Business editor Laura Knowlson meets York's own Dylan Thomas as he sets poetry in motion with is bike building business.

What is 1393200 inches, 116100 feet, or 21,989 miles long? It's not a premature Christmas cracker joke, it's the total length of 120,000 cycle spokes laid end to end.

The figure marks the length of the number of cycle spokes Dylan Thomas has used since he started his bespoke one-man cycle building service in York five years ago.

Called ‘Yourspokes’ Mr Thomas started his business in a small workshop in Fossgate, where he has become famous as one of only two people in the world building the specialist 36 inch diameter wheel mountain bike.

Mr Thomas has customers as far afield as the Australian outback to the Falkland Islands, and can boast that the world record for circumnavigating the globe was broken on bikes with wheels he made.

Mr Thomas said: "I came back from cycling across Canada and America and decided to set up on my own doing custom wheel building and selling spokes.

"I have always been involved in, and passionate about unconventional cycling, and it grew from there. As the business took off with the wheels I decided to get into frame building, and have gone on from there."

In 2012 Mr Thomas stated a new venture in bike frame building, called Poetry in Motion, through which he makes custom wheels and frames, becoming York’s only specialist wheel and frame builder.

As a creator of custom carbon wheels and full carbon track wheels, Mr Thomas' wheels range from just six inches to a giant 36 inches, ten inches larger than the standard mountain bike wheel size.

He said: "The benefit of a larger wheel is that the rolling momentum enables you to have a much smoother ride over obstacles. It smooths out anything on the road, and enables you to travel faster.

"Another great benefit of a 36 inch wheel bike and frame is that people that are taller than average can have a bike that fits them properly. The tallest person I have built a bike for is 6ft 9, and the bike just looked like a standard bike next to them."

Mr Thomas came to York in 1986 and has made the city his home. He has always had an interest in cycling, and has been an ambassador for the sport by promoting cycling in many cities and schools up and down the country.

Mr Thomas says his expertise in custom wheel and frame building comes from his passion for everything cycling. He said: "I believe that cycling is more than just a way of getting from a to b, cycling is a liberating experience that brings benefits in health, sociability, and obviously economic well being, it can be enjoyed alone, or as a family, or with a group of friends."

Working with steel, it takes Mr Thomas no average a week to produce a bike, from the design stage to being sent to the printers.

He currently works alone in his Fossgate studio, with a couple of part time staff that help him out during busy periods during the summer.

However Mr Thomas said that is expected to change as the business expands, as each summer the work load has got busier and busier, resulting in a five week back log this year.

Mr Thomas said: "My customers vary completely in terms of their needs and requirements. The bike I am currently finishing now if for a five-times national track champion, while the one before that was for a gentleman who wants to ride along the coast.

"Demand has become much higher for custom made products because people are starting to step away from conventional off the shelf bikes.

"I have seen my company grow by between 30 a 35 per cent year on year for the past five years, however I genuinely don't believe that what's happening with me necessarily reflects what's happening in the general cycling world. I think I am just touching on a niche that hasn't fully been utilised yet."