Feather Cycles has been my absolute passion for a third of my life now, it’s had some extremely high high’s and in all fairness, nowhere near as many lows. I have met some incredible people through the industry who I hold very close to my heart, it has led to some incredible trips, has had me at fitness levels I could have only ever dreamt of, has given me an incredible feeling of achievement on the few occasions I have been handed awards at shows when I have been up against incredibly talented competition. I have even been asked on occasion to be a judge myself. Thinking about it, it’s all quite surreal to think of everything I have done over the last 11 years, when prior to that I thought I would be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of my life. But, regardless of all of the above, the fact I am able to do something I love for a living, something I absolutely thrive on and am happy to give 100% every single day, no matter how tired I am from the endless 12-13 hour days, nothing comes close to that feeling of being able pay your way without that guaranteed monthly pay cheque, even if it is the typical modest wages that I’m any artisan will be able to relate to. Seeing the smile on the clients face at the end of every project trumps everything.
The reason for this post is that over the last few months, it has been drawn to my attention that many people believe I have an outrageous waiting list. I have spoken with a number of people who have mentioned that they never even bothered to contact me due to them wanting a bike much quicker than they thought was possible from myself, even though Feather Cycles would have been their number one choice. In actual fact, the last 18 months to two years have been the slowest and most difficult I have had in terms of bringing in new work, despite having the most experience of my life. Not only that, I have a great tight knit team of talented individuals around me who are on exactly the same page as myself, and as a result, we have been creating the best bikes in the 11 year history of Feather Cycles. All the way from the bike fitting process, to my own borderline OCD frame building process, to the unrivalled paint work - we put quality over profit every day of the week. This is what has led to such consistency over the last decade and is something I am incredibly proud of.
From day one, it was always my intention to craft the best bikes I was capable of, and with every build that leaves the workshop, make sure the next one is better than the last - the sentiment remains to this day.
My approach to marketing Feather Cycles has always been an honest one. No smoke and mirrors, what you see is what you get. I have always held pride in not hiding anything. When I have exhibited, I have always used customers bikes and have never built anything specifically for a show, this way it shows potential customers exactly what they can expect from me. The same goes for my social media posts, I show what I am working on day-to-day and try to express the extent I go to with each and every build and have even found myself worrying that quality doesn’t speak for itself these days or even wondering if my work isn’t up to the standard people expect any more, but that’s probably just the occasional paranoia that comes with spending too much time alone, overthinking and being overly critical of myself.
Since moving into the my new workshop in September, I have been building 3-4 bikes for every new order that has come my way. It’s been playing on my mind a lot recently, especially after hearing first hand of the belief of long waiting list and I thought I should make everyone aware that in the last 6 months, my build queue has dropped from roughly 9 months to around 3 months but is rapidly becoming shorter. Had I not have had a very slow 3 months over the last summer due to loosing my workshop with just a few weeks notice, and spending a lot of time organising a brand new workshop build and moving in to it, I may have actually run out of work already. Since the move, my focus on the bikes has been the best it has ever been and I can honestly say that the work that has left since the move has been the best I have ever produced and I have no plan on that changing.
Obviously, when you appear to be running out of work at such a rapid rate, you begin to worry. However, I do think that the fact people have mentioned their reservations being due to a big old wait has made me realise that Feather Cycles has become a bit of a victim of its own early success. I did at one point have a 2 year or so waiting list, obviously I thought that was great at the time, but it almost became a bit of burden, nevertheless a very grateful one, and so I closed the books for a while. After re-opening the books I managed to keep a steady 9 month or so waiting list which is very manageable and at the same time, incredibly comforting.
It has been an incredibly difficult post for me to write as anyone who knows me will know that I would never look for anyones pity, and in a way it feels almost cringeworthy even putting this down in words as my only intention is to make everyone aware that now is in fact the best opportunity there has ever been to get yourself on my waiting list without having to wait for what seemingly feels like a lifetime.
Feather Cycles has gone with the trends a little over its life time, but as much as I love some of the more modern bikes I have built, and ridden over the past few years, I have a huge amount of passion for building beautiful classic lugged bikes too. Whether that’s simple work horses, or highly modified and hand carved lugs like those from the early days of my career, I love the beauty of this truly artisanal method of construction and its something I have been missing recently after getting a new taste for it with a couple of builds late last year. However, this doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean I don’t have an out and out love for moving with the times and trends of the disc brake, gravel and adventure bike era, and the challenges these bring with them, all the while keeping them all unmistakably a Feather. Ultimately, the versatility is what keeps me so interested in the wonderful craft of hand made bicycles.
Let’s get some awesome Feather’s out there and more of you on your dream bikes this summer!