Reader’s Ride: Andrew The Spanner’s Whoops Apocalypse

Have a gander at this hub-geared ti bride designed for riding into the hills when WW3 hits.

Your name

Andrew Maddison

Bike

Spanner Bike – Whoops Apocalypse; custom titanium adventure machine.

Fork

Spanner Bike titanium ‘Quadpus’. Titanium is a flexi material and doesn’t lend itself to twin bladed forks very well. Full truss forks are rather tricky to setup – so I’ve gone with the middleman four bladed design. It gives plenty of scope for mounting points and the tube choice keeps some spring in the ride.

Shock

‘ed by the power of love?

Suspension setup

I did think about a suspension fork upfront, but they’re not great for attaching luggage to and introduce more maintenance. Full fat tyres might be a bit overkill, so I went with a 29’er 3″ plus tyre up front. It rolls pretty well and gives a great cushioning over roots and rocks.

Wheels

Rohloff 14 speed rear hub with 29’er Nextie gravel rim, Sapim Race spokes, alloy nipples. Front is a Spanner Bike brand hub with Nextie carbon 29’er 50mm plus rim and Sapim D-Light spokes with alloy nipples.

Tyres

WTB Ranger, 29×3″ front and 29×2.25″ rear. I wanted a single tyre that was available in both sizes(!). The Ranger is pretty light and has a fast rolling tread.

Brakes

Hope Race with 2 pot callipers. 180mm front and 160mm rear disks. Not sure of the vintage, but they’ve done fine work on a number of bikes. You’ve got to love the Hope service back up too, exceptional!

Drivetrain

Rohloff gears, Gates belt drive, Middleburn cranks, Shimano XT SPD pedals. Lovely Rideworks T47 bottom bracket. Rideworks – like Hope but more boutique!

Cockpit

Surly Moloko bars – the best alt-bar design I’ve found. Others I’ve tried have too much back sweep, I think the handling goes a bit weird if your hands are placed behind the headtube! The Moloko’ give a great combo of standard and ‘aero’ positions, I’ve cut 1″ from each end as they did keep catching on trees! Renthal 50mm stem, ESI XL Chunky foam grips.

Seatpost

One Up dropper; 120mm. Just enough drop to get things out of the way, and it makes for a lighter post too.

Saddle

Specialized Phenom Comp Mimic. Seem to get on well with these, and I’ve had good warranty service for the ones that have started coming apart.

Accessories

A Rideworks 44mm headset was chosen to match the bottom bracket. Tumbleweed T rack and Passport Lug-Kage’s add carrying capacity for Ortleib dry bags. Worth a mention is the custom Lesenok bar bag (from their Etsy shop). Great value and you’re supporting a Ukrainian business as well!

I’m Andrew, I design custom titanium frames under the Spanner Bike brand, which are manufactured in China. Now with added wheelbuilding thanks to an encounter with the wheel building guru, Ryan Builds Wheels.

Size and weight

My size! Sort of a Medium/Large. Weight probably around 29lbs/13Kg. Sturdy, but no whippet.

Why this bike?

Designed for riding into the hills when WW3 hits (which could be sooner than we think), hence the name! With an eye on its true purpose, the focus was on a low maintenance setup, hence the Rohloff hub and belt drive. I also wanted more comfort than a drop bar provided, so alt-bars and front plus tyre were in the mix too.

Gravel bikes are, well, really rather uncomfortable when you ride them off road. And even more daft when you start messing around with flex-stems and the like to compensate for that.

I wanted a take on the gravel/adventure bike that could be ridden comfortably off road, still give a variety of hand positions and would last for many miles with the minimal amount of maintenance.

This meant looking at a gearbox – I went with a Rohloff hub as they’ve been going the longest, have the best reputation for reliability and don’t require too many unique frame fittings to accommodate them.

Along with the belt drive, I think this setup is a no brainer for touring/adventure/commuting, it’s a bit heavy for anything performance based. Haters might start dissing the efficiency of the setup, but at most we’re only talking a handful of watts; a small price to pay for the ease of looking after it.

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