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Made In England: The artisans behind the hand-built bicycle

9
£35.00

VERDICT:

9
10
A passion for frame building absolutely oozes from this book
Weight: 
1,657g
Contact: 
www.pushprojects.net

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'Made In England' is a big and beautiful book that showcases the frame builders, artisans if you will, behind the British hand-built steel bicycle.

The book is co-authored by Matthew Sowter and Ricky Feather, both of whom are award winning frame builders - Matthew, who now welds under the Saffron Frameworks moniker, won the best mountain bike frame award at Bespoked Bristol in 2011 when he was working for Enigma - and Ricky, who won best track frame at Bespoked the same year, and then best road frame a year later for his collaboration with Rapha. So you could say they know their subject.

A hefty hardback tome at over 200 pages, 'Made In England', as the title suggests, only features frame-builders that make all their bikes in England.

The authors want to show that British frame builders are creating quality products that are up there with the best in the world.

The book concentrates on a dozen British frame builders, from the old boys like Ron Cooper who's been making bikes for 66 years, all the way down to young guns such as Jon Aston with a mere 4 years torch experience, and the book suitably kicks off by looking at the raw material with a special chapter on Reynolds and their tubesets.

After a short introduction to each frame builder the main body of the text of the book takes the form of a question and answer session, gleaned from conversations with each craftsman in their own workshop. Every frame builder has a different story to tell; their backgrounds, their reasons for building, influences and inspiration, building techniques and skills, favourite tool, tea - it's an engaging insight into the passion that makes them stick steel pipes together into pretty bike shapes.

It makes for fascinating reading, with each builder revealing both precious nuggets of information and prompting frequent chuckles. But with only about 2,500 words dedicated to each builder the book isn't bogged down with copy, it's the pictures that help tell the real story.

Kayti Peschke has poked her camera around the dusty swarf-tangled corners and captured perfectly the character of each frame builder's workplace, which is mostly grubby, it's fair to say. Photos of workshops, men at their craft, tools, lugs, drawings, plastic tubs of bits, details of bikes, both finished and rough hewn, and all the other random ephemera that make each frame builder's space and bikes both interesting and individual.

At the end of the 16 page section allocated to each frame builder all that mess and filing and dirt and steel and ideas and effort come together in a final double-page studio shot of one of their finished bikes. That you want to buy because you've been captivated by its story.

Matthew Sowter and Ricky Feather clearly have a passion for English frame building because it absolutely oozes from this book; it feels as crafted as a bespoke steel frame.

'Made In England' is a sumptuous chronicle of what's going on in workshops around the country with the current renaissance in custom steel bikes. The words give a pleasing insight into each frame builder's character and how that translates into each frame.

But you don't have to read the words to enjoy the book; the pictures are a handsome and vital part of the story, and seeing the dusty tools and messy workbenches that give birth to beautiful frames is enough reason alone to own the book.

'Made In England' doesn't preach and tell you to buy a steel frame over any other kind of material, but just seeing the craftsmanship involved might just sway you. Whatever your bike is made of you should buy this book, better yet get someone else to buy this book for you; Christmas, birthday, the cat's birthday, find an excuse, any excuse. It's lovely.

Verdict

A passion for frame building absolutely oozes from this book.

If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website

road.cc test report

Make and model: Made In England The artisans behind the hand-built bicycle

Size tested: n/a

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

There's a declaration on the contents page that 'Made In England' wants to present the reader with a snapshot of the current frame U.K. building industry sixty years from its halcyon days, and it was Sowter and Feather's aim for the book to show why British hand-built bicycles are some of the best in the world. It does all that, and more. If you don't want to buy a home-made handbuilt frame after reading this book then you're probably a little bit dead inside.

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
9/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
10/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
9/10
Rate the product for weight, if applicable:
 
9/10
Rate the product for value:
 
6/10

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

The insight into each frame builder and the photography, but mostly the photography. And it smells nice.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Yes.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.

Would you consider buying the product? Yes. Definitely.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes, and I'd recommend it to their partners as a gift idea.

Overall rating: 9/10

About the tester

Age: 42  Height: 180cm  Weight: 73kg

I usually ride: It varies as to the season.  My best bike is: The one I\'m on at the time

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, cyclo cross, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Fun

 

Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.

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9 comments

Avatar
thereandbackagain | 11 years ago
0 likes

I think the name of the book comes from the fact that almost all the frame builders use Record vices, which are 'Made In England'

Avatar
Ricky Feather replied to thereandbackagain | 11 years ago
0 likes
thereandbackagain wrote:

I think the name of the book comes from the fact that almost all the frame builders use Record vices, which are 'Made In England'

You hit the nail on the head. Whilst we were bouncing names around for the book, Kayti noticed when going through the photographs that nearly every builder used a Record vice, with Made In England cast on the side, the name was suggested and it stuck.

Avatar
Tony Farrelly | 11 years ago
0 likes

I've asked… There aren't. Although Vecchiojo (who if he was based any further south would be in the English channel) helpfully/unhelpfully tells me that there are also some from Yorkshire. That'll be Ricky for one then.

Avatar
WolfieSmith replied to Tony Farrelly | 11 years ago
0 likes
tony_farrelly wrote:

I've asked… There aren't. Although Vecchiojo (who if he was based any further south would be in the English channel) helpfully/unhelpfully tells me that there are also some from Yorkshire. That'll be Ricky for one then.

Glad you've pointed out that Yorkshire is actually a separate state within England Tony. The Bretons or Basques of Northern England.

Avatar
dodgy | 11 years ago
0 likes

"Weight: 1657g", I'll wait until they bring out a lighter version.

Avatar
Gkam84 | 11 years ago
0 likes

"'Made In England', as the title suggests, only features frame-builders that make all their bikes in the UK."

Really? It suggests England only to me  3

Avatar
Tony Farrelly replied to Gkam84 | 11 years ago
0 likes

Yes it suggests the same to me, I've changed it in the copy, but to be fair that's what the book's blurb actually says. I haven't read it so I don't know if there are any Scottish or Welsh builders in there… 

I'll ask.

Avatar
Ricky Feather replied to Gkam84 | 11 years ago
0 likes
Gkam84 wrote:

"'Made In England', as the title suggests, only features frame-builders that make all their bikes in the UK."

Really? It suggests England only to me  3

Yes, the book only features builders based in England. We would have probably named it Made in Britain had we ventured over the borders. Choosing who we would like to feature in the book was the most difficult topic for us and we really wish that we could have featured more, but then the postage would have cost as much as the book  3

Avatar
localsurfer | 11 years ago
0 likes

Shouldn't it be called 'Made in the UK' then?

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