- STACEY’S PASTURES NEW ROAD BIKE -

I’ve known Stacey for about 8 years now. The first time we ever met was when he visited my first workshop to chat about an idea he had for a devil-themed road bike. I don’t think he quite had in mind or knew where we’d end up going, but to this day it was one of the most fun bikes I’ve ever built. Keep an eye out for it in the blog as part of my ‘Throwback Thursday’ series. Stacey lives here in York and has become a mate of mine - a mate who I definitely don’t see or ride with often enough. He was actually the first customer I shared a ride with following the collection of his bike.

Anyway, onto his new bike. After spending most of his working life at one company, Stacey had a fall out with those further up the heirachy and didn’t know what the future held for him. After parting ways, he wanted something to celebrate moving on to new things in his career, and for going out on shorter, more aggressive rides to let off some steam.

Stacey’s a tall fella and there is never a dull moment when he visits the workshop with its low beams holding up the roof! Due to his height, it’s always a little tricky finding a nice balance aesthetically when it comes to the frame design, but I think this is something I execute well having built quite a few bikes for people approaching 6’6” or above.

Stacey’s roots are in Scotland, but like me he’s an adopted Yorkie and so has a fondness for the rich Viking history we have here. It was inevitable after his first bike that this one had to have a little bit of a theme behind it. We didn’t want to solely use the paint design for the theme - we wanted some actual detail built into the frame and a really great way to do this was to use a direct mount brake below the chainstays, leaving us free to get creative with a seat stay bridge. What a bridge it is; a stainless steel, CNC machined Thor’s Hammer. We did incorporate a little expletive to his ex-employer in the paint however, keeping the Norse theme going with some Scandinavian text. The paint took its own direction based on the Mavic 125th anniversary wheelset Stacey had settled on, incorporating a 5mm solid stripe through the whole frame to separate the two shades of grey as a nod to the one yellow spoke in each of the milestone wheels.