After editing and posting over 1,200 photos and writing 10,000 words in four days, we share our final 2025 Bespoked UK showcase, featuring an extensive gallery from the show, and a heartfelt thank you from John to the framebuilding community…
The Radavist thanks Tailfin for supporting our 2025 Bespoked UK coverage and our independent Reportage!
Nothing is easy about the bike industry right now, but Bespoked felt easy. Very little in the world seems or feels hopeful. Yet last weekend’s showcase left a lasting impression on me. It had me looking to the future with joy. The environment was welcoming, friendly, and fun, and there was a vibrant light pulsing throughout.
Working in a shop, often by yourself, can feel isolating. Online interactions can be difficult. However, in-person gatherings bring people together to collaborate, ideate, and build new bonds. There was so much collaboration on display.
Framebuilders sharing ideas, technology, even literal tubes, and tooling. Helping each other out with milling or mitering. Working together, not against each other, complementing, learning, and building a strong foundation upon which the British framebuilding scene can erect its future.
With lots of talk about the bike industry being frail, this felt fortified.
I felt appreciated and valued. I love the global framebuilding community. I love seeing art on display. Innovation, intuition, and ingenuity inspire me. Details, design, and decadence tantalize my creative mind and motivate me to push my own work to be on the level with these artisans. Only so that I can do their work justice and properly represent it.
Perfecting a craft takes time and a concerted effort.
To say Bespoked UK left me feeling equal parts exhausted and motivated would be accurate. After four days of shooting, editing, writing, and walking, I am physically sore but mentally stimulated. Each morning, I felt like a freshly wound top, ready to spin on an axis, hoping to amuse and entertain with each exposure.
Every person I interacted with was genuinely excited to be there. Each person on hand keeping the show running smoothly – working in the hive to make the honey so to speak – are pulling towards a collective goal. The team works hard to ensure the program runs efficiently and that the crowd in attendance is entertained, fed, full, and sated.
The event was spent nourishing the mind and body with beautifully constructed objects. Call it a distraction, but I’ll call it love distilled down into an attainable experience. It’s impossible to put all my thoughts into one story, and I’m sure I’ll have more musings to add at some point, but every single person this past weekend has left a lasting impression on me.
Thank you to everyone who showcased their craft, helped out with the show, bought tickets, bought merch, bought beer, coffee, and food, listened to talks, and shared on their social media. Thank you for every high five, smile, and joke. Fucking hell, YOU made this event possible.
And if you haven’t attended this event, I guarantee it is well worth the travel, either near or far. We have to continue to support these events. We have to build the future we want to be a part of. Fortification is only possible when everyone has a stake in it.
To those calloused hands, those creative minds, and the innovators of the bike industry, thank you for all you do. To Petor and the collective, you have something really special here. Well done.
See you in Dresden.
As a thank you to the builders for their time and energy, I’ve uploaded all of these images to The Radavist’s Dropbox for your use!
The Radavist thanks Tailfin for supporting our 2025 Bespoked UK coverage and our independent Reportage!