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Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
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503
I wanted to share this video and give a little production update here.

All CNC parts are completed, awaiting tubes to weld to. The hard part is done, welding 'em up is easy (for them). I still don't have a solid delivery date, but in the meantime, I made this video with a cool effect that shows the all of the parts that make up the frame morph from solid model to CNC part. It shows some internal views that you'll never see and gives some insight into the design process and the extent of detail needed to design and manufacture a high end full suspension mountain bike. I hope you enjoy it.

Warning, depicts aluminum frames that may be shocking to children

cheers,

Brian
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
jonKranked said:
You're late.
Click to expand...
I am late. My original projection for kickstarter delivery was april/may for frames and may/june for complete bikes.

Extremely frustrating. You think you leave double the time you need and it takes even more. You're working with a huge supply chain with so many companies and moving parts involved. It's a weird situation where being a control freak is good and necessary to try to keep things from falling into ever widening cracks, but on the other hand, I've had to learn to just drop that tendency, because there's only so much I can do. I've had to learn to just sit back and breath when I finally find out that the tubing order went in 3 weeks late, which would have been ok if the tubes were in stock..........I want to fire people. But I just have to breath, update my customers and at least know the rest of the parts are ready.

And I know the factory is highly motivated. They have a lot of time and money invested and they want to get paid.

In the meantime, I'm introducing a rebate program to kickstarter customers. A bit of a "late fee" off the price of their bike to make up for the lateness.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
88,641
26,885
media blackout
Tantrum Cycles said:
I am late. My original projection for kickstarter delivery was april/may for frames and may/june for complete bikes.

Extremely frustrating. You think you leave double the time you need and it takes even more. You're working with a huge supply chain with so many companies and moving parts involved. It's a weird situation where being a control freak is good and necessary to try to keep things from falling into ever widening cracks, but on the other hand, I've had to learn to just drop that tendency, because there's only so much I can do. I've had to learn to just sit back and breath when I finally find out that the tubing order went in 3 weeks late, which would have been ok if the tubes were in stock..........I want to fire people. But I just have to breath, update my customers and at least know the rest of the parts are ready.

And I know the factory is highly motivated. They have a lot of time and money invested and they want to get paid.

In the meantime, I'm introducing a rebate program to kickstarter customers. A bit of a "late fee" off the price of their bike to make up for the lateness.
Click to expand...
no, late last week someone said your name 3 times like beetlejuice and you're just now showing up.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
4130biker said:
Pretty awesome to see- thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...
you're welcome. You might like this one as well. these aren't my frames but this shows the guy at my factory that aligns the frames between heat treat stages. This guy is an old world craftsman. At one point, he just wacks the frame with his hand to get that extra smidge.

 
Last edited:
Nick

Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
24,863
16,402
where the trails are
Tantrum Cycles said:
I am late. My original projection for kickstarter delivery was april/may for frames and may/june for complete bikes.

Extremely frustrating. You think you leave double the time you need and it takes even more. You're working with a huge supply chain with so many companies and moving parts involved. It's a weird situation where being a control freak is good and necessary to try to keep things from falling into ever widening cracks, but on the other hand, I've had to learn to just drop that tendency, because there's only so much I can do. I've had to learn to just sit back and breath when I finally find out that the tubing order went in 3 weeks late, which would have been ok if the tubes were in stock..........I want to fire people. But I just have to breath, update my customers and at least know the rest of the parts are ready.

And I know the factory is highly motivated. They have a lot of time and money invested and they want to get paid.

In the meantime, I'm introducing a rebate program to kickstarter customers. A bit of a "late fee" off the price of their bike to make up for the lateness.
Click to expand...
This is 100% on you. Not your suppliers. That's the funny thing about running a business, let alone manufacturing something. With your background you should know better. You're going to miss your delivery dates by MONTHS, and that's if final assembly, QC and shipping go without problems. You've been planning this run for what, years? Yea, you should 'sit back and breathe'.

:thumbsdown:
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
88,641
26,885
media blackout
Nick said:
This is 100% on you. Not your suppliers. That's the funny thing about running a business, let alone manufacturing something. With your background you should know better. You're going to miss your delivery dates by MONTHS, and that's if final assembly, QC and shipping go without problems. You've been planning this run for what, years? Yea, you should 'sit back and breathe'.

:thumbsdown:
Click to expand...
it can be hard to hold manufacturers in your supply chain accountable and enforce deadlines when you're a very small company and doing small volume with them. you're small change to them with minimal, if any, impact to their bottom line. they're more important to you than you are to them.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
Nick said:
This is 100% on you. Not your suppliers. That's the funny thing about running a business, let alone manufacturing something. With your background you should know better. You're going to miss your delivery dates by MONTHS, and that's if final assembly, QC and shipping go without problems. You've been planning this run for what, years? Yea, you should 'sit back and breathe'.

:thumbsdown:
Click to expand...
It's absolutely 100% on me. The advance forecasting is the hardest part. My old rule was "take everyone's time estimate (including mine) and double it. This went for designing, machining, fabricating, parts delivery. It didn't matter, if you believed the original estimate, you were a fool.

So I doubled it when estimating the kickstarter delivery, knowing that I wouldn't have the money until Jan, when ks ended. You say I've been planning this for years? Sort of. In December 2014, I had a licensing deal in place with a brand that had given me a "down payment". Within a month or 3, some kind of economic problem hit the country where this company was located and they could not continue. Somewhere along the line, I decided it would be fun to start my own bike company. I introduced and displayed the current tantrum models at Eurobike/Interbike 2015.

When the Pinkbike test hit last June, I was pretty well into the planning stages and announced it as such. Over optimistic? Sure. I'm sure you might recall me claiming customers were gonna be on bikes last fall and winter. I planned to launch the kickstarter before Euro and interbike to capitalize on it. Bingo. Easy. Just do it.

The biggest problem is me. I need to quadruple my own time estimates for getting things done. I didn't get Kickstarter up till Nov. In the meantime, I needed to redesign the frame to update the reach and CS length.

I should know better, but I keep wanting life to be like racing (which is my real background). The race is happening. You show up. You're ready. Everybody on your team did their job and is ready. They are not postponing the race because somebody forgot to order tubes. I liked working with racers, because everyone is willing to go to the limit to win.

it's hard to find that in normal life. So many people are just making it through their day to go home. So instead of forcing it, I just have to sit back and breathe. I can't carry the extrusion to the tube factory and blow the tubes up myself. I can't yell at them and tell them the race is happening or fire them. I had offered cash incentive to the tubing factory to expedite and they said there was nothing they could do.

That's when I decided to give that early delivery cash back to my kickstarter customers. And if the delays continue, they'll get more cash back.

But QC has been done on all the parts and the CS and SS tubes are done, so they will be finished soon. I'll be going to Taiwan when the first frames are being welded to assemble, check and do destructive testing. I am on my 4th version of this bike in metal, so the chances of issues are significantly reduced. Yes, they could melt in heat treat....

Final assembly will be done in the US, by me. The first run is 150 frames, 60 of which are in the first "batch". Roughly 40 of those go to ks customers and another 10 to other buyers. The remaining 10 are mine for show/demo, etc. then, the second batch of 90 frames will follow. I'm estimating Sept/Oct. I should probably change that to Nov/Dec.....but not yet.....we'll see. About 30 of those are spoken for.

It's fun. I'm learning. Taking a few hits here and there. But, I have to say overall, I'm really happy about starting the bike company. I'm having a blast immersed in my passion and I get paid to ride my bike.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
jonKranked said:
it can be hard to hold manufacturers in your supply chain accountable and enforce deadlines when you're a very small company and doing small volume with them. you're small change to them with minimal, if any, impact to their bottom line. they're more important to you than you are to them.
Click to expand...
Definitely some of that. Not so much in the case of the frames being late. Just normal stuff. Like we couldn't get a wire transfer to go through for one week. We lose a week. Then, I changed the initial batch delivery from 50 -60 frames, the next day after signing the PO for 50, thinking, no delay. Wrong. They had to recalculate the price...3 days. Then, they asked what sizes for the extra 10. Couldn't start without that. I was traveling back to the U.S. 12 hr time difference, jet lag, another 3 days delay. One extra week just from that. Oops, the production engineer checking the design for some reason thought it was a 26" wheeled bike and thought the geo was all wrong and writes a panicked, broken english email. 3 more days to straighten that out. And someone wasn't worrying about ordering tubes in advance because surely they are in stock, why check?

Normal stuff like that. It's why bigger brands have people living in Asia to keep all the balls in the air. It's a crash course, for sure.....

The small company aspect hurts me more when dealing with component suppliers. Especially, say if I wanted my own shock valving. One company told me I couldn't get one of there stock valving packages in a certain model of their shock because no other brand specs that particular shock that way. Later I read a big brand had the very same company spec the shock that way. They are ordering thousands. I'm ordering 200. In some cases 10's. I'm just not worth the headache at these numbers. And I'm never gonna be first in line for delivery. luckily, I only have about 10 complete builds in this batch, so I "believe" all those parts will be here on time....
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
jonKranked said:
this, and the fact that you likely don't have the financial resources to buy your way to the front of the line.
Click to expand...
No, I don't, but I still tried with the frame. I actually offered them $100 per frame if delivery was ON TIME. That would have been the end of May. This is a pretty big bonus. Then it went down $25/week till the end of June. I actually offered them a bonus if the're only a little late. It usually works with machine shops I've used in the U.S., but that's when I found out about the tubing delay.

It's not like anyone intentionally delayed it or was even incompetent. The factory I'm using is quite small (or they wouldn't bother with me). I've been there and met the people.They're very busy and I'm sure they thought the tubes were in stock, which was probably the biggest ball drop by everyone involved, including me. And since the DT is an mold opened for my frames and the TT uses a special process to form the Y without using a 2 piece tube, they are not the quickest tubes to make, especially the TT, although I could substitute that if it came down to it.

The good news is that this came up now, so they're already making the next batch of tubes for the next 90 frames.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
I did not consider setting up a facility myself. I do have a small machine shop, but i'm not a fabricator/welder and so I would have to set up an entire facility. I had checked with most, if not all of the fading landscape of contract aluminum frame mfg in the states. I just missed pitching intense before Jeff sold off his last in house stuff. Zen folded. Foes and Lenz are too busy making theirs.

There was one remaining shop in the states and their quote was over twice the price. The only reason Foes, Lenz, GG, etc can do it is because they are doing it in house. Brent and Devin weld every frame that comes out of those places. I would love to do it, mostly for the logistics, travel and convenience. It used to be "patriotism" maybe as well, but I'm over that.

Taichung city is an engineer's paradise of manufacturing. It's like a playground because you can get anything made at pretty much world class techniques. We have turned into a country where manufacturing is ugly and hard, unless it's software maybe. Taiwan has worked to become a world class manufacture of almost anything. They treat and pay their people well and the bike industry is a respected industry to be in.

It's tough because of language, cultural, time difference, travel, etc. If I could go down the street or fly to Ca or Co to the factory, that would be freakin amazing.
 
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Nick

Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
24,863
16,402
where the trails are
Tantrum Cycles said:
I did not consider setting up a facility myself. I do have a small machine shop, but i'm not a fabricator/welder and so I would have to set up an entire facility. I had checked with most, if not all of the fading landscape of contract aluminum frame mfg in the states. I just missed pitching intense before Jeff sold off his last in house stuff. Zen folded. Foes and Lenz are too busy making theirs.

There was one remaining shop in the states and their quote was over twice the price. The only reason Foes, Lenz, GG, etc can do it is because they are doing it in house. Brent and Devin weld every frame that comes out of those places. I would love to do it, mostly for the logistics, travel and convenience. It used to be "patriotism" maybe as well, but I'm over that.

Taichung city is an engineer's paradise of manufacturing. It's like a playground because you can get anything made at pretty much world class techniques. We have turned into a country where manufacturing is ugly and hard, unless it's software maybe. Taiwan has worked to become a world class manufacture of almost anything. They treat and pay their people well and the bike industry is a respected industry to be in.

It's tough because of language, cultural, time difference, travel, etc. If I could go down the street or fly to Ca or Co to the factory, that would be freakin amazing.
Click to expand...

You're making my point. If you're hoping to be in this for the long haul, BE the change you want to see.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
Nick said:
You're making my point. If you're hoping to be in this for the long haul, BE the change you want to see.
Click to expand...
hmmm, not sure I'm getting your point. Be the face of revived mfg in the U.S.? That's not my strength and doesn't need to be. If the economics change, or I am presented with an opportunity to use or partner with a U.S. based factory, I would be happy to. But I have no desire to start or own a factory.

My strengths are design and engineering. The change I want to see (be) is to give myself the best opportunity to get my designs produced and available to the public. Licensing and such will come, but I don't have to worry about it or depend on it.

In fact, the real change I NEED to see, to be around for the long haul, is a change in the way customers think about their suspension. As we have seen here, changing accepted norms and paradigms never goes down easy. And I've picked a pretty large and contentious area to redefine. This is my battle and I need to stay focused on it.

People always ask why I don't really shake things up and put a pinion gearbox and leaf spring fork and such on the bike. It's kinda the same answer as to making them here. I need to focus on what i do best and what I know, to get the bikes made in the best possible way.

And then I need to get people on them. Everyone. As I discovered thru my demo rides last winter and spring, the surest way to get people to understand and "get it" is to just have them ride the bike on their favorite gnarly trail, up and down. Everyone can nod their head and understand the basic principle, but when they ride it, that's when it all comes together.

I need bikes to do that, in the quickest, most efficient way I can conjure. I do intend to be around for the long haul. What is the future of Tantrum? Who knows. It may go big, maybe it only sells 200 frames a year. maybe I license, maybe not. Maybe I sell out to some biggie, maybe not. That is not the main thing I'm worried about. I have proven to myself that this is a viable start-up. I can sell enough bikes on my own to stay in biz and make a reasonable profit.

And pay myself to ride my bikes till the day I die. This is important to me. I just turned 60. Fuck. There is not a year out of those 60 that I do not remember riding. trikes, bikes, stingrays, scooters, minibikes, motox,, bmx, full rigid mtb.......I feel great. I'm in great shape. I ride most days of the week and can still ride everything I always rode.

And now, I get to pay myself to ride as long as I want to or can. When I finally get frames, I'll be loading up the motorhome and driving around the country doing demo rides all over the awesome trails that cover this place. That's the change I want to be. Ya, pro mountain biker at 60.
 
Udi

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,918
1,213
In Tantrum's defence, I haven't seen many other companies in the bike industry stick to their claimed timelines or delivery dates either. If there's one thing that is not fair to single him out for, it's definitely this. At least for two more weeks. :)

I hope it all works out in the end.
 
boostindoubles

boostindoubles

Nacho Libre
Mar 16, 2004
8,365
6,883
Yakistan
Fwiw, Oscar's aluminium welding is on point and he specializes in small batch production... I dunno if he'll want to build the missing links for cheap, who's doing all that cnc work?
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
@Udi,

I've been hearing that a LOT. About people waiting 6 months for bikes from most brands. it kinda doesn't make sense. I don't remember that much trouble meeting deadlines the last time I was involved in bike production.

But as of the end of this week, I'm officially late and calling it as such.

All kickstarter buyers will get a $100 credit toward custom color, components or component upgrade. If you already have your build kit, I will just knock $100 off.

I am telepathically trying to manipulate tubes, so hopefully, I'll have some good delivery news on them this week.

thanks
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
boostindoubles said:
Fwiw, Oscar's aluminium welding is on point and he specializes in small batch production... I dunno if he'll want to build the missing links for cheap, who's doing all that cnc work?
Click to expand...
I don't think I know who Oscar is. But I'm always up to talk to who's around and capable. I have other projects and models in development.

All CNC work was done in Taichung.
 
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
Tantrum Cycles

Tantrum Cycles

Turbo Monkey
Jun 29, 2016
1,143
503
last minute update. I just got an email from the tube guy, saying tubes have been shipped. Tragi-comically, by boat instead of air, but they should be there. I hope to confirm tonite and book my trip...
 
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