Geoff Apps 1981 700c Range-Rider prototype

[GrahamJohnWallace]

A bump to this thread to ask if anyone knows if Geoff Apps is still active in the cycling community?

Hi Mark, I always loved the look of Robert's fillet brazed frames and your Roughstuff bike looks like a capable and comfortable ride.
Geoff Apps is currently lives near the Scottish border where he is enjoying his retirement. He has created a website to explain his ideas and so handed the development of his bikes onto others. https://crosscountrycycle.wordpress.com/

I only heard of him for the first time a year or two ago and rather admire the bikes he built, which in my mind anyway bare a passing resembalance to my Roberts Roughstuff which was built to my requirements in 2008 without any knowledge of the Range Rider.

The key features of Geoff Apps' designs are the very upright riding position and that this results in 70-80% of the rider's weight being over the rear wheel. This in itself is not unusual, and you get the same riding position with BMX and Brompton bikes. However, this position is very unusual with mountain bikes as their reach is usually too long for successful modification. Geoff originally set out to reproduce the handling of his trials motorbike and so his designs, though fundamentally different, are entirely logical.

It is therefore not surprising that someone like yourself, working from first principles and not blindly copying mainstream mountain bike designs, should arrive at a similar solution. It is not unusual to see modified mountain bikes where owners have raised the height of the handlebars in an attempt to make them more comfortable. Though achieving an outcome where there is no weight on the handlebars requires the use of a short reach frame like that of your Roberts.

 

[Mark Manley]

Hi Mark, I always loved the look of Robert's fillet brazed frames and your Roughstuff bike looks like a capable and comfortable ride.
Geoff Apps is currently lives near the Scottish border where he is enjoying his retirement. He has created a website to explain his ideas and so handed the development of his bikes onto others. https://crosscountrycycle.wordpress.com/

The key features of Geoff Apps' designs are the very upright riding position and that this results in 70-80% of the rider's weight being over the rear wheel. This in itself is not unusual, and you get the same riding position with BMX and Brompton bikes. However, this position is very unusual with mountain bikes as their reach is usually too long for successful modification. Geoff originally set out to reproduce the handling of his trials motorbike and so his designs, though fundamentally different, are entirely logical.

It is therefore not surprising that someone like yourself, working from first principles and not blindly copying mainstream mountain bike designs, should arrive at a similar solution. It is not unusual to see modified mountain bikes where owners have raised the height of the handlebars in an attempt to make them more comfortable. Though achieving an outcome where there is no weight on the handlebars requires the use of a short reach frame like that of your Roberts.

Thank you for your reply, I had not seen that blog and found it a fascinating read, it sounds like Geoff and I were thinking along the same lines. It certainly raised eyebrows in Croydon when I told them what I wanted but the customer is always right and they did a great job, it might be the only front suspension Roughstuff they made, I have not seen another.
I have done around 10,000 miles on it now many of them off road including most of the byways and bridleways around here, tours of Exmoor, Dartmoor, The South Downs Way, The Ridgeway and most of the canals in Southern England, it has also taken me on tours of the Westerns Ghats in India and several countries in Southeast Asia, a great all round bike.