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Custom hardtail builders

Electric_City

Torture wrench
Apr 14, 2007
1,993
716
The Creative Director at Ritte was a shop grom of mine when he was in middleschool(he was a masterful 13y/o Ridemonkey dh forum troll) and an enthusiastic consumer of my hand-me-down Sinisters. After starting a custom apparel business in college and selling it off, he moved from MA to Los Angeles and started working for Rapha, and then he got hired to incubate a new version of the Ritte brand after the founder left.
When yer homies have the opportunity to sell uber deluxe custom bikes, you gotta help them out. I kinda supervise the geo on the custom ti bikes(especially the mtb's) and noted(recently retired) custom frame builder Tom Kellogg of Spectrum supervises the geo and tube selection for the production drop bar bikes. Fun little hobby for me. When I visit LA it definitely feels like work though.
Spectrum- He made plenty of bikes for the LVVD racers. Perfect spot to be located. My buddy has one of his bikes from the 90's. I wonder if it's worth anything.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,241
20,021
Sleazattle
It's funny this comes up.

I love my new Pipedream Sirius, I do...but I'm really not enjoying the effort needed to loft the front end on my size 'longer.'

I'm starting to wonder if a custom mullet frame (with a rigid fork and 29" wheel, or a longer-travel fork and a 27.5 up front for same effective stack) might hit the geometry cues I want to make something a little more precise and poppier and maybe sharper-tracking uphill than the Sirius is. Or if there's a production frame meeting those characteristics, I'd be super psyched. Thinking like 490 reach, 66.5-67ish HA with the 29er, steepish seat tube, sliding drops...

But I'm gonna ride it for a good long while before trying something like that.

I am thinking that it is the steepish seat angle and reach that is your problem here. It puts your weight farther forward of the rear wheel making the front harder to get up (or maybe it is age related). A slacker seat angle would lighten the front and shorten the wheelbase for quicker handling. Although I am going to guess you just need more time to adapt to the newer geometry. It took me many months before it all clicked.