When WyndyMilla first started we wanted to point our training clients in the direction of the best & most unique bikes possible. .
It worked ok, we outsourced our bikes sales, mainly to US custom frame builders, the more custom the bike, the more whopping the price!
One day whilst out on a run, Henry thought, “hold on a minute, let's make our own custom bikes, but lose the bumper price tag. Does a custom frame really need to cost £5,000!?” he thought. So that day Henry’s voyage of discovery began, and the seed for WyndyMilla custom bikes was sewn.
And what a great voyage it has been...
First Henry felt the need to understand better the mechanics of a bike, thrashing bikes on the Elite race scene was not enough! After some intricate detective work at the London Cycle Show, Henry employed the services of British Cycling’s ‘Man Who Can’ & bike builder extraordinaire, Graeme Freestone King, and the learning process began.
Graeme introduced Henry to Lorenzo, a slightly portly bike enthusiast to his friends, a dealer in the finest bike tubing in Italy to those in the know.
Henry painstakingly chose the best tube sets Lorenzo had on offer, and much to his Italian friends horror, one or two other tubes from different manufactures to create the perfect unique mix.
Henry needed to find someone he could trust to hand build and wrap his tube sets to within a millimetre of WM’s custom specifications. Naturally, Lorenzo decided to overwhelm Henry and took him to six or seven frame building factories & workshops. Whaaa!
Fortunately one factory stood head and shoulders above the rest, largely because actually it was more like a family run workshop. So just outside Venice Henry met frame builders, road racer Diego and his wife Romina, a colourful couple, who agreed to carefully hand build and wrap WyndyMilla’s creations.
“How much for full custom geometries?” Henry asked Diego, “no premium”, Diego casually shrugged! Panic call to Lorenzo, “is something lost in translation here” Henry asked. Again Lorenzo assured Henry, “no premium” for full custom.
On his next fact finding mission to Europe, Henry met Luigi, a small Gauloises chain smoking Italian Stallion who Lorenzo assured us was in his 40’s, “140 more like”, we all secretly thought, but wow this guy knew the way to make his team paint the perfect bike as only the Italians know how!
So there it was, in Luigi’s paint shop at the foothills of the Italian Alps, the jigsaw was completed. Full custom WyndyMilla frames, any colour you like – with no custom price premium. My god... “I just hope Henry doesn’t get knee capped”!
Of course WyndyMilla then built up our first full custom bikes in the Surrey Hills & put them in the hands of the Henry and the rest of the WM Test Team.
Resplendent in pink the team had 3 wins & a podium in their first 4 races of 2010.
Resplendent in pink the team had 3 wins & a podium in their first 4 races of 2010.
These frames rock, they really rock!
Check’em out for yourself >> |
