Life’s Magic Cycle….With Added Prestige.
Today was to be my fit up for a present that I hoped would evolve into a heirloom and live to celebrate dozens more Birthdays than its owner. As I ascended a staircase adorned in Prestige’s prevalent regal shade, I mulled over how to communicate my needs in practical rhetoric to the discerning experts who awaited my arrival. Cautiously, I entered an impressive showroom, decked out in a luxurious array of customised spoils and laced with brands that were as far away from Halfords as the Earth was from the Orion nebula.
After taking a moment to acclimatise to its surprising spaciousness, I was warmly greeted by Toby, the firm’s principal technical guru and a man who, it was claimed, used necromancy to alleviate bikes of their numerous ailments. I divulged my wish list, less assuredly than I’d rehearsed, adding that my dérailleur days were numbered.
No matter how high grade the group set how or well calibrated the builder asserted it was, one gear out of twenty would never engage while others were rapidly and sadistically hammered out of alignment by the South Coast’s shocking surfaces. My heart was set on a hub housed solution and specifically, one from the venerable German manufacturer, Rholoff. 14 speeds, intuitively indexed, as bullet proof as a Panzer and as likely to slip as a limpet super glued to a tin of treacle.
Expecting Toby to respond with suggestions that I had been using the wrong parts, improper methods, or had relied on inferior expertise, all of which may well have been true, he simply looked interested, nodded in empathy, made scrupulous notes gleaned from my disjointed ramblings and a myriad of websites, before insisting that the any commission Prestige took on would be considered a failure if the client didn’t get exactly what they wanted…along with a fair bit of what they never knew they could have.
After a rough specification had been established, I was given a hypnotically articulate tour of several breath snatching exhibits from Baum and Mosaic, two top tier manufacturer’s based respectively in Australia and America and of whose captivating artistry Prestige were the UK’s sole importers.
Toby’s own road primed thoroughbred had been reared by the latter and was constructed around a sublime skeleton of double butted titanium, the brand silkily stencilled into a bead blasted surface. Violet hubs, electric shifting and more garnish than a thanksgiving turkey.
Despite his fantastically eloquent eulogy and the sensational spectacle that was his pride and joy, a nagging compulsion for nostalgia ultimately prevailed and I craved the perfect tribute to my Pashley’s spiritual legacy.
Reynolds 953 stainless steel, a material so scarce and murderous to mould that it had vanished from the menus of many revered fabricators, including Mosaic’s. Those that remained willing to negotiate its mercurial riddles, were quoting aeons of four to six months before a gram could even be sourced, let alone shaped. Such a wait would have tested the patience of a Franciscan Monk, for me, it might as well have been a decade.
I conveyed these concerns to Toby and he calmly assured that once I’d spoken to Stephen, I’d have a reasonably accurate and more agreeable lead time.
Following a medical assessment as diligent as any obtainable on the private sector and inspiring assurance by the Physio that I was the first customer to be given a clean bill of health, I was offered a welcome shot of caffeine by Prestige’s founding father.
Stephen Roche, a former child prodigy who was afflicted with cycling’s virus from birth and composed his first leg propelled masterpiece at the impressionable age of 15, began his professional career in London, working for another source of bespoke magic, Mosquito Bikes.
He took my vital measurements, height, in-seam, show size, wing span and others, telling me he had soon had grown weary of the extortionate daily commute, and that an attack of common sense sparked by astute parental guidance, had eventually convinced him to set up business in his native homeland.
One fine day, on a pleasant stroll down a particularly idyllic street in central hove, his father, now the company’s redoubtable bookkeeper had gestured to the property we now inhabited and said
“What about there?”
Though Prestige was originally conceived to provide the classiest bespoke brands with a British presence, not all customers were content to shell out mortgages to purchase Baum’s latest framesets or auction kidneys to acquire Mosaic’s double-butted tubes. In an effort fill this financial chasm and satisfy a sizable portion of the mainstream market, Stephen had initially stocked off the peg builds from a variety of ubiquitous manufacturers. When these hadn’t sold as anticipated, he decided it was time for a home brewed solution.
The most critical stage of the fitting process was poised to commence and as I clambered upon a menacing machine that resembled a highly sophisticated torture rack, I reiterated my concerns over how long my order might take.
Both Baum and Mosaic cater for titanium objectors. The latter’s finest steel is known as KVA-MS3 Stainless” and is also encountered on Genesis’s flagship offerings, while Baum’s frames are extracted from Columbus XCR and Reynolds steel.
With Mosaic already out of the picture, Stephen informed me that he would be unable to contact Baum for an estimate until the following week and that from there, build time was likely to be at least 3 months. Whilst this was still far quicker than any other estimate I had received, patience was a virtue that had eluded me since the days when Christmas presents were declared off limits until after lunch. I had to have things good AND on Tuesday!
As I pedalled with my eyes transfixed to a large image of myself defaced with triangular graffiti, hope handily materialised in the form of Prestige’s house label, Mustard.