Grim Cycles is the brainchild of Rollo Lunn.
Lunn’s frame building business is 18 months old. The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to his defiantly Northern roots. Lunn hails from York, is based in Manchester, and has a workshop in Liverpool.
The intricate details of the frames exhibited at the Yorkshire Bicycle Show belie Lunn’s first endeavours with fabrication, which stemmed from a passion for off-road adventures in Jeeps.
Lunn works with Reynolds and Columbus tubing, paints the frames, and builds the wheels. He exhibited four machines at Leeds Town Hall, including a cyclo-cross bike, a fixed-gear ‘street’ bike, a messenger bike, and a conventional road bike.
Grim Cycles 2:1 Street Bike
The 2:1 street bike was Lunn’s graduation present to his brother, Toby. The name of the machine is a nod to Toby’s degree award.
The bottom bracket height makes it a track-legal machine, but it is ridden on the road, hence the 32-spoke, 88mm Japanese carbon wheels and 48-15 gearing. The chassis is made entirely from Reynolds 631 tubing and finished with polished, horizontal track dropouts.
Grim Cycles Single-Speed Cyclo-Cross Bike
A bespoke machine built for a customer who wanted a hardy-but-stylish commuter bike to ride along canal paths, this single-speed cyclo-cross bike has yet to be seen by its owner and will be delivered next Wednesday. “I’m a little bit nervous,” Lunn told RCUK, “but the general reaction at the show has been great, so I’m a little more relaxed after today.”
The chassis is Reynolds 631 throughout, and equipped with mudguard eyelets and disc brake mountings, increasing its suitability for the task of a machine for daily commuting. Shallow seat-stays that join the seat-tube below the seat cluster have been deployed to retain the integrity of the geometry while including a sliding dropout. A higher seat-stay would result in pushing back the sliding dropout, resulting in “massive clearance,” according to Lunn.
Grim Cycles Messenger Bike
Messenger bikes were the first type made by Lunn for his Grim Cycles business, and the machine displayed at the Yorkshire Bicycle Show is his own machine.
The Columbus SL chassis is not stainless steel, and has been waxed rather than painted to give the lugs full prominence. “Every now and then, I polish it with Brasso and it looks a little different every time,” Lunn told RoadCyclingUK. “It’s a bit of a labour of love. I only ride it when it’s dry.”
The bike rolls on H Plus Son rims laced to Miche Primato hubs. The chainset is also from Miche and drives a fixed gear ratio of 48-17. Finishing kit is a mix of Cinelli (stem), Nitto (handlebars), and Deda (seat post).
