Monty to Venice and back, in four days
A Spoon Vars Disc ‘D’ shaped seat post in production in Bergamo using our proprietary moulds.
When I first started making bikes I wasn’t trying to become a frame builder. I was just convinced there must be a better way to design and build a bike around my needs for the riding I wanted to do. After I finished the first frame I obviously hadn’t cracked the code entirely but I discovered something really magical that I just had to explore.
I was so sure of it I moved my life to the French-Italian Alps to find out more and make that idea real. From there I found the team, friends and families we work with today here in the UK and Italy.
The magic I’d stumbled upon with the first frame was difficult to define at the time. The bike was so much more involving than my existing bike but I couldn’t put my finger on any one reason. It was my first attempt of course and far from perfect but I became obsessed with the idea of making it even better and I set about exploring each characteristic, each element of design and build, looking for the ways I could make it even better. I set about finding the people I would need to make each part perfect.
What became clear pretty quickly was that the bicycle-magic here wasn’t material dependent. I’d ridden metal bikes before. And it’s fair to say whilst I adore the way steel rides, I’d enjoyed carbon too. It couldn’t be just about a great fit either because I’d got my existing bikes really dialled over the years. And, it wasn’t really about my old bikes not looking ‘good enough’ - I’d loved and lusted over every bike I’d ever owned.
Unsurprisingly perhaps it became clear it was down to a combination of things in equal balance and I became obsessive about elevating each key aspect, focusing on flawless fit, fabrication and finish. Convinced when all those things are just right, something special happens.
Today, we are fitting, designing, building and delivering a better bike for customers in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Mexico and Indonesia. I’m humbled everyday by both the quality of the work our team can produce, how we can move someone’s experience of cycling forward and the general and overwhelmingly lovely response to the finished bikes.
We design, build and paint in Surrey these days from two modest barns on a quiet farm estate. The units serve as workshop, paint shop and fit studio. We can control every aspect from here and that shows. Our steel still comes from Columbus mostly. We produce our carbon tubes in our own moulds near Milan. We then assemble those parts one set at a time in Padova (using tube to tube technology) with work done by friends who we’ve worked with for some years now.
I was reminded of how far we’d come on a recent visit to France and Italy to visit our workshops. My first proper trip out there since the pandemic started. I tend to drive out as it’s the easiest way to get to see everyone in the shortest possible time and as usual I left the farm and headed to Montgenevre (where this whole adventure got started) to meet Ben and have a catch up about the website, bikes, snow, lockdown and where the last two years had gone. His kids are growing up so fast!
The roads are so familiar to me having lived there for almost three years. But somehow being away from the place where I feel at home for so long had made it all the more special this time. I found I was far more reflective and full of appreciation for the friends and colleagues I hadn’t seen for so long, and I had especially missed the incredible roads and landscapes I’d been kept from for the last couple of years.
I stayed at Ben’s place in Les Albert. It’s a beautifully restored shepherds house in The Nevache valley at the bottom of Col Du Montgenevre. We got up at dawn just in time for sunrise and drove over the Col and down to the Autostrada which cuts across the top of Northern Italy.
First stop was Bergamo near Milan to see Yuri and the guys who make our carbon parts, then we’d go on to see Diego and his wife Romina in Padova who make Yuri’s tubes into frames then on to see Gianluca and his family who produce most of our steel work.
The pictures here were taken by Ben as we raced around on this month’s visits. They show some of the faces and places where some of the magic happens.
Alex Balestra
There is a very important person missing from these photos who is sadly no longer with our Italian team. Alex Balestra (Yuri’s brother) passed away in January this year after a long illness, aged 62.
An avid bicycle and motorcycle racer, and superb composites engineer, Alex was a good friend to our business and expert in carbon fibre component design, tooling and production. Spoon Vars Disc and the Wyndy Milla Massive Attack (which came before it) would not have been possible without his expertise, input, commitment and passion to making exceptional carbon fibre components for racing bicycles.
His carbon fibre bicycle parts have been used by Colnago and Pinerello and countless other big brands over the years and he wasn’t just expert in racing bicycle design either. Alex’s expertise produced at least 12 individual parts for the Ferrari Enzo, and countless other performance components for Ferrari’s, Maseratis and other exotic (mostly Italian!) sports cars.
RIP, Alex. x
Spoon Vars Disc uses our proprietary head tube with an overhauled and updated fibre book for 2022, comprising more T1000 fibre, designed to stand up better to pedalling and cornering forces, with less material.
Vars Disc seatposts are made one at a time first in this mould, then enclaved with the seat tube mould for a perfect fit, without the down sides associated with mass produced proprietary shape seat pins.
Yuri Balestra oversees production on every moulded part we produce. Him and his late brother Alex have were responsible for 12 individual components in the production model Ferrari Enzo, produced using the same processes we use today in our tubing.
The team in Bergamo cut and lay carbon fibre into our moulds to produce each tubeset one at a time for each of our customers.
Anthony has worked on our components since I started working with WR. His English is also way better than my Italian, or Yuri’s english for that matter, so he steps in as interpreter when needed.
To integrate the front end of our Vars Disc bike we’ve moulded a new headcup component that allows us to use a larger top cup bearing, without changing the main shapes in the downtube. Yuri inputs into the design drawing on his vast experience, reducing our development cycle. Here Yuri discusses how he approached the same problem on his road bike.
Head tube down tube components, fresh from our mould. Pics by Ben Hodson.
From left, Andrea, Fabiola, Gianluca, Alberto, me, and Maurizio at the Barco family workshop in Padova where we’ve been producing flawless stainless and mild steel frames for six years.
Ben wasn’t impressed with the Italian Wheel Museum we visited on route.
Diego, Andy and Romina in Diego’s incredible workshop