About us
Who We Are
BARRY SCOTT
Founder
For a few misguided years after university I worked in the city as an Investment Banker. Tired of all the money, glamour and success I went to Business School to investigate what was the lowest margin industry I could find. Happily that turned out to be the cycling trade, and given that I have been obsessed with cycling since childhood I took this to be fate. The rest is history. Now I am financially poor but spiritually rich, and get to surround myself with the nicest cycling products in the world. I also get to meet lovely people on a daily basis and get to help turn their cycling dreams into reality.
Our business is driven by the relationships we have, and am lucky enough that many of our 'clients' are now 'friends'.
In 2005 I founded what is now Bespoke Cycling. Initially it was a cycling distribution company selling high-end products to some of the best bike shops in the UK.With the arrogance of youth, I felt I could sell these products in a better way than they could, and in 2007 I opened Bespoke in a tiny basement in Hoxton Square. I was the sole employee and thus the business's and my ideals were intertwined from the start.
Through all the wonderful support and loyalty you have provided over the years, Bespoke went from strength to strength and this culminated in the move to our new premises in March 2011.
It's always been the dream have a place of this scale and scope. I truly believe we have the potential to create something very special here, and I will strive every day to turn this vision into reality. The growth we have had over the last five years has been tremendously exciting, but I remain convinced this is just the beginning, and that the pace of change and improvement at Bespoke will, if anything, accelerate. And we would love to have you join us on our journey.....
BEN HALLAM
Head of bike fitting studio and Performance Lab
Being born into a cycling family, Ben was always destined to race bikes. His uncle, Ian Hallam, was 3 times Commonwealth champion on the track and Ben followed in his footsteps, winning the junior national pursuit championships as well as representing Great Britain at 2 Junior World Championships and 2 Under 23 European Championships. Ben also applied his pursuiting prowess to win multiple junior and under 23 time trial titles. Ben spent 4 years living and racing on the road in France and Belgium which culminated in completing the Tour of Britain.
Looking for ways to use the sporting experience, Ben completed a degree in BSc Sports Rehabilitation and Injury Prevention in 2010. The degree focuses on the assessment and treatment on musculoskeletal injury through electrotherapy, soft tissue treatment and therapeutic exercise prescription.
Ben has developed his bike fitting philosophy based on the principles that he learnt from the degree. The core principle to Ben's bike fitting is that "the body is adaptable and the bike is adjustable". This means that the body will adapt to a bad position (compromising posture and core stability) and consider this to be "normal".
The body and the bike must be assessed and adjusted simultaneously. Adjusting the bike to a poor posture will reinforce the poor posture and cap the performance potential of the rider.
Through treatment and corrective exercise, the body has the potential to adapt towards maintaining a good posture and position. Therefore, bike fitting often has to be a progressive process where the bike is adjusted as the body adapts.
Therefore, during the Retul bike fitting sessions, Ben will identify areas of tightness and weakness in the body that can cause incorrect movement patterns, decreasing performance and increasing the susceptibility to injury. Ben can then address these issues in a one to one to one clinical session!
MATT
Head mechanic
As Matt himself says he has been in the trade far too long, and has forgotten more than many mechanics are yet to learn!
Matt joined us in January 2011 for the chance to work on super-bikes, and hopefully we have kept him nice and busy since then.
In his spare time Matt restores concours a number of award winning vintage bikes
Back to top ^Why come to us
The concept for Bespoke is extremely simple:
To stock the world's finest cycling products in an environment far removed from the typical bike shop; to view people as clients and not customers and to cultivate relationships and not merely transactions.
We search the world for new products that will bring performance and enjoyment gains to our clients. I have often said the great thing about this job is I can be geeking away on a cycling forum late at night and justify this to my wife as 'research'.....or I can come into work slightly later than the rest of the team because I decided to add an extra 20 miles onto the morning commute as I was riding a new wheelset for the first time and thus needed to see if the wheels justified the manufacturer's hype.
I am sure you can be in the cycling trade and take a clinical, detached approach to how you run operations and make purchasing decisions. But thats not in my nature. Bespoke is a reflection of the fact that we truly love cycling.
At Bespoke we want to marry world-class products, professionalism and integrity with a level of customer service and support that is unique in the industry. And we offer this to everyone; there are no 'secret handshakes' here. Whether you are a complete beginner, an experienced sportive rider, an elite road racer, a Pro Triathlete or a veteran of numerous Tour de France campaigns (and we have had all these categories in the shop, sometimes at the same time) we would love to help make your cycling dreams a reality.
When we decide to stock new products in the shop they must pass one simple test: do we want to buy and ride these ourselves? Thats it.
How can you recommend a new rain jacket to someone if its not the same jacket that personally saved your weekend ride from being a write-off? This is a shop full of beautiful products chosen by passionate cyclists. Our 'brand equity' is our reputation, as such we will only keep this with an unwavering commitment to unbiased advice.
Likewise when I look to hire new members of staff we use the same principle. Would I personally want to buy a bike/product from this person? Do they inspire confidence in the passion for the products they are recommending?
The end result is hopefully a virtuous circle; a shop full of world class products and passionate members of staff who feel privileged to be surrounded by such an environment.
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