I came across Dan Bolwell by chance, though
he was easy to spot, cruising the sleepy Sunday streets of the rural city of
Horsham on bright red penny farthing. And, as it happened, I didn’t really get a
chance to strike up a conversation with Dan until we ended up on the same table
at the cake competition hosted by the local CWA branch. In parallel with the meticulously baked
sweets we were surrounded by I began chatting with Dan about his meticulous
penny farthing. I became even more
excited as he told me that he made his own, from scratch and that he had
recently begun taking orders to make them for other people. I wasted no time in
asking for a peek inside his workshop.
I have no substantial understanding of ‘Penny’s’
aside from the fact that they fit somewhere in the mythical creatures category
of my mind. I have seen a few variations
over time but never really understood what I was looking at. I had once seen a lone penny rider, with
loaded panniers on a deserted stretch of road in the middle of Tasmania, only
later coming to understand that Evandale and it’s annual National Championships are a definitive penny mecca in the whole of the southern hemisphere.
Dan made me a cuppa and filled me in on many
of the technical traditions of penny building, the majority of which he
continues to adhere to, albeit with minor engineering advances. The wonderful thing about Dan’s building is
that his meticulous machines begin life incredibly raw. His workshop is not a dust free, air locked
bunker filled with digital CNC mills- it is a simple backyard shed in which are
applied a few simple DIY processes, a few basic skills, an immeasurable amount
of passion and a genius approach.
Dan is a humble and articulate man and I am
very grateful for the time he took to share his making. I’ve cobbled together a few highlights from
our chat but it’s safe to say that a I left Dan’s place with my mind overflowing
and I simply couldn’t retain all of the great details that he openly shared.
Enjoy the pics below and check out his site. You’d better get your order in soon if you’d
like one as his waiting list is already quite long.
It turns out you need a somewhat oversized
truing stand to build penny wheels. This
is the one Dan made.
Bike nerds know what they are looking at
here – radical custom spoke technology.
No heat, pure material, absolutely reliable 600mm (ish) spokes. Did I mention that Dan makes his own hubs
from scratch? They are based around a
modified BB axle – I’ll let your imagination do the rest.
This is the lovely tool that Dan has made
to create his awesome custom spokes.
A template for the unique headtube junction
that becomes part of the ‘spine’. Dan's headtubes are a traditional penny 'internal' design rather than the more common and contemporary design.
Prototype penny bars commissioned by Nitto, made in Horsham.
A very particular part of Dan’s design and
his commitment to traditional forms are his tapered fork legs. The best donor material for this happens to
be pre-loved tailshafts! Upcycle mastery.
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