NorthRoad Cycles

♥️

This one feels special.

The client unknowingly chose the same colourway as the very first Explorer Ian built — a quiet echo of where it all began.

Built with Shimano GRX, Redshift Kitchen Sink bars, and a setup designed to ease our lovely client back into cycling, it carries both comfort, a hint of cycling vintage but with modern gravel performance. Add in the lightness of carbon, and you’ve got a machine ready for adventure.

A fitting full stop (for now) on the Bikery floor.

Our last week at the Bikery.

We’ll be here officially Tuesday and Saturday but if you’d like to pop in one last time send me a message and I’m sure Bertie and I can sort something.

Jane & B x

Bertie.

Our beautiful, loving, naughty, playful, grumpy sweet boy is 8 today.

Ian’s running buddy
Dad’s biscuit sharer
Janie’s snuggle bug

He’s held me together in the last few months, rarely leaving my side, searching me out when I’m quietly crying so he can lick my tears away. Our bestest boy.

He demands more adventures in the van and all the good scritches.

Happy Birthday Berts x

Enjoy a well-organised event with two routes on offer - a 75-mile Epic Challenge and 50-mile Classic Challenge. It is set to be a fun-packed day with professional cycle ride amenities.

Salt Line Cycle 2025 - St Lukes Hospice Cheshire Following last year's success, the Salt Line Cycle Ride is back on Sunday 7th September! The perfect event for cyclists of all ages and abilities.

Thank you to the lovely customer who brought me a very sweet card about Ian and accompanied it with freshly cut flowers from his allotment. I’m so grateful x

Can we have a chat?

The Bikery will close at the end of August. It’s time for a pause — for breath, for space, for grief to be felt instead of outrun.

Losing Ian has devastated me. He was my partner in every way — in love, in life, in NorthRoad. He built this place with his whole heart, and I was lucky enough to be beside him.

In his final months, when I became his arms and legs, and in the months since, I’ve learned more than I ever thought I could; about bikes, about people, about strength, about love. I won’t waste that knowledge. Or Ian’s legacy. (I’m working on the term Bike Concierge…)

But I need time. To catch up with myself. To figure out what comes next.

NorthRoad needed Ian full-time. And I’m a part-time Drama teacher, still trying to find my way without him.

Ian and I were lucky to be surrounded by amazing people. Mark is one of those people. So servicing of NorthRoad bikes will still be available by someone who knows them inside and out — I’ll be Mark’s booking secretary and he’ll be working his quiet magic from our home workshops. We’re going to sort a website and when that’s ready I’ll let you know.

If you’d like to come in for one last coffee, please do — between now and the end of August. I’d love to see you.

And I’ll still be here. Still on Instagram and Facebook. Still cheering you on. Still loving your adventures. Please keep sharing your rides, your builds, your stories. You’ve been part of this from the start — and you’ve held me up more than you know.

This isn’t the end. It’s just a pause.

We’ll be back.
When the next version of this story is ready to be written.

Jane x

I’ve been remiss documenting the last few bikes to go out - apologies.

Here’s a lovely mistral in our favourite sparkling graphite complimented with a lovely deep blue. Running #105 and our own hand built carbon wheels.

Tradition

When you make your own they become more important.

Tradition 1. Mine and Ian’s Summer Solstice ride around Delamere forest. It’s the day after my birthday, the date we planned that one day we’d elope on and I didn’t want to miss it. So our wonderful friend Carly rode from Stoke to meet me there. We listened to the Blossoms play live as we zoomed around the forest on Bikes that Ian built, in shirts that Ian wore. He was with us ❤️ and for the first time I was able to laugh like the 3 of us always have.

Tradition 2. Hand delivering our bikes. Ian and I loved a road trip together - anything to spend more time in each others company. So I’m off to Edinburgh to deliver the stunning orange and black NorthRoad Quest with a bag of foam shrimps and bananas to keep me company.

Deep breath. Off I go.

Ps thanks to the dreadful human being who cut through the locks on the Bikery shed last night. Thanks for not trashing the place. Sorry it was basically empty.

🚲💚 New Bike Day! 💚🚲

Say hello to this stunning green iO, ready to roll straight out of The Bikery and into adventure. Our latest custom build is heading home with one (two) very happy rider(s)— and we couldn’t be prouder.

But today wasn’t just about bikes.
It was about why we do this.

I’ve spent the day surrounded by the kind of people who’ve made NorthRoad what it is — friends, customers, fellow obsessives. Barry aka the Fables half of dropped in all the way from the middle of France (via Scotland!) en route to Shrewsbury. and popped by, as brilliant as ever. The shop was full of stories, laughter, and love (for cycling).

It reminded me of what Ian and I have spent nearly 8 years building here.
A business, yes.
But also a community.
And on days like this, that community makes the hard stuff a little easier to bear.

📍From Sale Moor to wherever the road leads — thank you for riding with us.

(I tried saying me not we today, it did not go well, so I’ll stick with we because NorthRoad is ours.)