Graeme Ghillie, a Glaswegian transplant, who has called Ireland home for nearly 30 years, is a mechanic at the Clonakilty Bike Circus and a passionate advocate for the practical and enduring pushbike. His prized possession is the Tanglefoot Moonshiner, a bike that embodies everything Graeme admires in a machine. Built for longevity and ease of maintenance, the Moonshiner is an all-terrain touring bike that incapsulates simplicity and durability.
Originally hailing from Glasgow, Graeme’s path to the Bike Circus is as colourful as his personality. “Before this, I lived on the road,” he shares. It was a lifestyle of free festivals and self-sufficiency. His nomadic roots instilled an appreciation for tools and transport that offer independence and reliability.
To him cycling isn’t just a hobby; it’s a way of life. He shares his admiration for Richard Ballantine, the author of ‘Richard’s Bicycle Book’, an early example of bicycle advocacy. “He said that the bicycle is the ultimate tool of the anarchist, which is something that really resonated with me.”
Graeme sees bicycles as “mechanical perfection.” To him they represent freedom, independence, and a world where anyone can travel further and carry more with just a little effort.
So Graeme, why you and a Tanglefoot Moonshiner?
I’ve noticed that much of the cycling industry and its marketing seem geared toward what I would call ‘weekend warriors’ – people decked out in ‘condoms’ racing around the countryside. It’s all very ‘Tour de Finance’! But there’s an awful lot of people, like me, who just want a good, capable and solid bike.
I love that with just a wee set of Allen keys and a spanner, you could take this bike apart anywhere – even in the middle of somewhere like Azerbaijan!
James Johnson, the man who designed it and coined the term ‘retrofuturism’, lives in a yurt in Vermont. I like the ethos of his company, it’s not just about making money and profit.
And it’s a gorgeous machine. The geometry is perfect, and it’s made to last a lifetime. Hopefully I’ll still be cycling it to the shops when I’m 90.
Do you have a name for the bike? I call it the shiner.
Do you remember your first bike? I got my first bike when I was 18, living in Kilmarnock, Scotland. I’d just gotten married and was working as a window cleaner. It was a simple one-speed bike, but I loved it. Going downhill was brilliant; uphill, not so much.
I’ve always been drawn to what the bike represents – personal motivation, freedom, and independence. Take the suffragettes, for example – the bike gave them a new sense of independence as women. It even stirred up scandal in Victorian society, with skirts hiking up to reveal ankles while cycling. That’s how bloomers came about!
What I love most is that a bike is entirely self-propelled, self-navigated, and pollution-free.
Oh, don’t get me started! Bikes didn’t just change transportation; they reshaped communities. They shook up the gene pool because suddenly people weren’t stuck within their own little towns. You could pedal 20, 30 miles to the next valley, meet new people, and expand your world. It’s incredible when you think about the impact.
Is it a fast bike?
No. It wouldn’t be a bike for speed. It’s designed more for, as I said, off-road touring, just going anywhere. It will cruise down the road quite happily. It’s got really low gearing, so when you’re loaded up, you just hit it into the bottom gear and crank away. Think of it like a Land Rover. It would be an old series 2, British Racing Green.
It’s not how fast you arrive, it’s the style with which you arrive! That’s where the Shiner comes in, you know.
Are there any special
components? That’s a Brooks saddle I’ve got there. The patent for it dates back to 1880. Over the years, they’ve made some updates, but essentially, it’s still the same saddle – and it’s brilliant.
As for the handlebars, those are Jones H-Bars. They’re designed specifically for touring. They’ve got a wide, swept-back design, though not as tightly curved as the old-style ones you might be thinking of. These have a 45-degree sweep, which makes a huge difference. If you stand naturally and raise your arms, your hands naturally turn into that position – it’s just ergonomically perfect.
When you sit on this setup, it feels like slipping on a perfectly fitted glove. I absolutely love it. It’s incredibly comfortable and gives me such a sense of control.
How many vehicles have you owned and what?
1. 1982-83 Old Raleigh bike
2. 1920s High Nelly
3. 1988 Travelled with Horse and Barrow top wagon
4. 1971 Dodge 100 truck
5. 1973 36-foot long motorway coach
6. 1967 Bedford RL, a 10 tonne ex-army, 4×4
7. 1963 Leyland PD2 double-decker. Bright yellow with no exhaust. “It sounded like Sgt. Panzer was coming to visit.”
8. 1970 Land Rover Series II and a Caravan
9. 1982 Mercedes 508
10. 2000 Concept bike “Found stashed in a hedge!”
11. 1984 Peugeot Orient Spirit (Amelie)
12. 2000 Dahon folding bike
13. 1991 Trek 850
Do you have any future plans for you and the Shiner?
The overthrow of Western democracy!
A few years ago, I cycled from Inverness to Glasgow over the course of about five days. It was a fun trip, and what made it even more interesting was that my mum had done the same journey when she was around 17 or 18, with a friend. That would have been in the late 1940s or early 1950s, so I’d like to do that again. The route we took was all on road.
Now, there’s a trail called the Badger Divide, running between Inverness and Glasgow, but it’s off-road. It follows old tracks, trails, and forestry roads, so it’s a bit of a different challenge. I’d like to do that next spring, once I’m back in shape. I’ve had some trouble with my legs lately, but if all goes well, the next step would be to get a boat to Santander or Bilbao in September and then cycle towards Perpignan. The plan would be to spend five or six weeks just wandering around the Pyrenees, exploring as many backroads as I can find and avoiding the main tarmac roads as much as possible.
What’s your cycling style?
If I had to describe the cycling style for the Shiner, I’d call it ‘explorer style’. It’s not about labels like bikepacking – it’s just about exploring. You know, looking at a track and wondering, where does that go? Or pulling up a map and thinking, that looks fun – let’s try it.
I use an app called Ride GPS, which is brilliant for this kind of thing. It’s based on Open Street Map, which is crowdsourced and more detailed than the Ordnance Survey maps. The great thing is, you can contribute to it. For example, if you find a new track through a forest or discover something unexpected, you can map it and add details, like, ‘this river is easy to cross in spring, but later in the year you might have to wade through it’. It’s dynamic and built by people who are out there exploring, just like me.
There’s this bikepacking race in America that fascinates me. It starts in Banff, Canada, and goes all the way to the Mexican border at Antelope Wells – 2,700 miles, completely self-supported. No help, no trophies, no sponsorship nonsense. When a big company tried to take it over, every single rider refused to participate. It’s all about personal achievement. The current record is 15 days – that’s over 200 miles a day through the Rocky Mountains! You have to source your own food, do your own repairs, and rely entirely on yourself. I love that ethos.
I’m not into racing or the competitive side of cycling, but that spirit of independence and defiance resonates with me. My attitude is more like, I’ll get off the ferry, I know roughly where I’m headed, and we’ll see what happens. There’s a beautiful old English word for it – coddiwomple – which means to travel with intent toward a vague or unknown destination. That’s exactly my style.
Oh, and by the way, mine is the only Moonshiner in Ireland. So if you ever see one, and it’s not me riding it, you’ll know it’s stolen!
Any thoughts on the future of the bicycle?
Well, bikes are evolving rapidly, especially with the rise of electric bikes. At the Bike Circus, we can retrofit bikes with electric motors, so if I ever found I couldn’t ride the way I wanted anymore, it wouldn’t be a problem. I could just add a motor and a battery, and off I’d go. This development is also making cargo bikes much more accessible, which is exciting.
In Ireland, the cycling infrastructure is improving, though we’ve got a long way to go. People often compare us to places like Denmark or the Netherlands, but those countries are flat and densely populated. Ireland’s rural and remote nature makes it trickier. Norway’s a good comparison—bike routes are great in the south, but as you head north, they start disappearing. By the time you’re near Trondheim, there’s basically nothing.
There are some incredible long-distance routes out there, though. The European Divide, for instance, starts at Nordkapp in Norway and runs all the way through Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, over the Pyrenees, and ends in Portugal. It’s similar to the Tour Divide in the U.S., but Ireland doesn’t yet have the infrastructure for something like that. It would be great to see more off-road options here because cycling alongside traffic is just stressful – it’s practically a sport in itself.
I like the concept of retrofuturism – taking the best of the old and blending it with the new. For example, electronic shifting is becoming popular, but I’m not sold on it. It’s flashy, sure, but the cold can kill the batteries, leaving you stuck with one gear. Meanwhile, a good old friction shifter is simple, reliable, and easy to fix anywhere. There’s a story of a guy who snapped a gear cable in the middle of nowhere and managed to replace it with a guitar string. That’s the kind of ingenuity I appreciate.
Modern bikes are introducing things like electric brakes and the Bluetooth-controlled systems, but they aren’t always practical. They’re expensive, environmentally costly to produce, and prone to breaking down. For the average rider, they’re just not necessary. My old Peugeot, Amelie, is a 15-speed with cantilever brakes, friction shifting, and a square taper bottom bracket. It’s simple, sturdy, and capable – you can fix almost anything on it with basic tools or improvised parts.
I think we’re at a point where we need to step back. To me, retrofuturism is the way forward. It’s like vinyl records – sure, digital is everywhere, but there will always be people who prefer the tactile, reliable charm of the classics. Bikes should be fixable and built to last. That’s what I love about them.
