In search of @MalcCowle

It’s amazing where bikes can take you isn’t it? So there I am sitting on the 07.40 boneshaker to Greenfield and being a cyclist proves to be an icebreaker with a fellow rider sharing the bike dump compartment.

The lovely chap, who I later find out is splendidly named Ivor, tells me about his hand-built pride and joy. ‘Ah, a Harry Hall is it’ I offer, smug in my encyclopaedic knowledge of Manchester frame builders, ‘No, no it’s a macowwww.’

Hmmmm? Didn’t quite catch that but I went through a pantomime of recognition as you do.

Fortunately my train buddy persevered: ‘He was a draftsman and a trade union activist who became a bike builder. Lives in Dentdale these days and has written a number of books. Malc Cowle.’

Malc reading the Grauniad by the looks

Well, that was enough for me really, I thought I have to track this guy down and find out a bit more. 

This blog has always been about shining lights into the dimly-lit corners of cycling culture and this was a stone I felt compelled to turn over.

So, the starting point was… well, the t’interweb obviously and there he was, well, his twitter feed and website which I urge you to check out.

I’ll drop him a line and ask him if he’ll answer a few questions for the blog. 

What follows is the result. Happy reading.

What was the first bike you owned?

I was given a loop framed woman’s bike when I was ten years of age and when I passed my eleven plus my Dad’s sisters, who brought me up, bought me a brand new Raleigh Trent Tourist.

When did you start making bikes and when did you finish? You worked out of Withington is that right?

I first started building made to measure bike frames in 1980. I was an engineering draughtsman by trade but I was blacklisted by the Engineering Employer’s Federation. My wife was pregnant and I wasn’t prepared for a life on the dole, so I started building frames. I built my first one in an air-raid shelter in the backyard of our house at Levenshulme and then in a workshop in Stockport. In late 1981 I opened Medlock Cycles on Upper brook Street. That went bust as a result of the mass unemployment resulting from the closure of Manchester’s manufacturing industries in the early Thatcher years. Then I shared a workshop in Ancoats with a stove enameller and later opened Campus Cycles in Fallowfield (1997) and took over Withington Cycles in 2003. I stopped building frames shortly after.

Do you get out and ride much these days?

I did until about three years ago. I’m hoping to get fit again for my 70th birthday in July this year.

What attracted you to building bikes? Can you remember your first build?

Necessity is the mother of invention they say and I had to re-invent myself as a result of my being prevented from working at the job I was trained to do and loved to do. My first build was for myself, but then a friend insisted I sold it to him.

You must have seen bike design change dramatically over the years (materials etc) what do you think of today's bikes?

Basic design hasn’t changed in its essentials, ie the rider’s position in relation to the bike frame, because the best ergonomic position had been realised before the latest materials were developed. Materials have changed dramatically, particularly in the use of carbon fibre. I must admit I have never rode a carbon fibre frame for any length, but in most cases they certainly look beautiful. Titanium and aluminium frames leave a lot to be desired in my opinion. Generally speaking I see a lot of bikes to be admired.

Are today's bikes a bit souless or is that sentimental nonsense?

I don’t think they are. The essential difference between a bike and other modes of transport is that rider and bike become one, and the thing that determines whether the bike has “soul” is the individual rider’s relationship with his or her bike.

So, as a rough estimate, how many bikes have you welded together? Any particular bikes stand out to you as memorable for whatever reason?

I haven’t welded any together. They were all brazed or silversoldered. I don’t know how many I built, although I made many friends as a result. The most memorable bike is the tandem I brought my son up on. I ended up as a single parent when Tom was 22 months of age. He rode around in a child seat at first but he went on the back of a tandem I built to celebrate his fourth birthday and we had many adventures together on it, and cycled thousands of miles.

Cycling has a long-established link to socialism most notably through the clarion movement. Any thoughts on the relationship of cycling and the left? And, has cycling lost some of that link during its latest flowering of popularity?

I think it’s brilliant that cycling is becoming more main stream in Britain. It’s long overdue and we still have a long way to go before we catch up with other countries. As for cycling’s connection with socialism I think what it needs is for socialists to start cycling again!

Aficionados often cite Italian bikes as the most beautiful. Any thoughts on this?

I was always impressed with Italian bikes, but I think British frame builders could and can hold their own with anybody.

How many bikes do you now own?

One and yes – it’s a Malc Cowle

The greatest cyclist of all time is?

I haven’t a clue.

What would your cycling utopia look like?

A world where production was for human need, not human greed, and people finally realised they worked to live, rather than lived for work. In such a situation people would have plenty of time for leisure, to cycle and to walk, and not be reliant on enclosed boxes on wheels to get them from A to B as fast as possible.

I've not yet read your biography but I will, is there any cycling related anecdote you have a bursting urge to share?

Yes – but I’m going to have to think about it.

Do you know of any epic journeys the bikes you made went on?

One guy set out for Australia overland with two others. Unfortunately all disappeared into a deep hole when cycling through an unlit tunnel in Yugoslavia and all three wrecked their frames. Tom and myself cycled from Manchester to London, camping on the way when he was four, and to the Isle of Skye and back when he was six. We cycled round Ireland when he was ten and from Cherbourg to Bilbao over the Pyrenees when he was 13.

One piece of cycling related advice you inherited and one you'd like to pass on.

Always carry a roll of insulation tape with you as well as a spare inner tube. If you have a puncture because of a split in your tyre, you replace the inner tube, inflate it to the point where it rounds out, wrap the insulation tape around that part of the inner tube where the split in the tyre is. Then, when you inflate it to full pressure the tube can’t come through the split and burst.