Simple, Steel, Single-Pivots Made in the UK: Q&A with Starling Cycles 4

Starling Cycles is a small brand from the UK that specializes in making hardtail and full suspension steel frames. Starlings always catch our eye when they pop up in our Bike Check section, so we were curious to dig a bit deeper. From the origins of the endeavor to the design philosophy behind the bikes, we reached out to founder and owner Joe McEwan to learn more. Joe is a man who is not afraid to say what he thinks and to do what he says, which is clearly reflected in the bikes that he makes. Read the interview below and see for yourself!

So, how does one decide that one wants to start manufacturing mountain bikes?

It all started as a hobby! I had a shed, I liked making things, I did a frame building course with a UK legend Dave Yates, then I started making bikes in the evenings. There a good video from the early days here:

Tell us a bit more about the early days and how you got started – any particular difficulties, or a good anecdote?

The early days in my shed in the back garden very exciting. I didn’t really have all the equipment I needed and the quality was a little bit variable, mostly with alignment. But the bikes were strong and rode great, so people loved them (including lots of media reviews) and the orders kept coming. I think I did a good job of capturing my excitement and getting the MTB media excited too…

The sales pushed me to think about scaling up, so I ordered a batch of frames from Taiwan. This prompted lots of things: a big loan, a move into a proper industrial unit, a staff member, more focussed marketing, more links into the MTB industry and supply chain.

The Taiwan frames sold well, and I kept doing custom sized bikes built in the UK, but I mis-managed the loan and got myself into a bit of a cash hole!  A helpful business coach pulled me in line and we planned a way out, but it was a painful lesson early on!!

One mistake I made with the Taiwan bikes was with predicting the sizes I needed, even though it was based upon lots of data from custom builds.  Essentially all the Larges sold straight away and I was left with Medium and Extra-Larges. This gave me the idea of getting standard sized swingarms made in the Taiwan and building the front triangles in the UK, where we can build to stock, and do custom options that Taiwan doesn’t allow. This is how we work now and it works great!

There seems to be a thing about steel frames made in the UK, you have a few local competitors in this field, why are these bikes so popular here?

Personally (obviously), I think steel is a great material for bikes. My background is in carbon fibre in aerospace. And although it can be very weight efficient, carbon is just not damage tolerant. It’s not unusual to hear of people braking 4, 5 or 6 units of a particular carbon frame that is just replaced under warranty. People should ask how much they cost to manufacture if they can be replaced so readily.

Not that weight matters, again something that people are finally realising, but tough (some do exist) carbon frames are actually pretty similar in weight to steel and aluminium frames!!

But to answer your questions, I’m not sure why steel is so prevalent in the UK.  Maybe we tend to ride hardtails more than other places, and we all know a steel hardtail is the best ride. Perhaps we’re trying to replicate that damped feeling in our full sus bikes. The UK is also a nation of ‘shed engineers’ and again steel lends itself to this.

As a small business, how did you deal with the COVID boom and ensuing supply chain challenges?

The boom was obviously good!! Very quickly I realised the supply chain would be hit, my powdercoaters was shut for example. So I tried to manage the expectations of my customers by offering a good sale deal, but on the understanding that delivery may be impacted. This worked great and we sold 6 months’ worth of frames in one month at one point!

The supply chain issues for parts actually impacted us less than others. Typically, we don’t supply full bikes, just frames and partial build kits. So people were happy to source the missing bits themselves. Again, managing my customers expectations was key.

Staying with the small business theme, is it hard to make a space for yourself in the bicycle industry, among the bigger players?

As a small company, our visibility is smaller, and marketing budgets less than a big company, but we don’t need to sell as many bikes, so maybe it averages out. In fact our ‘visibility per sale' is probably higher than the big companies!

How big is the company today? How is manufacturing handled, all in-house or is some of it outsourced?

We are four employees, with an apprentice joining soon. Two full time frames builders, Ollie and Geoff, with Geoff managing the manufacturing and James doing everything from workshop to customer. Then myself doing customer communication and running a small business. But then we have sub-contract support from various other people; Jamie doing marketing, John doing graphic design and merchandising, Nick at the powdercoaters, and James my business coach. Joe, Irene and Leeche, my agents in Taiwan who I could not do without! And finally, my family listening to my rants and stopping me going mad!

Manufacturing is a combination of in house in the UK and from ORA in Taiwan. ORA supply all the swingarms for our Core bikes. They also build our stainless bikes, the Murmur and Roost hardtail. Then in the UK we make all the Core bike front triangles. We also have some Rare niche bikes that are fully UK manufactured.

Tell us more about your current range of bikes – you have quite a few models for a smaller player!

We have quite a few models, but it’s simpler than it looks! We have our Core range; the Murmur (29), Twist (Mx) and Swoop (27). These are made from two sizes of swingarm (29 or 27), the front triangles are then either in 29 or 27 format in a few different sizes. The new V3 bikes allow both Trail and Enduro configurations with the same frame, simplifying things even further. Pretty simple and easy to manage.

Then we have the stainless frames made in Taiwan; Murmur and Roost hardtail. These are very shiny and pretty!!!

Then a few Rare niche bikes. The Beady Little Eye, a single speed full-sus bike, the most fun bike in the world! The Sturn singlespeed DH bike, although we’ve kinda parked building these to catch up on Core bikes. Then a few others, the Spur gearbox bike which we’ve had to shelve due to gearbox supply issues.

What’s the philosophy behind the single-pivot layout? Any particular choices you’ve made with regards to suspension curves and such that would “define” the feel of a Starling bike?

Single Pivot just works! 

Personally, I think the various companies need to develop new systems to differentiate themselves from others and to hang their marketing off. I think I’m lucky that single pivot is now actually a differentiator! With a quality shock (noting it‘s super easy to tune shocks for a single pivot), they work as well as anything else. Keyboard warriors will say nay, but read every single Starling review and there are only positive things to say about the suspension.

Single pivot is also super versatile, we can offer the same frame to run short and long stroke shocks, you can set the sag to get the bike feel you want. There’s no magic 31.6% sag you need to hit to make the bike work. The super damped feel of the steel all adds to a bike that feel greats, gives traction, takes hits, is silent… it just works!

Same question as the previous one, but regarding geometry.

I think the geometry question is kinda over. Every brand is pretty much using the same numbers now, interestingly, they seem to have settled in the figures we had five years ago! There still a few ‘extreme’ outliers and these work some applications.

I think the one aspect of geometry that isn’t fully appreciated is chainstay length. Short stays make the bike easier to get up on the back wheels, easier to manoeuvre, long stays make the bike more planted and stable. Riders need to think about how they ride and pick what suits them, not what they think will be faster. And the length is relative to frame size. Our 27.5” swingarmed bikes (Swoop and Twist) have a short 435mm chainstay, the 29 swingarms (Murmur) are longer, at 445mm.

We do supply an XL Twist mullet bike. I don’t think the shorter stays with the long front travel is that balanced, but for some riders it really suits their style and they love them. I do think we are missing an even longer stay, say 455mm for bigger bikes and super trucking!

[ED: If you want to dig deeper, Joe maintains a Tech Blog that covers many of the topics discussed in this interview in more depth.]

You’ve recently undertaken an “Environmental Footprint Assessment”, tell us a bit more about how this idea came about and what the outcome is?

The state of the environment is obviously a concern. The simple fact is that humans are living outside of the capacity of the earth, and as the standard of living for the world increases, the problem will only get worse. So it seemed appropriate to have a think about what the impact of Starling is. What we produced was just a first pass, really to find out where we are at and what information we had. Internally we’re pretty sound; steel is strong and repairable for example. But there are some obvious changes we could make around the shipping of frames around the world.

But the biggest finding was that it is almost impossible to understand the impact of your suppliers. Some companies like Reynolds (frame tubing) and Öhlins, have good data available. In fact Reynolds did their own study prompted by mine and it is very valuable. But the majority of companies, and really big ones, have nothing more than a statement, “we do everything we can to minimise impact on the environment”, read into that what you want! My challenge is to keep reviewing the assessment and trying to ensure we make the changes that we identify. 

What does the future hold for Starling Cycles? Any exciting projects you’re working on at present?

Going forward we just want to keep making bikes. No plans for massive growth, just keep improving the quality and supply. Get the bikes to a few different places in the world. Have time to ride!

The bikes are pretty sorted, so it’s pretty hard to think what the next bike should be. There’s a few detail changes planned, but overall they ride great! As previously discussed I think a longer chainstay length option would be good, so we’re working on that. We’re also working on an option for a super fancy but economic paintjob!

I’d also love to ramp up manufacture of the Rare bikes, the Sturn and the Beady Little Eye. They will always be niche, but they are so good I’m sure we can sell a few. Otherwise, in parallel to Starling there is some super exciting project going on, but I’m going to keep that to myself for now...

Thanks Joe!

Find out more about Starling at starlingcycles.com.