Drew Bingham is a youth mountain bike coach for the Pilgrim Flyers MTB Club. He loves racing weird and wonderful bikes, especially singlespeeds, and has some gruelling XC Marathon events lined up for 2025.
When he ordered a Starling Beady Little Eye he mentioned that he had an insanely trick build lined up… and we knew we had to see it.
So, we invited Drew up to the Starling workshop and James got to work.
You can learn more about the Starling Cycles Beady Little Eye on our website, where they’re available to order for a super limited time. Don’t hang about!
Drew’s Beady really is something special, with a very specific setup and some money-is-no-object components.
The bike is built with Trickstuff Maxima brakes, a Fox rear shock, an IntendBC fork, Enve carbon wheels, Teravail tyres and a choice of cockpits. For local-woods-ripping Drew will run a Starling Clutch stem and Enve riser bar. For head-down, XC marathon racing he’ll switch to an Intend Grave 70mm stem with a “ludicrous drop”, paired-up with a flat Thompson bar “for all of the Nino Schurter points!”.
“But wait a minute , you forgot the dropper post?!”
Nope – Drew is opting out of that luxury! Wtf?
“I’m sure there will be many people screaming at the computer asking ‘why on earth does he not have a dropper?!’ and frankly it’s because I don’t like them.
They wiggle about underneath you, and for 5% of the time when they’re useful, there’s 95% of the time when they irritate me. And for that reason, I’ve got a Thompson masterpiece rigid seatpost”.
Drew describes his Beady as “unnecessarily boujee”.
“This came about off the back of staring at one on my desktop wallpaper and finally riding one at the Single Speed UK Champs last year. You don’t see many full suspension singlespeeds and it’s one I’ve had to tick off the list!
Money-no-object, ultimate marathon racer has been the object. It certainly looks like we’ve achieved it. I’m very pleased with how it’s all come together.”
More on the Beady Little Eye here.
