How To Start A Bike Company | Starling Cycles Factory Tour!
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- We visit Starling Cycles, producer of handmade steel mountain bike frames from Bristol, in the south west of England.
Joe from Starling explains what it takes to start your own bike brand, and how he moved from building frames in his garden shed to a purpose-built factory complete with its own mini-ramp!
We look at the process used to turn a pile of steel tubes into a finished bike frame you can ride, and head out to some local tracks for a shred!
#MBUKmagazine #MTB #mbuk #mountainbike #welding #handmade #builtnotbought #futuretech
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:48 How Starling Started…
02:59 Why Steel?
04:27 Why The Name “Starling”?
05:12 The Production Process Step-By-Step
13:45 Colour Options!
15:08 Outro
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Where do you want us to go next? 👇
perhaps the best way to go is to send my a large size frame with a 24 inch head tube and I'll test it for you. lol
Production privee in Andora
Visit another tiny steel frame bike builder. I recommend Capitol Cycles in London, KY, USA (yes London, Kentucky!), I bought my steelie from him 4 years ago.
Peter Mitchell from South Africa is the owner/builder... you can't come up with a more interesting story if you tried
@@Cliftyman Great suggestion! We would love to make a trip to the USA 🇺🇸 🙌🏼
~ Will
I've had my Starling since early in 2020 and it has been an amazingly fun bike that fits my riding style well. Goes all over the Cascade mountains, easy to maintain, great grip on climbs and descends through off camber roots and rocks amazingly. Joe was easy to work with and I have had zero issues with the bike. If you are interested in investing in a reliable bike, this is a great company to consider.
Steel is probably my next bike
Love this show topic - would love to see more like this
Thanks very much Joe! We love factory tours too and have some videos in the pipeline which we just can’t WAIT to share!
~ Will
Loved the tour, thanks.
This is awesome big fan of steel bikes💪
They have such a unique look! Thanks for watching!
~ Will
Second year Aerospace Engineering student in UoB, also planning to start up a bike company
Do you accept any interns?😂
What a cool guy!
Brilliant vid gents..👌👍
Thanks for watching! 🙌
Great video, Will you are a quality presenter
You're making Will's moustache curl!! Thanks for watching, and don't forget MBUK videos every Wednesday (next week's is a banger) - Felix
@BikeRadar yes, Wills moustache is a thing of wonder
Great design and manufacturing ethos. I get the rear swingarm isn’t as pretty as the flowing lines of a hydro formed ally or carbon version but it’s also going to outlast both of those options greatly. In times where money is getting thin on the ground for some, these are the types of products to buy. They will last and last. And if you do somehow break it one day in the distant future it can be easily repaired without heat treatment or patching up a composite that relies on the length of the filaments for strength.
I applaud you sir. I wish you every success!
I actually love the look of the rear end !
Still not cheap!
Back in the late 90's i had a fully steel KHS FXT comp with crappy rear shock and RST 381 R double triple with steel stantions. steel is heavier in that application as the steel was not 853 yet the bike still rode well even with a blown rear shock. I miss that bike yet not the rear shock.
As a tig welder i disagree with the less heat, you can clearly see how big the heat affected zone is from brazing and when im tig welding joints like that the heat affected zone is a lot smaller, thats mainly due to the tig welding is slightly faster and the tig arc is much smaller than the oxy/acy or propane burner. Still very interesting though
Brazing is less temperature increases over a bigger area, TIG is a higher temp increase in a smaller area. The discussions about what is better can last forever, but for our thin walled tubing, we think brazing is the best solution.
Do you not sand the brazing smooth for a nice fillet before paint? It wasn't discussed, but also couldn't see clearly on the finished bikes. Leaving it would make for faster build time and I could see it being stronger having more built up material there.
Interesting they use brazing instead of tig welding on the frame, older lugged frames are traditionally brazed but I haven't seen it on a non lugged frame yet.
I thought so too Simon. Was really interesting to hear about the process from Joe. If you want to see more brazed, non-lugged frames check out Curtis bikes…
~ Will
@@bikeradar I had a look, their bikes are very similar made. Interestingly Curtis says the frame of their XC9 hardtail is around 2,1 kg in size M, which is more or less the same a comparable aluminium hardtail XC frame would have.
They make the steerer tube like Starling, a straight 44 mm tube. Both use a semi integrated 1 1/8 inch bearing on the top and a external 1,5 inch cup on the bottom ( which also fits in a 44 mm steerer tube) so they can use a tapered 1,5 inch fork in a straight 44mm steerer tube
Wow top nerd points Simon. That is impressively light for a steel frame!
I’m keen to visit Curtis!
~ Will
Lugged frames are silver brazed, whereas this type is called fillet brazed because they’re making a radiused fillet.
Silver brazing uses capillary action to draw the liquid braze alloy into a tight joint between the tube and a socket (the lug).
They’re both called “braze” joints because they don’t melt the parent metal, the steel, but rather melt a lower temperature alloy (the braze filler).
The smell of steel drives me crazy...in a good way. Steel forever!
Excuse my ignorance, but how do the forks fit in a straight tube? Is it oversized? Also - YT suggested a video about headset cable routing, is it even possible? XD
Regarding the headset, he uses a trick. He uses a semi integrated 1 1/8 bearing on the top and a external 1,5 inch cup on the bottom, which fits both in straight 1 1/8 steerer tubes with 44 mm inner diameter. So he can use tapered forks ( but non tapered would be possible too with a different bottom bearing). These bikes have no internal cable routing, at least not the ones they show on the website
Headsets to fit 44mm headtubes for tapered forks are readily available from many manufacturers (search EC44/40, ZS44/28.6).
Since Taiwan is making the swing arms, they should have a aluminum, a titanium, and a carbon option available for fine tuning the stiffness and save weight. Taiwan would make them affordable. I know the point is full steel , which the front triangle would still be. Nice frame though.
Remember kids, Plastic is CRINGE. STEEL is POGGERS!
I want to like this comment because it's message is true, but dislike because it's embarrassing to read 😅
Where are the suspension kinematics?
It's good enough to blast the plastic fantastic
@@daveandmerlin doubt, it looks like a single pivot
Bit agricultural looking but I really like the idea behind these bikes.
Nah sorry, decent bikes but in reality steel is super heavy and dense. Your bikes are obviously single gauge or single butted. Only one size, if you were to triple gauge steel the frame would way a ton. The ultimate is 7005 triple gauge aluminum.
Love the passion but its not true what joe says not all carbon bikes break...I get its tongue In cheek but but niave to say they all break .Joe is also not without having his own issues ref the aston bike .....massive fan of what Joe's doing and the front ends are lovely but the rear ends are awful and it ruins the entire look of the bike .
I actually love the rear end ha plus it offers brilliant compliance and grip .
Can't beat a carbon bike.
Beating where? In weight, surely not. In robustness, for sure. Also you won't find a custom made carbon frame, nobody will make an extra mold for a single custom sized carbon frame. This is a different category of bike compared to a mass production model
Find a piece of 20 year old carbon and test it. You will find that you can beat carbon. Very easily. It’s just posh plastic that ages terribly. A bike for a year that has to be at the leading edge of aero / lightness then yes it’s a good material if you don’t damage it. Outside of that it’s a pretty flawed material especially for mtb.
🤯
@@simonm1447 Carbon Enduro frames weigh as much or more than Aluminium,Steel
@@daveandmerlin they don't tell the frame weight. However there's another manufacturer called Curtis which has very similar bikes. They offer an XC steel hardtail with 2,1 kg frame weight, which is the same weight as a comparable XC aluminium frame has and their fully steel frame of the XR650 Enduro model ( looks also similar to the Starling bike) has 3,86 kg
I have a hard time watching the homeless presenter, the facial hair is a bit out of control, I'm sure hes a superb rider and all around great guy, but, phewf.
Hi @kingsoupturbo, out-of-control facial hair is kinda Will’s signature. Next time he’s in the office we will try to pin him down and get the sheep shearers on him, failing that, we’ll put some moustache wax on the rim of his coffee mug and hope that tidies up the ‘tash for you. ✂️
@@bikeradar ROFL!!! Custom bikes are really interesting, my friend makes really nice stuff here in Calgary, progressive geometry fat bikes (Kruch Bicycles) that we're all really excited about, UK has such a great scene for custom bikes and local bike brands. The movie, A million ways to Die in the West, has some great advice on Mustach waxes and Lotions that might apply to this situation! (I'm clearly getting old if this sort of thing bothers me, Get off my lawn!)
My carbon bike is better
What carbon bike? And have you ridden a Starling to compare?
Brazed?
Why not just use Duct tape?
Joes an absolute joke cracked frames awful customer service would not recommend steer clear
Any experience with cracked frames ?