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Spoken, the show once known as the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, happened over the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday just past. Having run in Melbourne since 2018, it made the move to Australia’s biggest city, Sydney, for the first time.
The move coincided with an obvious tweak to the event recipe. While the handmade bicycle builders and local design-based brands are still the core of the show, there was a notably larger presence from bigger and more mainstream brands, too. Shimano and SRAM held equally large spaces, while names such as Trek, Cervelo, Pinarello, and Open were present with a cherry-picked collection of bikes to show. A total of some 80 brands have now made Spoken the de facto premium and boutique bicycle show of Australia.
I spent the full three days of the show capturing what both the smaller makers and bigger brands have been up to. Expect four galleries from the show, each offering some truly drool-worthy bicycle goodness. In this first gallery, you’ll find a few of the latest creations from Aussie makers and brands such as Prova Cycles, Curve Cycling, Hosking Bikes, Kumo Cycles, plus a whole lot more from around the world.
New year and a new venue. Carriageworks in Sydney proved to be an ideal location for the recently renamed show, offering more space than before and with room to grow. Let's start things with a bang. Prova Cycles is always one of the fan favourites at any show they attend. The company of two attended Made (Portland, USA) in 2024, and despite having only made the front triangle on its prototype full suspension model, this bike walked away with the Builder's Choice award. Now, Prova is onto its second prototype, and the rear triangle has been made in-house, too. Much like the front triangle, the rear triangle now also gets the Prova treatment, with a number of truly one-off 3D-printed titanium pieces welded together with customised titanium tubing. Not visible is the fully guided internal cable routing, starting at the head tube with some titanium tubing, and snaking its way through the titanium printed parts to where it needs to go. I truly believe Prova is one of the very best in the world when it comes to such details. The front triangle is new too. Large 3D-printed lugs meet in-house butted titanium tubing. That rich anodisation is done in-house, too. The bike is built around the 3VO suspension design which is licensed from US-based Ministry Cycles. All of the bearing bores for the linkage were machined to be perfectly aligned with the bottom bracket and seat tube. Prova's signature dropouts, of course, feature on this bike. Behind the dropout sits a replaceable rear brake mount that's sized specifically to match the rotor size. Meanwhile, new XTR M9200 is draped across the bike. Even the titanium hardware is custom machined and hardened. Prova has such parts made by Meti in Italy. While arguably flawless, this bike remains in prototype form. Prova's founder Mark Hester said it's his own bike that still needs testing and that orders are not yet open for it. Frame dimensions are masked into the frame amongst the ano finish. Cause, why not? Meet Dave (not me). Dave is a Sydney-based engineer who spent a decade or so designing bikes for others and briefly himself. He was blown away and went home with a postcard of this Prova. Prova's Speciale Ti road bike has become somewhat of a signature model for the company, inspiring many other makers in recent years along the way, too. The bike pictured here belongs to Sydney-based Escape member Joel. Enjoy that new ride!
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