THE EVOLUTION OF DEVIATE - A PATH LESS TRODDEN
Deviate is a relatively new company - established in 2016 in Scotland - and founded on the conviction of two friends, Chris Deverson and Ben Jones, that there were Better Bikes out there, just waiting to be made. But these wouldn’t be any old order-from-the-catalogue bikes, no. To produce the bikes they wanted to, Chris and Ben would have to turn away from the established path of suspension design - to deviate, if you will.
And so the name was born.
OUR VISION:
TO ACCELERATE THE EVOLUTION OF MOUNTAIN BIKE DESIGN, FOR AND WITH RIDERS
BUT BEFORE ALL OF THIS, IT MIGHT PERHAPS BE INSTRUCTIVE TO TELL A TALE OF A STUDENT.
Chris Deverson was his name, studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of the West of England. A borderline obsessive mountain biker, Chris regularly availed himself of the local trails around Ashton Court, Leigh Woods and further afield; racing occasionally, and using his highly tuned engineering mind to consider the Platonic Ideal of the Perfect Bike.
Exceptionally able, after graduating Chris landed himself a job at Prodrive, designing and developing the I6 Turbo Le Mans engine while travelling to the race tracks of the world. But the pull of bikes was just too strong. Alongside consultancy work, designing submarine systems and modifications to nuclear test facilities, Chris found himself guiding mountain bikers in New Zealand and France, and it was here, in Les Arcs in the French Alps, that he met fellow guide and future colleague Ben Jones.
A FIRM FRIENDSHIP BUILT ON OPPOSITES WAS INEVITABLE.
The quiet and analytical Chris contrasted with the more outgoing and forthright Ben as they worked for years riding and guiding in the some of the most challenging mountain terrain there is. After experiencing week after week of bike breakages, both within the guiding fleet and the customers bikes, it was clear to Chris and Ben that the need for a better bike was pressing. However, the journey to Deviate was a little more tortuous yet, there were still a few more pieces left to play…
Chris, still mulling over motorsport-steeped ideas of the perfect bike, took a job guiding in New Zealand. It was here that he experienced a revelation, riding a gearbox driven high-pivot mountain bike with an idler for the first time. It was clear that this particular design - yet to be perfected - was a step in the right direction and that a High Pivot suspension platform was the way to go.
In the mean time, Ben (seen below on the Guide) had started his own guiding company, and was rapidly finding himself in need of an extra pair of hands. He called upon his old mate Chris to come and help out, planning trails and guiding across Europe - and it was during this time that Ben’s organisational acumen began to merge with Chris’ technical aspirations and Deviate was born.
https://www.deviatecycles.com/