A custom bike has always been a once-in-a-lifetime purchase – built just for you and coming at a huge premium.
Is that still the case? When range-topping mass-produced bikes now command five-figure price tags, should we instead look to bespoke bikes? Could we be on the brink of a custom bike boom?
My adventure into the exclusive world of high-end bespoke bikes started after a conversation with Stephen Roche, founder of Brighton-based The Bike Tailor and one of the cycling experts at Silverstone’s Sports Engineering Hub (SSEH).
I’d recently ridden a succession of newly launched super-high-end bikes from the biggest brands in the world, all built from top-end carbon fibre with Dura-Ace Di2, SRAM Red AXS and top-of-the-range components.
The unifying factor was the price tag: each bike had a retail price well into five figures: £11,000, £12,000, £13,000, £14,000 and more… Roche’s view was: “I could fit you and custom build you a bike for that.”
My response was a simple challenge: “Go on then!”
The fit crowd
My experiences of bike fits have varied markedly over the years.
This has included being coerced by an over-enthusiastic ex-pro into adopting a position that Olympic time-trial champion Remco Evenepoel would have trouble maintaining.
I’ve also had fittings where the position was so relaxed I could’ve been delivering baguettes in 1920s Paris.
My best experiences, however, have been when the process is collaborative rather than prescriptive.
It works best where you’re talking to the fitter and being open to new ideas but aren’t afraid to ask questions – part of the process rather than being led by it.
This is something Roche excels at. A month after setting him the challenge of building me a custom bike for less than a mass-produced one, I’m in the salubrious surroundings of Babington House in Somerset, where he’s currently running a bike-fitting day in one of the exclusive Georgian manor’s grand drawing rooms.
Roche has asked me to bring along my current favourite bikes. I arrive with my trusty Cannondale SuperSix Evo and my Cannondale Topstone gravel bike.
We take a host of body measurements and record my position on both bikes, then we stop to talk.
The conversation is about my riding – my weekly, monthly and annual mileage, my preferred riding, distance, position on the bike and regular topography.
Because I already have a race-focused road bike and a gravel bike, and I’m enjoying both, we decide to build an endurance bike. I tell Roche I’d like one with a sporty road edge rather than an all-roader.
It’s also a chance to talk through any niggles and aches I get from riding. Roche’s fitting and coaching background comes to the fore here, and he makes a few stern suggestions that revolve around my warm-up and recovery regime, or blatant lack of one.
My pre-ride stretches usually consist of reaching for a coffee and post-ride it’s reaching for a cold drink, usually delivered in a pint-sized measure.
I’m then onto the bike-fitting rig for 3D analysis via motion capture. Roche’s decades of fitting experience also come into play as we start to dial in the fit.
Even though I’ve spent 35 years riding road bikes, I learn a few things. We tweak my bar height (reducing it by 5mm), which extends my reach by a few millimetres too, and add a couple of millimetres to my saddle height by tweaking my cleat position.
Roche records this data and then we transfer those changes to my existing bike.
Fast-forward a few weeks and my riding on my tweaked SuperSix Evo has felt more efficient – and I haven’t had the occasional lower-back stiffness I sometimes get after long rides.
I’ve felt more comfortable and stronger every time I’ve ventured out.
Going green
The Bike Tailor works with an impressive list of brands.
There are UK manufacturers Reilly and Sturdy Cycles, Colorado’s ENVE, Czech carbon experts Festka, Massachusetts’ Parlee, Italian legend Dario Pegoretti and Boulder’s titanium master, Mosaic.
Roche even has his own brand, the highly regarded Mustard, which will soon see new designs for road and gravel.
After a lot of research and plenty of calls with Roche to discuss the merits of each brand, we settle on Mosaic.
I’ve been a fan of the brand's beautifully crafted framesets for many years and always wondered if their ride was as good as their looks.
We then talk about finishing and colour, and I tell Stephen about the two favourite bikes I’ve owned over the years.
The first is a Storck Scenario Comp from 1999: a bike I bought in my early days working on Cycling Plus.
It was painted in a custom 'metallic flip-green' to be displayed at the 1999 Eurobike show and I was instantly smitten.
The next bike came five years later and was another green machine: the custom-fitted Parlee Z-Zero. It was – and still is – a spectacular bike.
My new custom build had to be green, then, but with an apple matt finish that’ll leave plenty of exposed titanium to keep Mosaic’s craftsmanship to the fore.
Roche has been championing a new wheel design from Australia, the Partington R-Series MK2 R39/44 (£5,500). I’d heard good things about these carbon marvels and was desperate to test them out.
It did mean, however, that my plans for a premium wheelset that wouldn’t break the budget headed for the hills and – together with the rest of the build on the Mosaic – blew the original total budget of £14,000 out of the water. Oops.
The rest of my build choice consisted of the newly launched SRAM Red AXS groupset, an ENVE bar and stem combo, and a clever custom 3D-printed saddle from Posedla: all pure superbike stuff.
The bike weighed in at 8.11kg and the cost came to £15,900.
Without the £5,000 Partingtons, and going with my original idea of either Zipp 303 Firecrests (£1,600) or Hunt’s latest Limitless carbon wheels (£1,479), I could have easily shed thousands from that total to bring the price down to around the £12,000 mark. That meant that Roche had, in theory, won our gentlemen’s bet.
Ti titan
Once I got the call that the Mosaic had landed, I headed to The Bike Tailor’s HQ to watch Roche’s Cytech master technician mechanic David French put the Mosaic together.
There’s something very sensory about watching a mechanic with French’s skillset at work.
His attention to detail displays a level of service that you simply wouldn’t get from a mass-produced bike.
French uses his experience to choose a selection of lubricants for each element, and he has his own tricks for best assembly practice.
The bar tape is wrapped with loving precision, and every bolt is torqued and checked twice.
My fit data is also perfectly translated to the bike as part of The Bike Tailor's experience.
I’ve already notched up hundreds of miles on the Mosaic RT 1TR, and enjoyed every inch of riding.
It’s a thoroughbred racehorse, accelerating with consummate ease, but doing it with a level of smoothness over the road’s surface. Its speed accumulation is stunning.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of riding many high-quality titanium bikes, from brands such as Merlin, Litespeed, Airborne, Van Nicholas, Reilly, Moots, Seven, Lynskey and more.
The Mosaic tops them all. It encompasses the character of the finest titanium, with both a road-buzz soothing compliance and the lively feedback the material gives.
It’s also made-to-measure with a finish that’s as good as I’ve ever seen on a handmade bike, and with a colourway and look that I had a hand in defining.
Had I not blown the budget on those epic £5,000 Partington wheels, the Mosaic would’ve come in at around the price of a Specialized S-Works Roubaix SL8 (£12,000) and Trek Domane SLR 9 (£12,050), and undercut the top-of-the-range Pinarello Dogma X (£13,300).
This helps show that the escalation in the prices of off-the-peg bikes has indeed caught up with custom and, in many cases, overtaken it.
The Bike Tailor offers the same service for complete bikes from £5,000. It shows that bespoke custom used to be a once-in-a-lifetime choice for most. It is now premium, but not prohibitively expensive.
For example, The Bike Tailor offers a Mosaic RT-2 with SRAM Rival AXS, hand-built Venn carbon rims on Hope hubs, FSA finishing kit, and Fizik saddle with the same specification for £6,900, with a bike fit.
No other bike exists exactly like it, and no off-the-peg machine will fit you better. For me, the choice between a mass-produced bike or a custom bike with a complete service from the experts isn’t a choice at all.
I reach that conclusion every time I head out on my glorious green Mosaic machine (note to self: next time, keep a tighter hold of the purse strings).
Mosaic RT 1TR spec details
- Weight: 8.11kg (custom size)
- Frame: Custom titanium
- Headset: Chris King AeroSet
- Stem: ENVE In-Route carbon road, 110mm
- Bar: ENVE In-Route carbon road, 44cm
- Bar tape: Prologo 3D
- Groupset: 2024 SRAM Red AXS
- Wheels: Partington R-Series MK2 R39/44
- Seatpost: ENVE, 31.6mm
- Saddle: Posedla Joyseat v2.0 3D-printed custom
- Pedals: Time X10
- Bottle cage: Wolf Tooth titanium
- Price: £15,900
