Check out Simon’s beautiful Road Bike, built on a 10 day Frame Building course at TBA a few years ago. Since completing the course Simon has continued to make bikes under the name Rone Cycles.
The beautiful green paint scheme is inspired by the 2003 LeMans winning Bentley speed 8. Simon points out that “The green wraps around the black of the chainstays and the crankset, just as the cars paint wraps around its black wheels - the frame is also highlighted with a silver pinstripe to match the car”.
A few years after finishing the bike Simon was lucky enough to work on the restoration of one of the original Bentley race cars - he couldn’t miss the opportunity to introduce his bike to the legendary car.
This bike has seen Simon through some tough rides including completing Lands End to John O’Groats, conquering The Stelvio, Mortirolo and the epic Ventoux Club des Cinglés challenge.
For those that want to know more about the Car here’s a few words from Simon.
“The famous 1927 3 litre Bentley works team car is one of few surviving team racing Bentleys. It is an Vanden Plas open tourer body which would have been raced with a driver and ride in mechanic. The body is made of Ash and coated in a painted cotton called Rexine, the chassis and wings are steel and the majority of the engine is aluminium. They were keen even then to save weight so the bulk head is magnesium and lots of parts were drilled or even removed to save weight. It's surprising quick even today.
I coincidentally started work restoring pre war Bentley's 3 years after building my first bike and got the opportunity to put my bike next to the car that started Bentley's racing story. Since a big crash in 1927 it has been repaired and resorted many times and was a long way from its former glory. When I got involved the owner was on a long journey to bring it back to as close as possible to the day it raced lemans in 1927. A huge amount of time was spent studying old photos and reading documents and each and every part was rebuilt or remade, I helped with wiring, restoring instruments, fabrication on the iron work, wings and undertray, rebuilding and fitting of most of the drive train and the painting. All of the work paid off as the car has been highly recognised as one of the finest in the world.”
