News, new products, new ideas, some fabrication, design insights, a bit of racing, and a bit more messing about on bikes – this is BTR, read all about it.
I had a falling out with an old friend today and it’s made me want to tell a story about how launching Rat Bikes nearly made me blind. There used to be two of us at BTR but one of them left because the stress and agro wasn’t worth the money. The other one (me),
On my way to Eurobike I met up with my friends from Misspent Summers at Leogang World Cup. James and Ben were going to Eurobike, too. They had a bed in the Air BnB in Leogang that needed claiming and I was more than happy to oblige. There was also rumours of free food and
About 8 years ago now, I phoned up a mate; “So when are we going to start this bike company then?” What followed was about 7 1/2 years of highs and lows; bike sales mixed with borderline poverty, awesome products but difficult manufacturing… a cycle of stress and euphoria. I have to say that if
Ride along with BTR Ambassador and Gasser Diaries’ main man Billy Hoyes as he takes his Pinner travelling, from City To Sand. Billy tackles a spot of street riding, then heads out to Boomerang Bike Park to hit jumps and drops in his signature loose style – all on board his custom Pinner. Big thanks
Unless you’ve been hiding from the long arm of BTR social media, you’ll be aware that we’ve built a rather special bike for the 2018 Grinduro Scotland race. It’s something we’ve been asked about plenty already, and even built a few custom frames, so we’ve jumped on the opportunity to build the Ranger a wider
Introducing fully configurable frame kits – choose from a selection of our favourite headsets and forks with your frame, to kick off your ideal build. [EDIT 30/08/2017 – Fork options now include the Fox 36 Factory RC2] [EDIT 31/08/2017 – Fork options now include the Fox 36 Performance RC2] Choice is one of our key
The Pinner is a single pivot, linkage actuated, steel full-suspension chassis with 130.42mm of travel for riding hard and having fun. It’s available in 4 sizes, and for both 26” and 27.5” wheels. As with everything BTR, it’s designed and built by Burf & Tam in Frome, Somerset, UK. This is our second iteration of
I have decided, now that I have a new Ranger and BTR has a company car, that I am going to do a bit more racing this year. I’ve been away from the scene for a few years now, mainly because of the lack of time and money created by starting up a company from
Burf’s New Bike calls for his first blog in three years! The last blog I wrote was in February 2014 so that’s about three of four months after I started teaching at The Bicycle Academy. I used to write the blogs during work hours. I would hide myself in a quiet part of the workshop
It’s been another great year for BTR. Here are some of my favourite bikes and times from 2016: One of our earliest complete builds, Ranger #093 turned out pretty stunning! The complete bike was built exactly to Will’s spec, including August Bicycles handbuilt wheels, and working around the RockShox Reba forks he already had. Ranger #093
If you follow BTR on social media, you’ve probably seen hints of some new developments in the works recently. The 2017 Ranger gets a new geometry, more travel on the 29er, optional internal cable routing, and updated sizing. This update is the culmination of a lot of development work, including refining our build process and listening to customer
Introducing Burf & Tam Edition build options – complete bikes built exactly as we ride them. UPDATE 24/08/2017: Frame Kits are now user-configurable; there are now a selection of our favourite forks and headsets available, so that you can choose components to fit your needs or your budget. Read more… One of the great things
You’ve been asking for it, and now we’re ready; internal cable routing is available on BTR frames! It’s important you know that we haven’t just been sitting on it, waiting for sales to drop before we launch a new feature or some other crooked, financially-motivated decision; nor have we been idly dismissing requests from customers.
It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post…so long that in the time that’s elapsed, I’ve got older. To mark the occasion I rounded up my best mates, and headed to BikePark Wales on a Ranger. In November. It snowed and rained, but that didn’t do too much to dampen spirits… One
Trail Tools are back in stock and ready to go! The BTR Trail Tool is our Swiss army knife trail building tool; versatile, invaluable, and tough. They’ve been out of stock while we worked on the next batch, but now they’re back! Order your Trail Tool now! Some said it wasn’t possible, but we found
A Tiny Introduction to the World of Metallurgy At BTR, we’re always on the hunt for ways to improve our products. We leave no stone unturned, especially when it comes to structural parts… Before I get into this, I need to clear up a few things; 1. I’m not a metallurgist. I research our application,
Another huge step for BTR this week; we now sell complete bikes! BTR-fabrications.com has been under the knife a fair bit recently with all sorts of upgrades, tweaks, features and content being added. Chief among the upgrades is the addition of a fully-built Ranger to our web shop! Ever since announcing our first demo bike
The epic tale of the inaugural Hack Bike Derby, and the birth of the monster I built to race. The 2016 Hack Bike Derby is an invitational race weekend for frame builders to let off steam and race shonky bikes which would otherwise have no place in their workshop. Organised by Andrew Denham of The
I guess we’ve appeared a bit quiet so far this year, but the truth is we’ve been anything but quiet! The major excitement has been the arrival of our newest tool, and all the work we’ve done to turn industrial equipment into a dedicated frame building tool. Something we’ve been lusting after for a while
2015 has been a massive year for BTR- we’ve achieved so much, and there’s still so much more to come! We’ve redesigned our entire range and added a few new models, totally rebuilt our website with a web shop, and built our first dedicated demo bike, had our first official BTR Ride Day, built a
That was a big week for BTR! Thanks to everyone so far who’s shared, liked, commented on, and reposted our ‘Is the BTR Ranger the World’s Fastest Hardtail?’ video- we hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as us! Massive thanks to Emyr Davies and SiencsTV for riding, filming and editing the video! Buy your own
‘What am I doing??’ is a question which runs through my head on a daily basis. It’s not ‘I don’t know how to design/build bikes’- I like to think that Burf and I have got that down to a pretty fine art! It’s more ‘Where am I going with this?’ When we started BTR back
‘Does that take 160mm forks?’ ‘Is that 160mm travel?’ ‘Can I fit 160mm forks?’ These are questions that we hear/read at BTR almost daily, and you know what? No; no it doesn’t/no it isn’t/no you can’t. Let me expand. I am frustrated by these questions, but I’m not bitter or angry about them- they’re valid
Some of you may have heard that we’ve been amassing parts for a demo bike for a while…and you’d have heard right. Today we get to show you all what we’ve been working on- our 650B Ranger test bike! Check out the Demo Ranger gallery This bike will be starring in a new video soon,
All of the buzz about BTR Fabrications at Eurobike 2015! Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock recently, you’ll have seen a lot of excitement in bicycle media recently about Eurobike- new product launches, awards, new ranges, etc, etc. Eurobike is a major show for most of the bicycle industry, and this year it was
Escaping to the Mountains for Winter Training Earlier this month I flew out to Mallorca to break up the monotony of winter training in dreary Somerset. The roads are great, the sun was out (most of the time) and the mountains are incredible. Each day followed a fairly strict routine of eat, cycle, eat, beer,
February Roundup: Chocolate cake-fuelled winter miles All things considered it has been a good month of training. I’ve managed to get a lot of miles under my belt, but it’s not been easy due to the endless hurricane headwind! Amongst other stuff, I smashed my first 100 miler of the year, ran my fastest 5km yet
Winter mountain biking at it’s best! January is all about base miles and i’ve been getting out with my local road club quite a lot, it’s always good to smash some miles with the chaingang. Road riding is all well and good but it’s no replacement for mud, which is why I entered the Gillingham
Hi i’m Ryan and i’m really happy to say i’ll be racing for BTR throughout my first proper season of 12hr single speed endurance events. I’ve done some racing in the past but riding long distances has been my thing for a few years now, including the South Downs Way, riding up mountains and riding through the
Pinner available to order NOW! The Pinner is our go anywhere, do anything full suspension bike. It features an enduro-style geometry, trail bike travel and downhill bike strength for a unique, reliable and inspiring ride. £2500, including Cane Creek DBair and UK shipping! Available for either 26″ or 650B wheels. The first production frame has been tested by
We’re pretty good with news we are! So good that we mainly only tell you news long after its happened…ideal… On the plus side, we’ve got some properly good (old) news for you! All BTR frames are now shipping with a free Renthal chainstay protector. We love Renthal products because they’re simple and unbeatable, and
As always this blog is a bit slow on the uptake. The Dirt 100 has been out for ages, and only now are we writing something about it. Sort it out lads! Anyway, I can remember reading the very first Dirt 100 thinking “I’d love to have a frame in there one day”. I
Moving to our new workshop in Frome has been a pretty big step for BTR. We have both have held down jobs and worked in The Shed in the evenings and weekends until now. We had minimal overheads so it was easy to get set up, but it has become very difficult to keep on
The Dudes of Hazzard are everywhere at the moment. They have got themselves a pretty sweet little brand going with their crazy antics and sick riding. They also put on a little shindig going by the name of ”This is Enduro Now’. We went to the first one last year and had an awesome time, so
At the beginning of the race series, Mike asked if I was interested in making some trophies for the overall winners. This was something I was dead keen on so I began planning something that would be awesome, but simple to make….I couldn’t come up with anything that was going to be easy and time
As some of you may have seen on the Facebook page, and in Dirt Mag, BTR has been in the process of moving premises. It has been a mental busy period for both Tam and Myself and this would explain why the page has gone a bit dead over the last few months. It all
Escaping reality for a long weekend, to go riding in north Wales with some mates I seem to be constantly chasing my tail nowadays- 1.5 jobs, 1.5 houses and 1.5 workshops definitely take their time (and money). So its a rarity that I actually get out to play. Its even less common that I get
Its a BUSY week in the BTR Shed; Buzzing about all the building thats going on! Got laser cut parts for a couple of projects in- all looking good! Really happy with how these horizontal dropouts are coming along! More additions to the jig too…in fact, thinking about it now, its actually finished! Wahoo! We
Building a swing arm jig for a new project… So here’s a rather massive clue to whats going on behind the scenes. Not got much to say about this, other than Im pretty proud of it! It definitely features some of my best and worst welding (and a lot of mediocre in between), as well
What’s new in BTR Shedlife? It seems like ages since Ive written anything here…I guess that because it has been ages…oh well! Better late than never, right? Here goes… We’ve been rather quiet over the past few weeks on Facebook and Twitter. Not because we’ve been sitting twiddling our thumbs or watching videos of cats;
We’re in MBR this month! Get yourself a copy and check out the article! We received a phone call from Jamie Darlow, staff writer for MBR, in February asking if we were willing to have him round for some tea an a chat about who we are and what we get up to in the shed. He
UPDATE 12/2018: Yuris now acts as an agent in Japan. UPDATE: Fix Distribution no longer is a distributor for BTR Fabrications. I know right!? Its pretty nuts to think that two guys in a shed in Britain have got international distribution channels, but that’s exactly what we have! We have just recently lined ourselves
The first two rounds of this series have been pretty damn good, so the excitement levels coming into this race were pretty high. There was much speculation about the weather, but the farmers weather app said there would be sun so some hope was still there for a top weekend. I had to finish welding
Team BTR Fabrications – 661 Mini DH at the Forest of Dean This was going to be the first race that we were attending as “Team BTR Fabrications”. Unfortunately not all of us could be in attendance as Tam had to attend his ‘day job’ and Rhys Jenner busted his shoulder the weekend before playing
It was around about lunch time on a Thursday afternoon, when received a phone call from a strange number, one I had never seen before. Maybe it’s someone who wants to buy a frame I thought? The voice on the phone said “Hello, this is Andrew Denham from The Bicycle Academy”. He didn’t need to tell me
This was going to be our first ever Enduro event and we were a bit nervous and excited all at the same time. It’s a long old way from the South Coast up to Kinlochleven and the fuel bill was going to be nuts, so we got two mates to come along and spread the
It’s been a fair old while since Ive been to Moelfre, last time would’ve been back in 2005 when I was still riding for Muddyfox! I was pretty excited to go back and send the Belter down the track. Tam was away doing some work in Cardiff, and the plan was to pick him up
Its been a long time since I’ve been to the Hill of Aston. I have never been able to pull off a good result, and I find the tracks pretty hard to get on with if I’m honest. But the Root Canal race was set to change all of this, apparently… We had managed to blag
Ever bought a new pair of flat pedals, and been left wondering why your old Easton Flatboys are still better?? It would seem like flat pedals would have their work cut out to do their job, after all its just 8 or so small bolts/screws/protrusions (the ‘pins’) and a slab of -usually- metal (the ‘body’)
Another quality event lined up this weekend in the form of the Aston Hill Root Canal race. The race is on the ‘Root Canal’ track- thats the 4-2-3 to those of us who haven’t been to Aston Hill for a while- and theres free practice on Saturday the 8th and on race day until 10am.
Now you have to admit that we all love riding our bikes, there ain’t nothing like it. So we don’t usually need an excuse to get out on the bike, but if you ever needed one, a race at The Bull Track in aid of the charity Help For Heroes is it! If you weren’t
Should be a cracking event this weekend- BR4R and Help For Heroes teaming up to bring us a one-off race at the Bull Track on sunday. Saturday practise is £3, and camping at the Bull Track is free so long as you’re tidy! Race entry is £15 for under 16 and £20 for adults, of
A hardtail with a sixty one degree head angle?? Thats crazy! This is something we hear fairly often about the Belter‘s geometry, but it isn’t really crazy, and here’s why: It’s standard fare nowadays for full suspension downhill bikes to have 63° head angles- they’ve settled on this number to achieve a balance of neutral
Porc is a weird one. Whenever there is a race there it’s a good one, but it’s always so hard to get excited about racing there. This time was different however, it was the first race we as BTR Fabrications have officially sponsored and put a stash of prizes up for, it was also the
Dirt Magazine Belter Review I reckon its quite rare that anyone would get terribly excited about a grey package in their letter box, but there I was, grey package in hand…so excited I could sh1t. DIRT’S HERE!! Rip it open, contents page….’Wear and Tear’ – that sounds like us, P138 GO! Sure enough, on page
The second round of the WDMBAs was a week away and I hadn’t entered. I was pretty keen to go after doing so well at round 1, but Dirt Mag still had my bike on test, so I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we weren’t going. That was until Tam suggested
