I spent the best part of two years driving up and down the A4 and E70 in Northern Italy visiting, talking to and trying to understand the partners required to make bikes to the standard I’d dreamt of. I visited a roll call of Italian craftspeople, some of the best factories and workshops in Northern Italy.

I ride awesome bikes that are built down to a number, and have done often for years. We all do. There’s some great value bikes out there, that are amazing to ride.

That's not what we're trying to do though. We’re trying to reach levels of performance, fit, fabrication and finish far beyond the line mass manufacturers work down to.

Objective perfection by definition is always just out of reach. At least sustainably. So, we’re inevitably targeting our own subjective definitions of what it means to get as close to that as possible.

Finding a partner who got that, and could work with us in the way that we wanted to wasn't easy. When I met our fabricators, I’d visited a score of factories and workshops. It’s true to say I was a little disillusioned at that point, despite seeing some incredible work and meeting some amazing people. Meeting our now partners was a massive turning point and put us on the course we’re on just now.

Our second batch of customer frames landed yesterday. So here’s some shots taken before Dan Cole gets at them with his guns.

At this point, there’s still residue from the phosphate bath. You can also see marks where we've lightly dressed or cleaned at the factory, before final paint prep. There’s one clean up stage left before paint, but only gentle abrasives will be used to key the surface. The joins will be left exactly as is, and no fillers will be used.

Comment below if you’ve got any questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.