The Bicycle Academy and its outstanding contribution to handmade bike culture

Andrew Denham, Founder of The Bicycle Academy. Photo by PETOR GEORGALLOU via The Radavist.

Some of you may have heard the news that Andrew Denham’s Bicycle Academy, or TBA, has sadly closed its doors after some Covid-related troubles. 

The business took a life-threatening knock during lockdown. It’s a teaching institution. It has to have people through the door, and this just wasn’t possible for too long. They made it through lockdown and out the other side through hard work and a refusal to give in, keeping TBA on life-support, even getting it open again and training new students I believe as late as last month, but ultimately their best efforts couldn’t overcome the impact of the pandemic. 

TBA is a social place where people come together to learn wonderful things about themselves and the craft we love: bike building. Without people, without the energy the students brought, excited to learn from their outstanding team, TBA simply couldn’t make it. 

I’m heartbroken. But, instead of feeling sad—of course, I do feel horrendous for Andrew and the team who all gave their heart and soul to that place—I want to spend some time reflecting on what an incredible contribution to cycling Andrew and his team have made over the years.

For those that don’t know him, TBA founder, Andrew Denham, is a design engineer who, after graduating, went into the field of aerospace where he spent some time helping to create new passenger jets. 

Most would be pretty stoked with their life choices if they found themselves in that sort of job, but Andrew wasn’t going to be content with that alone, and he spent much of his spare time dreaming up events and innovative ideas that shared the common theme of bringing people together. 

Most memorably, perhaps, was the Cobble Wobble which Andrew managed to get Red Bull involved in at one point, such was the spectacle he created. Hundreds of people from around the area (and far beyond) would bring whatever bike they preferred and race up Frome’s cobbled high street, much to the amusement of the huge crowds that gathered. And, yes, it was as fabulous as it sounds. 

Andrew Denham teaching on one our TBA’s framebuilding courses. Photo by PETOR GEORGALLOU via The Radavist.

To many, his work seems effortless, even frivolous. But that’s very deliberate. Everything Andrew does is deliberate. Andrew is smart enough to build an aircraft—and driven enough to do it on his own. But that’s not enough fun, and it doesn’t help enough people. TBA was different; it gave him what he needed and is proof of Andrew’s characteristic selflessness, talent and drive.

Andrew’s greatest achievement is arguably convincing his wife Maria to wed him, and later going on to welcome two wonderful children into the world (George, then Henry), but his next greatest achievement is certainly the inimitable legacy he’s built in creating and driving The Bicycle Academy. 

Even before TBA officially started, Andrew’s ideas were already breaking new ground. You may or may not know, but Andrew was pretty much the first person to Crowd Fund something. Yes, really. 

His concept for TBA was for participants to attend a course and learn how to make a bicycle which would then be gifted to someone who needed it—and it was a smash hit. So much so, that he raised all the money he needed to open the doors in record time, in just a few days, I believe. With his fundraising success, Africa Bike became a thing and so did TBA, and the people that came on the courses loved what they learned. 

It wasn’t easy in those early days. These things never are, but people don’t see that side of it. Issues—big let downs with some of the charity partners who’d promised to deliver the ‘African bikes’ to end users—caused delays, but Andrew never gave up. 

What couldn’t have been anticipated was the strength of feeling from some of his detractors at that time. It seems not everyone liked seeing a good idea happen. I remember, amongst the public success and the obvious impact his work was having, seeing also the troubling evidence of the incoming fire that Andrew was receiving, and it was incendiary at times. Being Andrew, he shrugged it off, persevered and overcame. 

Every Africa Bike was delivered in the end, and I remember an incredible party where me and a whole bunch of people I now call friends met—thanks to Andrew. 

Andrew and I spent two days welding hooks to be fitted to the ceiling and wrapped each frame up so the assembled crowd could celebrate them, the spectacle and the sheer scale of what the team at TBA had achieved. It was, thinking back, an impact that was perhaps never more evident than in that small room of close friends and peers on that night, who were all drawn to the project by Andrew’s charm and enthusiasm for his mission.

Easy on the outside, internally, the Africa Bike project should have been enough to drop anyone. It was difficult. But it was delivered. Every bike, every promise. And that’s how Andrew ran the business for the ten years TBA was in existence. 

The Bicycle Academy of one of their in-house designed Academy Tools Affordable Frame Fixtures. Photo by PETOR GEORGALLOU via The Radavist.

Now it’s not here anymore, and as sad as that is, and as hard as it must be for him and the team, I want to reflect and shine a little light on his extraordinary legacy. 

TBA is, to quote the award-winning framebuilder Adeline O’Moreau of from Mercredi Frameworks “The rising tide that lifts all ships”. 

And TBA, Andrew and his team’s work has undoubtedly lifted us all. 

I’ve no idea how many people they’ve trained (it must be in the hundreds if not a few thousand), but I do know that framebuilding would not be where it is without TBA. 

My business simply wouldn’t exist. It was Andrew who gave me the skills to do what I do now, and it was him and his team that allowed me to dare it was possible to start up. I still work with Tony Corke every week. I met him at TBA, through Andrew. 

It’s not just my business they've helped create or grow either. Everyone who’s anyone in the handmade scene has had something to do with TBA at some point, whether they taught there, learned their craft, visited, or helped out, and everyone else who’s been there or attended a course has benefited from the impact Andrew’s drive has had. Whether that’s through greater understanding, or just access to better tools. 

He’s done more to demystify, professionalise and democratise framebuilding than perhaps anyone else in cycling, ever. I’m happy to be challenged on that but please expect that I’ll argue back, because I struggle to think of anyone else that’s even come close. 

Why? It’s self evident. It’s difficult to imagine another niche industry where you could attend a show, see the very best work in the world and meet the guy that trained half of them—and then attend a course yourself (and for a very reasonable price). That’s unfathomable in most any other craft. 

The fact that TBA and everything they did was delivered with such technical prowess, professionalism and charm—so lightheartedly, but to such high standards—in such an inclusive and welcoming way is just beyond ordinary. 

So whilst it’s incredibly sad that TBA is no more, I hope you can join me in thanking Andrew and his team (both current and past) for creating TBA in the first place, for their backbreaking work, their tireless commitment to the industry and craft that we love and for creating a space, physical and metaphysical, where so much radness has been able to flourish. 

I hate to see you go, but I can’t wait to see what you all do next. Thank you, TBA.

If you didn’t get to visit TBA or know much about what they did, check out this short film about TBA’s Hack Bike Derby.