Nice looking frame but seems a year or 2 behind where the singular swift is now and is twice the price of the swift.

on the back of this thread I looked at the Stoater on their website, and compared it to the new CDF30 which I have on order. Jings, it’s very expensive and lower spec than the Genesis by a mile 🙁

stoater

genesis

surprised, but I guess its all about volume of production and sales

Clobber – Member

Nice looking frame but seems a year or 2 behind where the singular swift is now and is twice the price of the swift.

There are clearly some differences though.

This is made in the UK, with some semi-custom options (dropouts, colour – geo may be extra £) out of Columbus Niobium tubing. It’s also belt-compatible, has dropper-friendly seat tube diameter, stealth dropper cable routing and a taper-friendly 44mm head tube.

The Swift is made in Taiwan out of double butted 4130 and has none of the above afaict.

Jings, it’s very expensive and lower spec than the Genesis by a mile

?????

853 vs 725
UK made vs Taiwan
SS/Beltdrive/derraileur/hub geared vs derraileur
And thats just the frame never mind the Chris King and Salsa finishing kit.

^^ ok, ‘better steel’

Is UK made steel frame ‘higher quality’ than Taiwan ? I dunno.

The geared version is 11 sp 105, as is the CDF. The Chris King and Sala kit is more than offset by the cost of the full hydraulics on the CDF over the TRP’s on the Shand IMO

And thats just the frame never mind the Chris King and Salsa finishing kit.

and the custom forks ,which look a better all round choice than carbon.

Is UK made steel frame ‘higher quality’ than Taiwan ? I dunno.

Depends how you define Quality or Value and it’s very subjective. I’ve seen both sides of it up close and my opinion on it technically counts for little as I don’t build frames, however there’s a lot to like about what talented frame builders like Shand can do.

Well the ‘better steel’ should also be a bit lighter and stronger. UK made vs Taiwan, I’ve seen a Shand and have owned many Taiwanese frames, I’d say yes it would be of higher quality. I’d also guess for an upcharge you could spec the Shimano hydraulics.

Personally all that aside the provenance of the product for me more than justifies the extra cost. Sure from a purely utilitarian point of view there might be not much in it, indeed if one bike fitted better than the other then for that individual then the better bike would be obvious. But there is nothing wrong with paying for something which appeals to the heart rather than what the spread(spec)sheet says.

This is made in the UK, with some semi-custom options (dropouts, colour – geo may be extra £) out of Columbus Niobium tubing. It’s also belt-compatible, has dropper-friendly seat tube diameter, stealth dropper cable routing and a taper-friendly 44mm head tube.

The Swift is made in Taiwan out of double butted 4130 and has none of the above afaict.

Custom dropouts – Give you that one
UK Made – Give you that too, I would support that.
Columbus Tubing – May or may not be noticeable during riding, geometry more important I would think
Belt Compatible – Great for 0.5% of the population
Dropper seat post – Even Thomson do a 27.2 dropper
Stealth Dropper Compatible – This is an open slot in the seat tube…
Taper Headtube – This potentially may restrict the fork choice in the future for the swift

I think it’s much more important to be able to run big volume tyres in the back of an allday hardtail rig like this

^^^ yes, I like the look of the Shands, and the Stoater was on my short list, along with the CDF and others. I do however struggle to see how I could justify paying best part of £1k more for the Scottish built one, as much as I’d like to support local industry 🙁

I’d also guess for an upcharge you could spec the Shimano hydraulics.

yes, an extra £150, taking it to £2700

The wife is mad enough already that I’ve sold a 2014 Croix to buy a 2015 one 🙂 dont think I’ get away with going for this one, lovely as it is !

anyway, sorry for off topic diversion…

You are trying to compare mass-produced made-Taiwan built-to-a-price bikes to UK handbuilt.

^^^ aye, fair enough, I guess that why they cost 60% more, pity, ‘cos it is lovely, but firmly out of my affordability range this time 🙁

Finding the anti-Shand backlash in this thread a bit strange. Particularly the “Genesis are cheaper therefore better” arguments being made…There was a recent thread about the new Genesis range, which basically boiled down to there being a lot of similarities between a few genesis models and those of a more boutique US brand which, incidentally, are much more expensive. The sentiment seemed to be that the US brand bikes being soooo much better than the Genesis ones therefore the vast gulf in price was not only justifiable but actually reasonable.

Don’t get it all?

I love the rest of the Shand stuff and aspire to own one, I just think the design of this is behind the times.

“Genesis are cheaper therefore better” arguments being made

err, I introduced the question about Genesis, but please read my thread. I at no stage said the Genesis was better, simply that I was surprised at the circa £1k price difference bewteen similarly specced bikes, and I put it down to volumes of production etc. – this has been pretty much ratifed by later posters.

I think the Shand Stoater is lovely, I would love to have one, they are built half an hour away from where I live and I am anything but anti Shand.

Sweet looking bike, nice clean lines. But I agree it’s not Porn.
Niner hardtails/rigid are porn!

Finding the anti-Shand backlash in this thread a bit strange

Yeh if Jimmy (not sure if that’s his first name) was living in a shack in the woods in the USA they would be gushing over the frames.

I’m not a fan of that particular frame due to the bent down tube but he does make lovely bikes. Simple, clean lines. External cables on an off road bike make far more sense than internal, well they do if you live in the UK.

Iainc – ok maybe I misrepresented your argument a bit…but you’ve even pointed out that you’d answered your question about price difference yourself… I love genesis’s work and I love Shand. I have very little business acumen, but even I can see where the two respective manufacturing processes and materials used result in disparately priced items.

I can’t afford one of these ATM but I can wish….