Starling Murmur Factory 29

Bristol’s Starling is determined to prove that steel-tubed bikes can be enduro high flyers.

- Jamie Darlow

Steel is great stuff to make hardtails out of because frame builders can take advantage of the material’s relative flexibility compared to aluminium. That means the back end has some give in it to improve comfort. Steel comes in regular round tubing, too, it’s readily available, relatively affordable and pretty simple to cut and join, using either welding or brazing. All of which makes it a firm favourite for small bike brands like Starling. So steel works for hardtails, but does it make sense for full-suspension bikes, where you don’t need that natural compliance? Starling sent us the Murmur to find out.

Starling Cycles is Joe McEwan, and the company HQ is based at the bottom of his garden, where Joe has spent the last five years hand-welding frames. That’s a slow process for one man, so this year Starling is expanding, sub-contracting construction to the Far East and creating this Factory version of the hand-built Murmur, and consequently dropping the price by some £500 (the shed-made Murmur costs £190 more but doesn’t come with a shock, while the Factory does).