There are brands that follow the market, and brands that follow a vision.
And then there is Stooge, which doesn’t follow anything at all. It opens a path and rides it with the smile of someone who knows that a bike is a companion for life and adventure. Every time I see one of your creations, I’m genuinely moved, and today I’m really happy to get to know the person behind Stooge a little better. Here we are, Andy, finally.
Hi Emanuele, its great to be chatting over the intersteller interweb with you, its always a pleasure to meet likeminded people.
Let’s start from the beginning. What was your childhood like? Is there a specific moment when you felt the first spark of attraction towards bicycles and the sense of freedom they give?
Wow, my childhood was just the best. I grew up in North Wales in a world that was far simpler than the one we inhabit these days, surrounded by love and misty rain and sunshine in equal measure. My folks had moved to Llangollen when I was still a dinker, so my first taste of reality was mountains and ruined castles and the most beautiful landscapes. I’m forever thankfull for them making that move.
I got the first cycling spark really young. I remember my old man taking me to get my first bike when I was about 4 – a tiny little red bike with white tyres – and I remember the absolute sense of freedom I felt from the off, just careering across the car park. Every spare moment I’d head out on that bike, down the road and over to the playing fields where I’d just blast around on my steed. Even then it felt more than just an object, it was my own personal transporter and I adored it. My dad had been massively into bikes as a kid and teenager and was still pretty much in love with them, he just didn’t ride any more, but slowly the stories of his misspent cycling youth started filtering through. It was like a portal opening for me, there was no going back. I think its an experience that a lot of us here share, discovering the joy of bicycles when your brain is still a sponge, mopping up new experiences. I’m pretty sure, if you catch it at the right time, a connection is made that literally can’t be undone. Hmmm, the psychology of cycling addiction.
In your story you talk about BMX, races, ramps built with friends, and teenage madness. How much of that energy is still present in what you do today with Stooge?
Oh hell, its all still there, we’ve just got older. I can’t really describe the life altering excitement of living through BMX, the sense of deep friendship and camaraderie that went with it, the sense of finally belonging to a gang where we all looked out for each other and loved each other equally. The personalities that still shine brightly to me all these years later. Back then it was a youth culture that had so much in common with punk or ska or the like – young people discovering that they didn’t have to follow the set rules, that life didn’t have to be mundane or boring, that you could find your own way and maybe live by your own rules, for a little while at least. And it really taught us about community, the sense of belonging and the responsibility that goes with that. There are people that I will never forget in this life, all because of BMX.
I’m still friends with pretty much everyone from those days, we all have that shared experience that still means something all these years later. The bond is real.
And as for Stooge, well I’m still that same kid on the same path following that same dream. Something that I’ve not mentioned was the sense of absolute wonder that these tiny bikes instilled in me back then. It was a ray of Californian sunshine in a small Welsh town, and it brought the sunshine with it. I was obsessed by the details, this image of where these bikes were built, thousands of miles away. Back then my pipe dream was to have my own bike company, so its crazy for me that all these years later its become a reality. My younger self would have been floored if he could’ve witnessed the future.
“Bikes are magical objects, so let’s play with that and roll with the magic.”
Your philosophy was also shaped by some intense episodes: accidents, bikes that didn’t convince you, dangerous situations. Is that where the decision to build your own frame was born? What made you say “ok, now I’ll do it myself”?
I’m not sure how relevant this is to the above question, but even back in the BMX days we used to walk our bikes up to the highest mountain and then, after an age getting our breath back, we’d race back down at the most insane speeds. Back then I was getting very interested in geometry, and I built my first bike specifically for tear-arsing down the side of the mountain. It was an old DP Freestyler frame, 20” wheels with these really knobbly Michelin tyres and a 24” cruiser fork and some Renthal Motorbike handlebars. That bike was awful on the flat, but when you pointed it downfill it went like a wizard. The high front end and resulting head angle meant that the front end was almost weightless and you could just skip the front wheel over the rocks and boulders. That experience really stayed with me.
But anyway, life was just kinda happening, years and decades slowly passing by. At some point I ended up working in a pretty big bike shop in a city. I’d got hugely into mountain bikes when they first arrived, fell off the wagon for a fair few years and switched my obsession to music and good times, but then came back massively in my early thirties. Suddenly I was in a position where I could buy the latest and greatest at a massively reduced staff price, and this coincided with trail centres becoming a big thing in the UK. I’m riding faster and further than I’ve ever ridden before, shredding everywhere,and then at some point, somewhere down the line, I realised I was bored. All skill felt as though it had been taken out of the equation (not true, obviously) but it felt like I was just going through the motions – winch up and hold on until you’d reach the bottom. Bikes were more capapble than they’d ever been, and yet I felt as though I was no longer part of the equation. At this point I did the unthinkable – I sold my Ellsworth Joker and bought a Gary Fisher Rig, a singlepeed 29er, and it changed everything. I felt connected to the trail again, in the most punishing way.
It was pretty obvious to me that the geometry was awful on that bike. The front wheel would tuck under and disappear under the bike as you face planted into the ground, it was a regular thing, but I was hooked on the simple life and there was no going back. After the Rig I bought a Fisher Ferrous, which was no different, just steel. The final straw was the Trek Sawyer, the most gorgeous bike of the day. I snapped one up and hit the woods, hoping for the epithany that never came. So I started looking at what was wrong with it, starting running funky stems and bars to massively alter my riding position until I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. From here I designed my own frame that put me in that same riding position without the need for ridiculous component choices. I wanted shorter chainstays to get the front end nice and poppy, a taller front end to get the bars just where I wanted them. The drawing was the Stooge MK1, and in a moment of absolute madness I decided to get a prototype produced by Maxway in Taiwan. It took one ride on that proto on my local trails for me to realise I couldn’t stop there. Six months and a whole load of debt later 100 MK1 frames arrived at my shed door. I was completely terrified!
Stooge has existed since 2014, but it still feels like a project with the soul of its early days: one man, no compromises, one run at a time. What keeps you going in this way, in an industry that always aims to grow bigger?
I’m so glad it comes across that way to you. On a personal level, I have no interest in growing Stooge into something that it was never meant to be. Its only ever been about me designing my dream bikes, everything else is a cherry on the top. I still feel like the luckiest guy alive to have got this far with it, still feel like that 14 year old BMXer and feel his excitement for where I’m at. Every Stooge frameset only exists because it’s a frameset that I want for myself, and I still feel that absolute excitement for new ideas and designs, and the buzz never fades from that first ride on a new bike. My love for bikes runs so bloody deep its actually pretty hard to put into words. But I want my bikes to project the magic I felt from seeing a Torker frameset in Rad City in Benfleet when I was a kid, the Bottema Skatepark forks that sat on the shelf behind the counter, a candy apple red JMC Darryl Young, the craziness of seeing a set of CW bars for the first time and the sheer, otherworldly pedigree of these bikes and bits and the people that produced them. Bikes are magical objects, so lets play with that and roll with the magic. I also want to have a life where I can ride these bikes on a daily basis rather than sitting at a spreadsheet planning a world domination that would empty my soul pretty quickly. I’ve seen too many people get ahead of themselves and I don’t know, its like that decision to grow and be bigger and better and then the best becomes almost faustian and the original passion is replaced by a desire to just do business, and it always shows.
“From day one I wanted Stooge to succeed or fail on my own terms, and that’s exactly how it’s stayed.”
You live in Oswestry, Shropshire. It’s a place few people know, but it seems essential in your life.
What is your relationship with that land? How much does it influence your frames, your creativity, and your vision of cycling?
I moved to Oswestry in 2008. Coming from over the border in Wales, it was quite a leap, and one of the first things I did when I got here was to head off exploring on my bike. Life was busy then – full time job in the bike shop with a 60 mile commute every day – and I got into the habbit of heading up into the woods behind my house every evening. It’s a two mile climb followed by a myriad of trails back down through the trees to base. Back then there were practice trails cut by the Athertons, so it could be pretty full on, but I also found a sense of peace and solace up there that serves me well to this day. So all my rigid bike research happened here, and one of the beauties of getting to know trails so well is that you really get a handle on how the small changes work in the real world. If I change the fork offset from 57mm to 65mm, I know from one ride how that plays out on the ground. So yeah, my local woods do a pretty good job doubling as the Stooge R&D headquarters.
Head another couple of miles from the woods and you come out onto the tops with views across to the Berwyn Mountains in Wales. Its easy to lose yourself up there, you could be hundreds of miles and hundreds of years away. In short, it plays a massive part.
What are your favourite routes in Shropshire? Do you have any “secret spots” that perfectly embody the Stooge spirit?
My secret spots will remain secret. But in truth, I just love getting out there with no fixed plan. Shropshire is one of the earliest MTB meccas in the UK and it’s a fabulous county and amazingly varied. We have the Long Mynd which is a truly glorious place to ride and visually stunning, the Stiper Stones which are completely otherworldly, and some of the earliest trail centres in the UK with Hopton and Eastridge. There’s a pretty big scene here, though I’m not a part of it, in fact, I’m not sure anyone even knows I’m here. I’ve sold more frames to the USA in the last 3 months than I have to Shropshire riders in the last 10 years. But everything’s changing here, I can’t remember the last time I bumped into another rider on the hills that wasn’t riding an e-bike.
Many people believe a rigid frame is limiting, but you say the opposite: “the purity of handling is something suspension can’t offer.” How would you describe the feeling of riding a Stooge to someone who has never tried one?
Okay, so if you’ve never ridden a rigid mountain bike and you hop straight from a big full susser then you’re going to be in for a shock. There’s a feeling of solidity underneath you that’s completely missing from regular MTBs. The terrain is suddenly shouting at you from below, you might even find yourself in a state of mild panic as the speed increases and the shocks and jolts begin to mount up. But a Stooge is designed to embrace this truth and then work with it and around it. My bikes are designed to be shorter and taller so there’s less weight on your wrists, and the long offset forks kick the front wheel out which works wonders for removing trail chatter. But what I really love is the knowledge of what your bike is going to do in any situation. You can roll the steepest steeps without having to worry about your fork compressing too much and pitching you forward. Its addictive and energising, makes old trails new again. My bikes have superquick steering so they can be placed anywhere on the trail. The intensity of scanning the trail ahead as it wizzes by, searching for safer lines and the bike changing direction in an instant, its completely addictive and incredibly satisfying.
I’ve not ridden a bike with suspension for ten years now, and the last time I did I ended up in hospital because I was expecting it to handle like my Stooge, but the fork compressed too much before a drop and over I went, face first into a boulder. All of that happened because someone wanted to try my bike, so we swapped over for a run. I’ve reached the point now where I don’t even register that I have no suspension, it just feels completely natural to me.
I’ve always been struck by your attention to geometry. What are the elements that make your geometry “special”? And what mistakes do you see most often in the industry?
I’ve been overly interested in bicycle geometry since I was a kid, its always fascinated me,and over the years I feel like I’ve developed a pretty inate understanding. But the demands of a rigid trail bike that’s designed to be ridden fast off road are pretty unique. Its not just about the geo – the riding position in relation to the wheels plays a massive part, the ability to ride ‘unweighted’ while still having confidence in the front wheel not washing out, all these things are important. Its about finding a way to have steering that’s incredibly reactive but that’s also superstable at speed, a riding position that allows you to pop the front end at will. My bikes are generally designed to turn on a dime but carve like a motocross bike at speed. For what its worth I feel that I’ve arrived at the final destination when it comes to front end geometry.
As for the wider industry, in all honesty I’m not really looking, but my guess is a lot of companies are just playing with safe formulas and not really giving it a second thought, and that’s cool if it works for them, they probably sell one hell of a lot more frames than I do. I’m chasing something that on paper makes no sense – a rigid bike that rips without the need for suspension, be that a drop bar bike, a trail bike or a bikpepacking steed.
Stooge is famous for not following trends: no strange standards, no aggressive marketing. I’m like you in this, and for that reason I’d like to ask you if staying true to this philosophy is difficult in 2025?
I can’t overstate how important I think it is to follow your own path, and come rain or shine, never deviate from it. From day one I wanted Stooge to succeed or fail based on nothing but word of mouth. We’ve all seen those brands that spend thousands advertising in the glossies and then they become the hot ticket, and from that moment their days are numbered. I witnessed it in my days as a bike shop employee – one minute Kona are the hottest brand in the world, and then suddenly you can’t even give them away. Mondraker. Whyte. Orange. It was like musical chairs. If Stooge was going to grow then I wanted it to be completely organic, based purely on people having positive things to say about my bikes.
As for the curse of the trend, oh boy, where do we even start. How many amazing ideas have been ultimately killed because they became a trend. Plus tyres blew up and became a trend and their death warrant was signed there and then, much to my absolute horror. There’s a trend graveyard somewhere, littered with a few great ideas and a whole load of nonsense and the life savings of many a hoodwinked bike rider. I’ve been victim enough myself over the years.
Back when I was starting out I made the trip down to Charlie the Bikemonger in Swanage to pursaude him to stock my frames. What a bloke! Sitting there with his feet up on the desk smoking a roll-up cigarette. Magic times! But anyway, Charlie spedifically gave me one bit of advice. ‘Never pay any money for marketing.’ They were wise words.
Tell us about a typical day for you. What is the daily rhythm of a creator who does everything: design, prototypes, relationships with Taiwan, packing, shipping? Do you have any rituals that never change?
Running Stooge comes in bursts, so there really is no typical day. My year is firmly split into ‘In stock’ and ‘Out of stock’ windows. When a batch of frames drop I’ll generally do a solid month of 15 hour days, locked in my shed prepping and boxing frames, booking the courier, printing labels. Just the base logistics of running a busy business. Once those frames are sold I’ll then have a few months where I’ll ride every day, walk the dog, spend time with my kids. There’ll be 2 or 3 hours every day that I have to spend replying to e-mails, but that’s a part of the job that I really enjoy. A lot of messages are from people that are Stooge curious, and I view it as a privilage that people actually want to get in touch to talk about my bikes, so yeah, it take that part very seriously, but it can also tak eup a huge amount of time. There have been times when its all got a little bit crazy and keeping up can feel impossible. A few years back I had a new batch of frames arrived, most of which were presold, and I was regularly getting between 50 and 80 emails a day. My dad was also terminally ill, so it was the hardest month of my life, not wanting to let my customers down or lower my standards, whilst also needing to be there for my father. Its times like that that you really feel the weight of being one-man show, but you just have to deal with it as best you can.
I seem to have ended up doing four production runs a year for the last few years, so there’s definitely a cycle to things, no pun intended. Dealing with my manufacturer, Maxway, is an abolute pleasure. After 11 years they feel like they’re part of my extended family, and nothing is ever too much trouble for them. I could send them the most whacked out frame drawings and they’d be ‘sure, we can do that.’ Last year they came over to visit and I took them out to lunch and it was just perfect. It brings things down to a human level, which is what its all about for me. They brought me a gift of some Taiwanese tea which was just gorgeous, and since then there’s always been another bag of it hidden away in one of the frame boxes when they arrive. I love that, because it means so much in this day and age. It’s the small things that make the biggest difference.
I don’t really approach Stooge as a business though, it feels more like a passion, or a hobby that’s got a little bit out of control. There’s no planning ahead, I just go with the flow of things, let the business find its natural rhythm. At the end of the day its all about the bikes and my relationship with them. But I love the whole process of it, especially the ongoing testing and dreaming about what comes next.
