[Thylacine]

Hi there fellow XC monkeys. Heres a little story for yall to enjoy....

....About 6 weeks ago a good buddy and customer of mine, Mark aka Kami, decided he was going to take the plunge again, as he did last year with his Thylacine X-Trials, and get a new frame. After much deliberation ( okay, hardly any deliberation - hes not renound for his patience ) we decided on a Custom steel XC was the way to go. Light, zingy, and just all round nice blend of Columbus tubes. Here's the preliminary rendering of his frame - the same style of drawing I send out to all my customers. I like doing this because it's what makes 'custom' a custom afterall. I think I might be the only guy doing this at present, and its cool because you can see exactly what you're getting. All accurate, to scale and dead sexxaaayyyyy. =]

 

[SuspectDevice]

Originally posted by Thylacine
Hi there fellow XC monkeys. Heres a little story for yall to enjoy....

I think I might be the only guy doing this at present, and its cool because you can see exactly what you're getting. All accurate, to scale and dead sexxaaayyyyy. =]

Every custom frame builder i've ever used (Spooky, FTW, Smorgasbord, IF, Serotta) has sent me a dimensioned drawing... do you mean a color drawing?

What tubes are you using for the seat stays? Wouldn't speccing a heavier gauge disk side stay eliminate that gusset? Columbus, Reynold, TT et al should start designing disc brake specific stays. it would make many people's lives easier...

edit: breeze-in dropouts rule!

 

[MikeD]

Hanging out in the XC forum? Oh, Thy, what are we gonna do with you?? And where ya been, anyhow...? Turn AIM on once in a while!

Looks nice; I bet kami's stoked!

 

[Echo]

Dumb Question of the Day:

Do people usually get both a disc adapter and brake bosses on a custom frame?

Just seems to me if I were gonna do that, I would choose

 

[SuspectDevice]

Originally posted by Echo
Dumb Question of the Day:

Do people usually get both a disc adapter and brake bosses on a custom frame?

Just seems to me if I were gonna do that, I would choose

On the other hand if you were shelling out$ to get THE bike of your dreams, wouldn't it be nice to have the option? Although I almost never say "darn I wsh I had V-brakes on this bike" when i'm riding a bike that has discs.

 

[Thylacine]

Disc and V's? Thats the beauty of custom - a specific bike designed specifically for you. Theres something very cool about hammering down the trail on a totally unique bike, a bike that you had a hand in designing - a design journey that you embarked on with a knowlegeable fellow bike nut.

I got my first custom frame in 91. Throughout the 90's, I had many off the shelf bikes, but none had that certain something that that custom frame had. That frame was mine, none of the other frames really felt like mine. I appreciated individual aspects of those frames, but never found a connection with them. Sure, custom isnt for everyone. If you're not experienced, don't know what you want or are happy adjusting yourself to a stock bike, then you're probably not going to benefit from a custom as much as you could.

Heres a sample of a sign off drawing - you can see that its drier and more detailled than the colour renderings. Sure, every custom builder will send you one of those, but it really doesnt show you what you're getting. Thats an advantage that I have over other builders, coming from a design background. Want to know what your frame will look like in Crimson? No worries! -->>

 

[Thylacine]

AND.....after 6 weeks of incessant nagging from Kami ( I swear I should've charged him double :devil: ) I was finally able to send him some teaser pix of his new frame! We went with a darker blue because it will match his black and red components better --->>

 

[FlipSide]

Sexy frame!

 

[Thylacine]

Heres another pic -->>

 

[Thylacine]

And another -->>

 

[Thylacine]

And the headbadge is like icing on the cake! *thumbs up*

 

[Echo]

I gotta say man, your frames are works of art

 

[Thylacine]

Thanks guys! Yeah, both blues are nice. Currently I'm switching most of my finishing from wet paint to powder, because I reckon its better for mountainbikes because its much more durable. For funky paint jobs you cant beat wet paint, but powdercoating isnt far behind. You can get some great metallics and pearls in powder now and if you use a good powdercoater, you can't go wrong.

 

[CTR]

Thylacine, wouldn't left the pouch be a better discription (since thylacines were more like funky meat eating kangaroos with pouchs than a den type animal such as dogs/wolfs)

i'm just messing around BTW, thats a sweet looking frame.

 

[Thylacine]

'Den' sounds more mysterious