As above, I could buy a nice looking steel frame, branded as pastey, for quite cheap. I know its old, an i seem to remember them from way back, but i dont really know anything about them!

errrr, I think you mean “Pashley” dont you?

no, i mean pastey!

They were part of the britbike (TM) explosion of a few years back along with cotic, on one etc.

Made a potentially great bike called the howler which got utterly slated by a couple of mags and I’ve not really heard of them since.

d’oh, my mistake. Yes of course. A friend had a bright red Pastey. A Howler I think it was called. Nice HT, but I think he complained of it being a bit harsh.

no pastey came out with some nice uk hardcore steel hardtails that looked a bit like souls with a space hopper badge. about the time on one started(?)

I think they were well regarded and sold ok but the owners couldn’t/didn’t want to kick on and reinvest to the next level if i recall right so the brand was wound up.

edit: too slow. didn’t recall the bad press.

ah right, why did they get slated? what type of steel? This one is red as wll, and would probably be used as a winter singlespeed/ hack bike

My new bike! SS Howler by evildiesel, on Flickr

IIRC made in Ireland.

The new VAT rate has killed them off 😀

IIRC made in Ireland

Was hoping they might be Cornish.

Edit: nicely done jota

From my clouded memory, I think that a mag reviewed a howler that was pretty much unrideable due to manufacturing defects that meant everything was misaligned. I think they contacted pastey, asked for a replacement and found exactly the same problems on the second frame. Hence the kicking.

Can’t remember whether this was on the steel or ti howler. A chap I used to know was very keen on them and knew lots more about the whole issue. It was his opinion that pastey had been treated very poorly by the bike mag and although there were some issues with one batch of frames, the rest were fine and it was potentially a really decent bike.

Tubing was 853 on the steel.

I had both the Ti and steel and they were perfectly fine as bikes. Not earth shattering, but not the disaster reported in some mags.

It was the titanium Howler that got slated, not the steel version which was suppose to be pretty decent

It was what mtb that slated it. I remember the review. It was the ti version they had.

I had an 853 steel Howler, 2005 I think. Very nice frame, but eventually broke at the drive side chainstay, where the tube was pressed/bent to improve the chainring clearance. Around the time mine broke, I heard of several other 853 ones suffering the same fate with near identical failures to mine. Given that there really weren’t very many made (less than 100?, someone may know) that seemed like a high failure rate and probable design fault.

Fond memories of mine. My first DIY bike build, and had some great rides and overseas trips with it. Still got the frame hanging up in the shed, with the thought of getting a new stay welded in one day….It’ll probably still be hanging there in 20 years 🙂