Actualy I think that despite sounding harsh it’s soundly based criticism.

Lets be having it blah blah.

The XI’AN web page certainly fills me with confidence. I really was overcome with excitement.

As with most things, its exactly what some are looking for & not for others.

Interesting….
I think the valve cap is clear as opposed to missing? 😉

beautiful bike, exceptional attention to detail, but a grand for a steel hard tail is way out of my price range

That would normally be my kind of bike and similar but also not keen on the cable routing. I’ve always found that sort of cable routing has higher friction and cruds up quicker than top tube routed. I’ve lusted over a few Shand bikes but no thanks to that.

Needs a grommet on the cable exit hole on the seattube…!

Well in simple terms, STW is the market that Shand is looking to be in rather than your Halfords buyers, therefore he may well be unhappy with the comments, however obviously has to take the criticism onboard and the ideas/thoughts of STW.

I’d imgagine a reasonable chunk of buyers of things like his frames are going to have been around STW.

Interesting….
I think the valve cap is clear as opposed to missing?

Then I change my criticism to be that it should have matching valve caps 😉

exceptional attention to detail

Can someone point this out, please!? I genuinely want to understand what I’m missing! What about the frame exhibits exceptional attention to detail?

Must’ve missed that bit, looked like he just came onto the forum to call you grumpy

😆

I said earlier I wasn’t going to get involved but since I’m here…. 🙂

I think a lot of the comments here are good. If we release a new bike and people moan about the colour, less than stellar cable runs and missing valve caps then I’ll take that as a positive from the STW crowd!

The cable run isn’t great on those pictures. I am sold however on downtube cable routing. For chainstay mounted brakes I just think it’s cleaner. I also like all the cables together. Someone else mentioned it earlier but one of the main reasons we did it like that was for versatility. We supply various guides so you can run between 1 and 4 cables without it looking like a mess. In hindsight, when we were putting that bike together for 4 cables, we should probably have taken more time getting it right. I’m not excusing it but we were in a bit of a rush as we wanted to get the pics done before taking the demo bike down to the Spin London show at the weekend.

Other points :

Colour, well we have a palette of nearly 25 colours and if none of those are any good you can get a completely custom colour.

Crudguard mount. We could do this. We do it quite often on our Stoater and we have some little stand-offs that mean the crudguard sits nicely above the cable guides. We make use of one of the existing cable guide bosses. Perhaps we should just do that as standard??

Valve caps. Not sure what you guys are going on about. There’s clearly no missing valve caps. I can plainly see 2. Those original pics linked to by the OP must be corrupted in some way. There’s no way we would have missed that as it’s a poor reflection on what we do and the logical inference would be that if we can’t put a valve cap on, then all the welds will break.

Bent down tube. I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea. My one major problem with 29ers is having the front end too high. This isn’t so much a problem with bigger frames but on medium (and smaller) frames it can be. The bent downtube gives us clearance for forks and allows us to keep the headtube shorter.

I actually thought the price was pretty good. If you’re interested in the provenance of the products you buy and you want to be more involved in the process of having a bike like this rather than just buying something mass produced then I think the cost is ok. I feel pretty comfortable with it. I know we can’t compete with imported frames and we don’t try to. I think it’s a different product altogether. I was quite surprised at the cost of the Niner actually.

Happy to answer any other questions on here or individually.

One last thing. I hate, hate, hate the word ‘porn’. I can’t **** stand it, especially when applied to bike stuff and it makes my blood boil when I see it attached to a frame with my name on it.

Nicely said.

One last thing. I hate, hate, hate the word ‘porn’. I can’t **** stand it, especially when applied to bike stuff and it makes my blood boil when I see it attached to a frame with my name on it.

Now the weakness has been exposed…. who’s going first??

Fair point re crudguard as I was one of the moaners.

Out of interest what is the Reynolds equivalent of the Columbus Niobium?

shandcycles – Member

the logical inference would be that if we can’t put a valve cap on, then all the welds will break.

Sarcasm level: Scottish

All very valid comments, well said, and I do genuinely commend you for popping up here.

I certainly don’t think the frame is poor value, or anything else, I just don’t understand why it’s exceptional? I’m not aiming that you Steven, a general comment, because I like to think I appreciate nice things, and whilst your frames look nice, I don’t understand what sets them apart to make them ‘exceptional’ or ‘porn’ (sorry – agreed it’s a horrendous term) or anything else.

One last thing. I hate, hate, hate the word ‘porn’. I can’t **** stand it, especially when applied to bike stuff and it makes my blood boil when I see it attached to a frame with my name on it.

Well said. And not just for the usual reasons, the problem (as this thread shows) is people judging a frame on how it looks not how it rides.

For a bike that’s actually meant to do stuff rather than look pretty, internal cabling is a bad idea. Try fixing that in the middle of the Gobi desert.

Well said. And not just for the usual reasons, the problem (as this thread shows) is people judging a frame on how it looks not how it rides.

True, but when you’re a small manufacturer based in a location that is a fair distance away from the bulk of the UKs riding population then the initial impression based on the web pics is quite important. If there had been a second frame built up with a some sram 1 x 10, with neat cable routing and a slightly more jazzy paint scheme (fitting in with the after work/flying round trail centre description) there would have been endless fawning over the bike/frame rather than what we currently have. Although in fairness given what Mr Shand has said re the rush to get this one built up there has perhaps not been time to do this yet.

Gobi desert.

I’ve never heard of that trail centre? Is it new?

Anyway, I think it looks better with the cables on the downtube.

Internally routed just looks a bit weird…like where would you insert them?

On, and +1 on the bike porn. Ain’t no-one jacking it to a picture of a bike.

Internal cables, or not.

I’ve never heard of that trail centre? Is it new?

ssshhhhh it’s a secret trail at Glentress

Nice pic Jamie, almost looks like bike po*n 😉

Joking aside that looks so much ‘cleaner’. Yes, I’m judging it on it’s looks, I know I know.

Some of the other photos show the lovely detailing a lot better, e.g.

FWIW, I’d also prefer top tube cable routing. I get that the rear brake hose routing works better along the chainstay but seatstay mounted gear cables impose a less severe cable loop on older mechs ( I guess no one buying a Bahookie would grace it with anything old though 😉 )

What’s keeping the mech cable from buzzing the tyre?

The exit from the under-BB cable stop must be angled accordingly.

Well said mr_shand.

.

Just for a bit of balance it’s probably worth saying that I’m not completely against internal cable routing.

It doesn’t come without cost however. I mean financial cost. Another issue is that in order to keep a clean cable routing you can’t have the entry/exit points too close to the end of the tubes. This can cause issues with frame bags. The Bahookie is a production bike not a made-to-order bike, this means we sometimes need to make design decisions based on offending the least amount of people. I can guarantee we’d have more complaints if this bike had internal routing than if it didn’t.

It’d look a lot nicer with a braze-on front mech too 😛

I love the colour.

I bet Shand chose it due to my favourable commments on it (on his personal commuting steed, belt driven!) on my recent visit begging for help on a shit project.

I bet Shand chose it due to my favourable commments on it (on his personal commuting steed, belt driven!) on my recent visit begging for help on a shit project.

Except it’s a completely different colour from that! You’re right about the shit project though.

Now that blue thing, yes please. Assuming sexy time isn’t a suitable payment?

shandcycles – Member

Except it’s a completely different colour from that! You’re right about the shit project though.

It’s matt and not far off…and hauld yer whist, it’s moved on.

Meanie 🙁

Would it not be “better” and or “neater” routing them the other way i.e. lower hole feeding the FM and upper one feeding the rear?*

* Appreciate this may be an image to show what can be done rather than an actual finished example.

Yes, one’s matte (my commuter) and this one’s not. And one’s blue and the other’s grey. But apart from that, they’re identical. 🙂

As a compromise I would have internal cable runs for the rear brake and rear mech, thus if running 1×10/11 you’d be sorted.
You could have the external bosses just for those running either front mech and/or dropper post.
When not in use the bosses could have Grub screw inserted to preserve the clean lines.

I agree its a simple, smart looking bike that could be improved with a better choice of cable run.

shandcycles – Member
Yes, one’s matte (my commuter) and this one’s not. And one’s blue and the other’s grey. But apart from that, they’re identical.

Money/mouth proximity required please…pic required of them side by side.

(my monitor gamma may be out, if so then so is my tablet)

I like the down tube routing on my Shands for hike a bike duties. I’m happy enough just cable tying a crud guard on, but then I’m a bit rough like that.
My priority is the way it rides rather than the way it looks for a photo, and the ride is ace! In the flesh, the cables are pretty tidy too, I think the photo accentuates any wonkiness.

Aye, anyone commenting on the routing is clearly an armchair expert who’s never going to buy one!

Can’t
Stop
Looking
At
The
MISSING VALVE CAP

Someone’s interfered with its rear end, maybe it is bike porn after all 😀

There.is.no.missing.valve.cap!

If I had the spare cash I would have one…in a lovely pearl pink with fork lowers sprayed to match.

Seriously, I am not Alex Salmond but once did live in East Calder and would happily support Steve if I could.

Best bike frames to come out of Scotland since Charlie Ralph.

I also think it should be named like the various Dave Yates, Chas Roberts, etc steel creations of the late 80’s….but with a p*rn theme rather than animal tender parts….

Ps..who built the Beez Neez…or some similar frame?