“You’ve not been at the farm long so where did you put all this gear at first?” I ask after swallowing mouthful of cake that was a lot posher than the surroundings and which Chickens Frame Emporium’s only employee Harvey, master spanner man, bought in especially. “I knocked on the door at Stanmer Park Forge. I knew that Blacksmith’s forges were where bikes were traditionally made in the days before mass production, so thought it’d be a good place to start. Ricky Delaney answered the door and like Mike was into what I had planned. He let me keep my stuff there for nothing and without his help and inspiration I couldn’t even have started. I had all these machines but it was humbling to see what can be done over hot coals with just a hammer and a shed–load of skill. But all things must pass and when Ricky went on to teach blacksmithing full time I had to ship out. I thought I’d run my luck until he hooked me up with Bevendean Farm where I am now, tucked in next to the barn and surrounded by animals. Mike and Ricky and their kindness truly renewed my faith in the human condition.”
See what I mean? You’re not just buying a frame when you buy handmade, you’re buying all this. Every builder has got a story and the balls to avoid working in an office.
As the proud owner of a custom Curtis hardtail I know the answer to the question that everyone asks a frame builder; the one about justifying the expense, in time and money, of getting one made. If you commission Jon you get more than just metal, “I’ll take you out on the trails to work out what suits your actual style of riding, not how you think you ride. Then I’ll disappear for a bit, call you when it’s ready and minutes later you’ll handbrake your car into the farmyard to pick up a frame that rides how you do, not how you say you do. I don’t mean this arrogantly; we all overplay/underplay our abilities when asked.”
Master criminals, grand masters and Alfred Hitchcock hide signatures in their work that only the initiated can spot, so I ask how to recognise a Chickens on the trail. Deadpan he says, “the smile on the owner’s face” before spraying tea all over Mike’s old lathe as he cracks up. “That and the Chickens–claw dropouts. Oh, and filed brazing that makes the finished frame look like a cross between a Curtis and a Cannondale.” To avenge Mike for the tea on the lathe I ask Jon the kind of question that little boys always ask when they see a big ass motorbike, but instead of asking ‘how fast does it go, mister’? I ask: ‘Could you build a full suss?’ “Yeah but I’m not convinced steel is the right choice for that. The beauty of steel is the feel of the ride and that feature of the material is lost in a full suss and I love working with and riding steel.” Touché.
Another obligatory question always asked of shed alchemists is ‘why bother?’ “It’s all–consuming but I can’t help but bother. I need to get the stuff that’s in my, or a customer’s, brain through my hands and onto the trails. The fact that anyone chooses me over any other brand or builder makes every frame a dream commission and it’s very flattering when you think of it like that. I’ve had people come back and be genuinely emotional about their frames.”
So if I come back to the farmyard in 10 years, what will I see? “Two containers side by side with a pump track on the roof and the next generation of chickens having a scratch in the dirt. Oh yeah, and I hope to have a toilet by then as well.”
The rain’s stopped now and I’ve been eying up a purple 29er that’s awaiting collection and which Harvey’s assembled beautifully. But Jon stops me and directs me to a white 26er that’s propped up on a haystack. “Ride a bike without the owner’s permission? You’ve got to be kidding!” he rightly says. Seems he stirs a little bit of morality into his builds too.
