The brief

David is a long-term customer who's purchased several bikes from us over the years. The problem was that most of those bikes were bought for his wife (who is lovely, and absolutely deserves new bikes!), rather than for himself.

When Gothic Cycles launched, however, his wife put her foot down and forced David to spend some money on himself for once.

Could we spoil David with a beautiful Gothic Aix? We sure could.

The bike

As an architect, David is design-focused with a keen eye for colour. Fittingly, Gothic Cycles custom builds are both aesthetic- and performance-driven, so we were excited to create something just right for him.

Colours are always an interesting challenge in custom builds. Colour-matching can be complicated, especially with anodised components where shades can vary massively between batches. Add in the fact that bike companies have vastly different ideas about what certain colours actually are – one manufacturer's "green" can be anything from emerald to mint to khaki – and a simple two-shade scheme suddenly becomes complex.

David has a fondness for orange. After finding the right orange to complement the Garbaruk components we'd be using, we needed a second shade that would work perfectly alongside it. We experimented with lighter and darker blue tones until we settled on this particular sky blue – all part of the colour detective work that goes into every custom build.

SRAM Force and X01 AXS are our go-to components for this type of drivetrain as they deliver almost all of the benefits of the top-tier options but at a much more budget-friendly price. To the Force/X01 base, we added Garbaruk cranks, cassette and jockey wheels for lightness, a huge gear range and some serious style. (No offense, SRAM, we love ya, but it's not like coloured bits are your thing.)

David already enjoys the benefit of Redshift suspension stems on his other bikes, so that was a no-brainer addition. The cockpit was rounded out Easton's carbon gravel EC70 AX bars, and the carbon theme continued with a Newmen post and SQLab 614 Active saddle for bump-absorbing comfort.

All that was left to top it off was a set of hand-built Gothic Cycles wheels, Panaracer tyres, and Ciclovation tape and cages, the latter being airbrushed in the workshop as the final finishing touch.

The result is a carbon gravel bike to please even the most discerning, design-driven architect.

Want your own custom-made Gothic? We'd love to make it happen!

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