Brycycles: Bicycles Built By Bryce Bénat

Baad1: The first attemp

Leeds / Bradford, July 2004: my bike gets stolen, and I'm left with a spare Headshok fork, so I decide to built a frame to fit it (and me). I got Columbus tubes and some lugs on the internet, then worked on the lugs for days to make them fit my ultra-sloping geometry and the custom headtube. I used the facilites at work (thanks Chris), a failry flat steel workbench: no jig, only fixtures and spacers. It was a success! I toured and comuted on it, with the Rohloff from the tandem, and I never imagined it wouls be so good. To be honest when I started it I really didn't have any expectations what so ever (I was riding a Mk3 Chopper to work in the mean time). Recently I pimped it up by giving it a full cleanup of the brazing (it was messy and the lugs look much better now), widening the seatstays to allow more tire clearance, fitting some braze-ons and powder-coating it. It's now a proper bike, even though the all black look (even the nipples!) gives it the "ride it like you stole it" touch. And that's exactly what I do everyday ...

Building a frame with Dave Yates

April 2006: We return to the UK after an 18 months tandem trip ... Not wanting to do much but building bikes, I am booked on a course at Dave Yates to get myself started. I have also enetered the Fred Whitton Challenge, 2 weeks later! So I fillet braze a racer, learning some tricks and tips from the master. I rode the bike on a few 100-150 mile rides but it didn't feel very suited to me. So in October I resprayed it and offered it to Chris. After all without Chris I probably never would have started framebuilding!

Karen's first bike

After cycling over 25000km without ever steering, Karen was desperate for her own bike. I got some extra tubes from Dave, and built a frame at my new workplace on a Henry James jig. The fillets needed lots of filing but I was happy and confident with what I was doing, and the bike came out very nice. Even the non-deliberate two tone paintjob looks very custom! More importantly, Karen loved her bike, and she was like an 8 year old getting her first bike.

Dan's Jump/Trail Bike

With another tube set from Dave and a whole new groupset bought on ebay (originaly for Karen's bike), I persuaded my mate Dan to let me build him a bike. Dan has broken a few frames so I can excpect some feedback on the frame's strenght ... Dan also has a trials bike and a road bike, so I went for an "all purpose" design with a short and beefy jumping frame geometry, 100mm forks and massive tyre clearance, but with some XC/trail type features such as triple chainset and bottle-boss so that he can go MTBing too.

My Replacement Racer

I promised Chris a frame on the very day I rode that first bike out from work, and he liked the bike I built with Dave Yates so much that I let him have it instead of a custom one. It meant I could use his tubeset (another one from Dave!) to replace it and do myself a custom fit instead (and everyone is happy). Its very similar to the first one (same fillet brazed 853) but with different dropouts (with custom stainless inserts!) and a slightly higher but shorter geometry.

www.karennben.com