If you subscribe to the idea that relevant life experience is a prerequisite for success in your line of work, then Steve McCulley always had a head start with his firm, Lios. He founded it back in 2012 with a modus operandi to offer a bespoke bike-building service based around bike-fitting.
Readers who’ve been through the bike-fitting process will know that its central aim is to harmonise two very different things – the simple, balanced machine of the bicycle and the complex, often asymmetrical human body – to enhance efficiency in the saddle, iron out injuries and prevent new ones. And, once we’ve probed into his back story, you’ll see why there are few cyclists in need of his own services more than Steve himself. Just days before our most recent conversation, he’d had plates removed from his femur that had become so painful that he saw no option but to have them taken out. This operation was the latest in a long line since 2011 – “over 40”, he says, and who can blame him for losing count. Other surgeries on injuries to his legs, arms and chest (his riding these days is significantly compromised by having had a lung removed) are the result of a catastrophic 2011
