Interview with Matt Mears, founder of Temple Cycles

Photography by Thom Heald

What can we find at Temple Cycles?
You can find a small range of brand new, classically styled bicycles that are designed, assembled and painted in the West Country. The bikes are built around a frame which I designed with versatile geometry. They can be used as simple urban bikes, relaxed road bikes, or they can be built up with pannier racks and mudguards for light touring. These new bikes will be available towards the end of November 2014. Temple Cycles also has a collection of restored bikes which are each unique and very special. They start life as a carefully sourced, handmade vintage frame that is dipped, shot blasted and powder coated, then built up with brand new, high quality components. There are also plans for a small range of parts and accessories. Expect bamboo mudguards, polished silver bike parts and lots of brown leather.

You’ve been sourcing frames for six months – where have you found them?
Most of the vintage frames have been sourced through contacts with the bike trade, finding gems on ebay and through word of mouth. These are the frames which have been used to make the restorations. All of them are British made frames, constructed from Reynolds tubing. Although it’s fun to restore frames, this side of the business will fizzle out as they new bikes launch in late November.

How many years have you been building bikes for?
About five years now. It started as just building up custom bikes for my friends and me, which lead into starting a vintage restoration business while studying mechanical engineering at university. For the last year I have been trying to take things to the next step, and have mainly been focusing on setting up Temple Cycles.

Do you prefer restoring bikes or building them from scratch? What appeals to you about both of these processes?
You can’t beat the feeling when you just finish a restoration, take a step back, and admire the elegance of classic bike design. It is very rewarding finding pedigree vintage road bikes and restoring them back to their former glory, ready to be raced again. I have got very frustrated at times with restoring bikes though, as old parts can be seized on and special tools that I nor other bike shops have are needed. It can really slow down the process! I am also a bit bored now of spending endless hours cleaning up chrome with wire wool, or trying to remove stuck seat posts.

I prefer building a bike up from scratch, as it allows for more input into the overall design and style. Using new parts means things piece together seamlessly, and the result is a far more solid bike with modern component standards and a lighter overall weight. Building a bike up from scratch requires less work than a full restoration as the bike just needs to be put together, rather than taken apart, cleaned, greased and then re-assembled. I also enjoy prepping new frames with my set of facing, reaming and threading tools, which I find quite therapeutic.

Have you always been interested in bikes and cycled? From childhood? Any cycling adventures?
I have been pretty much obsessed with bikes from the age of nine. I started out just riding mountain bikes with my friends, but quickly got a taste for learning to jump and learn tricks. I got a dirt jump bike for my 12th birthday, and got pretty into that side of cycling for several years. Me and my friends would spend whole weekends in the woods riding downhill tracks and dirt jumps. I broke both my arms at one point, both clean breaks, and I had to have plates and pins put in. It didn’t put me off though.

My first proper mountain bike was a yellow and red Gary Fisher, a classic in the mountain bike world. I used to ride it at local trails in Somerset, and also on the Quantock hills. I love the sense of freedom you get from mountain biking as it feels like you can go anywhere and you can forget about everything. I still regularly go mountain biking, and there are great places to ride around Bristol such as Leigh woods, Belmont and the Mendips. I often go to South Wales also, which has tons of great trails.

These days I do all sorts of different cycling. I own a road bike, single speed town bike, mountain bike and a bmx. I really enjoy cycling round Bristol, especially as there are so many other riders on the road these days, it feels like we are all part of the same movement. I’m most happy when cruising on two wheels, no matter what sort of bike it is.

531 or 853?
In the grand scheme of things, they are very similar materials, but if I had to choose one I’d go for 853 as it is heat treated, making it stronger, although it’s considerably more expensive. My mountain bike is 853 and my road bike is 531, I can’t really tell the difference to be honest.

For the less bike knowledgeable of us, why are lugs important?
Up until about the 80s, a majority of steel bike frames were constructed using lugs. Nowadays, steel frames are commonly constructed using TIG welding, which is cheaper and quicker to do. In my opinion, a lugged frame has advantages. Firstly, it looks a lot neater than TIG welds, and the lugs can be cut into intricate shapes to add nice detail to the bike. Artisan frame buildiers often spend hours filling down and re-shaping lugs into beautiful designs, check out Mercian Cycles for some good examples. Secondly, there is a school of thought that a lugged frame will be slightly stronger than a TIG welded frame due to the extra material around the joins. TIG welded frames also require higher levels of heat to fabricate, which can cause the metal to become more brittle in the areas where the heat is applied.

How will you build a bike for a customer?
There will be some off-the-peg options for new bikes, but I will also offer a custom service. This will start with a meeting with the customer to discuss their needs, what they want to use the bike for, what colours and style they like, and their budget. There will be a number of standard upgrades that they can choose such as a Brooks saddle, bamboo mudguards and pannier racks, or if they have any other requests for upgrades, I can usually source most parts. It would also be great to sort out an online virtual bike customizer which the customer can use to try out colour combinations and add custom upgrades. This is just a plan for now, and I don’t have the programming skills to do this myself.

What is your ultimate bike?
My ultimate bike would have to be a really versatile steel frame, mile eating machine that can tackle a range of terrain. Something between a cyclocross bike and touring bike, with all the attachments for mudguards and racks in case I want to take it on an adventure. It would probably have hydraulic disc brakes, as I have always had these on my mountain bikes, and it is something I will be incorporating into Temple Cycles in the future. I would stay away from any carbon bits and just go for a Reynolds steel frame and alloy components. Of course, it would have to look great too, so I’d have a misty blue frame with brown Brooks saddle and grips, and everything else polished silver.

Where can we see you cycling around Bristol/beyond?
You can see me cycling up and down Gloucester road and through Stokes Croft most days, but I like to explore the city and will go most places on my trusty green single speed. I like to keep fit, so will often go for some quick laps around Ashton court or Leigh woods on my mountain bike. Most weekends I’ll be up on the Mendips, Quantocks or south Wales.

What do you love about Bristol – a cycling city?
I have been here for five years now, and Bristol never fails to amaze me. There is always something fun to check out, or lively nights to go to. It’s a hive of new activity, with all sorts of interesting new startup companies, and it feels like a very stimulating place to be. Lots of the people I meet are like minded, friendly and very laid back, and I have made lots of great friends here. I also love the fact that we are so close to Somerset, where I grew up, and you can just pop over the marvel that is Brunel’s suspension bridge and you are in the countryside. With all the plans to make Bristol even more of a cycling city, it’s only going to get better, and I am looking forward to the establishing Temple Cycles as a Bristol-based bicycle company.

www.templecycles.co.uk