Club road
The frame Arthur built most of. Quick enough for the Sunday ride, with room for 32mm tyres and mudguards for the other six days.
- Long point lugs
- Up to 32mm tyres
- Mudguard and rack eyes
- Frame and fork
- from $3,400
- Full build
- from $6,200
Arthur Cobbold numbered his first frame in 1984. His son is brazing No. 1,894.
Lugged steel road, touring and rough road frames, drawn for one rider and brazed by hand in an old coach house in Kettlewick. Frame and fork from $3,400, a full build from $6,200, and a nine month wait.
On the bench
No. 1,894
- frames numbered and delivered
- 1,893frames numbered and delivered
- still ridden, by their owners’ count
- 1,473still ridden, by their owners’ count
- from fitting to collection
- 9 monthsfrom fitting to collection
- for a frame and fork
- $3,400for a frame and fork
Rhys lighting the torch. Arthur’s old one, rebuilt twice.
Arthur brazed No. 1 to No. 1,572. Rhys took the torch the next morning.
Arthur was a toolmaker at the bearing works until 1984, riding a secondhand frame that never quite fitted. He built himself a better one in the back bedroom, a club racer in pillar box red, and a friend from the Kettlewick Wheelers asked for the second. He has never advertised.
Rhys grew up sweeping the workshop floor and started properly at nineteen. Arthur made him file lugs for a year before he let him near the torch. When Arthur retired after No. 1,572, the fitting jig, the ledger and the waiting list stayed exactly where they were.
“His lugs are thinner than mine ever were. I tell him that on Thursdays, not the other days.”
- 1984Arthur brazes No. 1 in the back bedroom of his house on Stannard Road, for himself.
- 1991The workshop moves into the old coach house on Pound Lane, where it still is.
- 2010Rhys, aged nineteen, files his first set of lugs, on No. 1,112. Arthur sends them back twice.
- 2018Arthur brazes No. 1,572 in December and hands Rhys the torch the next morning.
- TodayRhys builds every frame. Arthur comes in on Thursdays to check the lugs and drink the good tea.
From a tape measure to a number under the bottom bracket.
1.The fitting, ninety minutes at the workshop
Rhys measures you on the fitting jig Arthur built in 1989, watches you ride your current bike on the rollers, and asks where you ride and how far. If you live too far to visit, we send a measuring guide and do it on a video call.
2.The drawing, full size on paper
Your frame is drawn at full size on a sheet of drafting paper, every angle and tube length written on it. You get a copy to sign. The original is pinned above the bench while your frame is built.
3.Forty hours at the bench
Tubes are mitred by hand and joined in lugs Rhys files thin and sharp, then brazed with the torch in a single long session so the frame cools evenly. Fork crowns and dropouts are brazed the same day.
4.Paint, then the number
Stove enamel in any colour, with box lining in brass or cream by hand if you want it. Before the frame leaves, its number is stamped under the bottom bracket shell and written into the ledger, and into the register below.
Frames waiting for paint. The paper tag carries the number until the stamp goes on.
Three frames, drawn again for every rider who orders one.
No stock sizes and no off the peg geometry. These are starting points, and most riders end up somewhere between two of them.
Tourer
Longer, calmer and built to carry. Brazed-on rack mounts front and back, a dynamo route through the fork, and a frame you can mend anywhere.
- Front and rear rack mounts
- Up to 50mm tyres
- Optional travel couplings
- Frame and fork
- from $3,700
- Full build
- from $6,600
Rough road
For chalk tracks, bridleways and the lanes the council stopped mending. Lugged throughout, with disc brakes on a lug Rhys drew himself.
- Disc brakes, thru axles
- Up to 45mm tyres
- Three bottle mounts
- Frame and fork
- from $3,600
- Full build
- from $6,400
Every Cobbold has a number. Look yours up.
The ledger Arthur started in 1984 records every frame: who it was for, how it was built and what colour it went to paint. Riders who say yes appear here with a photo. Search a number or a year.
Try a sample from the register:
1,473 of 1,893 still on the road
Tap a year
198420002019, Rhys2026
Still ridden, checked in since 2024Resting, lost or not heard from
No. 1
Still on the road- Brazed
- 1984, by Arthur Cobbold
- First rider
- Arthur
- Build
- Club road. Double-butted steel, long point lugs, down tube levers.
- Colour
- Pillar box red
Built for himself in the back bedroom. Still ridden every New Year’s Day to the top of Hebble Beacon.
$3,400 for a frame and fork, and nine months to wait for it.
There are 31 riders on the list today, and Rhys builds about 40 frames a year. The next free fittings are in January. We would rather tell you that now than after you have paid a deposit.
Frame and fork
from $3,400
- Fitting at the workshop or by video call
- Full size drawing, signed by you
- Lugged steel frame and matching fork
- Stove enamel in one colour, lining extra
- Headset fitted and the number stamped
Full build
from $6,200
- Everything in frame and fork
- Wheels built by hand at the workshop
- Groupset chosen with you at the fitting
- Bars, stem and saddle set to your drawing
- A free check over at one year and at five
- An $800 deposit
- Paid at the fitting and taken off the final bill. Refunded in full until the tubes are cut.
- Nine months, give or take
- We email a photo when your tubes are mitred, when it is brazed and when it comes back from paint.
- Frames that already fit
- Bring an old Cobbold to the fitting and we start from its drawing, still in the ledger.
Sample reviews
Letters from No. 58, No. 1,300 and No. 1,812.
No. 58
“I collected No. 58 in the spring of 1987 and rode it to Spain that August. Thirty-nine years on, Rhys checked it over and found nothing to fix. He did find Arthur’s pencil marks inside the seat lug.”
No. 1,300
“Arthur asked me more about the tracks I ride than about my height. The bike he built goes where my old one would not, and I can still ride it home on the road.”
No. 1,812
“Nine months felt long until the day I picked it up. Rhys walked me through the drawing, the lugs and the paint, then wrote my name in the ledger while I watched.”
The coach house on Pound Lane, open on Saturday mornings.
Come and see frames on the bench, the drawings on the wall and the ledger itself. Weekday fittings are by appointment, because a torch is not something Rhys can put down halfway through.
- Saturday
- 9:00am to 1:00pm, no need to book
- Tuesday to Friday
- Fittings by appointment
- First Sunday
- Owners ride, 8:30am from the yard
The Coach House, 4 Pound Lane, Kettlewick. Behind the old corn exchange, through the green gates. Park on the market square.
(555) 014-8419. Rhys answers between 4 and 6pm, when the torch is off.
Join the list. Yours will be around No. 1,925.
Tell us a little about you and how you ride. Rhys replies himself within the week with a fitting date and a first idea of the frame. Nothing is paid until the fitting.
If a number means something to you, a birthday or a year, ask for it. If it is still free, it is yours.
Or call the workshop, (555) 014-8419