The Traditional Cycle Shop sits in a beautiful setting on the banks of the River Avon where it meets the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal and within sight of the Royal Shakespeare Company. If you’ve been following us on social media you will have seen that I like to explore the town on my bike and if I cycle from the shop along the canal towpath, after 8 minutes I’ll reach the Pashley factory on Mason’s Road.

This is where Pashley, England’s longest established bicycle manufacturer, has a team of over 50 employees designing and hand-building their bicycles and tricycles. About 40 are in design and production and the remaining are looking after customers and the day-to-day running of the company.

Pashley is very proud of the fact that in its 90-year history it has never taken production overseas and if it is unable to manufacture a component in-house it has a policy of always trying to source locally in the Midlands, then nationally in the UK followed by Europe and the Far East. The company currently supports almost 100 British component suppliers and over 85 British service and utility companies. The most famous of these suppliers are Brooks England who supply their famous leather saddles and Reynolds who supply steel tubing for the frames.

The traditionally fabricated steel frames are hand-brazed using lugs by Pashley’s skilled brazers. They are then powder-coated, assembled, quality-checked and finally boxed and taken to the despatch department. From there they go to a Pashley dealer or commercial customer in one of 50 countries around the world or will get them loaded in the van and delivered the 1.5 miles to The Traditional Cycle Shop.

One advantage of being so close to the factory is that bikes, spares or accessories can be here the next day if they are in stock. Another advantage is that if you visit The Traditional Cycle Shop on a Saturday morning you might be lucky enough to be served by Adrian Williams (Pashley MD) and hear one of his fascinating industry anecdotes!