​​​​​​​

1. About Us 
We are a specialist wheelbuilder/performance analyst based in Gloucestershire UK. We’ve been doing this almost 20 years and just can’t shake the bug. We are a small and vibrant team of 4 and it’s so great to have such fantastic people involved.

We have an eclectic background that we bring to the work we do. Andy Morgan who runs K1, trained and worked as an Analytical Scientist and was working towards a PhD in Environmental Chemistry when he decided on a life change, retrained as an anthropologist and started working in the field of disability - eventually becoming the national Director of The UK’s Disability Conciliation Service under contract to the UK governments Disability Rights Commission.

Around the same time, the turn of the century, he started to get back into sport and went a bit crazy. Racing his bike 3 times a week for the next 15 years, qualifying as a British Cycling coach and as a Cytech 3 bike mechanic, and very soon after that, Kinetic-One was born.

Throughout this time Nadia Habul has been the administrative engine of K1. Nadia is a professionally trained and practicing Play Therapist and is founder and Director of the Treehouse organisation in Gloucestershire. As Andy’s partner the job of keeping K1 organised fell to Nadia and she’s never managed to escape.

We began life as the UK’s first Bike-fitting Service back in 1999. We then went on to become the UK’s first fully bespoke brand of performance bikes - each customers bike being built only after a detailed biomechanical and performance assessment of the customers strengths and needs. As part of this growth we launched our first Kinetic-One wheels back in 2006. (Branded Kinetic2 in fact as Kinetic-One was then the bikes/fitting side of things!)

We did all this until 2015 when Andy was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune disease that left him unable to walk without sticks - the hardest part was that he could no longer ride. After 20 years the bike fitting and bike-building work ended overnight. Bike fitting involves lots of kneeling and standing and kneeling again. When he realised that it didn’t feel very professional to keep asking his customers to get off their bike to help him up - it became pretty apparent that a change in direction was needed!

So in 2015 we relaunched Kinetic-One as a brand of wheels-only. . At time of writing, end of 2018, Andy is walking without sticks and just restarting the bike-fitting to compliment our wheels. However our real expertise is now of course in building wheels - after all,  this has been the one thing we have done constantly throughout the last 20 years. He’s also built himself an electric bike - and promises never to judge anyone who rides them ever again!

Our ever-evolving model is based on a combination of solid craftsmanship, technological development , And the constant conversations we have with our customers and the elite riders/triathletes we sponsor about what they need and what will benefit them most.

We invite you to explore our range to see how we can help you get the most from your riding. Whether that’s going faster, further, lighter stronger. And if you’re not sure what you need - Please do get in touch!
 

​​​​​​​By positioning ourselves at the forefront of what we like to refer to as Cycling Dynamics we assist riders to quantifiably and scientifically achieve their goals. We do Two things:
 

2. Our Range of Road, TT, Tri and Trail wheels

The Kinetic-One range is designed and built by Andy Morgan and has evolved over the past decade and more - and is the direct result of a lifetime spent in cycling. Andy has been riding bikes for almost 50 years now. And across almost a dozen disciplines. From the youth scene back in the early 80's through to the Sportive and Tri boom of the 21st century. That's a lot of wheels used.

Unable to ride or walk unassisted since coming down with an auto-immune disease in 2015, Andy now obsessively devotes his time to assisting other riders to get faster - mainly through K1 wheels but also via K1's unique bike-fitting service - which was the UK first bike fitting service ... at the back end of last century (blimey I must be getting old..........!)

Andy Morgan riding a Time Trial in Poole 2013
profile at: www.ttlegends.org/men-cyclists
​​​​​​​

For example: Andy still brags about being one of 60 or so hardy soles who participated in what we believe was the first ever Uk Sportive some 16 years ago ( The very first dragon ride that now of course has 5000+ riders annually), He has also ridden audax, duathlon, touring, the odd bunch race and over 600 time trials - and in fact he still lays claim to one club 10 Mile record (albeit as the slowest member of a record breaking time trial 3up team!)

Wheels have come along way since then but perhaps unsurprisingly riders requirements still are the same as ever;

• fast wheels,

• strong wheels,

• well built wheels,

• reliable wheels,

• affordable wheels

• attractive and stylish looking wheels

At K1 we always aim to excel in all these departments - And throughout our range of sportive specific wheels right through to our TT/Tri wheels, and beyond, to the emerging generation of disc wheels, we strive to hold onto quality above all else - after all wheels get a hammering on UK roads!



3. Our Bike Fitting and Analysis Services

Through detailed scientific analysis of the critical components of: Biodynamics, Pedaling Dynamics and even Aerodynamics, we work systematically with each riders unique requirements (on their own bikes!) to measurably improve position and technique and to determine the fit of the bike. The result is the achievement of maximum power, speed, efficiency and comfort.

Having given up cycling in his teens due to repetitive injuries and discomfort that plagued his early racing career, He like so many people wanted to try again to recapture some of that youthful vigour and simplicity that gets squashed by things like work, parenthood and the inevitable weight gain!

Andy knew that the likelihood of injury coming along was perhaps even greater than it was when he was a teenager - having neglected sport/body for over 10 years. he was thus determined to get it right second time round and understood that his body had not been well served by his bikes in the past and that as a teenager, he had (of course), given no thought to how he was using his body on the bike!

Where to start then? Even in 1999 bike sizing was still at a very basic stage and how riders rode their bikes was something that was viewed in a very haphazard and unscientific way. I knew the pro-teams had great input but no one else seemed to get anything helpful - the only exceptions being the "folk knowledge" of the older guys in the clubs which was often spot-on and very useful - but unformulated and seldom written down - this was at the dawn of the Internet still i guess!

So what took us to where Kinetic-one is now?
.

• Well, What i had in 1999 as a 30 year old - that i did not have at 18 - was a degree in Analytical Science and a Masters degree in Anthropology and it was these two things that cross fertilized and germinated into what was to become the UK's first bike fitting service! I've essentially applied the learning from both these forms of training to the relationship between bike and rider. Initally of course to sort my own bike/riding problems out and then more latterly in a professionaI capacity.

• And what I have now, all these years later, as I head inevitably towards 50 (blimey!) that I did not have in 1999 - is the experience of almost 2000 bike fitting sessions:

Over the past 15 years plus, since I started Kinetic-One the scope and technological tools available have increased amazingly. This has meant the accuracy and specificity we can now routinely achieve goes so far beyond what we could have imagined back then; and that riders comfort, performance and efficiency are measurably better as time goes on.

We have also to some extent been able to incorporate and formulate some of the folk knowledge of the "old boys" to understand what they meant - and why - invariably - they were right.

My particular specialism is the history and evolution of pedalling for example; (geeky or what!) the old boys used to say "pedal in circles" and "spin to win". Viewing these sayings anthropologically, it becomes important to understand that there is likely to be truth in these utterances - And its fantastic to see that with all our technology we are in many ways just confirming what they knew.

On a more sinister note - I believe that pedalling skills have been forgotten almost completely in the last 20 years or so by the majority of amateur riders. (It's no ones fault - most riders are returning riders after all and we've other things to think about - and also how do you know if you are a good or bad pedaller anyway!) The pedal stroke is the interface between bike and body - the point at which the bodies uppy-downy "biped" linear motion gets converted into rotational energy that the bike needs - how well or how poorly we do that determines how the bike moves - simple and obvious - but so often forgotten - perhaps if our pedal stroke was made of shiny carbon it would get some attention!! (Ouch I'm getting carried way now!)

An example of how the technology can improve things so much and so easily: Our computrainer lab's spinscan programme can scientifically determine what each leg is doing throughout the pedal stroke - visually and simply and in real time with instant numerical feedback on screen in front of you - it almost becomes impossible not to become a better pedaller and we tend to find that people can improve their power and efficiency by more than 10-15% in minutes - the trick is then to make this happen every time you ride the bike - a challenge but not a complex one!

Having said all this, It is still not possible to call bike fitting a "hard science" in my opinion - there are good scientific bases for much of what we do - but there will always be subjective elements - as we are all different and don't conform to narrow models of what human's should be like.

It is wonderful to now have access to fabulous database's of knowledge that enable us to pinpoint almost exactly what size bike and specific geometries would suit a particular rider, of particular flexibility, of a particular age, engaged in a particular type of riding!" Also the basics are now so easy to nail down too: what size components, bar shapes, and saddles; And how low the bars should be, and what angle of bar rotation for different styles of riding.

The explosion of knowledge that came with the internet has made bike fitting amazing now in my opinion - It has also made everyone an instant "wiki" or "google" expert too. I think Kinetic-One's greatest asset to its customers is the experience and learning we have gleaned from working with hundreds and hundreds of riders all with their own unique story and viewpoint.

We try to understand how best to quickly and thoroughly setup someones bike and then to assist them to ride it better than they ever though they could! It's never ever boring as the rewards are so immediate and so palpable and our customers reactions so positive.

For most of our customers the bike is their one vice and their one freedom in a busy world. When its not going right or it hurts - it's a serious matter. We take this very seriously and I feel very priviliged to be able to help people to find the solutions that most of the time are out there waiting to be found.

Andy