Brooks England Open Factory Visit

I recently got invited to visit the Brooks England factory in Smethwick, Birmingham as they were having an open weekend and conducting tours of the factory. Of course I accepted, especially as the premises is only a 14 mile pedal from my house using the extensive local canal system.

It wasn’t until I looked into the intinery and the history of the company that I realised what an opportunity this was. Brooks haven’t opened their factory to the public for over 150 years so this literally could be a once in a life time visit!

Brooks have a long long history in cycling, if you are seriously into your cycling then you have probably heard of Brooks and their leather saddles. If you are not into cycling at all and are asked to describe or draw a bicycle saddle i guarrantee you will picture the traditional Brooks B17 saddle that has been in continous production for over 100 years.

It said that Brook’s founder John Boultbee Brooks, a horse saddle manufacturer since 1866 when the company was founded was unhappy at how the wooden saddle on his bike felt (we can all sympathise I’m sure) and decided he was going to make a better one out of leather and the first patent was filed in 1882. The company has been making saddles since then, it has been bought, sold, rescued and is now owned by Selle Royal who make all the non leather saddles in Italy but the Smethick factory continues to hand make saddles to this day.

The Day started with coffee and pastries in the factory loading bay and a tour of the bike makers and designers set up in the courtyard who were all known for their use of Brook’s saddles on their bikes. its the best coffee I’ve had in a loading bay ever! The factory is just how you’d expect one to look dating back that far, it could have been a movie set but all the old boxes and stock on the shelves were there for a reason, even the toilet block should be a listed building it was so authentic!

We then began the tour, guided by Steve who had been at the factory since he was 16 and he explained later he’s done pretty much every job in the factory from tea boy to machine press operator, even a stint in HR!

The tour progressed from the very vintage presses which were very loud to the cutting out of the leather which is soaked in water to soften it before it’s put into a press/shaper. Some of the machines were over 100 years old and i asked one of the guys, what happens when one of these machines that hasn’t been in production for so long breaks? He said, we just make a new part from scratch for it and if we can’t do it Birmingham’s renowned jewelry quarter is a couple of miles away and there are small factories there that can make anything you want.

Everything is done in house apart from the tanning of the leather which is done in Belgium. No UK company can cure the British hides to Brook’s exacting standards

The sights, sounds were outstanding but the smells in the factory were what made the experience so visceral.

we saw springs and saddle frames being bent into shape using, quite frankly lethal looking machines which undoubtedly back in the day didn’t have all the safety guards they do now attached to them.

we went from raw materials through to the finishing touch of riveting the Brooks logo, also stamped in house, to the saddles. At every stage there was a human operating the machinery, it was mass production but on a much smaller and personal scale than I’d expected before visiting.

As we walked around I took the time to chat to the staff working there and I asked one candidly if they were amused that all these people were interested to see and photograph all the small parts of what must be a mundane everyday job to them and he said, no, he was proud that there was interest and he loved being there and what they do, of the people i chatted to the shortest time working there was 16 years, so they must like it!

It was an incredible day, i can honestly say one of the best things I’ve done as part of running UKGRAVELCO, I could have stayed there watching the process all day and not been bored. totally not how i thought it would be. The day was so well organised, fascinating and the people so friendly, open and warm.

No robots, no CNC machines just skilled craft persons shaping metal and leather into some of the best cycling products on the market. What made it great for me was being able to chat to the people on the factory floor and despite it being their day job the enthusiasm and pride in the company came through.

You can get a bit blasé when you read the phrase “hand made” but now I know the true meaning and value of that label. With Brooks England though I think that also includes pride and maybe a little love in every product too.

Massive thanks to @brooksengland and @extra_uk for inviting me. you can see all the products that Brooks manufacture here Brooks england and if it doesn’t take another 150 years for them to open the factory to the public again make sure you are on that tour!

all the black and white professional pictures were taken by Dan Phillips Photography the less professional colour ones by me!

Below is a little video I took of the tour

U.S.E Vybe Suspension Stem Review

Ultimate Sports Engineering (U.S.E) have been making bicycle components for many years, I had one of their suspension seatposts on my mountain bike back in the 1990s. Together with the other arm of the business, Exposure lights, they have a well earned great reputation for well thought out and reliable components with excellent after sales service too.

I tested the modern equivalent of that original seatpost and you can read it here U.S.E now have a suspension stem in their line up and I was lucky enough to be sent one for a few weeks to try out.

The stem is available in two lengths currently, 70 and 90mm and unlike other similar stems on the market is rated for use on drop or flat bars. It is constructed of aluminium, weighs 194g for the 70mm version I tested It consists of one main pivot point that squeezes a changeable elastomer that allows the stem to move up to 20mm. The stem also has adjustment for rebound and compression, something I’ve not seen on any other suspension stem I’ve tried so far.

The first thing to say is that it looks like an ordinary stem, which to my mind makes it a much better prospect than some of the huge parallelogram style suspension stems on the market which are quite ugly in my opinion. When riding and you look down it looks good and is not something you’d want to hide!

As with most suspension stems, you need to dial in the stem to suit your weight and riding preferences. U.S.E. include 4 interchangeable elastomers that allow you to do this. The stem does have to be taken apart to swap the elastomers though. Happily there is a comprehensive guide included in the box and it’s on actual paper! no downloads needed. It’s pretty straightforward to swap, just make sure you put the stem back together as the U.S.E. guide states. U.S.E. also include a little tub of grease in the box which is a great touch.

Set up with a yellow elastomer as per the rider weight guide and all bolts tightened to the correct torque I went for a series of rides to test out the stem, I’ve included a video below that shows the stem in action, please take a look (and subscribe to my youtube channel if possible, it’s free!)

So, does the U.S.E. Vybe suspension stem work, well yes and no. Firstly and this is the same as with any “suspension” stem, do not think of it as suspension like a suspension fork, it dampens the vibrations coming off the trail through your front wheel and rigid fork, it doesn’t suspend the rider from big hits. What it does by dampening those vibrations is reduce fatigue on you hands, arms, shoulders and upper body allowing you to ride further and recover more quickly. The U.S.E. Vybe stem does this brilliantly but there is one drawback and this is affected by your riding style.

Because the pivot point on the stem is very near the steerer of the fork the nearer your hands are to that pivot the less the stem moves. What this means when riding on drop bars is that the maximum compliance of the stem is achieved when riding on the hoods. Riding with hands on the drops and therefore further back than on the hoods mens the stem moves significantly less. So if like me you spend a lot of time on the drops for technical descending then you won’t really benefit from having that 20mm of travel. If you ride on the hoods you’ll get much more cushioning as you move along. So pedalling long sections of rough trail like forest fireroads or towpaths that are ridden on the hoods is where the stem really shines. I know for a lot of riders this is exactly what gravel riding is. Others like myself who don’t have that kind riding on our doorsteps and ride XC trails will find less benefit.

Since posting this review I’ve had messages from readers who have seen reviews of the stem where the main pivot bolt came loose during a ride. I can say for the 4+ weeks the stem was on my bike over various rides that bolt remained tight.

The Ultimate Sports Engineering Vybe Suspension stem is a well made and thoughfully designed component with added features over other similar stems on the market. If you are a fireroad/towpath/rough bridleway and typical UK pot holed road rider then it’s an excellent way to reduce fatigue and lengthen time in the saddle. if you push the boundaries of what a gravel bike is supposed to do it maybe of less benefit but who doesn’t ride all the above to get to the juicy challenging routes? Might as well take advantage of that suspension for those section as it won’t hinder you on the downs!

you can find more information about the U.S.E. stem on their website here

Squirt Seal Tyre Sealant with bead block particles

I’ve been a convert to tubeless tyres for over 5 years now. Originally a sceptic I now stress if I’m riding a bike that doesn’t have the security of being set up with tubeless wheels, tyres, valves and an effective sealant. There are always debates on social media about tubes V tubeless and at one time I was the guy saying “but tubes are so easy to change and there’s no hassle or mess setting them up” but, once you’ve had to change or repair an inner tube on a fat bike 3 times in one ride you soon see that the initial work that goes into tubeless is well worth the piece of mind of knowing you are not going to have to stop and change tubes, inevitably at the worst times, usually in torrential rain on a wheel covered in mud in sub zero temperatures.

So, fair enough I hear you say, on a fat bike with large volume tyres that take an age to reinflate or get seated on the rim properly I can see his point, but on a gravel bike? I can see what you are saying, but think of it this way, most gravel bikes are being used to explore places you’ve either never ridden before or seldom do and you’re mostly going a lot further away from home when you do it. That bridleway you spot as you wend your way down that back lane could be the passage to riding nirvana….or it could be that just around the corner the local farmer might have cut the hedge and a million thorns are waiting to rip into your tyres and make life a misery, so better not risk it hey? Well on a tubeless tyre you can ride that bridleway secure in the knowledge your tubeless tyres and sealant will shrug off those thorns and let you get on with exploring and not missing possibly the best riding you’ll ever do!

I recently changed tyres and found 5 thorns in the rear and two in the front tyre I knew nothing about, the sealant had just sealed around the hole and I’d not even noticed any pressure drop. So potentially that was 5 instances of having to stop and change a tube!

So, we’ve stablished that tubeless is a good idea, but what tyre sealant to use? I’ve used Orange seal, Muc-off, Stan’s, Joe’s no tubes and Bontrager to name but a few and i know what I like so it’s always with a little trepidation that i swap to a new brand. However, having used Squirt Lube for the past few years and found that to be simply the best chain lube I’ve tried so far I asked the guys at Squirt Products to send me some of their sealant to try out.

Squirt Seal liquid and Bead Block Granules

When you get the Squirt Seal it comes with a pot of Bead block particles, these help to seal bigger holes in the tyre that the “glitter” in many of the other sealants on the market contain. Squirt tested these in South Africa where they get considerably bigger thorns etc than we get in the UK so it should be spot on for every where!

Squirt Sealant differs slightly from other sealants as they recommend you pop off a small section of tyre from the rim to apply the granules rather than go via the valve stem as they might not go through without clogging. This is especially true if the valve is still damp with a previous sealant. I tried it and they are correct. You only need to pop a very small section of tyre off the rim though so reseating afterwards shouldn’t (and wasn’t) too much of a problem.

Once up to pressure I left the wheels 24 hours to see if they lost any air but they were fine so I fitted them to a bike and spent the next 4 WEEKS without any sign of a puncture. Was this because of the superior quality of the Squirt seal or had it silently got on with it’s job and saved my ride numerous times without me noticing (this is what tubeless set ups do)? I’d put the sealant into 650×2.1 tyres on the Fearless Warlock I’ve got in to test and I’ve ridden it on unknown trails, familar puncture black spots, down a lane where hedge cutting had strewn black thorn all over the tarmac, the frankly shockingly bad surfaced roads near here, to work and back road etc but even with the big surface area of the tyres to gather debris I still didn’t notice a pressure drop the entire time.

How do you effectively test a tubeless sealant when you don’t get a puncture? time for drastic measures!

See how Tested the effectiveness of Squirt Seal Tubeless Tyre Sealant with Beadblock

Squirt claim the sealant hs minimal to zero bioaccumulation in the environment and it’s also ammonia free so doesn’t stink or sting your eyes like other sealants on the market

So I’d definitely recommend trying tubeless on your gravel bike and for that extra piece of mind look at Squirt Sealant as your tubeless fluid, it survives multiple stabbings!

you can find more details on Squirt Seal and Lube here Squirt or on the Uk Squirt Insta here

As with all my tests, this is a real world review. I’m not sponsored and I’m just an average rider like most of you reading this. companies sometimes send me things to test but i always let them know it will be an honest review good or bad

Get in Quick, there’s a Gravel bike in stock!

Canyon today launched the GRIZL, an update or replacement? to the Grail carbon gravel bike with the silly handlebars and it actually looks good for a Canyon. Someone has obviously thought about it for a change rather than just putting a bike out for the sake of it like a lot of the big companies have done in the past so kudo to the Canyon design team.

Also, colours! not just black or silver and with room for upto 50mm x 700 rubber it could actually be real trail friendly too. Find out more here With models from £2200 they aren’t exactly entry level but there are rumours of an aluminium version to come, maybe when the world wide bike shortages have eased we’ll see that one.

Canyon have sizes from XS up to 2XL which they say are in stock, but given the thirst for bikes and the shortages currently that is not going to last. I’ve not ridden one so i can’t comment on the ride but the geometry on paper does look quite racy and compares to the Grail so it remains to be seen if it’s as bike packing and real rider friendly as they say. You can order one and see for yourself here

Gotta hand it to Canyon it’s a good looking bike.

Shimano Deore CS-M5100 cassette

With the current war of ratios that is going on between Shimano and Sram over who can shoe horn the biggest sprocket onto their 12 speed cassettes ,at time of writing, Sram has gone one better with 52T over Shimano who introduced 51T just to outdo Srams 50T from a while ago…phew! it was refreshing to see that there are options further down the price scale that don’t need a specific freehub to work. Shimano 12sp needs their propitiatory “Micro Spline” freehub and in turn to run Sram big cassettes in most cases you need their “XD” driver.

However if you haven’t invested in the 12sp technology yet and are still running 11 speed then there is now a very good alternative from Shimano. The Deore M5100 cassette which happily fits straight on to the standard Shimano freehub that everyone running the big “S’s” gears already has. Before this new cassette the biggest sprocket on a 11sp Shimano cassette was 46T which is a very low gear indeed and originally ideally suited to a mountain bike. It does suffer though from a hug gap between the penultimate sprocket and that 46t, namely 37t-46t. I ran this cassette through the winter months on my gravel bike on a set of 650b wheels with much knobblier tyres than those I use in the drier months as my local terrain is very muddy and clay rich so i need all the traction i can get for the seated climbing necessitated to stop the wheel from spinning out. The gap was very annoying and when I needed a slightly lower gear than the 37t to stop stalling (I’m no climbing super hero as you can tell) the big jump to 46t was too great and I ended up loosing balance as my legs spun wildly.

The solution pt1

to over come this i butchered a 11-42t cassette, removing the 15t sprocket and adding a very second hand expander sprocket which used to be all the rage before huge cassettes but seem rare these days. This sprocket had 45 teeth so making the final jump between cogs 42-45t which was much better and this is what i ended up running for most of the damp months. Unfortunately the horrible gritty/grinding local conditions all but destroyed the cassette and chain (ok, i should have checked the chain wear more regularly) so knowing that the new Deore cassette was imminent I nursed that chain and cassette for as long as possible until my local bike shop called to say the new cassette had arrived!

The Solution pt2

The Deore M5100 has a ratio of 11-13-15-18-21-24-28-33-39-45-51T and those last 3 sprockets are very evenly spread so even tough the gaps are bigger than at the other end of the cassette the transition is easier to keep a good cadence on and aids balance and traction as your legs aren’t all over the place when concentrating on traction and line choice. The smaller sprockets are much closer in range and this is a good thing as on a gravel bike this is where you will mostly be sat. Small ration changes enabling smooth pedaling and letting you carry your speed on tarmac and less technical off road sections. the new cassette was 70g heavier than my modified 11-45 extended cassette)

Lucky?

M5100 in action

When I came to fit the cassette I was expecting to have a fight to get it to work, probably requiring a rear hanger extender/road link but i thought i’d try it out first anyway. I did fit a complete 116 link chain ( the old one was left this long too to accommodate the 11-45/46T) , set the clutch to on and with trepidation cycled through the gears. As you can see from the video, I was lucky and it worked straight away without any modification. I didn’t even have to adjust the “B” screw it was fine on the setting from the previous cassette. Please note if you try this your set up may be different! it’s not my fault if you damage anything!

So there it is, as mountain bike cassette on a gravel bike. the rest of the gearing is all GRX 810 with a 1 x 40 chainring. the 51t sprocket gives very very very low gearing and other than deliberately trying it out when riding I doubt if I’ll ever use it on this bike. the next sprocket down tends to be my extreme sit and spin gear. However for a heavily laden touring or bike packing bike that has done away with the fuss of a double (or triple) chainset this could just be what you are after at the end of a long day with that last long steep incline to grind up.

The cassette has now done a couple of hundred miles around my local area and is so far trouble free so I’m in no hurry to swap it for something less silly. in fact i’m going to get one for my mountain bike as the cost of the cassette is much less than the cost of upgrading to 12 speed to get that extra gearing and who needs that extra one tooth (sram)?