The passion and love for bicycles probably started when I was in primary school. My dad bought me my first bike which was a three speed and my most prized possession in those days. It offering a means of transport coupled with some freedom and a sort of prized independence. Unfortunately it was stolen and only when I was in high school I started the affair with bicycles again.
This was in the early 80’s when mountain bikes did not even exist. My first bike was a hand me down Le Jeune built by Francois du Toit back then and I started training together with the Maties Cycling club (That is a whole story on its own with a lot of legendary names still around today). I did a lot of vacation work for my dad and saved up some money and bought my first Peugeot road frame and a lot of second hand parts as money was tight in those days. I simply loved my bike and due to money being so short in supply you had to learn to maintain your own bike, build wheels and also modify it to a track bike as I did a lot of track racing in those days. Every Friday you had to convert it to a track bike, race on Saturday and on Sunday modify it back to a road bike again to train during the week. This affair came to an end when I went to varsity to study Mechanical Engineering and this was followed by a career path and building a family.
At the age of 40 due to some serious motivation (and a bit of a weight problem) from some very close friends of mine the affair was rekindled again and the subsequent purchase of a brand new Raleigh RC3000 road bike. The rest is history with me once again passionate about my bikes. The next chapter started with the purchase of my first MTB which was a Scwinn Mesa GS which was a hard tial and pretty much entry level bike which put me a little off of the MTB thing. This was however cured with the acquisition of a Specialized XC trail bike albeit a bit entry level but at least a dual suspension 26er. Being me this was quickly modified and rebuilt with better parts and obviously a lot lighter. Then appeared the almighty Specialised Epic Comp 29er and this was the nail in the coffin. I simply loved this bike and rode it for about 4 years before buying my first full carbon 29er dual suspension bike.
After spending some time and helping out a dear friend and hero in his bike shop while living in Cape Town and then moving back to Gauteng I was still very passionate about building bikes. I decided to build custom bikes as a hobby and started to import 29er dual suspension full carbon frames, handlebars and rims and market them under the vincent brand name in South Africa. The frames are sourced from China and then subjected to upgrades on the rear suspension and some other custom parts to produce one awesome handling machine at a more affordable price.
The inspiration for the name came from the definition of the word Vincent derived from Vincentius (from the present participle of the Latin verb vincere) meaning to conquer or win.
In essence that is what we aspire to every day when trying to conquer the mountains or single tracks that are set as challenges in front of us.
It is all about the passion, quality, attention to detail and custom bikes built to your specification and of course a little bit of carbon fibre!.
Come and experience the ride.