[-dustin]

Ordered up one of Suspect Device's road frames...showed up today, as well as the fork from Edge. clocked out (day off, anyway) and built it up...the results:

as it sits, without bottle, 16.5lbs. same as my Super Six. Obviously, different frame, fork (Edge 2.0), headset (Stolen internal), crank (Red compact), and bb (GXP, non ceramic). Unsure of sizing, I ordered a 100mm stem...need to get a 110.

2 things I really dig...the headtube "badge", and the housing stops. I pretty much hate the standard Shimano things. in-line adjuster is a carry-over from my Super Six.

brace between the chainstays. not sure of the function...perhaps SD can explain.

smooth, tight lines. seatstays and chainstays are pretty basic. nothing too crazy as far as contorting the metal is concerned.

Some parting bits..."wet black" Ritchey stem, Stolen (brand) headset with red cover, Edge steerer plug.

Build was pretty simple...no surprises. Frame was prep'ed rather well. Better than a lot of $$$$-ier frames. my only complaint is with the fork, really. the dropout slots (where the axle ends are) are rather tight...had to "lightly" tap on the wheel to get it out. I'll probably take a file to that later one.

Doing event support tomorrow all day, so Sunday will likely be the first ride. I look forward to it. Everyone that I told at the shop was surprised that it came in at the same weight as my Super Six.

 

[loco-gringo]

Looks nice.

 

[James]

Holy seatpost height Batman!

But yeah, that bike is pretty damned hot, nicely done! Steerer tube will be cut a bit more when you get your height set, yeah?
My next bike is gonna have Red on it for sure.

 

[ire]

Nice bike! I like the headtube badge and color, not so fond of the down tube sticker.

 

[-dustin]

yeah, steerer will be trimmed when i get on the correct stem.

i must have long legs or something. even on my Super Six i had a lot of post showing. i would like to go up a size, but fear TTs might get too short. i was running a 90mm stem on my Super Six, but had like 7" of post showing. this is Spooky's

ps - i love the color.

pps - SD, or someone, threw in some Sock Guy wool socks. That made my day. if you've never worn Sock Guy's wool socks, you are missing out. They are badass.

 

[James]

yeah, steerer will be trimmed when i get on the correct stem.

i must have long legs or something. even on my Super Six i had a lot of post showing. i would like to go up a size, but fear TTs might get too short. i was running a 90mm stem on my Super Six, but had like 7" of post showing. this is Spooky's

ps - i love the color.

pps - SD, or someone, threw in some Sock Guy wool socks. That made my day. if you've never worn Sock Guy's wool socks, you are missing out. They are badass.

The color is super rad, for sure. I'd love to get a *nice* alloy frame at some point soon. The scandium bike is ok, but it's not quite sized right, I probably should have gone up a size. Unfortunately, I'm kind of stuck when it come to brands at the moment. I'll keep that Spooky in mind for the future though, for sure.
Looks like a fair amount of shaping on the TT, or are my eyes deceiving me?

And yes, Sock Guy socks are the best EVAR. Wearing a set (non-wool though) right now.

 

[SuspectDevice]

Oh hey, look at that!

The edge forks have been coming through a little heavy on the clear-coat recently... Sorry about that! A few insertion/removal cycles will remove enough to the material, just be sure to "tap" the front wheel against the ground when you are replacing the front wheel.

Sweet slippery jesus that Seat does look high! I think most people with your seat height (79cm?) would be running a 13-14cm stem, not a little stubby do-hickey.

Yes, we have a pretty fancy forming process on the top-tube. It is diamond shaped at the HT (for an effective increase in cross sectional area) and is flattened out through the transition zone of the butt and into the meat of the thin section, we then ovalize it to meet up with the seatube. We carry it across all the frames we build in Oregon, and it does a really good job of tuning stiffness and dispersing stress. I like to keep stays as un-manipulated as possible, as over-manipulation just adds weight, and reduces the vibration damping... Just like the Physicians credo "first do no harm". We do some bi-axial ovalization on the downtube, but mostly just for optimal weld contact.

The Chainstay bridge is laser cut from an extrusion that was originally designed for a sky-scraper window frame. It marginally if not imperceptibly adds to the stiffness of the frame, and adds about 15grams. I was somewhat worried that if we didn't bridge there the painted frames would get little tiny paint cracks, so we threw in the 3d bridge. Lots of crusty crit rats demand such things, but by and large I usually don't do chainstay bridges.

Stickers- Oh no! At any given time we usually have 5-6 different graphics sets kicking around. When dustin said his bike was going to have White and red highlights, I designed and printed those up for him....

Dustin, I hope you update this in a week or so with your ride impressions. So far our customers have happily retired, most notably;
Custom Ti IF
BH G4
Time VXS
Willier Cento
Serotta Mevici
Sworks Roubaix
Pegoretti Love #3

Elegant Simplicity, and a pure-bred approach to killing. It's like the hipster down my local coffee shop with the all white Fixie covered in Kalshnikov rifle stickers....

 

[moff_quigley]

Sleek and sexy. About how much for a F&F?

 

[MMcG]

Holy saddle to bar drop batman! But cool to see a spooky in the hands of someone on the Monkey other than Mickey himself!

Enjoy and ride the crap out of that thing!

 

[SuspectDevice]

Sleek and sexy. About how much for a F&F?

An Ano frame and and the Edge fork and Cane Creek 110 headset would be roughly $1200. Powdercoat is an additional $120+

 

[moff_quigley]

An Ano frame and and the Edge fork and Cane Creek 110 headset would be roughly $1200. Powdercoat is an additional $120+

Really? Sweet. I'll most definitely keep you in mind when the time comes.

 

[-dustin]

I think most people with your seat height (79cm?) would be running a 13-14cm stem, not a little stubby do-hickey.

Pretty damn good guess, as I'm just shy of 79cm.

swapped out the wheels for my tubeless ones, put on a new bar/ tape, and put a 110 Thomson X4 on (robbed it from my Pivot).

The bar has a 10mm shorter reach...might've been a bad idea on this frame, whereas it's the perfect bar for my Super Six (as far as fit is concerned).

Anywho, hard to give an appropriate review as I've recently started running before my usual ride. Legs have been feeling a little weak.

 

[loco-gringo]

I really need to just put Nokon on my bike. Tell me more about how you taped those bars. I hate that tape though. My delicate hands only like Eleganza these days.

 

[MMcG]

I keep coming back to this thread and looking at the photos of that bike and I can't help to wonder......are you sure you ordered the right size frame? It just doesn't look "right" to my eyes.

I mean -that is a ton of seatpost expsosed for a road bike, and the saddle to bar drop looks to pretty sizeable as well. But maybe your plans are to use this as more of a race bike or something.

Now that you've had it a while - do you sometimes wish you got the next larger size?

 

[SuspectDevice]

If dustin's stem was any shorter i think he'd need a wheelie bar!

Mark,
Keep in mind that these bikes are designed around more drop than an older bike, we made the seattubes steeper, and headtubes shorter...

 

[-dustin]

First real ride planned for Wednesday. Love the shape of the hoods. Fantastic. Shifting is Campy shifting, just 11 gears instead of 10. Made the swap to a 110 WCS stem. Seatpost dropped about 4mm, and lost the Nokons.

Notes regarding the build:
11sp chain will work with 10sp rings.
11sp drivetrain will work with 10sp Shimano cassette with slight tweaking.
Skeleton brakes out of the package have more stopping power than DA7900 out of the package.

 

[SuspectDevice]

Looks lickable. What flavor is it?