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Murmur Stainless Bristol Bike Restorations x Hope

To celebrate the opening of Murmur Stainless pre-orders, we’ve teamed up with Hope and Bristol Bicycle Restorations to create a super-special, one-off custom build.

Our custom Bristol Bicycle Restorations x Hope Murmur stainless was created here in Bristol in our home town.

It features a complete custom paint job of the bike’s rims and rear triangle, with a whole heap of eye-popping and colour-matched Hope Technology components to add the icing to the cake.

(If you aren’t interested in the bike and just want to pre-order a Murmur in Stainless, click here).

To create this beauty we worked with Hope Technology and Bristol Bicycle Restorations. BBR offer a whole heap of bespoke services such as carbon frame repair, custom frame painting and a strip-and-rebuild service for bike owners.

We gave BBR owner Josh free reign on the design and only really specified that the stainless front-end needed to stay untouched and he needed to find a way of colour-matching all of those wild Hope technology components. And that he should really try to make a statement, meaning no holding back!

“The brief gave me loads to work with” Josh told us. “I piled in all of the colours and then used pattern work to break things up nicely and give a clean, but classic, look to try and tame that bright and bold colour scheme.

Despite the tight timescales (sorry Josh!) he poured hours of time into the build. He started with a tonne of digital work, planning the design out on-screen to make sure it would look perfect before he started painting. Next came a heap of inspection time, sanding and prep work. All that before he even picked up a spray can.

Josh custom-painted the swing arm and rims and then everything else was built around that with a wild selection of Hope Tech components – including bars, stem, brakes, seat clamp, cranks, chain ring, hubs and rotors. Pretty much the full works!

Of course, and we’re sorry to say, this build is a complete one-off. The production versions will be altogether less lairy with a shiny stainless front triangle and an understated black rear end. For anyone that wants their own custom head-turner, Josh is ready and waiting with spray can in hand!

Thanks to:

Hope Technology
Bristol Bicycle Restorations
Dave Price Photography

This custom-build celebrates the fact that (drum roll please…) orders are now OPEN on Stainless Murmurs.

We’re expecting delivery of frames in September in all sizes and are taking pre-orders now on a first-come, first-served basis.

To pre-order your Murmur Stainless simply follow the link and we’ll add you to the list.

Pre-Order Murmur Stainless
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Starling Cycles Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy

Welcome to the Starling Cycles Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy, published July 2022.

We’re passionate mountain bikers here at Starling and much of that comes down to time spent in nature, doing what we love.

Because of our connection to those wild spaces we feel that it’s important to minimise the impact of our bikes and our business on the environment. It just doesn’t sit right with us to create products that inspire a love of the natural world, whilst at the same time ignoring the impact we have on the environment. 

So, we set out to create an Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy to understand and minimise the impacts our business and our bikes have on the environment.

Where to start?

When we started, we thought this would be an easy process.

But nope, it turns out the internet is awash with companies trying to sell you their services but very few templates to follow yourself. So, we had to develop our own approach from scratch. 

B-Corporation (https://www.bcorporation.net/) is the only recognised organisation doing such audits, and it focuses on much more than just environmental impact.  We’d love Starling to be B-Corp and we’ll work towards it but that’s a huge job and won’t happen overnight.

We Started By Looking At What We Do…

We tried to cover all aspects of the company, both our own internal impacts and those of our suppliers.

Internal impacts were pretty easy to assess, though we’re aware that in many cases it’s qualitative, instead of quantitative. We looked at how we operate as a manufacturing business, how we undertake external processes such as powder coating and how sustainable our frames are, particularly with regard to their ability to be repaired or recycled.

A really important finding was the impact of how our frames move around the world. With many of our frames being shipped internationally we rely on air-freight for fast movement of goods. Versus land or sea travel, air shipments produce significantly higher carbon emissions. Getting frames to customers in a timely and cost-effective manner is very important but we’re also committed to operating as sustainably as possible, so, we’ll be spending more time looking at this in detail.

One outcome of the process is that we’ll invest resources into increasing the quantification of impact.

Red Starling Cycles Spur close up on frame

… Then At What Our Suppliers Are Doing

Understanding the impact of our suppliers was much trickier. 

Of the 14 main bicycle components suppliers that we use, only Ohlins had any kind of substantial written assessment and policy.  Four had top-level corporate ‘statements’ or ‘policies’ along the lines of, “we better sound like we’re doing something!”. The rest had nothing.

From there we approached all companies directly and encouraged them to follow our lead.

Our tubing supplier Reynolds was super positive and shared our understanding of how important this all is. Using our approach as a template, they created their own policy and worked hard to create a transparent assessment of their impact and a set of actions to work on to make improvements.

In producing their report Reynolds also helped Starling to identify that all of the tubes we use come initially from recycled steel. Great job Reynolds. You can read the Reynolds Environmental Impact Study here.

Midnight Blue Starling Cycles

The key findings are given in the Summary Section and the three main takeaways are:

  1. Starling needs to reduce its reliance on air freight, both in terms of shipping into Starling and out to customers. Land and sea transport are much less impactful.
  2. Our suppliers need to step up and go through this process for themselves. Creating an Environmental Policy provides a transparent assessment of their impact and a series of actions to reduce their environmental impact in future.
  3. This is just the first step in a larger process and there’s still work to be done.

    We’ve learned a lot from this process but in many cases, the answers aren’t straightforward. We’ve identified areas for improvement and now we need to find out how to make those changes. As an example, we know that we can reduce our environmental impact by transporting fewer frames by air, we now need to investigate alternative methods of transport and understand the impacts on the business.

    It’s also important that we regularly review and update the process, which we’ve committed to doing annually.

You can download a PDF of the Starling Cycles Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy here.

Starling-Environmental-Impact-July_1_1_2022Download

Acknowledgements

Created by Joe McEwan
PDF Design John Lambert / breathe.design
With thanks to Reynolds Technology


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Singletrack Mag’s Starling Cycles Twist Trail Review

The good people up at Singletrack have just spent some time on our mid-travel mullet, the Twist Trail.

With 140mm travel and mullet wheels we’ve made the Twist Trail to be a bit more lively than our bigger hitters. It’s intended for razzing round your local woods, trail centre laps, those classic ‘winch-and-plummet’ days we all ride so many of here in the UK. Basically, anything where you want a fun, fast and aggro bike but don’t need the absolute fastest bike on the hill.

You can read the full review in issue 143 of Singletrack, but, in the meantime here’s a few of our favourite bits:

First, we really love how they picked up on how the bike looks. “The whole frame is simultaneously no-nonsense yet overtly style conscious. It doesn’t need to have those bird cut-outs in the gussets and cross-brace. And that cross-brace between the uprights of the swingarms doesn’t have to be shaped like that does it? But it is. Because why not? Tiny bits of joy. Refreshingly cute (camp even) and old-fashioned in the all too aggressive and sharp- edged world of contemporary mountain bike design. The head badge and the Starling decal are both really cool too. Yes, I am principally banging on and on about how the bike looks. I can’t help it.”

There’s also a great comment about the personality of the bike. “Where the geometry rewards – nay demands – being ridden in the best elbows-out, knees-down ragging as is feasible, it’s the frame handling that lets you get away with things. There’s a larger margin for error. There’s less deflection. There’s less tyre washout. There’s more feel.”

And last but not least. “Despite having the word in its name, the Twist Trail is not really a trail bike. It’s far too Scrappy Doo for that. Wanna trail bike? Get the Murmur. If you want a bike for hammering the heck out of a couple of square kilometres of woodland, the Twist is the one. With the added benefit of being a blast on the occasional obligatory daytrip to some McTrailCentre or other, where it is also a freaking riot.”

You can learn more about the Twist Trail here and order the latest issue of Singletrack here.

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Workshop Chatter ep#3 Adjustable Shock Mounts

For Ep#3 of Workshop Chatter we’ve got Joe back in front of the camera and chatting about Starling Cycles’ Adjustable Shock Mounts.

As you probably know – many of our bikes have the option of an adjustable shock mount, which offers the ability to run a different length shock (with roughly +/- 10mm of adjustment) and allows you to fine-tune the geometry.

Red Starling Cycles Spur close up on frame

Whilst we offer the ability to order full custom geometry frames the adjustable shock mount allows you a middle-ground where you can play with geometry, without the need to have it set permanently into your frame design. We generally recommend that people don’t mess with their geo but this gives the option if they want it.

Press play to learn all about how it works, how to set your adjustable geometry bike into the base-setting and some of the thinking behind the design.

You can read all about Starling Cycles’ Custom Geometry and Adjustable Shock Mounts here.

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WORKSHOP CHATTER EP#2 THE CARBON EMTB PROTOTYPE

Our new Workshop Chatter series is back for episode#2 – going deep into our bikes, our tech and basically anything we’re feeling inspired to talk about.

For the latest episode we’re talking about the Starling Cycles prototype carbon eMTB, manufactured using some pretty interesting techniques and in partnership with the National Composite Centre (where Joe has previously worked as Technical Lead for GKN).

Press play for everything you need to know about our proof of concept eeb.

Learn more about our prototype carbon eMTB here.

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The Starling Fallacy: Just Kidding

John reading Starling Fallacy on the toilet

Yep, you guessed it, the Starling Fallacy was an April Fool.

Thanks for playing along with the Starling Fallacy April Fools and not believing that the whole Starling plan was a get-rich-quick scheme. Retirement to the Bahamas isn’t happening any time soon we’re glad to say!

Whilst Joe’s ‘confession’ and our ‘36-page coffee table journal’ are works of fiction the ‘Fallacy’ is very much a real thing.

Born on the NSMB forum, the Starling Fallacy is the eloquently written work of Andrew Major and cites that “great geometry and shed manufacturing can overcome the performance issues of a true single-pivot bike”.

John reading Starling Fallacy on the toilet

First up, we’d like to say a big thanks to Andrew for coming up with the Fallacy and an apology for running the piece without involving him from the outset.

That was our mistake and we’re genuinely sorry for any annoyance that’s caused him. We got a bit carried away and should have involved him in the process from the start.

Believe it or not, we actually see the Fallacy as the deepest of compliments and we were over the moon to see Andrew give it life. You can’t really make steel, single-pivot bikes without enjoying a bit of internet banter and a good debate.

Whilst the sentiment is poking a little fun at steel, single-pivot owners we see Andrew’s observation as homing in on why we (and we assume other brands like Starling) do what we do.

We make the bikes that we want to make. Simple, steel, single pivot. They’re like that by design, not necessity.

Our bikes aren’t lab-grown, million-pound-budget, space ships.

They’re not F1 racers or marketing-led, 3D-printed-marginal-gains promisers. Our bikes are handmade by four blokes in a workshop in Bristol and built to be tough, simple and bags of fun. We could put a link or an extra pivot on our bikes, we’ve chosen not to. Maybe one day, but not right now.

Our bikes are proven to be fast; they’re easy to maintain, and they’re zero hassle to set up, wash or fix. You can whack the bearings out with a hammer and replace them in a car park pre-ride, you can strip the whole bike down without killing a whole weekend.

Most importantly, there’s no doubt that you’ll have an absolutely bloody brilliant time riding a Starling. You’ll go fast, you’ll have fun and you’ll probably reach the bottom of your chosen trail with a massive smile on your face.

There’s nothing beyond your own enthusiasm or talent that will stop Starling from being fun to ride around a berm, through braking bumps, down the dankest tech or smoothest flow.

So where the Fallacy says that riders will “gush” about the prowess of a Starling we say, ‘bloody right’.

Our customers understand that they’re not buying the product of a billion-dollar multinational, and they love the ‘feel’ of the bike that’s created. That’s partly emotional buy-in but also because the bikes ride beautifully.

Our customers are smart, discerning folk that do a lot of research, soul-searching and hunting before they buy. We’re proud that they feel a deep connection to their Starling and an understanding of the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of their pride and joy.

Not convinced? Let’s talk about performance. People are obsessed with (and the Fallacy references) the “performance issues” of single pivot.

Sure, we’ve not won an EWS or a World Cup. We probably never will. But we have won an overall British National Enduro Series title, a Masters European Downhill Championship title, a Portuguese Downhill National, Ardrock, the Ex-Enduro and a heap of other events. If we’re saying race wins ‘prove’ a bike, we’re not doing badly so far. All of those tracks required the winning rider to pull their brakes and use their suspension. Quite often at the same time. 

The media are also pretty prone to a gush or two over our bikes. MBUK, Pinkbike, The Loam Wolf, NSMB, BikeRumor, Enduro-MTB, The Radivist and a whole heap more have ridden and raved about Starlings. Brakes were pulled, suspension moved and riders had a blast.

A final thanks again to Andrew for the Fallacy concept and for being a good sport at our efforts to poke fun at it and to everyone that got involved.

If anyone is interested, we’re going to be auctioning off a print copy of the Starling Fallacy in the next few weeks and donating the money to a charity to help victims of the Ukraine Crisis.

We’ll announce that on social media soon, watch this space.

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Workshop Chatter Ep#1 The Starling Cycles Roost

Welcome to our brand new Workshop Chatter series – going deep into our bikes, our tech and basically anything we’re feeling inspired to talk about.

First up in the new series is the bike-of-the-moment, the Starling Cycles Roost.

Press play for everything you need to know about our stainless steel fun machine.

Learn more about the Starling Cycles Roost here.

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Starling Cycles Owner’s Ride Cwmcarn March ’22

After a couple of let-down years (thanks Rona!) we finally got the Starling Cycles Owners together for a big old ride out.

Owner’s Club team captain Rob Williams planned the venue, got the band together and put on a great day of riding trails, chatting steel and enjoying some good times.

The meet-up went down at Cwmcarn with a lap of the classic Twrch trail in the morning and then a ride back up after lunch to session Risca Bike Park.

Thanks for organising, Rob. Thanks for coming, everyone!

Head over to the Starling Cycles Owners Group to join our community and find out about our next Starling Cycles Owner’s Ride.

Head over to Starling Cycles Facebook for the full gallery of images on the link below.

All photos by Dave Price.