frankenbike said:
At the risk of sounding like Tom Teesdale's marketing guy, I just wanted to mention that a custom frame is not as $$$ as some may think. Tom Teesdale (TET Cycles) can build up a custom 29er frame for $600. Nothing fany tubing wise, just Columbus Thron level tubing. BUT you get the geometry and fit made just for you.
In my recent search for a 29er frame I poundered the KM, Inbred, Unit 2-9. I was referred over to TET and was surprised how relatively affordable his custom frames were. In the end I went with the Inbred, but just wanted to let it be known that custom doesn't have to cost $1000 plus like Walt Works, Wiley or Retrotec etc...
I have looked at Tom Tesdale's web site and his "resume" looks good. The lowest price I see in his price list is 699 for the frame and 125 for the fork... plus probably another 50 to ship....Bottom line.... 875.... I can get a KM locally from my dealer for 400 which is less than 1/2 the price.
I like supporting small builders and "local" products of all kinds as much as I can, because they are often better and I like supporting artisans and people that are passionate about their work. Partly because I live like a pauper, I have money that I am willing to pay for custom bikes, if I feel like it. As an aside, I must say that I own an absurd number of bicycles...... (I'm not tellin' how many).
I have only had one custom bike made for me by a reputable builder who I will not name. It was a filet brazed frame, nice radii on the joints and a sweet killer paint job. It looked beautiful. When I built it up, I started to notice some "issues".... like my eye could see that the rear triangle was about 1/2" out of alignment! The rear canti bosses were not placed evenly and also they were not placed for optimum braking as I later found out from the Shimano spec sheet for my XTR canti's. The cable on the rear derailleur was rubbing on the rear tire because the housing stop on the chainstay was not located correctly.... I had to put it in goretex housing and zip tie it over. The seatpost (and I tried several) creaked like crazy because he did not ream the seat tube correctly...
The builder had left for a long trip and I wanted to get the bike on the road for the summer, so I took the frame to a guy who had a prototype $10,000 Henry James alignment table / machine ..... (He also had a frame built by the same builder and had experienced alignment issues too, by the way.) Man, it was insane how much he had to bend that thing over.... I thought it would break for sure.... It rode better, but had a lot of stresses built into it ..... that is another topic.....
So, we checked all of my many steel frames... just in the interest of "science"..... All 4 of my Bridgestones were right on, even after I had put a lot of miles on them...The guy kept careful records of all of the bikes he had checked and he said that all of the B-stones passed with flying colors.....and all 3 of my Specialized bikes were excellent too.
So, let me say this: I don't want to cast any aspursions or doubts about the abilities of Tom T., Walt, Soulcraft, Rock Lobster or any other custom builder. I admire many of them and their work immensely! But I just want to say that a custom frame is not a guarantee that the bike will be better than a production model. Production bikes have often had many of the bugs worked out in prototypes that may not get worked out or thought about by some custom builders..... This can be especially true of a new genre, like 29ers, where things like clearances can be tricky to get right..... Even production bikes can have bugs.... For example the KM has an issue with front derailleur to tire clearances in some cases. Surly has come up with a seemingly viable fix for that problem, much to their credit.
I once talked to Keith Bontrager about his pre-Trek (Santa Cruz) frames and his post-Trek frames. He said that he thought that his post Trek bikes (not the Privateer models) were actually better because they had the horsepower ($) to make the rear seatstays in a custom drawn configuration. He admitted that his old two piece stays that everyone thought were so clever were a "best solution" with the materials and methods he had at hand and that he had always wanted to do what the $ of Trek later allowed him to do. My point is that things like the bent tubes that Surly uses, for example, are possible for a large production builder and may not be possible for a small builder. (I am not sure if they are an advantage, by the way, but maybe they are).....
I may want to get a custom 29er built some day... right now I don't want to wait so long though and want to get on something now... There are 2 things I would look for in a builder though... 1. Plenty of demonstrated experience building and assembling 29ers specifically (Go Walt!) 2. An indication that alignment was very important to the builder during the building process and that some method was used to assure that. To me this is much more important than overly fancy paint jobs or pretty joints....
Another thing about some custom bikes to think about is that they often may not hold their value for resale nearly as well as a production bike.... Some do ... Eisentraut, Richard Sachs, Rivendell, etc. but some don't.....
So, my point is.... bottom line.... don't assume that custom steel is *always* better than production steel!
