Interview: Clandestine’s (Beautiful, Practical) Bikes

Pi from Clandestine makes beautiful bikes that make me want to pack a picnic and ride off into the sunset. Practical, fun and gorgeous, I’d happily have ridden off on any of the bikes he had on display at Bespoked, Manchester. Trying not to fangirl too hard, I stopped him for a chat – talking to the makers at Bespoked is sure to have you discovering all sorts of things you wouldn’t otherwise have found out.

I have to say, of all the bikes in the show, I would ride any of these off into the distance, like, you just look at them and they make you want to go and like make a picnic and ride. Yeah, I love them.

Oh, thank you. That is essentially exactly my vibe really: bikes for living with, riding off into the sunset with a picnic. Like, that’s cycling for me, if you ask me.

So you’ve got four bikes at the show here. One is… now, is it a road bike? Is it a touring bike? What would we call it?

Yeah, it’s a road bike really, like for some non-competitive road cyclist, someone who just wants to like go for a ride with a bag or space for, you know, plenty of flapjack on a long ride!

Maybe an Audax bike actually?

Yeah, like a kind of Audax bike, a chilled out road bike, something like that.

Keeping it chilled on the road – I like it – and also it’s got some monster flat pedals on there, so it’s definitely not a head down into the wind road bike.

No, definitely not.

Then you have this incredible cargo bike long tail, with four biplane forks on it?

Yeah, that’s built for a guy who’s gonna carry like one or two kids on the back. So it can take up to six panniers with no kids, or four panniers with one kid.

Does he live somewhere really flat?!

He lives in Bucharest, I think it is. That’s where it’s going, so I don’t know if that’s flat!

I kind of hope it’s flat, because I’ve got an electric long tail, and it’s quite hard work with children on the back!

Yeah, this is actually a direct sort of inspiration from a bike I built about four years ago for a customer in Bristol, and Bristol’s definitely not flat! I know that he like hammers it, so he’s either strong, or it’s fine.

The four biplane fork crown thing was because on the original one I built, my jig at that point couldn’t do a chainstay length long enough. So I made it as a fork sort of sub-assembly, as a way of manufacturing it, but I really like the aesthetic of it, and this customer really wanted to like carry that through. All my bikes have the twin plate fork crowns, so referencing that at the back of the bike is fun too.

It looks fab, yes.

It makes it really strong and stiff as well, which is sort of what you want for a bike you’re gonna carry loads of load on.

Is there anything about this that was a particular challenge, or is it just a business as usual?

I mean there’s a lot of work in all those fork crowns and stuff, but a lot of my bikes end up being really quite complicated. It’s got things like a spring-loaded steering lock, which is machined from stainless steel. This is used so when you’re loading up the back of the bike, the front end doesn’t sort of swing around – which just a nice quality of life improvement. They’re quite fiddly to make. Lots of little details like. Turning aluminium foot pegs, and making little chain devices to keep that really long chain nice and tight.

It’s all a whole load of little things that build together and build together, and there’s tons of work in it.

And then it makes a beautiful big thing at the end! I really love it.

Okay, and then over on the Wizard Works stand you’ve got, what is this bike model called, does it have a name?

Yeah, this is a Carrier, which is my kind of ‘standard model’. It’s a kind of on-off-road touring bike, commuting bike, gravelly kind of thing. They’re all built custom-sized and made to order, and built with up to a 2.6 inch tyre, or a 2.2 with mudguards. I made them so they’ve got perfect mudguard mounting, so there’s no spacers, you just bolt it straight on, and the mudguards bolt to the racks as well, so they’re super rigid, no rattles, and really easy to live with.

Do you make those mudguards?

I didn’t make those mudguards. I do make mudguards sometimes, but only when I need to, because it’s really time-consuming making mudguards. Those are made by Berthoud Cycles in France. They’re stainless steel and the best mudguards you can buy, really. They’re amazing.

Again, it just looks fab. I’m quite tempted by one of those. If I ever have a reason to buy a special bike, then that would be definitely up there.

They’re my favourite bike, really. I designed them because they’re the bikes that I wanted, and I kind of think if a lot of people were honest with themselves, that’s the bike that everyone needs. Like a really nice comfy bike that can carry a bit of weight, but still not be super heavy and clunky. Integrated mudguards, integrated dynamo lights, racks that are really strong and work perfectly with the bags.

How good would the world be if everybody had one of those? I just think the world would be so much better.

I know, that’s utopia right there, if you ask me.

So then, over back on your stand, there’s a mountain bike. Well, it’s a Carrier, but it’s got a Pinion on it, and it’s got some chunkier tyres.

Yeah, so this is the Carrier, but I made it with a Pinion, and this is shown with the 2.6 inch tyres, rather than the 2.2s like on the other bike. And the Pinion just makes it even more of a monster touring bike, really. It’s super durable, low maintenance, nothing to go wrong, really.

I’ve made the Pinion on a sliding mount, so that it works almost like a sliding dropout – but at the gearbox, so like a bit like an eccentric bottom bracket. And the good thing about that is that if you were running mudguards, the wheel is in a fixed place, so the mudguards fit perfectly still. Whereas a sliding dropout, you’d have to keep on like f**king around with the mudguards to make it line up with the wheel properly.

Oh god, and fitting mudguards is awful enough as it is.

Yeah, yeah! So one of the things I always want to do on my bikes is make mudguards not awful. So on my bikes, they just bolt on – you don’t have to f**k around with it at all. So the sliding Pinion mount is something that I’ve made, it’s got a tension bolt, that you just tighten, and that tensions the belt, and then you lock down the aluminium plates that the gearbox slides on. So again, a really simple, easy-to-live-with system.

Very nice. Well, it’s all lovely! So the Carrier is a ‘standard’ model?

Yeah, it’s ‘standard’ in the sense that I’ve got certain things that I always do with it, like I build the front racks with it, and I’ve got certain steering geometry in mind that I like to design around, but they’re all custom-sized and made-to-order.

Is there a base price for a Carrier?

Yes, there is. It’s £3000 for the frame, fork, stem, front rack, and the rear saddlebag support.

Oh, so you make these racks as well?

Yeah, the racks are all made by me, and they work perfectly with the bags. The rear one’s designed around the WizardWorks Shazam bag, and it’s got triple boss mounts on the fork legs for more water bottles or bottom bags. It’s also got eyelets for a Volle strap, so you can strap a dry bag there with like a stove in or something.

And then the front rack, it’s got removable lowrider mounts and a bag that WizardWorks makes for me. It’s my Carrier Bag, I call it, and that slips perfectly onto the front rack and just clips on with two straps on the bottom, so it’s made specially for my bikes. It’s really easy to remove, and it’s got massive storage capacity.

But it’s also easy to take off, so unlike a basket bag, if you want to carry something really big – like a bag of compost or something – you can pedal to the garden centre, load up your compost, and then just like put the strap of the bag on top, so you’ve got like an easy-to-use big platform.

Compost on a bike – this is definitely my bag! You’re marketing to the right market! Thank you very much, they’re gorgeous.