Reader’s Rig: Britt’s Ted Wojcik Custom

Words by Britt Scrugham (@bscrugs)

Hi! I’m Britt, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, but residing in Berlin for the past two years. My passion for cycling long distances came about four years ago when riding with friends in San Francisco and falling in love with the beautiful surroundings of Marin County and the friendships and food stops I encountered along the way.

It wasn’t until mid-2019 when my foray into gravel started. After spending a week on my first multi-day bike tour on the North Coast 500 in Scotland, I was hooked on the concept of traveling via bike. On this route, however, I felt limited by my skinny tires and wanted to ride further into the wilds of northwest Scotland (Cape Wrath is still high on the list). By the end of 2019, I’d purchased my first gravel bike, the Bombtrack Hook EXT 2020, subsequently a love story with gravel riding and bikepacking began.

Last summer, I was impacted by COVID-19’s hit on the travel industry and lost my job working in travel-tech. I took this time off as an opportunity to spend six months bike touring on and off throughout Europe, riding sections of the Italy Divide, Tuscany Trail, Bohemian Border Bash, Eroica Germania, “Rough-Stuff Fellowship” trails in the Dolomites, and ending the journey with a month-long stint in Madeira scouting gravel routes.

On a recent trip home for the holidays to visit my family on Bainbridge Island, Washington, I wanted to get a bike to tool around the island on. After doing some research on used bikes, I came across this used custom steel bike by Ted Wojcik at Classic Cycles and it spoke to me right away.

It’s a 650B-wheeled gravel bike built out of custom spec Columbus steel tubing in Plaistow, New Hampshire. Ted Wojcik has been building custom frames in Southern NH for the past 40 years, cutting, welding, brazing, and painting all of his frames by hand.

• Frame/Fork Ted Wojcik Custom
• Rims Velocity 650b
• Hubs Shimano
• Tires Panaracer Gravel King
• Handlebars Jones H-Bar
• Headset Chris King
• Crankset Origin8
• Pedals Old school BMX XC-II Wellgo bear trap pedals
• Derailleur Shimano Deore
• Brakes Avid BB7
• Shifter(s) microSHIFT Top-mount Thumbshifters
• Saddle Selle Italia
• Seatpost Nitto
• Accessory bags Wizard Works + Outer Shell
• Rack Velo Orange Six-Pack Rack

The previous owner built the bike with all kinds of great parts (some new, some used) and left me with an interesting Velo Orange Six-Pack Rack…not always the most practical of sizes, but I’ve been finding new ways to use it, such as carrying a small camera bag, using it for small grocery shops, and of course transporting some Wegbiers (German Translation: A beer to drink while “on the go,” usually en route to a party or on your way home).

After tooling around the island and various parts of the Olympic Peninsula, I brought back “Ted” (as it’s been aptly named) to Berlin with me. Today, you can find me riding around Berlin on Ted, leading womxn’s gravel rides with Tortuga Cycles, and joining Kyle and Lucas at Pizza Gravel.

Keep up with Britt on Instagram @bscrugs.

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