“Matt and I met a few years ago at the old Saffron workshop in Camberwell, London. Since that first introuction we have become good friends and Matt has helped me out with various things in the business from frame finishing and polishing, building a new staircase for our workshop to doing the photography which you can see on this website.”

Matt works in Brixton, London for Factory Fifteen, a small film and animation studio who are also big bicycle enthusiasts. The company to enter Challenge Adventure Charities annual bicycle ride; 450 miles across France raising money for Cancer Research Uk and The British Heart Foundation. This year it was the Alpe D’Huez Challenge! Having only owned and ridden singlespeed/track bicycles Matt knew it was going to be a struggle especially when it comes to any mountains, so we offered to start work on his first road bike for the ride.

We sat down and discussed key features Matt wanted to incorporate.  “Light and minimal” was the brief, so we used classical cutout dropouts to give a delicate look. Columbus Spirit tubing with integrated rear brake cabling to keep the tubes looking clean and tidy. One key feature Matt was set on was an integrated seat post and mast topper. We looked at toppers on the market but all looked fairly bulky and wouldn’t work in terms of aesthetics we were trying to achieve. After hunting down an Enve seat post accessory kit we constructed  sleek topper which to compliment the frame design.

Paint inspiration came from the new Aston Martin Vulcan track car. A medium dark grey with a vibrant blue for details and lines over the bodywork. Keeping a simple unassuming looking design from the side which on closer inspection reveals more detail. The final design incorporated bands of colour on the seat stays, stripes on the inside of the forks, detail in the dropouts and a solid stripe going from the stem, down the top tube and up the ISP to the topper to emphasise the solid all in one design of the frame. There is also an XV detail on the back of the ISP which is Matt’s Factory Fifteen cycling team logo.

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