How do you picture the Curtis workshop? A place where great things are designed and built. I have always swayed from a small messy, unorganised shack with an unkempt old boy, verging between genius and insanity, welding new frames and giving them to team riders for analysis, to a super pimp, hi-tech, state of the art workshop with laser cutting machinery in one corner and computers loaded with CAD software hooked up to all sorts of machinery in another.
Each time I run through the scenario of going to Curtis, I imagine the workshop in a different way, I guess I had no idea of what to expect. Gary Woodhouse, current owner and natural predecessor of the brand, came out to greet us, the first thing I notice is his enthusiasm, and it’s like being hit by a tornado. Within minutes we’ve had a full tour of the workshop, had our drinks orders taken and received what we had requested just minutes before. Occasionally I butted in to try and ask some questions, get some deeper information, but they were only answered hastily as Gary moved onto the next thing that caught his attention.
After the initial excitement we all managed to slow down to a normal pace of conversation, topics changed from bikes to photography, then onto Taiwanese frames, politics and inevitably, back to bikes, hell…that is what we’re here for. I had done some research into the history of the company, enough to ask the right questions anyway, I assumed Gary would fill in all the gaps, all 35 years worth! As I started to ask questions about Brian Curtis – pre Curtis Bikes, Gary suggested that I ask him in person. I hadn’t expected the founder himself to turn up, I mean, he sold the company years ago, why would he bother?
Gary explained that his was coming in to make an appearance, quite a rare occasion. As we idly chat, we were silently joined by a bloke, who seems to just stand on the sideline of the conversation, I assumed he was lost, probably looking for the farm over the road, just waiting for a break in conversation to politely ask where Home Farm is or something, instead, as we all shot a look at the random guy by the door, Gary introduces him…’this is Brian, Brian Curtis’. Maybe it was my clouded head from the local clouded cider induced hangover from the previous nights festivities, but he wasn’t the unkempt old boy who verged between genius and insanity that I had in mind. After a double take, I shake hands with Brian, we begin to chat, and it isn’t long before I realise that he isn’t insane, and probably not a genius, just a regular down to earth man who has a passion about riding bikes.
Brian first started scrambling in the late 1950’s, he reckons its pretty much bang on 50 years since he first lifted a leg over a scrambler at a race meet. He soon went to Rickman Motorcycles where he learnt the skills of welding and frame building from the two Rickman brothers, Don and Derek, who were best known for their Metisse frames (Metisse translates from French as ‘mongrel dog’), Rickman Motorcycles made scrambler frames and body kits for competition off–road bikes powered by engines from Montesa, Zundapp, Matchless and Triumph.
It wasn’t long before Brian was turning up at the race meets in his battered old van and rolling out his Matchless powered Rickman Mettise. Brian never got a free bike from Rickmans, all bought and paid for in full, he was often mistaken for a team rider. What didn’t help this misconception was in 1965 at Longleat, at the regional championship Brian found himself racing against the elite, including his two bosses, Brian immediately held the lead in the first heat and took the win, then got a hard earned second place in the following heat, enough for him to get the overall win for the weekend…and more importantly, beating his bosses. This took him to local hero status amongst the other riders and fans alike.>>>
