A Tour and An Introduction

Yesterday, I travelled down to East Sussex to collect my new bike.

Enigma are open only 9am-12.30pm on Saturdays and not all the staff come in that day, but it seemed the only day that Adam would be available to come with me, so I decided not to wait until Monday as originally planned. As it happens, Adam did the Friday Night Ride to the Coast to Whitstable in Kent, then took a series of trains to get to Enigma, arriving at 12.15pm!

As for me, I left home at 6.50am (by taxi as there are no buses from our village that early) and arrived at Polegate station at 9.30am. Paul Smith, the new head of sales who did my fitting and who has been overseeing my build and keeping me updated over the past 2-1/2 months, met me at the station to drive me to the factory.

It was kind of a funny arrival. Paul said "I know you're wanting to see your bike" but took me around the factory on our way up to where it was on the showroom floor. Along the way, he gave me a little tour of all the stages a bike goes through during its construction. While at first I thought "why are we not going straight to my bike?", I quickly began to appreciate that the tour was a form of introduction, building a little suspense but also "preparing" me for what I was going to see when we got there. It was absolutely fascinating to see bikes at every stage and I am very glad Paul took the time to explain each step. That kind of background "briefing" was a great little journey towards meeting my new made-for-me bike.

So I'm going to do the same here.

The main workshop where frames are built.

A new frameset in a jig, fitted together once all the tubes have been mitered.

Enigma believes precision in mitering is the key to a good frame,
with each tube perfectly fitted so that the welds can be done
cleanly with little need to "fill in gaps" where the ends of the tubes
don't quite meet up fully. (All the mitering is done by Max, who is,
Paul says, obsessive in his quest for perfection!)

Bottom bracket welds. (Joe Walker does all the titanium welding for Enigma.)

More welds - I wish I remembered what part of the frame this was,
as apparently it's the area that bike builders feature most, when they
want to show up their welding, as it's the easiest place to get a
steady, consistent overlap or trail of welds. 

Joe Walker's welding room

Then we went upstairs to a sort of mezzanine floor (where you can look down into the workshop area below). Most of this floor is a "showroom". There are so many beautiful bikes here, it is actually hard to focus on any single one. It's all a bit too much to take in!

This bike is in fact on sale:

http://www.enigmabikes.com/collections/ex-demo/products/enigma-steel-fixie

At the back is a little work area more like what you'd find in a bike shop: workstands, lots of tools... a nice quiet, compact space for building up, fettling and polishing.

In the showroom -- in pride of place amidst all this beauty -- was My Bike.

I barely had a chance to look at it, though, because of course it wasn't quite finished. Paul fitted the saddle and pedals that I had brought with me and put the bike on a trainer. We then spent nearly an hour on the fitting:  getting the saddle just right (the height, the fore/aft position, the angle of the nose), then the handlebars. I had requested that the steerer tube not be cut until all this fitting had been done, to prevent a situation where I had to put up with handlebars that were just that little bit too low. Paul and Greg (the builder) were very relieved that the fit clearly showed just three spacers (ideal) were needed to place the handlebars at the right height. I asked for a spacer's width of tube to be left above the handlebar "just in case". This bike is for life and I can't count on being as flexible as I am now in 20 years' time!

I was told I wouldn't want to watch the steerer tube being cut as it's a pretty brutal procedure! But I am fascinated with everything and after a few minutes' hesitation, followed Greg to the small workshop. Just in time to see him taking a small hacksaw to my bike.

Surgery completed, Greg re-fits the spacers and handlebars.

Paul then finished off the handlebars with gel cushions and Enigma's own handlebar tape - really elegant and very cushy.

Jim, Enigma's founder, wandered through and gave my bike a last little polish.

And so my bike was complete!

Paul and Greg took the time to talk with me about the idiosyncracies that come with a "hybrid" drivetrain, especially one like mine that pushes all the currently acceptable limits! For example, the Shimano XT (spring-assisted) rear derailleur will not be the smoothest, quietest mech when handling a 10-speed cassette with cogs ranging from 11 teeth to 36 teeth! Likewise, the Shimano 105 front derailleur is not entirely happy dealing with a 24 teeth difference between the 28t inner ring and 52t outer ring - the recommended limit is a 22t difference. They warned me to be strict with my chain lines and shifting patterns and that the most likely problem would be shifting from the inner chainring to the middle one. (I have found this heads-up to be spot-on. The derailleur struggles with that change, so I quickly but precisely shift onwards to the outer ring and then shift back onto the middle ring. It only adds a few seconds and seems to sort out any alignment issues perfectly.)

By this time, it was pushing 1pm. Even so, Paul insisted I take a little spin before he left, so he could deal with any niggles I might spotted before I set off home and he closed up shop for the weekend. The last thing he wanted was to find out on Monday that I got stranded with a set-up issue somewhere on a cycle path en route back to Polegate! Very kind of him. (Oh and he had given Adam a nice tour round the premises as well!)

So I set off round the industrial estate and then did a few circles round Enigma's car park, while Paul and Adam snapped pictures.

Adam and I then set off down the Cuckoo Trail (which is a fabulous cycle route) to Polegate, where we caught the train back to Luton. Our cycle from the train station home was a lumpy 4 miles with an infamous Pig of a Hill, which my bike and I conquered... in spite of some alarm at the noisy drivechain!

First impressions: my weight is much more forward on this bike than any other I've had. This affects my centre of gravity and balance and how I perceive the bike's handling. This is something I'll be getting used to over the coming weeks and months. I understand how and why this is all now a much better fit for me, so I'm eager to learn more by riding it. Friends (and Adam) ask if I love it. The answer for now is that I feel knocked sideways by its elegance and quality, very curious and eager to see how my cycling skills develop and my riding experience improves. I am excited to see how the "relationship" develops. So let's just say... I'm deeply infatuated!