The build process

The first step towards owning your Aske hand-made custom steel bike is to tell us in detail what you want from the bike. Once we understand your requirements, come to our Paignton workshop for a Power Fit bike fitting on our Watt bike. You will need to wear your usual cycling clothes, including your preferred cycling shoes. We will provide the pedals.

During the fitting, your preferences will be taken into account as we measure and adjust the Watt Bike to fit you. This will include saddle position, leg angle, reach, stand over height, top tube length, handlebar width and style.  All of these will be considered against your size and the intended use of the bike.

Then we will enter these measurements captured from the bike fitting into our BikeCAD software. At this point, we normally spend time fine-tuning angles and clearances before asking you to come back to the workshop to discuss progress. BikeCAD software facilitates the creation of super-accurate technical drawings of custom bikes and their components, as well as allowing for smart modification as the design progresses. With the important first design steps in place, we will need to ask you a few questions about more detailed preferences and requirements. These include:

  • Tyre width and tread type
  • Stand over height
  • Bottom bracket drop and height
  • Length of exposed seat post
  • Components
  • Wheels
  • Tyres
  • Groupset

Choosing the correct tube angles and lengths is a vital stage in custom bike design as these need to provide the perfect fit as well as customer-pleasing aesthetics. Between us, we will decide what tubing is bested suited to your new bike. We tend to use Reynolds and Columbus tubing as they give a very lively feel to our bikes, with customers all saying how good our frames feel to ride compared to others.

The next step will be to order the tubing and then the assembly process can begin. Never has the saying, “Measure twice, cut once”, been more relevant than during the finishing of tubing to assemble a hand-made steel bicycle!

We can still just about consider some personal requirements at this stage. Once these have been finalised, we weld the frame together. Once the welded frame has been inspected and hand finished, the frame is sent away for paint. This is quite often the most difficult part of the process for our customers, as they have to decide on a colour scheme for their new pride and joy. Some find this easy, but most people take some time over this decision.

When the freshly painted frame is back with us, we assemble your new custom bike with your chosen components. Finally, once assembled, you can collect your new bike from our Paignton workshop and ride away happy in the knowledge that your new Aske bike has been conceived, designed, constructed and finished especially for, and just for you.

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