Unit2 is now home to Gun Control Custom Paint, Spoon Customs, WyndyMilla (now W.Milla) and Sharp Precision Wheels, as well as partner brands, POC Sports and Maap Clothing. Photo by Helen Boast Photography.

Spoon’s specific start is difficult to pinpoint. But it really got going full-time in Montgenevre in the French Alps. And, it’s fair to say we’ve had a few homes since. Unit 2 is the latest, and hopefully a keeper.

The Alps gave us a great start, and it’s a big part of our life and the inspiration behind everything we do. It gave me the perfect environment to ride every day and develop our ideas for the bikes whilst living cheaply. That freedom meant I could plan, do, and invest in starting up. We still spend as much time out there as possible, and our testing, website and much of our marketing is still managed or done from there.

Business, however, wasn’t brisk in a remote mountain village, so I moved the main business back to the UK. And to keep things ticking over in a relevant way, I opened a bike shop. It was pretty small. So much so, I slept on a scaffold in the workshop for a year or two.

I stuck with that place till I was offered the opportunity to take over at (a then also struggling) WyndyMilla. I jumped at the chance. But with little of my own money left, and similar in the strained coffers at Wyndy, it was not going to be an easy ride.

Unit2 is a new creative and technical workshop space for Spoon brands, where customers can come to get a fitting, buy a bike or have one repainted, but it’s also designed with events in mind so cyclists and people interested in our work, can share ideas, get together and celebrate custom bike culture. Photo by Helen Boast Photography.

The plan was simple: borrow some cash, cut unnecessary costs (closing the clothing retail side of the Wyndy business) and focus specifically on the already brilliant bikes whilst driving big improvements to the customer experience, and put all the rest of the time (!) into engineering, fitting and finishing—and then see how we go.

A lack of resources meant any estates issues back then were dealt with out of necessity, not choice. We were also working with a small team, which was getting smaller, out of two sites. Hardly ideal.

Without the clothing, we decided we didn’t need a physical shop, so we closed Seale and moved into a humbler workshop, Unit 9 (an old pig shed, adjoined to the existing paint shop). It was more flexible space than the Seale site so it just made sense to take it.

Fast forward a few years and we’ve just moved into our first purpose-built customer, paint and workshop space. We’ve done all the work ourselves and we’re really proud of how well and quickly it’s come together.

Free coffee, chilled beer, fast wifi, pastries available on Saturday’s and a big screen are a big incentive to pop Unit 2 on your list of Surrey Cycling destinations. Photo by Helen Boast Photography.

Key’s in hand in early January, Ben and I shared some ideas for the new layout then Sam took over and got to work designing and specifying the site exactly the way he wanted it to make the paint process easier on the team. We’ve specified the other functions around those needs with the only higher priority being those of the shop floor (customer) space.

The result, not without the odd compromise of course, is our new purpose-built home, Unit 2.

Sam did all the joinery for the stud work and hung one and a half pallet’s-worth of plaster board to form the new rooms and workshops that a more efficient paint process requires. Kayley did most of the decorating, and Ben and I did the less skilled jobs whilst keeping up with the day-to-day operations. Kayley christened me ‘Noodles’ because I love a two minute job, apparently. It turns out if you ask someone who cut her teeth painting Mclaren’s supercars to do some quick decorating, even hanging coat hooks is a precision job and the results are the proof.

I should note that we have had some significant issues getting broadband back up and running, which has made our communications tricky. Quotes requested in the last two weeks or invites for video calls will be sent this week.

The whole project has taken much longer than we’d hoped: eight weeks, not five or six. So it’s definitely cost a lot more than if we’d got someone in to do the work, but the upshot of that has been a real sense of pulling together as a team and we’ve learned a ton of new skills in the process.

Despite the hard work and disruptions, the opening was this weekend, and wow, what a difference already.

It feels like a new start, and just ahead of the season. Whilst people are always chomping at the bit for their bikes this time of year especially now as the weather warms up, we’ll benefit from the changes straightaway, and we’ll make up for some of the downtime pretty quickly thanks to working in the improved space.

The new space is called Unit 2 and now serves as workshop and home for Spoon, Gun Control, W Milla and Sharp Precision Wheels.

As well as our custom bike offer, we’re also the UK’s only Enve dealer with fitting and custom paint on site. We wanted a quality product that people don’t have to wait for, so the Enve line was an obvious choice, and it’s almost as customisable as a bespoke bike.

The new space has a big ‘shop floor’ with purpose-built workshop space in view for customers, and regularly changing capsule collections from POC and Maap means our retail offer is back too. The Enve range of bikes available to test and buy from stock.

It’s a work in progress, as you might expect, and in time we’ll need another primer room to keep the main oven cleaner more often, so we can paint more frames more efficiently. Before that we have some plans to add Cerakote into our offer in the next few weeks (Sam and Kayley’s just passed Cerakote Factory Accreditation so well done to them) and implementing that well will likely need some new hardware and further changes.

Unit2 sits at the in the centre of tons of local Surrey Hills road and gravel loops with the nearest of those being right outside the front door. Callum from Velo Clinic pictured trying not to wear out his front tyre. Photo by Helen Boast Photography.

For now, we’ve got the workshop we need to grow and in which to build on the hard work we’ve all put in over the last three or four extraordinary years.

And perhaps more importantly, we have a more inspiring space we can all be proud of and work more closely in—we won’t be physically separate any longer. For customers too, you can experience more of our process first hand in more detail and get to know all four of us better, ensuring you get more out of the process of designing and building your dream bike.

Thanks to everyone who’s cheered us, came along to the launch or helped out on the build. And extra special thanks to all our customers. We’re back to the day job now, and cracking on with bikes for Spring deliveries.

Unit 2: A new home for Spoon with space to work, grow and build a community

© Spoon Group Ltd 2023.

info@spooncustoms.com

+44(0)1252 782960