About - Twisted Cogs

Twisted Cogs is a bicycle repair workshop based on the outskirts of York in the village of Bishopthorpe. Twisted Cogs undertake all kinds of repair, rebuild and servicing work. Based in York, we serve customers from as close as Selby to as far as Sheffield.

Twisted Cogs is run by Tom Cropper who has worked in highly reputable bike shops in and around York for the past 12 years. Working along side highly skilled mechanics through out his career has enabled him to learn from the best in the business.

Tom is Cytech Qualified to the highest level and has spent over a decade working on every type of bike from commuters to high end road and mountain bikes.

Twisted Cogs is a rider owned workshop, being a keen mountain biker Tom knows the annoyance of not having your bike working 100%.

Tom Cropper

I started out my career at York Cycleworks as a young Saturday lad, carrying on with cycleworks after I completed my A-levels they put me through a Cytech engineering apprenticeship. I completed my Cytech level 2 at York Cycleworks which involved intensive weeks of training in Manchester.

After a short break from the cycle trade I returned and was employed at Cyclesense as a bike builder/show room assistant which involved building and selling bikes as front of house staff. My true interest was in the workshop which was noticed and shortly I changed roles, this is when the true mechanic in me started to appear. Working a long side other great mechanics my knowledge and skills were increasing tenfold, my natural initiative for problem solving and attention to detail was something that management noticed.

I took on an apprentice to teach and develop through Cyctech level 2, at this time I completed my Level 3 in suspension and hydraulic braking systems. I was also now managing the workshop at Cyclesense dealing with all aspects of a highly reputable and busy workshop.

I left Cyclesense to go travelling around Australia at the end of 2010, whilst in Australia I Worked for 99 Bikes, being a sister company to Flight Centre the business was run slightly different to independent stores that I am use to. The change was great for me, really pushed me to see how far I could climb in the 6 months that I was allowed to work. I changed a number of systems in the workshop to create a more efficient workshop where all deadlines were met, after 4 months I was asked to go work up the coast on a brand new store. This entailed me setting up and organising a workshop from scratch, I couldn’t have asked for a bigger compliment from 99 Bikes that was already 8 stores strong before I started working for them.

I returned back to the U.K and was contacted by Cyclesense to carry on working for them, which I did for the next 4 years slipping back in to where I left running and managing the workshop. I developed the workshop and created a large client base that became friends as much as customers who were loyal to my work and trusted me with their bikes whether it was worth £100 or £10,000.

I felt that I needed a change in career paths and left the cycle trade once again only to find that I’m only really happy where bikes are involved so after a couple of months in New Zealand I landed back in UK and started planning my very own workshop – Twisted Cogs.

About Twisted Cogs

Tom Cropper