TV chef Hugh Fearnley

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Sven Cycles River Cottage Rambler

This competition is now closed

By Warren Rossiter

Published: July 11, 2023 at 6:00 pm

TV chef, environmentalist, writer and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall lives within riding distance of his famous River Cottage cafe, cooking school and venue in east Devon.

Rather than rely on a car to get between his farm home and the River Cottage, Fearnley-Whittingstall turned to award-winning bike designer and builder Darron Coppin of Sven Cycles.

That initial collaboration led to the Forager – a do-it-all cargo bike designed for off-road foraging excursions.

Fearnley-Whittingstall found the Forager a brilliant bike for day-to-day riding, birdwatching trips and as a vehicle to take him foraging for the wild fruit, veg and herbs that have made his cuisine world famous.

But the severely steep hills in his corner of Devon proved a bit much for him. For instance, the River Cottage is at the bottom of a 10 per cent gradient gravel road. This is a challenge on a lightweight gravel bike – on a heavyweight cargo bike, it’s fierce.

So the Forager was auctioned and the proceeds went to the Soil Association.

Meanwhile, Fearnley-Whittingstall commissioned Coppin to produce a motor-equipped Forager replacement, and thus the River Cottage Rambler was born.

“The Rambler was created with my daily use in mind, so it must be able to cope with those crazy Devon hills and do a lot of what the Forager did, with plenty of storage for taking my bits and bobs”, says Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The heart of the Rambler is a fully custom Reynolds 853 steel frame.

The initial design was built around a lightweight rear hub motor, but after testing it around the double-digit ascents in Devon, it was decided the motor didn’t have the torque required to move a laden bike uphill efficiently.

Coppin reworked the frame and installed a Shimano Steps 7000 mid-drive unit.

The battery is mounted on the down tube inside a custom framebag made from recycled sails.

The bike also uses a Shimano Alfine Di2 internal gear hub. This syncs with the motor so it can be run as a fully automatic gearbox.

The details on the frame blend the beautiful with the beautifully practical.

For example, the twin downtubes of the step-through frame have been left raw (though highly polished), as Coppin knew that getting on and off the bike in walking boots or wellingtons would soon scratch or scuff paint.

Leaving the metal unpainted means any marks can simply be polished out.

To meet Fearnley-Whittingstall’s green credentials, Coppin also custom-made full-length mudguards from flax (he usually makes these full guards from carbon fibre).

Even the beautiful golden yellow primrose-toned paint is water-based.

While these concessions to reducing the impact of the bike are admirable, Fearnley-Whittingstall says “the real kind of value from an environmental point of view is the longevity of [the bike]… you know Darron’s bikes are just made to last and last and last”.

The front rack is also custom-made and further storage comes from a set of traditional Carradice pannier bags made from traditional waxed duck canvas.

On top of the rack, Coppin fabricated a platform using Fidlock’s clever twist-lock fittings (these are more commonly found on water bottles and cages).

These are used to attach the custom-made wicker basket that Fearnley-Whittingstall uses for his frequent foraging rides or trips to the local shops.

The remainder of the build uses a polished bar, stem, and post and a well-worn-in classic sprung Brooks B67 saddle. The tyres are Schwalbe’s tough puncture-resistant and hard-wearing Big Ben’s.

We’ll leave the last word to Fearnley-Whittingstall on the River Cottage Rambler:

“The bike is beautiful, but it’s serviceable – It has to be maintainable, long-term.

“It’s great to have a bike that you think is in the family for good… I have been riding it, and will for decades to come.

“I think it’s rather like that sort of slightly pretentious [Patek Philippe] watch advert – you don’t really own a whatever it is, you just look after it for the next generation.

“Well, this bike is a bit like that. I don’t really own it, I’m just looking after it”.

Senior technical editor

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).

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