Aluminium Bike Thread
Moderators: MrCurrieinahurry, maxim809, Moderator Team
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- in the industry
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:24 am
- Location: Bellows Falls, VT
- Contact:
Yay for aluminum bikes!
They've been a particular passion of mine since middle school.
(disclaimer, I'm the Spooky guy)
FTW(aka Frank The Welder, AKA one of the godfathers of aluminum frame building, and the guy who makes the bikes here at Spooky) is doing an aluminum frame building clinic next weekend for experienced professional frame builders. There are currently 8 people registered as far as I know.
Don't be surprised if you see new custom aluminum frames from Geekhouse and Zacanoto , among other new players, pretty soon. Aluminum bikes take practice for people who've only been building in steel or ti, but it's just a new process to learn, not anything super difficult.
I've been trying as hard as possible to make new aluminum tubing available to builders here in the US. I've sent tube drawings to both of the major tube distributors(a mtb kits for one distro, road for the other) and we've helped to re-tool the old Cannondale tubing factory in CT. The new folks running that place will be dusting off some of the better Caad bike dies(they have tooling up to CAAD8) as well as making some new custom dies for larger o.d tubes and oversized stays for us. The factory will be able to shape and draw tubes to the specification for each builder in batches as small as 10 tubes. That's going to be an amazing resource for people who want to make race bikes in the USA.
We're also working to make sure that there is a good selection of stock headtubes, bb shells and dropouts available from those distributors.
Materials availability is piss poor right now. When I can't get tubes from CT I end up specing tubing that I order from 5 different places on 2 continents, so inefficient.
Right now I can leave my house in the morning, go to the tube factory in CT and have Frank welding on proto stuff by 3 in the afternoon the same day. It's yet to be seen if that factory will be able to find the working capital to get off the ground but if they do it will allow US builders to build frames that really are without a doubt the best in the world.
I like that a lot.
We stopped making production bikes- the economics just didn't work, especially since I'm not particularly good at running a business and we have been and still are massively under-capitalized.
Our custom bikes cost twice as much as our old production bike, and our leadtimes are unpredictable, and at times my communication is spotty, and sometimes I go crazy and lose weeks of work, but man, when people finally get their beastly bikes they really seem to like them...
here's some candy/big batch of spam of some recent custom cross/road bikes:
Aluminum is back in a big way, and it's going to be better than ever!
If you guys have any questions about aluminum stuff let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.
-mickey
They've been a particular passion of mine since middle school.
(disclaimer, I'm the Spooky guy)
FTW(aka Frank The Welder, AKA one of the godfathers of aluminum frame building, and the guy who makes the bikes here at Spooky) is doing an aluminum frame building clinic next weekend for experienced professional frame builders. There are currently 8 people registered as far as I know.
Don't be surprised if you see new custom aluminum frames from Geekhouse and Zacanoto , among other new players, pretty soon. Aluminum bikes take practice for people who've only been building in steel or ti, but it's just a new process to learn, not anything super difficult.
I've been trying as hard as possible to make new aluminum tubing available to builders here in the US. I've sent tube drawings to both of the major tube distributors(a mtb kits for one distro, road for the other) and we've helped to re-tool the old Cannondale tubing factory in CT. The new folks running that place will be dusting off some of the better Caad bike dies(they have tooling up to CAAD8) as well as making some new custom dies for larger o.d tubes and oversized stays for us. The factory will be able to shape and draw tubes to the specification for each builder in batches as small as 10 tubes. That's going to be an amazing resource for people who want to make race bikes in the USA.
We're also working to make sure that there is a good selection of stock headtubes, bb shells and dropouts available from those distributors.
Materials availability is piss poor right now. When I can't get tubes from CT I end up specing tubing that I order from 5 different places on 2 continents, so inefficient.
Right now I can leave my house in the morning, go to the tube factory in CT and have Frank welding on proto stuff by 3 in the afternoon the same day. It's yet to be seen if that factory will be able to find the working capital to get off the ground but if they do it will allow US builders to build frames that really are without a doubt the best in the world.
I like that a lot.
We stopped making production bikes- the economics just didn't work, especially since I'm not particularly good at running a business and we have been and still are massively under-capitalized.
Our custom bikes cost twice as much as our old production bike, and our leadtimes are unpredictable, and at times my communication is spotty, and sometimes I go crazy and lose weeks of work, but man, when people finally get their beastly bikes they really seem to like them...
here's some candy/big batch of spam of some recent custom cross/road bikes:
Aluminum is back in a big way, and it's going to be better than ever!
If you guys have any questions about aluminum stuff let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.
-mickey
I'm that skinny guy who runs Spooky Bikes
spookybikes.tumblr.com
facebook.com/spookybikes
twitter.com/spookybikes
spookybikes.tumblr.com
facebook.com/spookybikes
twitter.com/spookybikes
- robncircus
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:14 am
- Location: Sunny Santa Monica, CA
Mickey
Custom stuff looks great so kudos. Are you doing any mountain bike work too?
Cheers
Rob
Custom stuff looks great so kudos. Are you doing any mountain bike work too?
Cheers
Rob
Brewer McFadden says "Everyday should be the best day ever"
- Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez
- Posts: 2147
- Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 6:21 pm
- Location: around Paris
"Are you doing any mountain bike work too?"
We will need the end of the world to stop Mickey and FTW to build MTB
We will need the end of the world to stop Mickey and FTW to build MTB
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- in the industry
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:24 am
- Location: Bellows Falls, VT
- Contact:
robncircus wrote:Mickey
Custom stuff looks great so kudos. Are you doing any mountain bike work too?
Cheers
Rob
Heck yeah!
Our MTB frames won a total of 13 pro races last year.
We've racked up 5 national championships in Cat1 over the last 4 years, 6 state championships, 4 district BMX titles and 4 regional collegiate titiles and 3 national collegiate titles.
For next year we are fielding a pretty badass development team- full-on professional coaching for every rider, PHD sport scientists and nutritionists, european CX and road racing on the national team for our 2 U23's, etc. I want to win more domestic pro mtb races than any other company in 2015- developing our own talent is key to that.
here's some recent cool mtb stuff:
Fat bike for Trek employee
Tammy Jacques Grewal, 15x US national MTB team member
Jeremy Powers
29'r for u23 road pro based out of Indiana
SS XC race bike for one of my U23's(tubulars on his SS, because that's how we roll!)
dh race bike for UK-based female DH pro.
Slalom bike for US national #4 female gravity pro
650b for a wicked cool guy in the UK
650b for a Costa Rica based pro
heck, sometimes I even get to ride bikes!
The majority of our MTB frames go to industry employees and elite racers in the USA and super swell customers in Europe.
Nearly half of our work is Yeti restorations of bikes that FTW designed like this Yeti ARC AS
It's in for a new headtube.
I'm that skinny guy who runs Spooky Bikes
spookybikes.tumblr.com
facebook.com/spookybikes
twitter.com/spookybikes
spookybikes.tumblr.com
facebook.com/spookybikes
twitter.com/spookybikes
- robncircus
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:14 am
- Location: Sunny Santa Monica, CA
Those look great! I'll be in the market fo an XC bike hopefully late 2013 when $ permits, and I'll definitely reach out.
Cheers
Cheers
Brewer McFadden says "Everyday should be the best day ever"
- theosaurus
- Posts: 108
- Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:02 pm
- Location: England
more to come soon....
yes, but how much does it weigh?
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- Posts: 95
- Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2010 11:30 pm
Continuing with the Spooky love. LOVE this bike. Total badass.
- prendrefeu
- Posts: 8580
- Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:32 pm
- Location: Glendale / Los Angeles, California
- Contact:
Nice rebuild of that Trek, CarpetFibre!
Exp001 || Other projects in the works.
- Maximilian
- Posts: 404
- Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:09 pm
- Location: Warwickshire
My college crit weapon.
Climbing wheels and old groupset:
MTB:
Got a CAAD5 for training too.
Climbing wheels and old groupset:
MTB:
Got a CAAD5 for training too.
Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓ Broad Selection ✓ Worldwide Delivery ✓
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- thencameyou
- Posts: 301
- Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:27 am
- Location: Nu Zild
@ maximilian: what size is that CAAD9? me likey!