[Closed] Dave Yates & 29er's

This could be interesting! 😀

i was just doozing............;o)

You guys! I saw 2 responses and got excited...

I wish you'd just get on with it and order something. 😉

You'll have enough time to worry inbetween signing the drawings off and it arriving. 😆

you can go on his course and build your own, so he must have a jig suitable for a 29r.
just never heared or seen a dave yates 29r, which leads me to think it would be a negative.

All custom 29er build routes have lead into cul-de-sacs ton...

I'm not going to those US builders and paying ~1500 dollars, plus 100 postage, then 4%, plus handling, then 17.5% VAT

Total ~1400 pounds for a steel HT!

talk to us, if you're ok to wait a bit?

Si

i bought 2 new 29rs this week........

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

18 - thanks for jumping in. Could I cut to the chase and publicly ask, if you don't mind, what ball park figure for a custom steel 29er MTB frame?

I remember a while ago asking and you saying you might be starting a custom build in this new year. Looks like you're going ahead then, and with 29er builds? Good luck and good to hear of another taking up the lead.

how bout the really nice one?...

ballpark - £1k

first cen pass for 140mm trail tubeset. more to come.

email me if you'd like to chat further?

18bikes - Member
how bout the really nice one?...

si, still trying to convince myself.
it is a hell of a lot of money for me to decide to get rid in a few months.
it will take a bit of shifting, if i did not take to it.

£1000 seems an awful lot for a steel frame, albeit custom, and seems, if I can say, towards the top end of what others are asking.

If I, or anyone else were thinking of a 29er mtb from you, what individual selling points could you put forward over any others?

£1000 seems an awful lot for a steel frame, albeit custom, and seems, if I can say, towards the top end of what others are asking.

I'm not going to those US builders and paying ~1500 dollars, plus 100 postage, then 4%, plus handling, then 17.5% VAT

Total ~1400 pounds for a steel HT!

Pipedream did say to me they were thinking of a steel 29er with sliding drops - but probably not got the short chainstays and slack ha you want?? 😀

What about the new frames On-one are planning - steel and ti, shorter chainstays, slack(er) chainstays.

Yes, let's see what the tube specs are, but it doesn't bother me too much which tubes make the frame. Most are 4130 rears anyway. It's always more about the builder, which is why experience is more important than anything, and when you are talking a big for a 29er fork (120 TA Reba)...

Curtlo's wait list is currently ~4 months, but he is good on pricing (900 no paint), not sure of specific experience

Walt is snowed under (1200)

Siren - ~2 months and 1200. He has only made 1 LT 29er frame though

Steve Stickle - 2 months 1900

Comes back to the thread other day about custom UK frames - definately a hole in the market.

It's not a perfect world, so I might just sit tight and wait for the new wave of releases - On-One, Nimble 9, and you never know, Brant might just come in and save the day...

Steve Stickel rocks.

He sure does, I've been talking to him about possibilities.

But 1850 makes for a landed price of 1500 pounds.

A Nimble 9 is 550 dollars and I can buy direct from Nimble.

It wouldn't be a ByStickle, and I would compromise on fit, and.... blah...blah

Just a thought. Steel 29er under £1000? Niner MCR or SIR 9?

Matthew

A niner sir 9 Or mcr is 853 throughout not just the main tubes.
Handling is awesome
frames are about £800
the xl size fits giants
you could get it repainted
so why go custom?

29er geometry is not the same as 26". And that is why some early 29ers were sluggish and barge like. Why risk an expensive custom build when their is a tried and tested and well rated off the peg option.

In the past I spent loads on custom surfboards. Some were dogs despite experience and consultation. I now just grab an off the peg surftech mass produced board and guess what... they are all brilliant. Niners are also brilliant.

Clink - there was a custom 29er builder - but he couldn't make it work. Doesn't even post here any more.

Could there be a half way house on this? Custom made rather than bespoke? A bit like the suit makers - your dimensions get sent off to a factory and it is made up there rather than you dealing with the tailor in his shop.
The factories in Taiwan can make the prototypes that get made for testing etc - could On One / Ragley etc get bikes fabricated along those lines? Perhaps a range of dimensions that could be chosen from? I dunno - seems vaguely possible to me.

Charlie - the Niners have 4130 stays

The frame I'm after is slack and super short in the rear

If youre looking at a really short back ended 29er, have you thought about [url= http://julieracingdesig.canalblog.com/ ]Julie racing[/url]? They seem to tick the boxes and the bikes are pure porn too.

Don't see any prices on that website though...

Are you convinced that the geometry you want will work?

And you asked 18bikes for a ball park figure, which is not too far from other prices and the suggest it is too high?

Good luck with it.

My current ride has the exact geo I'm after, so in that regard I am certain

No feedback on Dave Yates then. I phoned last summer and his wife, who I have to say was less than helpful and put me right off

Another suggestion come in is Gunnar bikes (US)...

back to the original question about Dave Yates - wasn't one of the bikes built in the Mag feature on Dave Yates a 29er?

My next hardtail is def going to be a 29,road tyres for the commute at a decent rate,anybody tried fitting drops on one?

The frame I'm after is slack and super short in the rear

you know these super short chainstay 29ers? are they measuring them along the chainstay (the proper way), or horizontally from BB to wheel centre (cheating)?

£1000 seems an awful lot for a steel frame, albeit custom, and seems, if I can say, towards the top end of what others are asking.

remind us how much trouble you've been having trying to find someone to build you this frame?

ALOT 🙂

The frame I'm after is unusual and therefore requires builder's specific experience to ensure ending up with something which will work

There are quite a few builders around, and also one's who build 29er's, but there are very few with burly 29er trail bike experience

This is how I understand it. I really don't think 'pick any frame builder worthy of the title' goes here. I may be wrong

I asked 18 bikes what they could offer, as I understand they have newly tooled for 29er frames

1K is alot of money, but I would pay this for the right frame

Chevin - Member

Just a thought. Steel 29er under £1000? Niner MCR or SIR 9?

Matthew

I owned a SIR9 - very nice steel feel to that ride

brant - Member

you know these super short chainstay 29ers? are they measuring them along the chainstay (the proper way), or horizontally from BB to wheel centre (cheating)?

I've just measured the CS's on my Paradox and they are 16.9 BB to spindle centre

Banshee list the Paradox CS length as 16.9

Why is measuring horizontally cheating? Surely it is this dimension that is most relevant (position of vertical rider weight relative to tyre contact patch). Isn't this the dimension that influences the (mythical and much debated?) short chainstay / weight on the back wheel traction?

Measuring along the chainstay is only really useful for working out singlespeed wheel position / chain length / gear ratio combo.

And does it make much difference how you measure it anyway? I'm playing with a design for my own consumption (just about to order a pile of tubes). 29er ss, super short stays, slack-ish front and short rigid fork. Stays come in at 16.05" along the chainstay or 15.83" horizontal (so less than a quarter of an inch difference no matter how you measure it). And before anyone asks it does have mud clearance with fat tyres and regular crank spacing!

It will probably handle like a bus but who cares - if I don't like it then will just buy a few more tubes, melt apart the bad bits and try something else!

Carve your own niche.......

I think I should have put "cheating" in quotes, with a smiley.

I'm not a huge believer in chainstay length alone affecting a design, but as far as marketing/perception goes, a 1/4in can make a huge difference (apparently ;-))

16in with a 29er does sound very short indeed - but SS lets you do some tighter back ends. Did you have to go to 83mm BB and 150mm back end? I've always wanted to, but never got around to it, and it's commercially quite dumb (but the sort of thing you can do for custom).

I fully agree - I'm playing with something completely and utterly commercially dumb! 🙂

Just a nice excuse to play after work with gas bottles and practice on a new CAD package (can unroll the tubes to get mitre templates). And build something odd without being laughed at by a framebuilder.....

With conventional chainstays and ss, 16" still needs some pretty horrific crimping to fit between tyre and chainring. So maybe it needs unconventional chainstays - think back to how they solved this "problem" circa 1990 ;-).....

Tell me you are not doing an E-stay 29er !?!

Got it in one - give that man a Bula hat! As I said - commercially not viable 🙂

Only a very little teeny tiny elevation to get chainstay above a ss chain (not straight line from head tube to dropout like days of old).

Yeti Ultimate. Nishiki. Mantis. Roberts Stratos. Funk. Alpinestars. Mammoth. Ahhhhhh.

Damn you. You have forced me to remember my old Scott Super Evolution. What a horrid bike.

😉

the funk ,, the first bike i "designed" was a copy of the funk while i was working at Harris performance they made a number for the customer they were great at the time,,

if it wasnt for the fashion pandas i think e stays have some good points short chainstay lengths ( if thats what you want)
lots of mud clearence
no chainsuck

must be carefull the cad package is open ,,,, no no no no no no

The other way to do e-stays is to drop the rear stay below the BB. So it's elevated in reverse. You can do this sometimes on a continuation of the downtube.

Supports the BB better for the pedalling load, and means it's less likely to fall off.

A bit like the early whyte preston swinging arms ,, there is a patent on that,, but someone forgot to add my name to it,,

In response to the OP: there have been plenty of reviews of Dave Yates' work over the years in the audax forums and magazines. Two of my road bikes do have his custom-built forks on them (arranged by local bike shops while he worked at M Steele Cycles ).

And one day I will do a Dave Yates frame-building class to build my next MTB.

Go find your own niches 🙂

Plenty of full suss bikes with bb dangling on a couple of tubes and an "e stay" sort of position swingarm - nobody worries about the bb dropping off those. Anyway, I'm only 65kg so don't think I'm in major danger of rapid failure or excessive flex.

2010 - 20th anniversary e-stay revival!

Have you thought about Justin Burls ( http://www.burls.co.uk/index.php)? I have a custom titanium 29er from him which I am very pleased with. I wanted a 29er(my first one) for xc/long rides/light touring and firstly looked at Dave Yates and did some basic enquiries and got as far as being told they would be willing to make one. By chance one of the mtb mags did an article on custom titanium frames and one of his frames was featured and rated well. He makes the steel frames himself but designs then subs the titanium build out to someone in Russia, which I was initially nervous about. I went with him because the yates and burls came in around the same price but the burls was titanium.

I don't know a lot about angles etc but I have owned a few different bikes and I am more than impressed with the bike. It does everything I wanted very well and exceeded my expectations. There were a few minor niggles such as I asked for full cable routing and I got standard plus I had to do a bit more polishing to the frame. This didn't bother me at all but I thought i'd mention it because from what you read on forums to some people it would be the end of the world At the end of the day it's a custom titanium frame for £1000!

I know my experience is with titanium and your after a longer travel steel but it would be designed by the same man and if he is building it you wouldn't get the minor niggles I had which probably arouse from a translation issue. There is a picture of my bike in the review section (Dave Ti 29er MTB). This is my first post and if I manage to work out how to post pictures and your interested i'll post dims of the frame.

[img] [/img]

Bonesetter - Sorry to ask but are you thinking of selling your Paradox. If so can i ask you to keep me in mind as I'm definatly interested in taking it off your hands, my e-mail address is in my profile if you need to contact me 😉

Sorry to butt in 😳

This one?
[img] [/img]

Thats the one. Sorry not very good with forums, trying to work out how to post pictures etc!

Clink & Burls - That is one nice looking bike 😀

Any idea what fork length its running ?

It's a 100mm F29. The bike was designed around its a2c with 30% sag so I can also run an on-one carbon fork.

What size frame is it 23" ?

Geo looks very much like the Swift except the TT - DT gap is bigger 😕

From the centre of bb to top of seatube is 24". I don't know much about correct angles etc just told him the height of the seat and distance to bars with 90mm stem etc and left the rest to his judgement. First bike I have had which acually fits me rather than me trying to fit it.

Wow i can see why you went for a custom build at 24".

Its great when you ride a bike that fits properly 😀

Here's my back boiler Burl's... which has just had the heat turned back up on.

Thanks for your feedback Burls 72. Haven't heard from anyone who has actually had one of these frames from Justin. I had decided on steel, but in 6 months of trying I cannot find anyone to make a super short CS, slack 29er trail bike, so this fall back option is ripe

I'll watch out for any anomalies before final approval, when I go ahead

[img] [/img]

Bigsi - I'll bear you in mind... it's soon

bonesetter - Member
Bigsi - I'll bear you in mind... it's soon

Cool. I really shouldn't but prob will given the chance 😉

I'll watch out for any anomalies before final approval, when I go ahead

Looks ok that.

Thanks Brant, that's very reassuring.

My only doubt was the use of 'standard' straight gauge 3AL/2.5V grade 9 titanium tubing with a 'big' for a 29er 120 TA Reba and if this would make for a flexy ride...?

Hi Bonesetter
I don't want to burst your bubble about Burls but I left a message for him regarding a prospective steel mtb build and I didn't get the courtesy of a reply.

Suffice to say I won't be contacting him again!

He doesn't build steel anymore. Says for the price it's so worth spending a little extra and going ti, so that's his focus now.

Make of that what you will

I was in contact with him for a time last summer both on the phone and email and he seemed a top gent.

he's about to get my order

Well good luck with it all chap.

If he doesn't build steel frames anymore what does his do all day, if the Ti frames are built in Russia? Maybe he'll have more time to return people's calls?!...