Brother Big Bro for John Watson
Jun 09, 2026
After hearing from Will that John Watson was coming over to shoot Brother In The Wild we starting scheming a build for him to use while he was over this side of the pond.
Will asked us to spec an XL Big Bro! Owen and Jack hashed some ideas out and decided that for Purbeck's Chunky trails, John might enjoy having fun on a hardtail with a dropper post.
We sourced the last Silver Rock Shox Pikes in the country, in fact the supplier kindly swapped the lower legs from a longer set to allow us to run a 120mm.
We happened to have a 'rare as hens teeth' silver PNW loam dropper post in the right size!
John and Cari swung by while shooting a shop profile for the Radavist (Click here to read it) and collected the bike, Robbie leant Cari his Ritchey Ascent for the weekend, perfect for Purbeck trails.
We made some minor fit adjustments to the Big Bro, threw on a Wizard Works bag and it was good to go!
I think the colour really suits John, it sort of looks like a John Watson bike!
Over three days we hung out with John, shooting bikes, drinking coffee, chatting shit, and on Thursday evening, the night before BITW was due to kick off, we headed out for a dreamy photo ride!
I had to pinch myself a couple of times as we cruised through the woods with most of the shop team, low sun glinting through the pine trees, John Watson crouched in a bush pointing his lens at us, I'm pretty sure this was the moment we've been working so hard for!
We stopped in a clearing and took turns to drift skids past John, spraying him and his camera with gravel, I said John, are you sure? he shouted oh man, I don't give a shit, spray me! The results are below!
One more skid shot? 'Have you seen that black cloud'? A race to the Pub ensued, happy to get under an outdoor barn just as an almighty lightning and hail storm rolled in!
The next day we met at the shop, drank lots of coffee, got our bikes and bags ready and headed out onto the trails to ride the first leg of The Rat Run to the Brother In The Wild event site!
See link below for a rundown of the Weekend!
Tom.
XXX
