Articles
Hub Breaks
Quotes taken from an interview between myself and 63XC.com
63xc.com: I guess we'd better begin by talking about your background. In the early 80s, you were part of a gang of people who really kickstarted mountain biking in the UK: you, Geoff Apps, a couple of others... You were making UK mountainbikes that were very different from the US ones.
DW-S: There were a couple of people making lookalikes -- bikes that were very similar to the US ones. Geoff and I started from very different places. Geoff came from a traditional roadster background. I started off from my old fixed wheel track bike, with a high BB and really short back end. Geoff was probably the first to market with his Cleland Aventura. Highpath, my company, got going soon after.
The designer as craftsman
Quote taken from cyclorama.net
I used to race as a kid. I loved riding bikes. But then I got waylaid - Life! I gave up cycling but often regretted it.
So, on my fortieth birthday, life began again - I gave myself my life back by stopping smoking. Then followed a long period of getting fit again. I started thinking and designing a bike for riding the bridleways abounding in the part of Surrey where we used to live. I actually termed it in my head, a "bridleway bike". This was well before the advent of the American mountain bikes.
I wanted a bike which was able to handle off-road work, but could also handle on-road too), but with more precision and more efficiency than any "rough stuff" or "mountain" bike I've tried. As most of my early riding was on a track bike - short, stiff and high, my starting point was quite different from the Americans'.