THE STANTON BIKES VISIT “NOT JUST A UK BIKE BRAND!”

We visit Stanton Bikes, ready for a hook-up with these guys for their new Switch FS frames. We do the full factory tour over in Matlock and get on so well with the guys, a scheduled hour-long stay turns into 5 hours!
Their new investment and future plans for this very British company blows us away, as the very humble, yet very forward thinking Dan Stanton lets us in on their game plan.
For more info on Stanton Bikes, check out- https://www.stantonbikes.com/
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Good morning folks guess where we are where it’s done in bikes we’ve caught up to Matlock darbus your way to meet Dan and some of the crew see what’s going on here and possibly order something nice and new and shiny we have a little look around Stanton bikes more than welcome to me

Okay well we got ya titanium bikes we can’t build other sizes I know that they’re all in my size that’s because I always build back to my size cuz you’re quite sure I know yeah Taiwan’s if you look 16.5 and 17th yeah just because I liked it and we have the

The super large 500 reach FS 29 a year yes this is just come back from War Z Natalie yeah this was four weeks tested out in the Alps trying to disrupt try and yeah just destructive testing money issues nothing at all really yeah in fact the writer was

Saying that it was having more problems with wheels and brakes and what size is this rider with such a big bike six foot five years–not Wow he weighs 16 stone yeah and you can just so people know when they’re all doing a bike like this is this from the start where they can

Order different lengths see tube and so basically we are sizing matrix yeah yeah so fifteen inch frame as afforded in 20 mil reach 19 and a half inch frame as a 500 mil reach but say you wanted am a bike that we’ve had a farm group mill reach

Yep with a stack of 600 so you only on a 130 mill – yeah you could still have all the reach you’re after and you could run a 15 inch seat – yeah so you can look around the society and also finishes as well because we’ve got our standard

Finishes and then you can have a paint upgrade and select any in fancy or – from one of our 15 iridescent effects finishes okay and as well if you go for that and you get decon options as well so you’ve got the standard B car

Style yeah this or you can if you’re in a race team or I don’t know you like your name on a bike right yeah we can put that on because it’s all done well I’ll show you in a minute next door okay yeah there’s 27.5 prototype Wow

Have you ridden this yet yeah look plan it all boys have been taking it out it’s a it’s tighter more nimble yeah yeah trail by ISO 140 160 yeah then we’ve also with a if you change the back end out and the top link which we’ll be doing

You can get 160 ml out of it and then it’s to be around with 170 ml for Wow and the geometry customization is available on the 27.5 as well that’s uno that’s still 63 and three-quarter head angle this is 65 degree pass 6500 on trial yeah yeah happy 5 degree head on

Course it’s all just a little bit tire and more nimble yeah play a race version slightly slacker yeah and runs 116 will travel with a 174 right okay there’s two versions in 27.5 or switchback FS yeah and then there is what I would class personally is a race specific switch

Niner yeah which is 29th will long wheelbase deep slack yeah I’ve got runs a 60 3.75 degree so is there any absolutely super Fandango YouTube channel guy who you know who may be ordering one of these frames off you like quite soon quash a next door was

The Dayton point for your each changes each time yes it’s working each time it’s growing its incremental and larger and smaller yeah we’re working on that sixty point five as we began digging up a nine to five winner welcome to get it back they’ve read oh

Yeah because we need to take you back for twenty seven point five anyway so we got here Daniel deSario to Scott he’s our own welder a fabricator yeah Jordan our engineer so for the you know the viewer is watching this now do you wanna explain about this jig and how it came about

Okay yeah so this is our cheek for our twenty nine to four sauce yeah not 2980 screws 27.5 as well so this is our welder for the front end so this has been manufactured at a local firm the jig us yeah in doggy so they do all Rolls Royces a park

Fixtures and jig in what we have any areas you’ve got a fixed dates in few bottom bracket fixed datum for the top link and then we adjust our reach here on this slide then all of Mike’s are caught and knocks the size and what’s the tolerances on that one does it go in

Reach from and to some tolerance wise we’re achieving five mill so when we get that on the linemen we check everything yeah we are within 0.5 mm right okay which is spot-on so we have got we’ve got a calibration sheet for the jig and that’s

All checked on a CMM so okay pretty I hear that really nice and this obviously was where the switch FS was developed yeah yeah yeah reach about like your bottle man how many could you have on one of these 500 reach could you go crazy like the pole and I’m free on

There you could get quite a few on there if you want down there yeah I really should try an out there now for just album everywhere is that one the swing on everything some of the CNT sections that go into the frame yeah so yeah basically this is the top top link top

Now for the top for the top link so yeah it’s just slotted into here and then Ewell’s not intersect into place but this means then that basically with this well within here this whole solid one section is you know there’s a lot less lateral yeah through the whole area and

Then again with the bottom bracket this one being a that’s your first link pivot a lot yeah they’ve bottom bracket or cnc’d out of a solid piece of steel and this means that the bottom bracket and first link pivot can’t work in opposition to each other so when you put

In power down the whole thing in trying to rather than the tooth on the two parts trial twisted is it because the area wills being held at point if they’re in one section means basically it can’t twist an opposite which means you get a lot of bad power

What we’re looking for because Steel’s inherently flexible you’re trying to design how the lateral flex so using seeing steel parts CFC aluminium parts to try and brace the whole areas I’ve got any other SS here but on the rear end on the rear end you see this is a

Back-end for that this whole section here is one cnc’d section this here and that sits in between here and the first one here so the whole thing is really having a luxury braced and then so that means that the shop actuation is perfectly not going to do Robin Newberry

Bushings miss any of that and your actual flex is coming from these yeah so you’ve still got a LeMat flexing the bike but it’s actually coming from the box section in the stage rather than around the shop area so the shotgun is more great but you’ve still got a

Relatively building they’re very good bike steps time right okay that’s the new seal yep new standard gray it’s the new standard flow you can see that’s come out real real blue yeah real bright blue and then this color this Montes green we’ve named it not man that’s

Great yeah I don’t like it until the name came about once we called it – cream is alright you see so that’s the Sherpa so anything because we’re paint in ours I’ll show you that in a second we’re painting a house you can have any color any frame and he you

Know way around your life and even if you wanted to you could even have your name on it or your team rider yeah so they couldn’t avoid it oh yeah suspension plain color revised whose is it color change it’s green no split screen so Sonny’s got his cash out and

While we’re here it’s bought a frame and cause he’s boy who we’re gonna review it in a couple of weeks yeah you excited yeah you can erase it yeah can you raise it this weekend I can’t do a pose feet society they called 911 the point of this is CV switchback

Shirt and / – whoops – there are no compromising on geometry and engineering solutions only okay yeah this is compromise on geometry so they would not spend so much on engineering solutions which basically means that rather than putting yolks in you know was just suspended for chainstays so they don’t

Accommodate the lighter wheels for broader tires yeah things like that says jib geometry based operations – we don’t get high engineering costs yeah whereas these are all this is all high engineering costs basically said that we never compromise the way that that product rides or field yeah so it’s

Also give you people yeah as well one’s got all their stuff hanging you know show them very old forks wheels everything you know if somebody wants something too rush around on for the winter so this is the yeah we have a full painting booth here rolling water 1/2 an ounce of metal

Rock rocket and it creates a big suction and then this is the actual powder coating machine to gamma yeah I don’t really do this we have the big oak veneer and then we have this that we made ourselves which is a laser aligned deeper what’s her honor

Oh really yeah it’s jig so you put it back by the bottom bracket here yeah and you basically ladyfriend down and then it’s all been like the whole thing I like this one it’s all exactly yeah so you set this laser line and it puts a

Direct line down the center of it yeah but you puts you a direct line down the center of the frame in here if you order a frame from us now any frame from us now you can have any of the five standard colors mm-hmm or if you want to

Go for a paint upgrade you can you can pick your own well finish or you can go from one of our posh powders it cost quite a bit more from FX powder and they’re all iridescent yeah and you can also if you go for the penile grade you also get the option to

Have a little play around the decals if you’re in the team and whatnot you can pour your decals on yeah so there’s a lot of scope for personal customization okay yeah sounds very cool in Berlin Roland he’s like a seven-run printer and cutter yeah and he basically personality

He produces all of the decals for us yeah it’s the most pretentious member of the team yeah it’s got one button is it on or off but he only does you send error messages to this computer yeah because I’m not working and you have to spend off an hour to know first

What Sonny says quite often I’m not working so while we’re down here few questions how did it first start all the stanton business but the company of the whole yeah just you getting into doing the bikes and making them and so the very first frame over design to what they

Started off really easy just ride bike loads yeah and had a friend that was one friend that was better than me at riding i still find that hard to say you know who’s better than me to ride him and and he used to frustrate me quite a bit i

Always used to look at the products as you know what it is about that products all going to geometry because you know kind of compensating yeah basically I ended up designing him a buy blames his tools yeah basically I designed a bike it won’t buy one so I gave him one yeah

Oh he was still better than me on a bike that design thankfully has moved to Australia now yeah yeah so yeah but really like say like I was willing to buy it’s willing to ride in try different bikes out trying different countries and I basically I was going to

Go into a doctorate in social theory but constantly analyzing your relationship with people and society the whole you know quite disjointed and my wife was getting pretty pissed off mmm-hmm so she said gone do some what you really want to do so when he got oh went to the

Local bike shop they have a job I took it took a wage drop just were there for a couple years and figure out how the industry worked figured out how to use basic cut drew up some bikes organized found a few places in Taiwan to make some product got the first ones made

They weren’t great and there’s just built on it and then when I was happy after a couple of years and I’d actually could design a buy that I really felt was something I could show dirt magazine yeah I went down to dirt took it and it just exploded well it’s just built and

Built and built over the last nine years since that point mmm-hmm and and really the last year and a half I decided to dramatically change the business yeah so every all the money that is generated from turning over hardtails heart as it plowed it all in to save up

Manufacturing after brexit because I lost in profit just off basically I was going to place an order a day before brexit yeah I spoke to the currency guy yeah and he said to me way off way off because you better we’re going to be definitely going to stay don’t worry

We’re gonna stay no problem you’re gonna make more money if he stays yeah change right well woke up in the morning and I’ve lost by the time I placed the order 80,000 pound in profit so I decided that I can’t just live to the whims of mmm you know the government’s movements or

Whatnot so I decided to basically bring all manufacturing and outs so into the house how long ago did you think the idea of the full suspension about that I’ve started that two years ago yeah I remember every rumors about ages ago yeah started about two years ago I

Started for the single PayPal boy yeah working with a team company I wanna grow but as soon as we started showing people it’s just thought of our static didn’t fit and so then it was a case of using materials like steel the recording yes but then being super savvy over trying

To design our lateral flex yeah and that’s a problem that fit with our that fits with our ethos and the aesthetics and the ethos is the right material for the right job yeah and engineering too like that the best thing is that we can engineer too and then you know obviously

Is the aesthetic the company is always around stealin titanium hotels so it makes sense for us to do steel and titanium for sauces how many staff were Viggo seven seven and they are they all riders yeah that’s nice to know yeah yeah was it was one that kind of is it

Isn’t yeah so do you want to say how much you’ve invested in the place currently yeah kind of my top or quarter of a million pound into this investment and that’s very recent now I can see a lot of this is new stuff going and what do you think that investment

Will enable you to do and how to grow in the future so our intention right now I’ve got loads of designs for sauces I’ve got Tai carbon I’ve got a range of obviously basically everything we make in hardtail we’re gonna make into a got switchback sure slackline switch Niner yeah we do

That mr. entertaining all that’s gonna be born in house yeah we’re working on that the moments of all hardtail to be here in house and you be able to specify reaches and geometry person reaches and stands yeah hold all your heart out so we’re going to do them in steel none aluminium

For sauces you know titanium and carbon for sauces Wow and then we’re gonna move on to looking at electric bikes yeah yeah and then once we’re at that stage and probably a while we’ll come into that while we’re doing that really we’re going to start talking to Joe public and

If they basically want to start their own bike company and they have a great idea reverie geometry and aesthetics and they’ve got a design they want to try out we have here designer engineer yeah fabricator eye tools to be able to produce anything and obviously paint it

As well so basically you can come towards with an idea and we can help you so someone could literally come here and start their own bike run you could start your own boyfriend yeah was in support from yeah basically rather than going out to Taiwan and get

In here product made out there dealing with all of the anxieties over whether it’s actually going to come through yeah well there’s been in communication dramas are in fact that it’s live and also the quantities minimum is a hundred yeah I mean so really this is basically

This is why I wish I’d had when I started yeah and that’s effects on what I’m bringing to this market and I feel that the cycle industry has changed so dramatically that this is what’s needed hmm and I think this will help shape and mold the way that the industry will be

In the future and what about the along the lines of sort of race teams are you getting involved and like sponsorship are you doing anything like that yeah so we’re working with you guys yeah yeah we’re and then we’re actually ourselves so because let me say the riders so at

Least three of us have committed to race in the southern India southern India actually yeah and so well basically we’ve built in our forces taking campervans tacular trailer full of demo bikes or the big easier and we’ll go to these race events and if you’re a customer and you’re going to be racing

Them anyway and you’re on a stunt and then you can join our team yeah and we’ll race together and if you just want to come and try our bikes in fact every one of these race events while we’re there and we’ve got plethora yeah I like

The way that you can sort of mess about changing things here and you can experiment like I’ve given you the DI to battery off mine yeah and you might be looking into that um you know imagine me going along to a big brand than doing that just laughs one night okay the

Point here is to when we’ve worked with all our quite a bit of fabrication firm that we are one that basically make that all your best steel art I was in industry we work closely with them to achieve an engineering and manufacturing quality yeah so well basically what what

We’re doing is making sure that main in the UK isn’t an excuse mmm we want it to be perfect well engineered well refined product that you would get if you were purchasing you know from a shop rather than say yeah it being Garrett made UK go has made to it and everything gets

See and tested so everything you know it’s qualified by European Union standards rather than it is you know you don’t mean yeah yeah I think so ok any talking geometry as well you are definitely forward-thinking you know you’re going on the lines of super slack you got you

Steep seat angle you haven’t gone for a silly short back and reasons for that stability yeah it’s also a bit it’s the right walls for the right right right yeah yeah for the right yeah so if you’re if you’re like a bonus or you know general trail riding at 27.5 with a

Slightly short back and slightly steeper head angle DB be slightly slightly shorter reach I went for a more playful playfulness yeah you’re right he’s switching RFS is longer longer back and it’s all seated deep because it’s just a radius proper full-on race Bob yeah but really our intention because we can manufacture

Anything yeah we promote and he saw a type of play bike and he saw a geometry idea anything we like because we are a fabrication firm you know the bike run I think that’s somewhere that’s going to be quite it’s a transition for us but in

The public eye I think that’s going to be quite a difficult thing to kind of get across yeah because we’re no longer but no longer just it’s not a case of me drawing some more and then sending that drawing off and somebody else taking care taking care of the engineering and

Manufacturing which is effectively what bike companies do yeah we’re bringing all of it in half so we’re now a full-on fabricator a full-on manufacturer of bicycles I think that’s their it means that we just creativity’s it’s less obviously what the viewers want to know about everybody that we

Into and I think it’s the most important thing how often do you get out and ride I wrote last Thursday yeah four hours we’ve got ridin literally from here yeah it’s very raw all around oh yeah hello is a brilliant off-piste stuff and then a lot of our boys that because we’ve got

A little race team and test team and they’re in the they’re in the woods off the Black Rock yeah a little those he jumps low as a trail is really nice steep low be gnarly stuff so yeah we get out we try and we try as a group to clear

Down as much work through the week so that Friday is clear yeah and we’ll try our best to get out in the mornings on a Friday even if it means like meeting up at 8:00 and riding till 12:00 and then doing an afternoon if we’ve got any catch up with us and we

Always try cuz I just you know that’s the fundamental aspect that’s why we did it tungsten carbide edge yeah basically uses friction so why is that better than drilling or what’s the difference without and drilling it because we’ve done it yeah yeah yeah pulling the material out yeah so the material is

Actually being cut away and then removed yeah what this does is it warms the material aw yeah and it should say five never shows 85% of the material back into the tube yeah which then makes like a collar on the inside like a support and then what you do is then that collar

We’ve drilled these holes we’ll put a pin and we’ll go through and then tap needles and then that collar on the inside supports the thread right yes I’m not actually putting any material in or out you just reforming the material inside there yeah me too

So how long til these FS 29 is are actually available what’s the important question the switch Niner the switch back in the out forms 160 young 140 will all be available we can pre-order them now and we’ll start delivering them in three weeks time cool and we’ll be up

Here in a few weeks when you’re back from the bike show showing off your wares and we’re going to be trying out the different sizes yeah after which you could you know full custom mate yeah brilliant so watch this space you’ve got a big smile I’ve got an even bigger smile

Todd’s gonna have a big smile and the well chopped thank you very much my it is so appreciated