Factory Visit: Historic Pashley Cycles In The UK

As freelance writer Amy McPherson explains here, there was a musky presence in the workshop, a bit of rubber, a smell of hot steel, and a hint of grease, kind of like the smell you’d imagine inside a factory 50 or 60 years ago.

Then there are the sounds … click, clack, clang then the psszzzzzt of a welder.

‘Is that a siren that just went off in the back there?’ I thought.

Then there’s the odd feeling of everyone knowing everyone. The atmosphere is just so different to what I expected from a bike factory.

I am at the Pashley Cycles HQ, a British bicycle brand well known for its sturdy, heritage bikes and a brand that has been around for several generations.

So far as handmade bikes go, this is as handmade as it gets. A tour of the factory revealed an intimate space where there were no conveyer belts nor any fancy robotics.

A frame being screated at the Pashley factory.

“This drill here, moved here with us when we moved from a space in Birmingham to where we are now in Stratford-upon-Avon,” said Customer Experience Manager, Blake Lavelle, who was showing me around the factory floor.

“We have no idea how long it has been with the company, we just know that it still works perfectly!” On each side, are similarly antique Fly Presses and Tube Cutters, each with a history and each part of the Pashley story.

They call it a factory, yet there are no assembly line in sight, feeling more like a technician’s workshop. One side of the factory floor is slacked with naked steel, the other side is lined with tubes that have been beautifully dressed in paint, ready for assembly, then shipment.

Everything else in between – the shaping, the punching, the welding, the soldering, the painting, the testing – are attended to by actual human-beings, powered by skills, strength and their unified passion for quality bicycles. Even that very thin decorative line on every Pashley’s mudguard is hand painted.

Components and frames are carefully painted by hand at the factory.

Each single bike is handmade here on order, and while it does make fulfilment time a little longer, there is pride in everyone’s work here each time a customer comes to collect their order, or a bike is being prepared for delivery.

Made By Hand

I met one of the designers who was working on a lathe. His task? making a pair of offset bottle bosses to allow maximum dropper post insertion into the seat tube.

“You work?” I joked, knowing that most designers sit at their desks and work on sets of conceptual drawings without considering practical applications of their designs.

“Well, I like to test ideas out, it’s the best way for me to see if something will work or not,” Jon replied. In the corner of the room is a 3D printer, which he also uses to create prototypes of parts for the same reason. Jon Cumberpatch joined Pashley straight out of university, and has been working for Pashley for the past 15 years.

Now in charge of designing some of the brand’s newer models, he is embracing the new innovations that helps him create faster. “I can come up with an idea for a part, have it 3D printed and tested out in a day. It makes a much faster progress than, say previously you would have to wait weeks for a result.”

The finishing touches being made to a Pashley cargo bike.

To The Showroom

Stepping in the showroom is like being in a museum of Pashley’s past, present and the future. There were the curved tubes of their Parabikes, the modern take on the hybrid airborne bicycles of the Second World War. There are the classic, vintage bikes fitted with vegan leather seats and handle bar covers.

Then, a modern road bike in the corner caught my eye. Not because it wasn’t impressive, but because it didn’t seem to fit the Pashley image.

From The Past Into The Future

“That’s where the future may be, “ explained Andy Smallwood, CEO of the company, who has been fitting accessories onto a heritage bike for me to photograph.

Pashley Cycles will celebrate its 100 years anniversary in 2026 and Andy couldn’t be more excited about the future. While the brand will continue to make its iconic bikes, Pashley will begin to introduce modern models to the market.

“Although we do have a brand image to uphold, and most people know Pashley as a bicycle brand that produces these beautiful heritage bikes,” he continued, as he walked me around the showroom, “we are evolving. There is a new generation out there that wants a quality modern bicycle, so there will be new lines added to our catalogue.”

“We are an old company,” said Andy Smallwood, CEO of Pashley Cycles, “but our story is just beginning, again!”

More on Pashley Cycles can be found at www.pashley.co.uk