#20 Joe McEwan: Starling Cycles. 10 years of building steel frames. A passion and a mission.

Send us Fan MailWhile the podcast will give you an insight to Starling Cycles the company itself is about to change – but not like you might think it will. There won’t be carbon frames anytime soon. Joe and his team will still provide you with the frames made out of Reynolds 853 the steel lover is a fan of. But they will get help. Shortening lead times to serve customers quicker, providing demo rides and teaming up with bikeshops to have the bikes on the floor will mark a huge step forward for the brand. While starting literally in the shed behind the house Joe now teamed up with Fort Frames in the Czech Republic to be able to fulfill demand. A couple of years back Starling started to source the rear triangles of their core models out of ORA in Taiwan. Will this change the core values of Starling Cycles? Joe assured us in the podcast that they will still do plenty of frames at their Bristol operation. Including pushing forward the refining of their brazed steel frames, prototyping and the models Beady Little Eye, Swoop, and Sturn will remain UK made.–– If you want more behind-the-scenes insights into the MTB industry, make sure to hit that subscribe button. You can find us also on Spotify or Apple as well as all other major podcast plattforms.I can also highly recommend two other episodes if you speak German: one with Sacki from BikeYoke, who talks about manufacturing in Taiwan, and another with Christian Lengwenath from Gravity Components, who breaks down the fundamentals of metal 3D printing and what the future of this technology looks like for the bike industry. English options would be Matt Wragg from Formula or Dave Weagle with his views on ride dynamics.Article for this episode:LINK-------Testpilot.bike – Your magazine for deep insights on product, bike culture and the two wheel industry.4zig