Some of you will have previously spotted this bike on the Forum, or possibly on Shand’s Instagram. But it’s such a beautiful bike with such a bittersweet tale behind it that we thought we’d give it the full Readers’ Rides treatment here. Over to TJ…
The circumstances surrounding this bike purchase are shall we say – difficult. My partner of 42 years died in June 2021. We had just retired and amongst our plans for retirement was to undertake a long European tour on our tandem. After her death I needed something to look forward to and something to replace the plans we had.
I had always liked Shand bikes, considering them both classic and beautiful. I first saw a Shand on a group ride organised by Ton of STW and through the Singletrack forum. I cannot remember the name of the chap whose bike it was I saw. I had some discussions on STW about alternatives but could find nothing I preferred to the Shand. Because I have particular needs and wants, no “off the peg” bike would do. It would either have to be a full custom build or buy a frame and build it with my choice of components.
I had a chat with the guys at Shand and they could do what I wanted. No one on STW could come up with anything I preferred so Shand it was. It had to be their “Bahookie” as I wanted front suspension.
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I am a dark green politically and consider such things as local and sustainable production to be important. I also loathe a “throwaway” culture so wanted parts that were long lasting and fully rebuildable. This political philosophy informed my choices of frame and parts.
To start on parts choices. I am not a parts geek nor a bling fiend so my knowledge is rather limited. I just like riding bikes. I took (with a large pinch of salt) advice from STW forum
I was looking to buy Scottish first, UK parts second and EU third. Only if it was difficult or prohibitively expensive to get what I want would I go further afield.
Shand of course are a Scottish company and indeed are based just 25 miles from me.
A steel frame is a must so it’s repairable if I find myself in Peru or Outer Mongolia and I break the frame. Steel can be welded anywhere.
The Rohloff is a no brainer to me. We had one on the tandem and loved it and I just love the reliability and longevity of them. Shand also has a very neat solution to the anti-rotation device a Rohloff needs, which made it even more of a good choice as Shand and Rohloff work really well together. Shand seems to use a fair few Rohloffs so I was confident with this choice. Shand normally uses a belt drive with its Rohloff builds, but again for easy repairability anywhere in the world and also for ease of changing gearing, I went for a chain drive. 135 dropout spacing with a mech hanger again means that if I by some misfortune break the Rohloff a conventional rear wheel and derailleur will fit and be easy to source anywhere in the world – so that’s why I have a redundant mech hanger on the bike. A Rohloff Bahookie would normally come without a mech hanger.
Hope brakes I use on other bikes and like – again localish production and fully rebuildable, so that along with a Hope front hub are easy choices. Goodrich hoses just because!
Shand usually uses Ritchie finishing kit and I was happy to go along with that for parts I had no huge preference for, such as seatpost and handlebar stem. I originally wanted to fit the stem from the tandem but it was the wrong size for the Kyoto bars. This was a last minute discovery it would not fit but Shand had a Ritchie stem in stock and as I could not bear to wait any longer I went with that, although it is perhaps a bit long.
When I went to Shand to discuss this I rode a bike there that had the Ritchie Kyoto bars. I have always been a fan of bars with a lot of backsweep – IMO they are better biomechanically for comfort and certainly are easier on my arthritic hands.
The bike came with a basic Ritchie seat but I immediately swapped that for a Bontrager SSR saddle I already had and found very comfy.
Finally mudguards. I insist on decent mudguards on all my bikes – I am a year round rider in Scotland – those who ride without guard are daft IMO! However on such a bling bike I wanted something blingy in terms of guards and found a Rockguardz carbon fibre front guard (CG570) that looked like it would fit the bill and indeed does. At the rear despite much searching I could find nothing better than the classic Mudhugger. Ok it’s only cheap plastic but they just work and work well. I have used them on other bikes.
Halo rims were a recommendation from Shand as were the WTB Nano tyres after discussions over what I was going to use the bike for. Tubeless of course.
Middleburn cranks and Surly chainring again localish production and suited what I wanted. Pedals at the moment are basic Boardman flats – decent pedals, especially once I had stripped them, delogo-ed them and got them spinning more freely.
The Fork is a basic RockShox Recon. I looked at other options that are perhaps better but decided on the Recon for two reasons: spares available for them, and I am not going to push the bike hard enough to gain any benefit from anything more sophisticated.
Now the difficult choices – paint and “look”. I loathe the over logo-ed garish coloured parts and black parts of many modern bikes. I wanted something classic looking and understated. The aim is a “gentleman’s adventure bike” (or old man;s 🙂 ). Discussion with Shand led to a decision to go for a darkish frame with all silver kit. Going all silver forced some of the choices such as the Middleburn cranks. Paint colour was difficult indeed. Too much choice makes choosing hard. I was tempted to go for candy or flip flop or some other fancy paint job, but in the end decided on a single colour burgundy. Only problem – there were 40ish dark red shades to choose from! Eventually with the help of the chap who painted it and some pals I made my choice. Subtle metal flake in the paint.
The final thing was I wanted a subtle dedication to my deceased partner, Julie. She was a woman of no nonsense and no fuss so nothing garish or mawkish or in your face. I decided I wanted something that at first glance looked like a wee sticker on the seat tube and after a lot of discussions and variations and driving the painter mad, decided upon a scroll and shield with the wording “Julie – her spirit rides on” using the fonts that Shand uses for the bikes.
I am delighted with how it’s turned out. It fits like a glove, it rides really nicely, it’s ever so comfy and the look is better than expected. The paintwork is utterly beautiful. The dedication came out really nicely as well.
Thanks to TJ for writing up the story of this bike, Paul Newman for taking pics of TJ on it, and to Shand for sharing the extra images. We wish him many adventures in far flung corners of the world, and plenty of fun closer to home too.
While you’re here, we’d like to draw your attention to our World Bicycle Relief fundraiser. If you’ve experienced the joy of a new bike day, you’ll know how great it is. Now imagine you get given a bike, and it changes your life, giving you and your family access to education, employment or healthcare. Through World Bicycle Relief, you’ve got the power to make that happen, and if you can spare a little, we invite you to make your donation here.
If you think your bike has a good story behind it, is a bit unusual, or is just plain gorgeous, send us your submission.
