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Meet the owners: Neil Simpson, designer, Aston Martin

From youthful ascents in the Yorkshire Dales to Parisian sportives that served oysters for lunch, Neil has revelled in a lifetime’s love of cycling, bicycles and design

From supercars to helicopters and motorbikes, Neil Simpson’s design palmarès contains more than its fair share of products fit to grace posters on childhood bedroom walls.

These days his email signature says with panache, “Manager, Design, Aston Martin.”

A lengthier sign-off might also mention the creative flair he has brought to exclusive watches and high-end bicycles, as well as his lifelong love of cycling. A former amateur racer and incorrigible bike admirer, his slimmed down stable of bikes still includes a 1950s Peugeot tourer, a steel-framed track bike, an iconic Raleigh Chopper from the 1970s, and a couple of unique concept bikes.

“But I only really ride one bike these days,” says Neil. More on that later.

First, though, his eyes sparkle at the memory of his first drop-handlebar racing bike, a blue Peugeot that his father bought him when he was 12.

“I remember vividly going to collect it. Decades later I ended up being a bicycle designer at Peugeot, so it felt like coming full circle.”

His father had been a cyclist in his youth, before national service, and when Neil showed an interest in the sport, he took up riding again, an activity the pair shared for the rest of his life.

The original Peugeot lasted barely two years before an upgrade to a steel frame Pennine 531, made by the respected and brilliantly named Yorkshire bike builder, Whitaker & Mapplebeck. Jonny Mapplebeck owned and worked in the shop until he was 80.

The intention had been to use the Peugeot as a donor bike for the new frame, “but it was at that point we found out that no components on French bikes fitted on English bikes,” says Neil.

The seatpost, stem and bottom bracket were all the wrong dimensions, although the Peugeot’s front mech and rear derailleur did make it through a few of his frame evolutions, even if the lowest gear ratio of 42:20 seemed ill-equipped for the brutal gradients of Neil’s neighbouring Yorkshire Dales.

“Before I was a designer, I guess I was an embryonic designer, so I’ve always enjoyed the bikes,” he says, before laughing at his idea to chrome a time trial bike frame and anodise its components in a fetching blue.

“It was an absolute horror show,” he admits.

Neil (left) riding with fellow J.Laverack owners David and Ian during our inaugural J.Laverack Owners Club Ride in November 2022.

Once he started working in the car industry, however, he was able to sweet-talk paint shops into spraying frames to personalised colours, including a Rover green and Alfa Romeo blue.

The fine details mattered just as much, with Neil wistfully recalling the lugs he chose for an Ellis Briggs Favori bike, with the clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades of playing cards cut out around the fork.

“It was beautiful,” he remembers. “Pretty much all the local shops pretty had their own frame building and in-house paint workshops. You could literally choose every component, and the term they always used was ‘fag paper clearance’. Everything was super tight – the tyre was virtually rubbing on the forks.”

Riding with the Bronte Wheelers, Neil raced and time trialled at club and regional level from his teens through to his 40s, by which time he was working in Paris.

France felt like the heartland of cycling, the culture ingrained in its roads and café table chat. Weekends boast a full calendar of events, including sportives and weekend randos, informally rated by riders for their food stops. 

“There was one ride towards the end of the season that we always looked forward to because we used to have foie gras and oysters at the stop,” he says. It was certainly a cut above the flapjacks and bananas of UK feed stations.

Finding a cycling club in France initially proved a challenge, with Neil joining three in succession – the first had a team car and a motorcycle with a spare bike on it for its group rides. 

“I was a little bit out of my depth,” he says modestly, although his rides were no pedal in the park. One in particular sticks in his mind, a sportive that followed the River Seine from Paris to the Normandy coast.

“We would leave Paris with a police escort leading us through all the red lights, and we’d be tucked in behind a group of riders on recumbent bicycles going at an incredible speed. It’s over 200 kilometres to the sea, and we used to arrive in Honfleur to a brass band playing, find a hotel, and then ride back the next day.”

When the pandemic enforced a break in organised events, like so many cyclists Neil used the time to look for a new bike.

“I was living in Paris, so there was no shortage of good bike shops, but I found myself umming and ahhing for about a year over what to buy,” he recalls. “I knew what I wanted in terms of components, and there were plenty of bikes that ticked all the boxes and could do what I wanted, but there was nothing that stirred my soul. As a kid, I used to peer in through the window of Ellis Briggs and lust over the bikes inside.”

Then a career move took him back to the UK to Aston Martin as a product designer, working on helicopters, motorbikes and watches – “lots of beautiful things, really” – and the head of the design department had a couple of J.Laverack bikes.

“He’s obviously a man of good taste!” says Neil, who felt inspired to investigate the Rutland-based bespoke bike builder. 

“I thought maybe titanium was the answer. I knew I wanted electric Di2 gears. I knew I wanted disc brakes. I knew I wanted tubeless tyres. I definitely wanted a modern bike, but also a bike that stirred the soul.”

A bike fit at J.Laverack’s workshop, followed by a test ride, rekindled memories of the personalised service that hand-built bike shops used to deliver, while the riding experience proved exhilarating.

“I had already decided that I was prepared to accept some compromises because the bike looked so fabulous, but what really thrilled me was how amazing it was to ride,” says Neil.

“I was blown away, to be honest, by how it climbed and how it rode.”

Neil’s bespoke “military-grade weapon”, also known as the R J.ACK Disc ‘Race’.

The result was an immediate order for J.Laverack’s racier R.JACK, with deep rims and bare carbon and titanium. Neil describes it as looking like ‘a military-grade weapon’.

“It feels kind of indestructible to ride. It’s silent, whereas some carbon bikes rattle and resonate, and it feels like it can ride over anything, while seeming so lively as well. I love its purposefulness and timelessness.”

He personalised his frame with an engraved Yorkshire rose on the top tube, and a couple of dates with emotional significance. The R.Jack has become the only bike in his fleet that he rides these days.

“I’ve always been somebody who has a summer bike and a winter bike, but I decide earlier and earlier that it’s spring and wait longer and longer before I decide it’s winter,” he laughs.

“I think ultimately I will buy a Jack for winter, and that will be everything.”

Neil's Bicycle Specification

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Click here to view the R J.ACK range
Next Read: Meet Garry Barker
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