FORMYNEXForge Join the list
Build No. 041 — Delivered

AshRunner

“The owner wanted a bike that sounded like weather. We built the exhaust three times.”

A 1978 boxer twin stripped to the frame, re-geared for long coast roads and finished in hand-rubbed ash grey over bare weld.

Displacement
980cc
Dry weight
184 kg
Shop hours
612
Hand-stitched leather seat meeting a brushed aluminium fuel tank
Saddle and tank — Build 041, week nineteen
The Shop

Four bikes a year.
Never five.

Metal 01

Tanks are raised over a stump and an English wheel, not pressed. It is slower by a factor of nine and it is the only way to get a seam that follows the frame instead of fighting it. Every panel leaves the bench with the welder's initials struck into the underside.

We do not sell time. We sell the hours nobody sees.

Machine 02

Internals are measured cold, measured hot, and measured again after the first two hundred kilometres. Cases are vapour-honed rather than polished so the aluminium keeps its grain. If a tolerance reads borderline, the part goes back in the bin — there is no second category of acceptable here.

Finish 03

Paint is mixed in-house against a physical chip the owner chooses in daylight, not on a screen. Leather is vegetable-tanned, cut from a single hide so the colour walks evenly from seat to tool roll, and stitched by one pair of hands from start to finish.

A finish should age. A coating just fails.

Handover 04

You ride it out of the door. We spend a full day together on the road first, adjusting bar rotation, lever reach and preload until the bike disappears underneath you. The logbook, the spare keys and the leftover paint go home in the same crate.

Commission path

From conversation
to ignition

01

The sit-down

Two hours, no drawings. We want to know where you ride, how far, and what the bike is replacing — the answers change everything downstream.

Duration
1 day
Cost
Nil
02

Donor hunt

We source the base machine ourselves. Frame numbers are checked against three registers before a single bolt is turned.

Duration
4–10 wks
Deposit
15%
03

Teardown

Everything comes apart and gets photographed. You receive the full inventory, including the parts we intend to throw away and why.

Duration
3 wks
Photos
~400
04

Fabrication

Tank, tail, exhaust and controls are made for your frame and your inseam. This is the long middle where nothing looks finished.

Duration
16–24 wks
Hands
3
05

Shakedown

Six hundred kilometres on our clock, in weather. Anything that loosens, weeps or rattles is corrected before you ever see it.

Duration
2 wks
Distance
600 km
06

Handover

A day of riding together, then the crate: logbook, spare keys, touch-up paint and the tool roll cut from your hide.

Duration
1 day
Warranty
3 yrs
The register

Put your name
on the board

We open two commission slots each spring and two each autumn. Enquiries are answered in the order they arrive, by the person who would build your bike.

Spring intake
Closed
Autumn intake
2 slots open
Current lead time
11 months
Typical commission
£48k – £96k

The more specific, the better the first conversation.

No mailing list, no automated follow-up. One reply, from the bench.