The story of this new Llewellyn frame model with no name (yet) begins a few years ago.

After many years of making lugless and lugged bikes I had by 2006 switched by design and desire to just lugged frame only production.
I like being creative and designing, seeking solutions to making things, which results in a new part or a new frame model. However I soon get restless and after the last major lug project with Dario Pegoretti which was the Cadenzia lugs set for XL or DOO over size tubes with a level top tube I needed to push on.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/llewel...57650498412866
Towards the end of 2012 I put together the “Voyageur” project which was my flavour on an integrated Randonneur bike, with stainless bespoke racks, clip on bags (straps are errrr) bringing together all the ideas and features I considered useful and with functionality that had accumulated. That was a big project and the most involved bike project I have undertaken due to the complexity and numerous jig and fixture construction. A good Randonneur bike is many levels more complex than a racing bike. The result was most pleasing for me and for the clients who have paid me their hard earned dollars for this Llewellyn model.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/llewel...57634807572631
Meanwhile I do some small casting bike frame design projects but my mind is thinking of the next project and as Nick Cave says

“Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That’s terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work”

An idea of going back to a lugless frame and construction was forming in my mind for some time.
I like lugs, they work superbly, functional and to my and others eyes they have a pleasing aesthetic.
So if I do a lugless frame set, what could it offer that my current model range does not offer or do.
This went circulating around my cranium for some time. Big tubes, funky shapes just for the sake of fashion grates on me somewhat. During spells when I had a slow intermittent cut job on the lathe I would ponder and sketch.
I concluded that the path I would take is big tubes, very big for steel and also some other features and details that compliment the frame set. I am not a believer that stiffer is faster, less power absorbed from the pedal pressure on its way to twisting the rear hub. If it was so, we could easily make frames as stiff as a block of granite.
However some clients desire or have a strong fetish for STIFF. The ideas sat on a side shelf in my cranium, not at the front but visible and within reach and I would kick it every now and then.
Then late 2015 comes a phone call from Dr Brian McLean. Brian and I have known each other for 30 years and worked together on numerous projects while he worked at the Australian Institute of Sport as a cycling bio-mechanist and I as a team mechanic. I was a bit different than the other mechanics as I interacted a lot with the biomechanics and the physiology lab staff. I worked with Brian considerably during my work stints as a national team mechanic while I lived and worked in Germany and Italy. These days Brian now does a lot work with the New Zealand national team as well as private fit ups of clients, including many of clients.
Brian rings me one day and says, “I want to talk to you about a new project for myself, when can I come over for a chat?”
We arrange a time and we chat while sipping a couple cups of Yorkshire tea.



Stay tuned for part 2