Until about the 1980’s it was not uncommon for bike shops to not only sell bikes that were branded with their shop name, but to make at least some of those bikes in house.
Cycles Bespoke is a relatively new shop in Perth where you can still by a bike with a hand built frame made by the store owner.
The store is in Bayswater, not to be confused with the Melbourne suburb of the same name, this Bayswater is about five kilometres north east of the city centre of Perth. Cycles Bespoke is a fairly small store of two main rooms, side by side in an old corner shop on a busy shopping strip. The shop exudes character, with all sorts of unusual frames and built up bikes on display.
Bicycling Trade recently visited the store and spoke to Cycles Bespoke’s easy going but very busy owner, Chris Jones.
Bicycling Trade: How long have you been going and why did you chose this location?
Chris Jones: This is the original location and next month will be five years we’ve been open. I had another shop many years ago, which I sold to open this place up. I have no desire to move. I love the location. It’s a good spot. One of the main bike paths into town is right across the road so we get lots of flow through traffic.
As you can see we’re a small shop which is both good and bad I think. It’s good in that it’s very easy to make the place look cool and funky but obviously we’re always up against it trying to keep stock on the floor. It’s a weird shape which I like.
BT: You don’t just do the exotic high end?
CJ: We’ve been lumped with a bit of a tag of being a boutique shop, which I’ve never liked because I never thought we were. We just simply sell good stuff. If it’s something I won’t bolt on my own bike, then I won’t sell it. Therefore, it does wind up being mostly nice stuff, but I’m certainly not only selling exotic stuff. A commuter can still come in here and buy a $25 taillight.
BT: What are your main bike brands?
CJ: Specialized is a big one for us and fairly new. And Focus. Those are our two main standard bike brands. Then we do a lot with Surly, Pivot Bikes, for our custom mountain bikes we sell a lot of custom titanium stuff from a small builder in Canada called Dekerf Cycle Innovations. We also do Legend, an Italian carbon brand and a couple of other little brands here and there.
BT: Are you bringing in some of that gear yourself? Do you have direct relationships with overseas manufacturers?
CJ: Yes. Dekerf is a small one man builder in Canada. I used to actually work there. That’s the connection I have with him. Everything from Dekerf we design ourselves here and bring across. We do a lot with the small US manufacturers like Paul Components, White Industries, we bring that stuff through again on our own. H Plus Sun from China with rims and things like that. We do a fair bit of stuff trying to build up reasonable quantities and do single orders from manufacturers.
BT: When I look at the frame and the stem you’ve made yourself, I immediately think of Llewellyn frames from Brisbane.
CJ: It’s all very much the same style. Obviously his bikes are incredibly fancy. I tend to build more utilitarian stuff. I’ve done a few fancy polished lug bikes over the years but it’s not really my forte as such. I’ve done that for one of my personal bikes and I’ve done a few track bikes like that but generally I go for a much more functional race type bike with very small tig welds.
BT: How can you possibly find the time to build frames and run a bike shop?
CJ: I have an incredibly patient wife! She lets me get away with murder.
BT: How many bikes a year are you capable of producing?
CJ: I don’t know. Occasionally I’ll get a good run and I’ll get a few done in one hit. Realistically I probably don’t make more than a dozen a year. In a good year I might make 20.
BT: Is there a waiting list for your bikes?
CJ: Generally I just tell everyone they don’t have to pay anything up front and they’ll get it when they get it. I’ve had customers wait up to a year for a bike before. But I let everyone know that we don’t do it as a Cycles Bespoke thing. It’s through Jonesman, the company I run on the side. It’s a completely out of control hobby. I started building frames 15 years ago and then I suppose at some point I decided to have a proper go at it. But I still like having the bike shop as well.
Chris Jones proudly displays one of his Jonesman bikes.
Chris didn’t just make the frame of this bike, but the intricately detailed stem as well.
Another close up of Chris’s frame building detail that will have anyone who was in the bike trade back in the steel frame era smiling with appreciation.
Cycles Bespoke is in the inner eastern suburbs of Perth, directly opposite a railway commuter line that includes a separated cycling path leading to the city.
This homely corner of Cycles Bespoke gives you a taste of how diverse a range of bicycles are on offer despite the shop being relatively small.