9am for 9:30am till we’re done. Approx 5pm finish.
What to expect?
We’ll meet up and head out for a ride in the morning. The trails vary but expect up to Bike Park Red difficulty. Expect to be pedalling between locations with technical trails thrown into the mix.
We’ll ride out in the morning, return to the car for lunch and then head out again in the afternoon.
The morning ride will be more ‘xc ride with techy trails thrown in’ and the afternoon will be closer to the car park with some more opportunities to session trails.
The AM ride is expected to be approximately 20 miles.
What should I bring?
Bring whatever you need to be self-sufficient for a ride. That includes a working bike, spares and tools, plenty of clothing to match the conditions and some water and snacks. We won’t abandon anyone but you should bring whatever you need to keep you and your bike rolling. And, of course, a helmet is required.
What does it cost?
100% free! But – bring some money for snacks and drinks. Parking is free.
Fancy it?
Sign up here on Eventbrite to let us know you’re coming:
UPDATE: Congrats to all of you that spotted our April Fool’s prank, and sorry to anyone we duped by sneaking it out a day early. Just to confirm, we’re not bending to the whim of a corporate mega corp and we’re not rebranding to take on the identity of a pelagic seabird. Nor do we hate eBikes – we love ’em in fact.
Thanks for being good sports – you can see the full April Fools below!
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UK-made, single pivot, the feel of steel, born in Bristol.
Introducing Puffin Pedallers Mountain Bikes.
Previously known as Starling Cycles, Puffin Pedallers was born out of a commitment to the hard yards of mountain biking (and an expensive, cease-and-desist legal challenge from a large, multinational corporation).
Puffin Pedallers. The joy of the struggle, the commitment to huffin’ and puffin’ up an epic climb to reach the summit and earn your descents.
No assistance, no engines, no driver-assist style technology. Just a rider, a bike and the mountain.
There’s no mistaking the skinny steel tubes of a Puffin, the single-pivot silhouette and the graceful lines. Puffin riders proudly and unashamedly earn their altitude, and their bikes stand out on the mountain as a badge of honour.
When you’re puffin’ on a Puffin no one will be in any doubt that you’re working hard and earning those descents.
And – of course – the Puffin is the perfect figurehead for our brand. Tough, fast, resilient to brutal conditions, graceful and just a little bit flamboyant.
What better creature to lift our brand into the next chapter?
Trail and Enduro Modes On All Frames
All Puffin Pedallers models are available in ‘Enduro’ and ‘Trail’ modes using an adjustable shock mount.
Customers need simply choose their mode when they order, and should they decide to change they’ll need to switch suspension but won’t need a completely new frame.
Our frames offer the following rear travel options.
Puffin Circus (29″) – 135mm or 150mm Puffin Improbability (Mixed Wheel) – 135mm or 165mm Puffin Gathering (27.5″)- 130mm or 160mm
All Puffin frames are built using our award-winning, single pivot and steel design. No pivots, no batteries, no motors. Just raw rallying, unassisted and human-powered fun.
The new model names are inspired by, you guessed it, the names given to collections of Puffins.
And The Future
The official launch of Puffin Pedallers will see our website updated, a new merch line and all production bikes now shipped with our new name and branding.
We’ll work with media titles worldwide to remove any references to the ‘old’ brand and comprehensively replace them with our new name, redirecting all digital traffic to our new home.
We’ll also issue a product recall on all out-of-date, old-generation graphics, replacing them with updated Puffin graphics free of charge (admin, import, local taxes and shipping costs apply).
We’ve also promised, scout’s honour, that we won’t ever, ever say the name of our old company in public ever again, either in person or online. And we’ve been asked to politely request that our customers and members of the press, dealers or distributors respect this request and make the same commitment.
We’re working hard on launching the new Puffin website this week, and you should start to see content appear online from Friday 31st UK time.
In the meantime, stay tuned to Starling Cycles’ Instagram for updates.
AstonMTB has just shared his intro video to his new John Deere Starling Spur, with a quick walk through why he’s excited about the bike and a few of the components.
Great news – after what’s felt like an age, Roost frames have landed.
The Roost is our stainless steel, race-winning hardtail frame. It was designed and tested by Starling and handmade by the masters at ORA in Taiwan who have done an amazing job.
The Roost is built around mullet wheels and designed for a 140mm fork, but can take anywhere from 120mm to 160mm. It’s not a show-off, crazy-slack, extreme-reach ‘hardcore’ hardtail and it’s also definitely not a steep and scary XC whippet. We made this one to be fun to ride, easy to throw around and capable to doing pretty much all the stuff we know Starling riders love to do.
If you want one, we have Roost frames in stock in the UK now and available to ship straight away. No waiting around for stock, they’re ready to go. We have a very small number of mediums left and good numbers of Large and Extra Large.
We poked a little fun at Andrew Major’s small-brand, steel-bike theory (AKA the Starling Fallacy) by printing a 26-page, hard copy coffee table book, presented as a faux confession by Joe claiming that the whole Starling brand was just a scam.
It contains 26 pages of made-up content with some beautiful photos (mostly from John, the Radivist head honcho and Dave Price Photography) and some hilarious quotes.
Whilst the ‘confession’ was made up for fun, the hardcopy book is a real thing and is a must-have bit of memorabilia for any steel bike nerd. There were 3 copies made in total. 2 will stay at Starling for posterity and the 3rd is now on eBay to raise money for the Red Cross in Ukraine.
Whether you’re a Starling customer or an uber-fan of steel bikes in general, this is a really fun, funny and super niche collector’s item. The covers look 100% legit and would look great on any coffee table or bookshelf but, be warned, the content is mostly duplicated. There are 4 pages of content, repeated throughout the book.
As soon as the sale is complete, we’ll ship the winner their book and donate the full amount to the Red Cross Ukraine Emergency Appeal “As the security situation allows, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will continue to respond to existing and emerging humanitarian needs. The Red Cross has supported people affected by this conflict for years and this will not stop now. Your donation could help someone affected get food, water, first aid, medicines, warm clothes, shelter”.
OUT NOW: The Starling Fallacy 36 Pages Of Limited Edition Redemption
“The Starling Fallacy holds that somehow great geometry and shed manufacturing can overcome the performance issues of a true single-pivot bike. And, since we know that great geometry is free and easily duplicated we can further boil down the fallacy to say that shed manufacturing alone can overcome said issues.
You don’t even have to produce all your bikes in the shed – just some of them. And so, riders who absolutely would not accept the performance of a simple no-linkage true-uni-pivot design from a major manufacturer or even a smaller manufacturer will gush about the descending prowess of a Starling.” Credit – Andrew Major
“Single pivot bikes suck, but they’re much easier to build in a shed”
Born in the depths of the NSMB forum, the Starling Fallacy is Starling’s deepest, darkest secret.
It lurked in wait, exposing the core of the brand’s being; its modus operandi; its original sin. But like all secrets, it would never rest, never die, never cease. It would always be there, in the shadows, threatening the heart of Starling Cycles.
And so, Starling Cycles founder Joe McEwan has decided that enough is enough. Like all good internet conspiracies, he knew that the fallacy was based in truth. And so, it’s time to come clean.
The game is up. Starling is no more. Steel and single pivot is not, in fact, real.
The Starling Fallacy – Available To Order Now
To mark the final chapter of Starling Cycles, McEwan has decided to lift the lid on the brand with a limited edition, 36-page, hardback coffee table quality print journal entitled the ‘Starling Fallacy’. Intended as part memoirs and part confession the book will allow McEwan the opportunity to come clean and for, he hopes, redemption.
“Being honest” says McEwan in the opening chapter entitled ‘Got Fired? Fire Up The Welder’ “I just needed a job after I got sacked from my Aerospace gig”.
“I’d been mountain biking a couple of times so I thought I’d give it a shot. I wasn’t sure how to make any money from it, but I knew that would come pretty easily”.
Nailed It.
Joe admits that he quickly spotted a gap in the market: “there were frame builders all over the place and it looked pretty easy. You just copy some geometry from another brand and make it a bit longer, lower and slacker. Then you stick a few tubes together and Bob’s your uncle.”
Joe’s enthusiasm wasn’t held back by a lack of resources and, he admits, inspiration was drawn from the world around him. “I only had the shed to work in because the wife wouldn’t let me weld in the house, so I worked in there. I bought a welder from eBay and prayed I wouldn’t blow up the garden. And yeah, I needed a name for the ‘brand’ and was in a rush to get to the pub on a Friday so I just picked the first thing I spotted out of the window, a Starling on the garden fence. Nailed it.”
Joe quickly realised that his new brand had exposed something bigger “They honestly couldn’t get enough of it. It was like people saw the shed, saw how basic the bikes were and were willing to pay double what they would for a proper bike. It was nuts. I jacked the price up after I’d built a couple and the cash just came rolling in.”
My First Million.
Frame design was obviously critical and the chapter of the book entitled ‘Mo Pivots, Mo Problems. One Pivot, Mo Money’ bears all.
“Kinematics? No idea. I basically just looked at a load of old bikes online and copied those. People seemed to love the idea of a bike with loads of brake jack, disposable shock bushings and suspension that didn’t work when you pulled the stoppers. It was like the more basic you made it, the more they wanted to convince themselves it would work.”
“Once I’d made the suspension as absolutely low-tech as I possibly could, I had one final brain wave: ‘What if we make it out of the oldest, heaviest, thinnest, easiest-to-snap material possible?’ Steel was the obvious choice. The internet went bananas for it and I made my first million”.
McEwan, currently based in The Bahamas hopes that by sharing his story riders will see the true value of simple, steel, single-pivot bikes and continue to believe the hype.
Once sales of the limited edition print journal ‘The Starling Fallacy’ are complete, he intends to sell the business to a major bicycle manufacturer.
Another day, another great review for the Starling Cycles Roost, this time from the mighty MBUK.
MBUK spent a few weeks on our new stainless-steel hardtail and published a super-positive review in the January 2022 issue of the mag.
First up, they really liked how stable the bike feels “The bike is predictable enough that we felt confident enough to hit the Full Moto Pro Line at Black Mountain Cycle Centre on our first run down, yet it didn’t feel unwieldy in the tight berms of the Rabbit Run blue trail. It’s low BB gives a sure footed feel, especially when it’s once its on the back wheel or in the air – a process made easier by the short rear end and smaller rear wheel”.
They also hit the nail on the head when describing the bike’s personality “The Roost is a bike aimed at keen descenders, and effortless climbing is a sacrifice many winch-and-plummet riders will be willing to make. Where it really comes alive is when it’s going fast. Here, the long cockpit and short chainstays make for a stable yet playful feeling bike. Add the burly wheelset and the Roost was an absolute hoot at speed, whether we were riding one of BikeParkWales’ speedy blue trails or choppy Blacks”.
Last but not least, we couldn’t agree more with this closing comment “The Starling just encourages the hooligan in you to keep pushing harder and faster than ever, and you’re rewarded with massive grins”.
Starling founder Joe spent an hour chatting to the Blister Review Bikes & Big Ideas Podcast.
It was a chance to chat all about Joe’s technical background, how he founded Starling (including where the name came from!) and where we’re going. You can hit play above or listen over on Blister Review here.
To celebrate the launch of the new Starling Cycles Roost hardtail, we hit the road for Windhill Bike Park and challenged Boosted Bryn to show us what he can do!
Needless to say, Bryn sent the biggest jumps, drops and gaps and hammered the Roost down some rough and rowdy downhill trails for the camera. If you need a bit of an idea of what the Roost can do, this is it!
Great news Starling Spur fans – our big travel, big wheel, gearbox trail crusher just got some extra options.
The Spur was first built around 29″ wheels and 170mm travel. After a bit of experimenting, testing and refining we can now offer an alternative wheel size setup and travel option for the bike.
Alongside the classic 29″ / 170mm setup, we can now offer a 150mm travel version of the Spur and the option to run the bike as a mullet with a 27.5″ rear wheel.
The bike is available in all variations of the options so, if you so desired, you could build a 150mm 29’er or a mullet 170mm’er or a 170mm mullet … You get the idea.
And nope, the mullet version isn’t just a smaller back wheel shoved in the original frame. To accommodate the smaller back wheel we’ve built an entirely new swingarm for the Spur to make sure the geometry and suspension continue to work perfectly.
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