Bike Builder Focus: Feather Cycles

Location : York, North Yorkshire, UK.
Style of bikes : Custom frame design, All road, track and gravel.
Production Methods: Steel and Stainless Steel .TIG, Fillet, Lugged
Builder/Designer/Appointer: Rocky Feather

Intro:

Like all builders, Ricky has interesting stories, and Ricky is no exception. Located just 20 minutes outside of York, a tremendously historic city in the Northern part of the UK, Ricky lives with his wife and two dogs, crafting his pride and joy bikes in his home-built workshop. With decades of experience in metal fabrication, Ricky came into the trade from being a professional welder and has been making bicycles for over 13yrs. His big break came in 2008 when Rapha asked him to collaborate on a Continental bike collection alongside a few select hand picked builders (the likes of Ira Ryan). This was back in the good old days of black and white photography and finding joy in suffering. BG (before gravel).

In early days Ricky started a race team with some friends that did quite well in the Elites races all over the UK. The team was eloquently called HighSpeedSteel

Since then, Ricky has been honing his craft, keeping up with the ebbs and flows of the bike industry and adapting to recent construction variants, transitioning from lugs to TIG welding. All this alongside riding coastal tours in Spain and keeping up with the local chaingangs (fast paceline rides) and club rides out of York

Also, quite rare and notable, Ricky’s bikes can also be purchased through the Bike2Work Scheme, which save you a ton of money on new bike purchases and equipment, In the UK, there is a government subsidisation to promote cycling and help bike shop business. This incentive provided via teh government through your work, to both employers and employees . http://www.bike2workscheme.co.uk

Whats in the jig?

When I visited Ricky, he was working on a stainless steel custom ultralight bike using a high silver content solder and facing the tricky task of critical temperature management to ensure no embrittlement and no hot cracks. Check out Ricky’s Instagram post @feathercycles.

for some utterly astounding bikes have a look on Ricky’s website
www.feathercycles.cc

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