Joe reports in on our weekend of camping, beers and BBQs to celebrate a special anniversary.
10 years of Starling Cycles – blimey!
Running a small bike business is busy – and with all the frame building, invoicing, and answering emails, it’s easy to forget to celebrate milestones. But 10 years is a big deal, and I wanted to make sure this one didn’t fly by uncelebrated.
So, we did something special. We hired a campsite, Left Handed Giant sent us a load of beer, and we threw out an open invite to anyone who wanted to join us. We even ordered a full weekend of beautiful sunshine and dry trails, which turned-up exactly on time!
Friday evening was all about people arriving, setting up camp, and catching up. There were plenty of familiar faces and plenty of people meeting for the first time.
That’s one of the nicest things about Starling owners. It doesn’t seem to matter where people have travelled from, everyone gets on. It was also great to see a few people on non-Starling bikes; they were really welcome.
A special mention goes to Martin, the proud owner of a Roost hardtail and ‘Lenny’, a beautiful 1990 VW T3 Syncro.
Martin and Lenny have travelled 225,000km across 5 continents and 43 countries – and stopped in to ride with us for the weekend. You can read more about them on his website. More on them soon!
Saturday was the big ride.
We headed out into the Wye Valley, climbing plenty, descending plenty more, and having some fun chucking ourselves down some beautiful, natural trails. The trails in the area played a huge part in the inspiration for the bikes, and it was really great riding them with a huge crew of guys who have chosen to ride Starlings.
One of my favourite parts of the weekend was simply stopping every now and then and looking at the huge collection of Starlings, all flocked together
Almost every Starling is custom-built by its owner, and it really shows. Unique paint jobs, DIY stickers, different travels, wheel sizes, and approaches to setup. One guy is on a 120mm, light and fast 29’er and the other is on a big travel, bikepark-build mullet. Every bike had something interesting about it.
It was brilliant to have not one but two Beady Little Eyes out for the weekend. Adam and John somehow managed to hurl their singlespeeds around two huge days of riding, and were two of the fastest riders of the weekend.
Watching them disappear up climbs that most sensible people would tackle with twelve gears was impressive and ridiculous. The Beady has always been a slightly odd idea, but weekends like this remind me why we built it in the first place.
Saturday night was all about beer, BBQ, music, good chats, jumping bikes over towers of cans, and (surprisingly!) football.
A huge thank you also goes to Left Handed Giant, who very generously kept us supplied with beer throughout the weekend. There aren’t many better ways to finish a ride than sitting in the sun with a pint while talking nonsense about bikes.
Sunday’s ride was a little shorter, but no less enjoyable. Tired legs from the day before didn’t seem to stop us and we explored a few more of the local trails – loads of rocks, loads of dusty turns, a few crashes.
Looking around over the weekend, it struck me how far Starling has come.
When I built the first bike, I never imagined we’d end up with a field full of people who’d travelled from all over the country just to ride together for a weekend. The bikes are obviously the reason everyone comes together, but they’re only part of the story now. It’s the people that make weekends like this special.
Thanks to everyone who came along, whether you’ve owned a Starling for years or were just seeing what we’re all about. Hopefully, you went home with tired legs, a small hangover and you’re looking forward to the next one.
Same time next year?
Thanks to Wye Tipi Camping in Monmouth. They looked after us brilliantly all weekend with a lovely campsite, proper comfortable tipis and some seriously good food. There was loads of locally sourced stuff on the menu, and everybody left well fed.
