Vee from Sideways makes custom carbon fibre bicycle frames. Mainly road and gravel and ‘single speed fun bikes’, but she also says there’s a ‘hardtail pending’. I spent a few minutes with her at Bespoked Manchester in order to find out a bit more about the path that brought her to making bikes.
Since I was young, all I wanted to do was build bikes. I sort of set my heart on it, watched Bespoked existing from a distance, and like old NAHBS (North American Handmade Bike Show) and things like that. And then I went to uni and studied mechanical engineering and then got sucked into lots of motorsport work, where I found I could learn lots of composites and things.
And so I was not really enjoying doing motorsports, but knowing that’s where a lot of the industry lay for composites in the UK, I worked motorsports for many years. And then I did lots of aerospace, and I’ve done fishing rods, and sailing boats and lots of other composite stuff. I’ve collected that knowledge to then create bikes. That’s always been the focus.
In 2022, I said, ‘OK, I think I’ve got the knowledge and the desire. Let’s actually build some bikes and put a name to them’. So that’s the story!
In all of that learning was the trickiest skill to learn?
Marketing. Talking to people!
Seems like it’s going fine just now! Do you have a favourite tool in making and why?
Scissors. A good pair of shears. I’ve got calluses my right ring finger, because I’m always using shears.
I’ve got four or five different pairs that I keep sharpened in different levels and they’re all for different things. They’re wildly important in composites.
A good pair of shears is second only to brushes, good laminating brushes. Never mess with my brushes! It’s got to be the right brand – Cottam – the exact right brand of brushes.
Is there a perfect brand of scissors or do you have a collection?
It varies. I’ve got some Wilkinson specific composites ones, which I kind of hate but kind of love. They don’t sharpen very well and they’ve got weird serrations which get clogged all the time. But when they’re feeling good and work really nicely, they’re amazing. I’ve forgotten the brand name… but I’d really love to get a pair of some… that are still handmade in the UK [We establish afterwards that it’s Ernest Wright and Whiteley]. If there was a Bespoked for Scissors, I bet they’d be there and winning Best in Show! So I’d really like to get a pair of them one day.
What does a typical day look like for you?
It depends what stage I’m at, composites requires a lot of waiting for curing cycles and things. So factoring that in is really important. If I’m firing the oven, I want to make sure I’m fully loading it because obviously it’s quite energy intensive to fire the oven and I’ve got to kind of keep it monitored.
If it’s a big layup day, I’ll have tried to prep everything a bit the day before and then I’ll get all the moulds ready. I’ll be waxing and releasing them and prepping them. I’ll cut material, cut consumables, and then just after lunch I’ll probably mix resin. So that’s live and I’m on a timer then. And then I’ll lay up everything into that and then start progressively getting them in the oven to start curing overnight. And then the cycle just repeats the next morning.
But if I’m on a trim day, then it’s tape up all the holes in my clothes and stuff, put my mask on and just put some headphones on, turn the dust extractor on and then just sit in a trim booth and get dusty for a day. Then if it’s a fit up day, I usually put some chilled out music on and then get the jig all ready and I’ll probably be back and forth checking measurements on the computer. So it depends what kind of day it is really.
Do you have a favourite part in that process?
Laying up. I really like laying up. In every job I’ve had, I’ve really enjoyed laying up and moving the fabric, the drape of the fabric and where you’re cutting things in and how it’s moving.
When it’s on a really good flow, you’ve got your resin just right, you’ve wet everything out perfectly, you’ve got everything prepped and ordered nicely… then you’re just sort of ploughing things in nicely and everything’s going well. You touch things together and you’ve got your scarf in perfect. So laying up is one of my favourite processes of it all.
How long does it take to make a bike generally? Is there a typical time?
I’m getting better and better as it goes, but by and large it’s about a month’s work. So the first week and a half is just laying up tubes and dropouts and things. The dropouts, because they’re high temperature – by the spec, they’ve got to be able to be suitable up to 120°C, so I have to use a high temperature resin for them, which for my equipment means it takes about three days to make the dropouts, because of various cure cycles that I’ve got to do.
So the first week and a half is tubes, dropouts, refining the design a bit, getting the jig read. And then it’s getting it into the jig, and then mitering and bonding. And then sanding everything off ready, then the final lay-up and a final cure and a full post-cure. And then it’s into sanding, any filling and touch-ups, any ancillaries like bottle bosses and cable routing and all those sorts of things, and then paint. So it all, in the end, adds up to about a month.
Wow, okay! What’s the hardest part of being a maker?
Money, unfortunately! Keeping a sort of desire to do it. Charging people for your work and valuing yourself, I’d say, is quite tough. I know I’d do the work for free because I love it, but I know I need to charge people for the work. Then because I am a bit lax on that sometimes, I then end up struggling for money. Money is the hardest part of all of it.
You’re not alone, I think we can all relate! And what’s the best part of being a maker?
For me, I can set my own schedules and work my own stuff out, which I think to a lot of people sounds like ‘Oh, you can bunk off and do nothing all the time!’. For me, it means I can be very regimented about what’s going on. One of the difficulties I’ve had of working in lots of other places is they’ll have a radio station on that I don’t like, and I go absolutely insane listening to that radio station, but you can’t change it, and I can’t wear headphones because of safety on the shop floor and things like that.
So just loads of little bits like that, about being able to control everything – how I like it. No one’s coming and messing with my brushes. Just being in control. It sounds like I’m a control freak, I know, but it makes me a lot more settled if I have control over my space.
Is there another maker who you particularly admire?
There’s a few. Some of them are individuals, some of them are companies. I really like Festka’s work, but that’s the work of many, the whole company and stuff.
I’ve watched Filament for a long while, and I was hoping they’d be here this year, but they’re not.
Tsubasa makes some insane carbon work. I’d love to have a whole afternoon sitting down quizzing them on how they do some of their stuff, because it is wildly perfect lines. Some of the stuff they do is amazing, but I have no idea how they pull some of the stuff off that they do. So those are some people I look up to.
Thanks to Vee for chatting. What we didn’t talk about in this interview was her interest in making use of ‘old’ materials, as well as new ones. This splatter paint bike was painted with left over paint remnants, and her first bike at Bespoked in 2023 used carbon fibre from sail boats. Clever! Check out more of her work on Instagram.
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Impressive stuff. Builders like this make me realise that I’m not against carbon as a bike material, I’m just not convinced by mass-produced carbon bikes. The single-builder attention to detail and quality goes a long way here. The clean lines look great, that helps too. Good luck with it all Vee.