12 Beautiful Bespoke Bikes to see at Bespoked this weekend

Bespoked, the UK's only cycling show dedicated to hand-built bicycles, takes place in Bristol on 15-17th April. That's this weekend folks. There will be some 100 exhibitors in attendance, so plenty of reasons to attend, but to give you a taste of what you can expect to see, here are 12 beautiful bespoked bikes that will be on display.

Don’t miss our earlier 12 Superbikes to see at Bespoked preview as well.  

Donhou’s striking Rapha + Liberty steel road race bike will be on display for Saturday only, with founder Tom Donhou giving a talk about collaboration at midday. Rapha has partnered with  Liberty of London to produce a special range of women’s clothing based on the department stores famous prints, and they asked Donhou to create a custom road bike with a paint job that matches the prints used in this season's clothing. Underneath the unique paint job is a fillet-brazed Columbus HSS frameset and it’s built up with Dura-Ace, Enve and Chris King components.

Downland Cycles runs framebuilding courses as well as wheel building and bicycle maintenance courses, and will use Bespoked to showcase this Invicta Frameworks bike, created by company founder Bryan for his partner Julie to ride L’Eroica. It’s made from Reynolds 853 Pro Team tubing with custom hand made paw print lugs, to celebrate her passion for dogs and to commemorate the Springer Spaniel she lost last year. Downland Cycles will also be showcasing this very special The Light Blue replica of a bike first built in 1900, a track bike which featured a massive 100t chainring.100t chainring.

Reilly Cycles launched at Bespoked two years ago with a view to making bespoke frames from steel, titanium and carbon fibre. We tested its first carbon fibre sample and were impressed, and the company is now making carbon fibre frames right here in the UK. At the show will be this 600SL road bike which weighs in at a claimed 5kg, with a Campagnolo Chorus groupset. A size small frame weighs just 647g, according to the company. 

Prestige Cycles of Brighton import some fine bike exotica and will be displaying a custom made Mosaic RT-1 road bike built up with the brand new SRAM eTap wireless electronic groupset. The RT-1 is made from double butted titanium tubing and is available with or without disc brakes - road.cc tested the latter two years ago and was hugely impressed with its performance.

Stanforth Bikes will be bringing four bikes to the show, an adventure bike and three expedition bikes. Stanforth doesn’t build the frames, instead using the expertise of Jon Aston of Chicken Frame Emporium and Lee Cooper in Coventry to make the frames, before building them up for the customer. The Kibo pictured above is one of the expedition models and has proved its worth, being cycled around the world by Reece Gledhill, cycled along the Iron Curtain by Justine Gosling, and which Ishbel is currently cycling around the world.

Wittson Custom Ti Cycles, as you might guess from the name, is a builder that specialises in titanium bicycles. On its stand will be this lovely Suppresio 100, a frame built around a traditional road race geometry with an oversized and internally butted head tube, bi-ovalized top tube, integrated seat tube, hydroformed chainstays and a PressFit30 bottom bracket. IT’ll be dripping in top-end gear from a Campagnolo Super Record groupset to Bora Ultra 50 wheels, with a claimed complete bike weight of 7.3kg. 

Moss Bikes is based in Wybunbury in South Cheshire and focuses on handmade steel road bikes, such as the one pictured above. As well as creating frames to a customer's exact requirements, the company also tries to source as many British components as possible (no easy task). The pictured bike combines a Reynolds 953 stainless steel tubeset with a SRAM Force/Red groupset and USE seatpost, stem and handlebar. 

Hartley Cycles will be displaying the 953 gravel disc bike that it first showed Design Museum's Cycle Revolution exhibition late last year. As a bike designed for gravel should, it has clearance for wide tyres and is pictured fitted with 32mm wide Panaracer Pasela PT tyres. There’s an attention to British components where possible, such as the Brooks saddle, Hope Tech hubs, Michaux Club handmade leather bar tape and Bentley Components dropouts.

Sturdy Cycles returns to Bespoked with its range of ‘signature’ bikes, which are completely made to measure with geometry tuned to an individual's requirements and riding style. They’re traditional road bikes designed for road racing and generally fast-paced riding without, the company tells us, compromising comfort. This is the steel version but it’s also available in titanium. The bike features some individual components you won’t see on any frame, such as proprietary dropouts, cable stops and brake bridges.

Holdsworth is one of the oldest bicycle brands in the UK, first established in 1927 and began making steel frames in 1933. It would have slipped into the history books if it hadn’t been revived by Planet X two years ago. At Bespoked, the company will be showing off its new Holdsworth Super Professional frame, built from Reynolds 753 tubing by Mark Holdsworth Super Professional frame, built from Reynolds 753 tubing by Mark Reilly. The frames will be limited to 100.

And now to finish with something a bit unusual… 

Robin Mather has built this crazy looking bike to help him better understand the effect of head angle and fork trail on the handling of a road bike. He’s built a frame with adjustable steering geometry and a data logging system, so he can easily make changes and record the findings. 

“By systematically riding simple courses (straight lines, constant radius turns, simple corners) with different configurations at different speeds I hope to build up a picture of what control inputs are required and how they correlate with the subjective ‘feel’ of the bike. It also be looking for differences between individual riders and  over time to see whether riding style and familiarity are factors,” explains Robin. We’ll certainly be interested in learning more at the show this weekend.

But wait, you thought that was odd? You haven’t seen the TBike, a novel creation that does away with a conventional drivetrain and instead uses the LinkDrive, a “a specific patented geometry of links to connect the pedals to cranks on the rear, geared hub.”

The company claims it "provides a powerful pedalling action, needs minimal maintenance, and is ideally suited to town and commuting bikes and even mountain bikes". It has left us scratching our heads a little bit here if we’re honest, so we’ll definitely be going in for a closer look at the show.

Find out more about Bespoked at