The person behind the bikes
The story
One person, one workshop, three things that are really one.
Bike
I build frames and assemble bikes for people who ride on the edge. Every tube is chosen for one particular rider.
Body
I train every day. I know what a body does landing from three metres, because mine does it.
Rhythm
The music is loud in the workshop. A bike, like a song, is good when it has rhythm and you no longer have to think.
The first bike I built was for myself, because nothing in the shops fitted me. I was tall, I rode hard, and every frame put me either too far forward or too high. I read everything about geometry I could find and then threw it away: the numbers described the average person, and I was not the average person. Nobody is.
Since then I have built bikes for particular people. Not for "size L" but for Ivo, who lands heavy; for Desi, who manuals better than anyone; for Dancho, who grows five centimetres a year. Every build starts with a ride and a conversation, because geometry is not read off a table, it is read off the way a person stands on the pedals.
Why "by feeling"
I train every day and play music loud while I work. For a long time I thought those were three separate things. They are not. Riding, training and music meet in the same sensation: rhythm, balance, the moment you stop thinking and it just happens. A bike is good when it disappears under you. A song is good when you stop analysing it. A landing is good when it is quiet.
"By feeling" means I ride with you and listen first, and only then measure and calculate. The numbers matter. They just come second.
The workshop
Small, in Bulgaria, with a barbell in the corner and speakers that cost more than they should. Dirt and street frames are chromoly tubes, welded by hand. Full-suspension bikes start from proven frames whose geometry I change for the person. The parts that do not exist in the size needed I draw in CAD and machine myself: derailleur cages, stems, hubs, pulleys. Everything else, from the spokes to the suspension setup, passes through my hands before it passes through yours.
- 40+
- bikes built
- 8
- years in the workshop
- 5
- disciplines
“Three broken frames and nobody told me the problem was the geometry. Here they watched me ride first, then we talked about the bike. Now I land on both wheels and I don't think.”
“At 1.91 m every shop bike has been too small for me, I just didn't know it. Vitosha Line is the first one where I stand in the middle instead of over the front wheel. I won on it three weeks later.”
Ready for a bike that is yours to the last millimetre?
Tell me how you ride. I answer personally, usually within two days.