Automatic – but not easy

This husband-and-wife outfit was literally on a research trip to Bespoked, showing off two of the four bikes built to date by racer-turned-builder John Ross. His first and so far only blog entry, of 28 November 2013, is a photo of a shipping container being deposited in what could be his back garden in Bristol: “Its been a big week. My new workshop has been delivered. I made this website.

“We all start somewhere.”

As Amelia told us, the Bespoked expedition was part of the “research phase”, to find out if people like the “bike packing” concept machines on display.

Two features stood out. One was the rear dropouts, made in-house to carry a very minimal set of tools. The other was typography; Naomi Skinner’s artwork deserves a look.

Meanwhile, John’s twitter feed provides a running commentary on the trials of starting up, absolutely from scratch.

Automatic, but not easy (and note the toolkit build into the dropout)

Automatic, but not easy (and note the toolkit build into the dropout)