in to it, I may have actually run out of work already. Since the move, my focus on the bikes has been the best it has ever been and I can honestly say that the work that has left since the move has been the best I have ever produced and I have no plan on that changing.

Obviously, when you appear to be running out of work at such a rapid rate, you begin to worry. However, I do think that the fact people have mentioned their reservations being due to a big old wait has made me realise that Feather Cycles has become a bit of a victim of its own early success. I did at one point have a 2 year or so waiting list, obviously I thought that was great at the time, but it almost became a bit of burden, nevertheless a very grateful one, and so I closed the books for a while. After re-opening the books I managed to keep a steady 9 month or so waiting list which is very manageable and at the same time, incredibly comforting.

It has been an incredibly difficult post for me to write as anyone who knows me will know that I would never look for anyones pity, and in a way it feels almost cringeworthy even putting this down in words as my only intention is to make everyone aware that now is in fact the best opportunity there has ever been to get yourself on my waiting list without having to wait for what seemingly feels like a lifetime.

Feather Cycles has gone with the trends a little over its life time, but as much as I love some of the more modern bikes I have built, and ridden over the past few years, I have a huge amount of passion for building beautiful classic lugged bikes too. Whether that’s simple work horses, or highly modified and hand carved lugs like those from the early days of my career, I love the beauty of this truly artisanal method of construction and its something I have been missing recently after getting a new taste for it with a couple of builds late last year. However, this doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean I don’t have an out and out love for moving with the times and trends of the disc brake, gravel and adventure bike era, and the challenges these bring with them, all the while keeping them all unmistakably a Feather. Ultimately, the versatility is what keeps me so interested in the wonderful craft of hand made bicycles.

Let’s get some awesome Feather’s out there and more of you on your dream bikes this summer!

2019 RECAP

First of all, Happy New Year!!

2019, what a year! The year began for me thinking I would be moving into a larger work space with the potential to bring paint in house, have a great space for a studio for design and photography, potential to have bikes on display for the public to come and view as well as an actual working toilet and sustainable dry heating. Unfortunately, the plug was pulled by the current tenant who decided to stay at the last minute. Regardless, I was happy with my current set up and was happy to continue as I were. 

Anyway, a few months go by and I was approached by my landlord who told me they were selling my workshop and that it was going to auction with just 6 weeks notice. I made an offer, it was accepted and I head to the bank and solicitor and a week later, the landlords solicitor advices they take the workshop to auction and not sell to me. It’s probably the most stressful thing I have ever endured. As anyone who builds custom bikes will know, we don’t have capital falling out of our ears and so moving into a new workshop with nearly no notice seemed almost impossible. All kinds of things were going through my mind as to how I would take the business forward, especially having recently bought a house and having real grown-up responsibilities, no qualifications or alternative career to fall back made me feel like the world was on my shoulders.

In the end, I found myself in a very lucky position and was able to build a custom workshop for a fraction of the price I would have paid for the old workshop and design it to suit exactly what I do and how I work. At almost half the size of my last workshop I was really worried it would be too small; even after drawing a floor plan, but in the end it has turned out absolutely perfect. It is the most efficient workshop I have ever worked in. Everything is at almost arms reach, it is so small that it forces you to be tidy and as anyone who works on the tools will know, a tidy bench is a tidy mind. Ultimately, it’s the happiest I have ever been at the bench and has meant that I have already produced some of my best work to date in just 3 months of moving in.

Meanwhile as all this was going on, we were planning a 10 year anniversary event and designing 10 year anniversary kit, which was super exciting as I have never offered any kit for sale before. It turned out absolutely stunning and I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome. Thanks a ton to Sam Hodgson and Rapha for helping make this happen. I was also incredibly lucky to be the chosen builder of a couple of Trans Continental Race bikes for a couple of riders, they happened to be two of the coolest bikes I have ever built.

The 10 Year Anniversary event went so much better than I ever could have expected. It probably wouldn’t have even happened if it wasn’t for the amazing efforts put in by Sally, it was basically her event about me. Pretty terrible on my behalf. I was more focused on the kit and the collaboration beer I brewed with Brew York, a local craft ale brewery where a really old mate of mine, Mat, works. We had over 10% of the bikes I have ever built there on the day, with about 25 out on the road for the owners ride. We rode around 45 miles, just north of HQ and took in some great local landmarks including Byland Abbey and The White Horse bank in Kilburn. Thanks to all my customers and friends and family who attended the day, you made it incredibly special. I would also like to thanks my friend Nick who came to take some photos at the event. These will be added soon as I lost them in an incident mentioned further down this post. You can see a bunch of photos taken by Jon Woodroof of TwoTone fame.

For the month of August, I was asked to display some bikes at the Rapha pop-up in Leeds, followed by a private event on the closing evening showing my most recent work. Thanks again to Rapha for thinking of me.

In September, we were lucky enough to witness the UCI World Championships right here in Yorkshire. On the eve of the Elite women and mens road race events, I was kindly asked by Katusha to join them at their pop-up in Harrogate to have a bit of a meet and greet and chat to people about my bikes and what I can offer. I had a great evening and met some brilliant future customers.

As far as actually cycling this year, there wasn’t much of it. A family trip to Tuscany with Sally’s family was the best block of cycling I did all year and it was an absolute pleasure to get out into the mountains with Sally’s brother, Tom, who was also on his Feather to make it extra special. Otherwise, I have been making a huge effort to take my customers for a ride on my local roads when they collect their bikes. There is no better feeling than watching my happy customers ride the bike I created for them, especially here on the roads I know like the back of my hand but which are completely new to most of my customers. I also dug out the BMX too and did a little riding on that after years of it being sat in the shed.

Later on in the year, things picked back up at the bench having moved into the new workshop and went incredibly well all the way until Christmas, I have built some lovely bikes and worked on some stunning paint designs with Jack. I can’t wait to share more of what we have been working on recently later this month once things pick back up. There was one last blunder when I found at the end of December that my laptop had decided it would stop working, along with the hard drive it was backed up on. Luckily, there was a few essentials backed up on another hard drive, so thankfully, not everything has gone.

2020 is looking great for the next 3 months and hopefully things will pick up even more going into the summer. I just purchased a new computer, so it feels like a true fresh start and a good excuse to get the admin just as organised as the workshop. I’m super excited about this year and seeing what it brings. I hope you all have a great decade!!

WELCOME

Welcome to the new Feather Cycles website. Over the last year or so, I have had a lot of people ask me when there will be an update on the website and as much as I would have like to have said ‘in a few days’, I knew that was never going to happen. Things have been super busy in the workshop.

For me as a craftsman I have had my head deeply involved in improving my process and expanding my knowledge on the tools. My current work load took huge priority and the online side of things has been way behind on the backseat for a while.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I decided it was time for a way, way overdue update to my online presence and set myself the goal of building my own website. The whole thing was completely new to me and taking the challenge head on is just one more addition to my portfolio of how to run a modern business.

Having the website finished feels like a huge accomplishment, especially considering I have also been doing nearly full days in the workshop at the same time as working on this. Maybe this week, I will once again feel like a normal human being for the first time in a couple of months.

Below I have posted a few of my favourite builds from the last year or so that unfortunately weren’t photographed in the studio. I have just equipped myself with everything I need to photograph every build going forward, but this is a little taster of my most recent work.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on posting a TBT every Thursday featuring the things that have excited me most over the last 9 or so years, so keep your eyes out for these.

I hope you enjoy the new site and I will leave you with a little blog post by SiS CEO, Stephen Moon, about the first step in the process to getting your own custom bike. This will be an ongoing series of posts, so check back in with Stephen’s blog as and when you get the chance.