Four of a Kind: BESPOKED Dresden Deals a Strong Hand of Makers & Brands

As a queer non-binary person in the bicycle industry, my goal is the acceptance of my identity within the bicycle framebuilding community. As a queer person, I have had to deal with rejection and disapproval both online and in real life, which has left me with a lot of internalised doubt. I want my work as a framebuilder to be the focus, while taking the step into the wider public eye and helping build greater acceptance of queer people within the bicycle framebuilding community. At BESPOKED, I will be showcasing an ultra-light stainless steel bikepacking bike, designed for extreme mountain races such as the Seven Serpents, Trans Balkan Race and Alps Divide. Vincent Morassi

What distinguishes my application is the perspective I bring to bicycle design. I grew up in Zimbabwe, where bicycles were often whatever we could keep running. We repaired, adapted, and made the most of what we had. That taught me to value function, longevity, and the relationship between rider and machine long before I ever thought about becoming a framebuilder. For BESPOKED, I would create a special version of the Nyanga, inspired by the intersection of my Zimbabwean heritage and my life in Portugal. Carlos Santa Clara

I’m not who you’d expect to be building performance bicycle frames. I have no formal engineering training, no workshop, no industry background. What I have is a decade of obsession with a materials process I believe in completely, and one viral proof of concept built in a South African garage to show for it. I moved to the UK specifically to pursue this - to access the manufacturing infrastructure, materials, makerspaces and industry expertise that didn’t exist for me in South Africa. I’m now working as a cargo bike courier and living on a narrowboat, still researching, still developing the process - largely in isolation, largely without resources. I have likely undiagnosed ADHD. The gap between what I can conceive and what I can execute is a genuine and daily problem. But a decade of sustained obsession across two continents, through failure after failure, is its own kind of evidence that this isn’t going away. At BESPOKED, I will showcase an aggressive race geometry road bike - the hardest test for what I’m trying to prove - using natural biocomposite materials: flax fibre, Sitka spruce, hardwood veneer and bio-epoxy. The intention is to create something different: the stiffness of carbon with the road feel and character of steel or titanium. Daniel Hoffman

I’m a 23-year-old engineer from the north of England. I’m looking to continue making more frames in the future and bring my designs and work to more people. As a young engineer who is just starting out in framebuilding, cost is a large barrier - not just components, but also the tools and equipment needed for building bike frames. It can also be a struggle to promote my work and reach the people who may be interested in the bikes I make. At BESPOKED, I will be bringing an enduro mountain bike featuring 160mm rear travel, mixed wheel sizes, and potential gearbox integration, with adjustable geometry and suspension designed to explore new possibilities in mountain bike design. Harry Prescott