In conversation with Simon Weller
I first met Simon in 2022 on our friend Jod’ys charity ride. He came straight up to me admiring my 90’s specialized build and was nothing but enthusiastic and friendly. Since that first meeting, we have become close friends, connecting on time spent in the u.s and other like-minded outlooks on life and the world around us. He has been a big supporter of Rune and has been responsible for a large portion of our photography in the past few months. We sat down with Simon to get a bit of insight into his background and how bikes and photography have played a big part in his life.
As a youth of the 80s and growing up in the punk era, how do you think that shaped your outlook on life in general?
To be perfectly honest I was a die-hard metalhead, although I did listen to a lot of punk & hardcore. I saw many punk bands play live such as Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies & Ramones, so I guess I'm just about qualified to answer :-)
With the benefit of hindsight, the Eighties seemed like far simpler times (aside from the threat of nuclear holocaust, the AIDS epidemic & famine in Africa). As a teen, it was a great time to grow up and music played a massive part in my youth. We were fairly restricted in how we accessed music compared to now - newspapers, magazines, radio & almost nothing on television. My friends & I found our tribe when we started listening to bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden & Metallica, buying Nice Price vinyl of classic rock & metal albums (£3.49 at Our Price Records) & swapping homemade mixtapes.
I'd always felt somewhat of an outsider at school, never one of the cool kids and always one of the last to be picked for the football team in P.E. but I found listening to metal gave me a sense of belonging and stoked my passion that I have to this day for music. I started going to see live music at the age of 14 (with my uncle) but by 16 I was traveling to London with my friends to see concerts. We even made it to the infamous 1988 Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donnington (featured in Guns 'N' Roses' 'Paradise City'video) which will live long in my memory, for good & bad reasons. There was a sense of freedom & community that was born in those days and an almost religious devotion to music. My mullet haircut from back then is now fashionable which makes me smile.
When did you start getting into photography and when did it go from something you were playing around with to something you became obsessed with?
I've had a camera ever since I can remember - my first one was an Instamatic 35mm but then a Pentax ME Super SLR that my Dad gave me in the late Eighties that really allowed me to start properly exploring photography. I studied graphic design at college & then university and that gave me more opportunities to take photographs, learn to develop film, and make prints in the darkroom. When I started working in London in 1996 as a cover designer for the book publisher HarperCollins I was exposed to a huge amount of amazing photography, from magazines, books & exhibitions. I first visited California that year and my photographs started to become something more than just holiday snaps. When I returned to work I started using my own photographs on book covers and my fellow designers started asking to use my images too. When I moved to Penguin Books in 1998 I was commissioning photographers, working with global photo agencies, and was beginning to get my own work published.
It was the life changing journey I took across the United States in 2001 when I spent 9 months on the road driving 18,000 miles in a 1980 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. I spent that year taking photographs and living in the moment, before the days of smartphones & social media. I'll be forever grateful to have traveled extensively before the world changed. When I returned home I decided to leave my design career behind and take a leap into the unknown as a photographer.
I know you spent time living in the States. How was that experience? What were some of the differences you noticed compared to the UK?
I loved living in the States. I spent many years based in Nevada City, a small Goldrush town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. One of the main things I took from my time in the States was the overwhelming positivity and that 'can do' attitude where anything seems possible. I felt so at home in the great outdoors and had the ability to go snowboarding, camping & kayaking so easily. Although I had my mountain bike there I didn't have the fitness for the pretty extreme mountain terrain. I did have a Toyota 4X4 4Runner truck which I used for extensive road trip adventures across the country but these days I'd rather do it by bicycle. I miss my stateside friends and the lifestyle there and I think I'll always feel more Californian than English in my outlook on life. Coming back to the UK in 2015 was really hard but cycling helped me fall back in love with my home country. Attending events like Brother In The Wild, Wizard Works' Coffee Outside London, and riding with the Woods Cyclery & Seabass Cycles crews have connected me with many wonderful people and brought me some great friendships.
When did bikes start playing a big part in your life?
I was 10 years old when E.T. was released in the cinema and I was completely taken with the BMX riders in the film. I got a brand new Raleigh Burner, stripped all the pads off, and added a racing number upfront. I wasn't racing, I just wanted to look cool! Ha. Riding bikes had always been part of life as a kid but having a BMX suddenly felt like something more, being part of a gang out for adventures. I'd head down to the park with my friends, building jumps and getting into scrapes such a fun time.
In the mid-eighties, I remember first reading about mountain bikes in one of my Dad's outdoor magazines and became really fixated on getting one. In 1988 I got a Muddy Fox Courier (white & purple fade) which gave me the ability to go further off-road around the Surrey Hills where I grew up. It was stolen a few years later and the next bike I had was a 1994 Marin Muirwoods, given to me as a present from my folks when I graduated from university. Believe it or not, this was my one & only bike for the next 23 years! It became my proto bikepacking rig, which took me on camping trips to the Brecon Beacons & Purbeck in the mid-nineties, then became my daily commuter when I worked in London for 5 years.
When I left London in 2001 I'm a bit sad to say that my bike saw minimal action for the next 16 years. I was deep into traveling in the States and various other places including Africa, Asia & Russia where my mode of transport was often cars but also buses, trains, motorbikes, ferries & planes.
It was on a trip to Joshua Tree in early 2017 that my real passion for bikes was born. I was visiting friends in the Mojave Desert when I had an email from an old housemate from my time in London. I hadn't seen him in many years but we were going to be in the same area for a couple of days. It was Cass Gilbert, also known by his Instagram handle @whileoutriding who I had lived with back in 2004 in West London. We had become friends through our love of photography & music. The front room of our shared house had become a bicycle repair shop for Cass & his girlfriend Laura who were regularly heading off to exotic places like the Himalayas to write bike guidebooks.
We arranged to meet at a cafe in Joshua Tree and I remember Cass rolling up on his fat tyred steel Tumbleweed Prospector with a basket and various other bags strapped to the frame, containing food, water, clothes & all his camping gear. I'd never seen a bike like it before. His dusty battle-scarred steed resembled a vehicle from Mad Max and Cass himself looked more like a freight train hopper than most people's perception of a cyclist. He recounted tales of his trip across the South West USA on dirt roads, camping out under the stars and avoiding tarmac whenever he could. I think at that moment I was taken with the idea of the freedom & adventure a bike like this could give. It was very much in the spirit of my own travels in the USA by car - slow exploration with plenty of stops to look around. A few months later I was emailing back & forth with Cass about buying my first bikepacking rig and I've never looked back.
I dream of revisiting some of the places I've traveled to and touring by bike, especially Iceland & Japan. I'm also excited to explore Europe on two wheels and have plans for a trip to the continent later this year.
Did shooting photos while riding happen straight away for you or was it something that merged later on?
I'd dabbled with taking photographs on rides when I got back into bikes in 2017. I joined Cass on an overnighter in the New Forest in 2018 which ended up as a piece on Bikepacking.com which included some of my shots. Through this, I connected with Tom Farrell at the Woods Cyclery who has become a good friend in the years since then. Similarly to Cass, there's a shared love of cycling off-road, bike nerdery, music & photography.
It was really the pandemic that proved the turning point for me. My job was as good as dead so I spent the majority of my time riding. I would often take my camera with me, documenting the local area in a way I hadn't before. As the lockdown eased, I began to plan trips with friends, firstly locally in the Surrey Hills and then further afield. I became interested in trying to document the moments on a ride that didn't always get covered: puncture repair, map reading, café stops, setting up camp or brewing coffee. When I went to Brother In The Wild Dorset in 2020, I started to hone my style, which often seems more about being off the bike than on. I still regard myself as a photographer who happens to ride bikes rather than a cycling industry photographer.
What bike stuff and photo stuff gets you stoked at the moment?
I'm taking some time away from social media right now, so I'm somewhat disconnected from all the cool stuff that usually overwhelms me. I've been really enjoying riding my single speed Surly Karate Monkey on the local lanes & bridleways. Having only one gear has transformed my well tracked routes into something new and more challenging. I'm also loving my Clandestine Carrier which I had built by Pi Manson for my 50th birthday. It's a bike that I'm constantly tweaking and have recently changed from drops to Magic Components' 'Moth Bars' after seeing Tom from The Woods Cyclery riding with some. Absolute game changer! They're super wide & swept back flat bars and have transformed the bike. It's my heavy duty ATB touring bike that when I'm not camping I use for coffee outside meets and riding off-road to the South London record shop where I sometimes work. It can carry everything I need for the day - clothes, lock, tools, snacks & any vinyl I might pick up.
Being away from the scroll of doom has freed up a lot more time. I'm not looking at much cycling content at the moment, instead reconnecting with my love of the film photography that first inspired me. I've gone back to my old books by artists including Stephen Shore, Takashi Homma & Raymond Depardon which is where it all started for me. More recent titles by Emma Hardy & Alys Tomlinson really make me want to start exploring the idea publishing books. I recently saw Edward Burtynsky's Extraction / Abstraction exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London which blew my mind - humankind's impact on the planet, photographed from the air and displayed as large format prints - the images look like abstract paintings. Never has environmental destruction looked so hauntingly beautiful. I was also very impressed by the film 'Perfect Days' by Wim Wenders which was a wonderful meditative experience and has prompted me to revisit my 35mm photos of Japan from the year 2000.
It's a pleasure having your amazing photos showcasing the early days of Rune. Looking forward to more of the same soon. Thanks, Simon.
Thanks, Ash. It's been a great pleasure to be involved. I've been excited about Rune ever since we chatted on that Woods Cyclery shop ride many moons ago. It's been really great to see your dream coming together. Sorry for writing an essay but your questions definitely triggered an opportunity to take a trip down memory lane.
photos by Simon Weller