Tom Sturdy is a passionate cyclist with a background in aerospace engineering. Turning his hobby into a career he set up Sturdy Cycles, where he applies his skillset to the task of custom-building titanium bikes to order. His waiting list is months – sometimes years – long.
Based out of a small workshop in Frome, Somerset, Sturdy’s latest creation is the product of three years of toil. It is called the Eimear, and it is a part-3D-printed time trial bike with ovalised titanium tubes, custom geometry, and dozens of custom-made titanium components, including a self-made chainset and base bar.
We got wind of Sturdy’s latest project in the lead-up to Bespoked, the London-based show dedicated to handmade bikes, so paid the Sturdy workshop a visit the day before the show began. The Eimear subsequently won the award for Best In Show, proving we’re not the only ones impressed by it.
All of the tubing of the frame has been optimised using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) to find an aerodynamically efficient shape without losing stiffness and durability. Sturdy says he’s yet to get it into the wind tunnel to find out exactly how fast it is, though. A complete bike, as shown, weighs in the region of 8kg.
Geometry-wise, the bike is built for Sturdy himself. He tells us it will be available for sale should anyone want to buy it, but that he used his own bike fit as the starting point so that if it weren’t sold, he could use it for a few of his own local time trials. He explained the “huge risk” that a customer would have had to take, were they to commit to buying this first iteration of the bike.
Custom components
With regards to the components on the bike, it would probably be faster to list the ones that aren’t made by Sturdy himself, such are their number. The chainset is his own, 3D printed with an aerodynamic titanium chainring set up as a single ring. This spins within his own bottom bracket, using angular contact bearings from California-based Enduro.
The seatpost is also his own, and clamps into place using a wedge that fills the void left behind the D-shape. The thru-axles, bottle cage mounting bolts, saddle clamp, derailleur hanger and pulley wheels are also his own, each standing out in their anodized blue-purple finish. Interestingly,…
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