Dom Mason could’ve continued to do what he'd done for more than a decade, designing bikes at an established brand. Instead, he set up base in a 300-year-old barn surrounded by a working farm and founded his own brand, making bikes the way he thinks they should be.
It was early spring in southeast England. The kind of day where the sun is out as if it's summer, but nothing has quite sprung to life yet. I’d travelled here, a short distance west from Brighton, to a place I’d heard quite a bit about, but never visited: the Mason Cycles barn, the headquarters of the British bike brand.
Standing outside the old stone building the scent of livestock hangs heavy in the air; a familiar scent where I grew up, too. The first thought for those not so nostalgic about it might be, "Why on earth would you set up base here?" But as I'd discover throughout the day, the location has much more meaning to the brand's founder than is immediately obvious.
The humble beginnings
After a decade in business, Mason Cycles remains a small, close-knit team of 10 people. Dom Mason is the founder and designer, and with his wife Julie, who manages the operations, the two make up the heart of the company. A few mechanics, communication and production managers round out the crew, but this is still very much a family-run operation, where everyone wears multiple hats.
It's Julie Mason who greets me with a warm hello as I roll to the front of the barn on my bike, trying desperately to wipe the sweat off my forehead before meeting anyone. We park my bike, and she leads me upstairs to the office space, where it is hard to know where to look first.
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Inside, there are skateboard decks stacked under benches and slotted atop beams. In one corner, a photo backdrop stands ready for product shots. Frames, some rusty, some painted, are dotted around the edges of the room. In the middle of the room, sunlight spills through skylights onto an ISO gravel bike frame by the desk shared by Julie and Clive Andrews, who handles communications. In another nod to skateboarding culture, a bookshelf stacked full of issues of Thrasher magazines sits behind Mason's own bike. Next to it is a Raleigh Chopper bike with a flat front tyre. Lots of advertorial banners, ready for a bike show in a few days.
Dom Mason sits by the window. Through it, the South Downs roll into farmland. Despite decades in the industry, there’s seemingly no big ego to him, just an unhurried character, and a deep passion for the craft and details that others don't necessarily care about.
"My thing is really being an engineer," Mason says, as we sit down and tuck into some pastries Julie got for us. "Metal, making, craftsmanship, hands-on stuff. Looking at a weld and thinking, 'These welds are insanely good.' That’s really important to me, even if some people don’t care."
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