It is thanks to the frame building courses I took part in at Downland Cycles, England, that I was able to participate in Bespoked 2017 as an exhibitor.
Indeed, Julie from Downland Cycles invited me to come to show on their stand the mountain bike that I had made during my training in TIG welding applied to bike frames. It is this same bike that appears in issue 111 of Singletrack magazine. You can read the article on my Blog: Singletrack magazine talks about me!
Once again, I thank Chipps for the shots he took me, if it is true that having the right equipment helps, I have to admire the talent of the photographer, very nice job!
On the Downland Cycles stand, we were able to find around 12 bikes. I was most pleased to see that Julie and Bryan had decided to put my bike in the centre of the stand at the front: Surely this had to be the best spot!
I took the opportunity of exposing at Bespoked to introduce the BAUDOU Bikes brand’s identity. This includes the headbadge, company name on the down tube and the isologo on the seat tube.
The show also allowed me to better understand the current trends. While the road bikes are a clear favourite, I was able to notice a loss of interest for the fatbikes. The classic touring bikes keep an important place in the handmade bicycle world and surprisingly there was quite a few full suspension bikes. I think that it is surprising because it definitely adds a lot of complexity in the design, especially for small frame builders. This complexity is increased by the fact that when designing the rear suspension, you have to make sure that you are not copying a patented design. Here is a selection of my favourite bikes from Bespoked 2017: