
Part of the reason for the Bespoked Bike Show’s existence is to encourage new builders to give frame building a go. Harry Prescott from the HP Bike Project is a perfect example of turning inspiration into action. I asked him to run us through the details of this, his first ever bike build.

This is my full downhill bike that I’ve made. I’m just trying to find a way of making a downhill bike, basically in my garage, with pretty basic tools as well. It’s a full steel frame, and I’ve not really used much CAD other than Linkage to figure out the kinematics. Everything else was just done by hand and on paper.

Apart from building a downhill bike in your garage, what’s the goal?
I think to start with it was just to try and gain some skills of how to make a bike, get my welding better, learn how to do the machining. Then in the future, maybe go down the route of making some for other people if people are interested. I’d like to do some 3D printing in the future as well and try and just neaten things up and make things a bit better.



Does this bike have a name?
Not yet. Welcome for suggestions with naming the bike if you want, but just ‘my downhill bike’ at the moment!
My Downhill Bike, I quite like that! Can you give us some geometry numbers?
It’s a 63 degree head angle, 470mm reach, the chainstay is 445mm, and we’ve got 200mm of travel front and back. We’ve got an idler there – it’s not quite a high pivot, mid pivot I guess, so it’s nice and consistent through the rear travel. We’ve got 27.5in rear wheel, 29in front wheel. It’s a 470mm reach.



And the, I don’t know what to call it, gusset, undercarriage, bottom bracket section?
That was [me] trying to find a way of being able to run the shock as low as I wanted in the bike to get the weight nice and low. And give me room to run the reservoir on the shock at the bottom as well. So, that helps move the downtube out of the way so I can get the shock in. That’s all done out of plate that I’ve cut into, like a box section almost. It helps to get the weight nice and low.

What did you find particularly challenging when you were building this?
A lot of the tolerances where the part join onto the bike. So, the seat tube isn’t quite right – the internal diameter. It’s not a problem because it’s a downhill bike so it’s going to be slammed anyway! And some of the little things that maybe on the next bike will improve – like the bottom bracket never did quite go right. I had to (sorry Hope!) but I had to skim a little bit off on the lathe just to get it in. Nothing crazy, but just little things like that that on a full bike you would hope to get improved.

So, the precision of it all then. Was there anything in there that you had a Eureka moment when you were putting it together that you’re particularly proud of?
Probably that bottom bracket section. It’s quite a nice unique design I think, and it solves the problems that I wanted to solve.

Was there any inspiration behind that? Did you see something anywhere or did it just come to you in the middle of the night?
I would say it did! I was following what Nico Mullaly was doing with the Frameworks project, so it’s quite a similar linkage and everything to what he was doing. Then obviously he worked with Reynolds to do a steel front triangle for one of his prototypes. So, I guess that kind of started the idea. I think Archibald Cycles does something kind of similar with a gearbox on it as well. So, maybe a few different bikes all bound into one I guess.

How many hours did it take you in your garage to build this then?
I gave up counting a long time ago, but quite a lot! When I came to the show last year and I had the first paper drawing that I’d done. I got chatting to the guys at Reynolds to sort of start trying to spec tubes and stuff for it. I suppose that was June last year, so I sort of started about then I would say. Not too bad I guess. I had to make a jig as well, so that was another side project I had to make.
It’s been quite the productive year for Harry and he’s even found time to ride it too. All the best to him for the future. Now, maybe it’s your turn to be inspired to give a build a go? Check out our other Bespoked coverage for more inspiration.