So Long 2016!
It’s been another great year for BTR. Here are some of my favourite bikes and times from 2016:
One of our earliest complete builds, Ranger #093 turned out pretty stunning! The complete bike was built exactly to Will’s spec, including August Bicycles handbuilt wheels, and working around the RockShox Reba forks he already had.
Ranger #098 is a custom build for Ed Norton – he’s 6’5″ tall, and needed a bike that actually fitted him! Working with Torke Cycling, we designed and built a tilt table for Tony’s fitting jig, and designed the frame around the sizing data from the fitting session. The down tube was custom made by Reynolds, since their stock items weren’t long enough! Yes, it is a 29er, and those are 29er forks – the frame just dwarfs them!
#100, the big one. This build fought us all the way, culminating in Gav from August Bicycles and myself driving for two hours (each way) to meet at a motorway service station somewhere on the M25 to deliver the handbuilt wheels. That was the night before the bike had to be dispatched, and I got back at 2am… We got the bike done in time though, thanks to August Bicycles going above and beyond the call of duty. Oh, and it’s a stunning build; definitely one of the nicest bikes we’ve ever built!
Stoked that this frame is now rolling around Japan with Yuris, as their test bike… Just look at it!
We supplied the 120mm travel RockShox Pike and Hope headset as a custom frame kit for this build. It looks pretty stunning at home in Sweden, fully built!
Jez’s 26″ wheeled Ranger worked out to be a beautiful build, from very understated components. It makes it all the more satisfying when customers visit the workshop to build their bike, so it was great to put this one together with Jez and share some of his new-bike-stoke.
Topping off the year for me was a birthday outing with my best mates to BikePark Wales. The weather wasn’t amazing, but we all had an awesome time riding anyhow, and the stop for lunch was all the more glorious. I had my GoSlow on, so here’s a little bit of footage from the day;
We’ve just released our new Ranger frame too. In a lot of ways it’s just like the old one – similar construction, and zero compromise. But the sizing and geometry are new, and the resulting performance is another step ahead!
All this, and our order book growing steadily, adds up to a pretty awesome 2016 really. We’ve got even more great plans for 2017; new bikes and more…No doubt 650B+ being denied on the Ranger is a disappointment to some. There are plans though; there isn’t a 650B+ Ranger because 650B+ bikes ride differently. They are more capable in some situations and less in others, so it only seems right that they get their own frame, designed contact-patch-up to extract the maximum possible from the big tyres. That’s not all the fat-tyre plans we have either! Oh and suspension. Turns out we know what we’re up to there too, so you’ll be seeing more of that in the future.
Here’s to 2017!
Tam