new Shand Oykel – in carbon!

I saw that, I presume it’s a different headset or something (headtube is 2mm longer too)?

That’s just the crap tolerances – see the recent Evil thread 😉

As for Shand having “economies of scale” when it comes to painting, that shoes a fundamental misunderstanding of the scale of the Shand business

Not sure- now that he’s opted for stocking catalogue frames he might shift a few more.

Yep – 28 colours and 4 sizes. It’s a good job he’s selling thousands of these. I’m beginning to think that you haven’t even read the webpage.

Opened it, saw generic China carbon, checked geo- was massively disappointed, closed page, returned to thread and began my campaign of ‘in the good old days’. Glad to hear they are painted in the UK..

Opened it, saw generic China carbon, checked geo- was massively disappointed, closed page, returned to thread and began my campaign of ‘in the good old days’. Glad to hear they are painted in the UK..

🙂

I must say that I really like it – with rigid forks and 650+ that could be my bumbling around bike especially if it had a front mech mount for next years electronic XT.
Although I would just buy it from China direct.

Shand arnt really on my radar although I do like their stuff but its always a shame when a ‘core/boutique brand devalues itself, eg BrooklynMachineWorks turning its back on DH stuff and making fixie frames, then Production Privee out of nowhere makes cool hardtails with a great introductory video racing a church clock and spoil it all a year later by making kids bikes. I’m oot.

I don’t get that theory. If a brand makes something you really like, then what does it matter if they also make something you don’t like? Unless you’re buying for the kudos of having a niche brand, what does it matter?

Unless you’re buying for the kudos of having a niche brand, what does it matter?

New here?

It’s interesting that they said they didn’t want to make a 29er smaller than a M…

Wow, 3 pages of comments about a bike that no-one wants to buy! :wink:.

I saw this thread yesterday and resisted chiming in as I thought it might be better if it just quickly died a death!

Seriously though, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, some useful and insightful and some just plain wrong and ignorant. The key thing for me (personally) when reading a thread like this is to remember it doesn’t really matter. Sure, there’s some gobby shitebags that like to have their voice heard, so they shout louder, but those people are never going to be our customers, I kind of think of them as the same people in the audience at Top Gear, moaning about how crap the new Porsche 911 is and how they were just about to buy one but how now they’ll just buy a Clio instead.

We think about things very carefully at Shand, we don’t dive into things lightly and when we can’t tell the whole story, sometimes things can look a little odd. I accept that this may be one of those occasions.

Importing a product directly from an overseas manufacturer and ‘adding value’ before selling on to the consumer is not a new business model, and I’ll bet every single person on this thread has purchased something in this way. The bicycle consumer is pretty unique (I believe) as there’s a small number of real geeks who not only want to know about the complete supply chain, but also want to shout and tell everyone else. I’ve not really come across them in other sectors, maybe they do exist, I don’t know. Perhaps I just don’t visit choppingboardtrackworld or pictureframes.net often enough. The thing is, you get to take your choice, you get to decide if buying something direct from the factory with the added risks is something you’re happy doing. For some, they’ll decide that they’ll go that way. Good on them. For others, they’ll do the sums, work out how much the extended warranty, custom paint finish, faster delivery, local pre-sales and after-sales care, fitting of headsets and BB etc, availability of spares etc is worth to them, and they’ll make a decision. But, and here’s the rub, I would bet that almost all of our customers who buy this bike will never have even thought about Alibaba or AliExpress or (shock horror) even know about STW. As is evidenced by just about every thread on this forum that mentions us, STW forum regulars are just not our type of customer (that sounded wrong, I meant that we’re not their type of bike company). Also, we’ll sell full bikes to riders who can’t or don’t want to build a bike themselves. That can be a deal breaker to some.

I am slightly surprised and perhaps a little worried about the comments regarding devaluing the brand. I don’t really understand that. We still design, manufacture, paint and assemble the vast majority of our bikes in house. At the moment, that one carbon bike is the only thing we don’t make. I hadn’t considered how adding this bike would somehow lessen or cancel out all the other stuff we do. Someone commented that they were reconsidering buying a UK built Stoater from us in light of this new bike. That comment bothered me and I brought it up at work earlier. I think it was just a stupid, ill-informed comment to make but it bothered me more than I expected it to.

UK manufactured carbon frames (as Mike already commented) can be made here. It’s something that we are working on right now. But it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And when we do it, I guarantee, there’ll be a thread on here about how expensive they are compared to Asian imported frames and why don’t we just import something from China, paint it and sell it for a third of the price!

A last point as this is getting very long. I am passionate about manufacturing here in the UK. That’s one of the biggest reasons I do what I do, I want to make stuff and I want to employ people who want to make stuff. The truth is, it’s really hard. Like really, really hard. I want to build a better company for everyone involved at Shand and if that means looking elsewhere for revenue streams to help keep the workshop lights on so we can carry on making stuff, then I’ll explore every avenue possible.

There’s a lot more to this direction we’re heading in than this one bike. It’ll take time to come to fruition and hopefully it might bring some of the doubters round. Perhaps it’ll all make sense at some point.

I’m unlikely to comment again on this thread (I really would like it to die!) but if people who were thinking about a Shand but are now unsure for whatever reason, please contact me directly and I’ll be happy to talk through things on the phone or email.

Seriously though, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, some useful and insightful and some just plain wrong and ignorant.

I believe that’s the forum’s tagline.

I bet you’ve been typing that out since yesterday!

That carbon bike isn’t for me, but it wouldn’t stop me buying a bahookie, as long as you can still put capital letter decals on it instead the lower case ones 🙂

I’ve not commented on this thread yet as to be honest, spanking £1k on any frame be it steel/CF/mass manufactured or hand built in a shed by a man with a beard and a wall full of tools isn’t really on the cards (I don’t know if Mr Shand has a beard or a wall full of tools, but you know what I mean).
I ummmmed and aaaahed for ages about whether I could justify spending £160 on a Barry White Inbred frame, such is my cycling budget.

But, it’s been an interesting thread & a decent, well thought out reply from Mr Shand.
I’ve just looked at the shand website page for the frame/bike & I suppose the only thing that would get my goat if I spent this much on the frame to later find out that it’s in fact an off the shelf frame from China is the fact that some of the wording of the frame description makes it sound like it has been designed by Shand and manufactured overseas. I get the impression that it is the same frame as linked to in the earlier posts available from Chinese frame manufacturers.

Phrases like:

The Oykel is our super-versatile….

…..so our solution is to move that chainstay out of the way altogether!

Working with carbon allows us to move material around in a way we just can’t with steel

The unique dual rear axle dropouts…..

Unique, if you exclude the same frame being sold direct….

We work closely with our Carbon Fibre manufacturing partners in Asia for the production of our carbon frames

This would make me assume it is Shand’s frame design being manufactured by a factory in Asia.

Does this line in the ‘about’ part of the website mean that the frame is in fact Shand’s design?:

WHO WE ARE
Shand is a small independent British bicycle company located in Scotland, fabricating hand-built production bikes here in the UK as well as designing and supplying carbon fibre bikes manufactured by our partners.

Dunno, maybe it’s just my perception of it but the wording is such that it sounds like you are getting a product designed by Shand but built in the Far East, when it seems to be an off-the-shelf frame?

And, if I wasn’t a STW bod, had bought one of these frames thinking I was getting something a bit special, I’d be pretty pissed if someone wandered up to me at a trail centre, got talking to me about the bike & asked if I was aware it was a generic Asian frame with a nice paint job….because the website doesn’t give me that impression.

I am quite surprised by this direction from shand and I can understand the comment of it devaluing the brand tbh but I suppose there must be reason behind the decision. on the other hand I have a stoater and it’s ace, best bike ever in fact and this changes nothing about that:)

Stumpy makes some good points. Shame Shand will not be revisiting the thread, as a decent discussion could be had.

In my opinion it has devalued the brand, wouldn’t entertain a Shand now.

How do you order from Workswellbikes? Do you have to order a batch? Can you order a sample?

I don’t necessarily consider it has devalued the brand (I’d still buy a custom shand if I was able to ride a normal bike) but the way it has been described on the shand website blurb as per what stumpy01 posted above is rather misleading.

It devalues the brand for the sort of person that doesn’t like to see their favourite indy band get successful & famous.

I don’t get that theory. If a brand makes something you really like, then what does it matter if they also make something you don’t like? Unless you’re buying for the kudos of having a niche brand, what does it matter?

I am slightly surprised and perhaps a little worried about the comments regarding devaluing the brand

Riding bikes to me is a passion and I invest money in not only the finished goods of a company but also the people and reasons behind them – certainly not for the kudos, that doesn’t ever factor.

A few examples are;
Brooklyn MachineWorks. A little known bike company in Brooklyn NY, run by Doc and Joe making V brakes and 26”/24” hardtails in the late 90’s early 2000’s.
A bit Later monster DH bikes and leading to the Racelink which I bought. Joe, Doc and Ged in the UK where the reasons I bought into Brooklyn – I liked their style of doing stuff, anti factory/anti corporate and the bikes worked.
But then Doc left and then Pharrell Williams publicly bought in, Adidas did a Brooklyn trainer, fixie frames followed, the Racelink stopped being made. Brooklyn was dead to me. Sold to a guy in Norway.

Another odd example is Brant and Ragley. I wouldn’t touch an On-One (because of their image) with a bargepole but I mailed Brant early on and Ragley had promise – a bit of a hardcore image, steel frames, slightly leftfield, and I bought a MK1 Bluepig. Great frame but then it started getting wishy washy, the leftfield was getting diluted and the reggae paint jobs finally killed it for me. Great frame- no interest in keeping it. Replaced with an Evil Sovereign.

S&M bikes in the bmx world are an example of a brand retaining its core values and image? I’d still buy whatever’s the latest S&M frame as much as I bought the Maddog frame frame years ago.

A Shand mood board for me is handbuilt, craftsmanship, attention to detail, clean design, steel, inhouse. But then all of a sudden comes this carbon outsider that sits awkwardly well outside of your core business/image.
As mention before in this thread if Shand did a sideline which clearly stated its intentions of a carbon/catalogue frame then I don’t think it sit as bad – much like Curtis did with their Taiwanese frames (which I quite happily bought-S1 singlespeed).
Just my 2pence worth.

If you buy a bike from ali and you ride it, the forks snap and you end up in hospital and off work and a persistent medical problem you will have little or no chance of compensation from them.

On the other hand if you buy the same/similar frame from shand or on one for example and the same thing happens you will have a valid claim and more than likely get compensation.

On one and shand have to pay for this insurance and have to factor this into the costs.

It is because of this back up that I think the extra couple of hundred quid in the short term is worth it in the long term.

I also think a shand or on one has a better resale value. It’s a risk buying a generic carbon frame new, not sure I’d buy a 2nd hand one.

We all have a budget, its a bit like deore vs slx vs xt vs xtr. It all does the same thing but we don’t all buy deore.

This will have its place, it’s fans and it’s haters.

Fair play for shand to reply. That takes some real guts and probably a lot of restraint.

sorted out the cables

really? thats the least integrated, integrated cable solution I’ve ever seen. Utterly pointless effort.

This is an interesting thread.

I think people are having trouble reconciling their understanding of Shand’s image/business model/philosophy, with this latest move….. and rightly so: it IS completely incongruous with the brand image that they have deliberately propagated. They may have inserted a few qualifiers here and there on their website to justify banging-out off-the-peg Chinese carbon frames with Shand stickers on – but, as Stumpy points out, it all feels rather cynical and crosses a line whereby the consumer might feel like they have been misled.

Obviously it’s completely up to Shand what direction they take their company in…. but I think peoples surprise at this decision is understandable.

It devalues the brand for the sort of person that doesn’t like to see their favourite indy band get successful & famous.

But if you’re not paying for the brand, what are you paying a premium for?

I hate diluted leftfield,especially if it is both wishy and washy.

It seems like an odd decision to me too. I have two Shands and I bought them in part because of the brand’s values – authentic, local etc – which Steven and his team have done a great job of building. So, a Chinese frame like this sits well outside of that. Clearly Shand wants to trade on his brand’s recognition and that’s fair enough. But I can’t help thinking a sub-brand would have been a better idea – not quite the Tesco Value range, more like Essential Waitrose…

But if you’re not paying for the brand, what are you paying a premium for?

the QA (very important in my view wrt to Chinese product…), the paint job, the warranty and support.

Plus the fact that Shand has chosen it to sell means that it probably rides pretty well, whereas just ordering a factory frame from China thinking the numbers look right would be very risky.

The “keeping the lights on” comment is very important, I think the only issue here is that some of the description is a bit too flowery, implying more Shand input than is justified.

But then again this is Internet marketing so it has to be made to look good, and most people looking at it would not be performing the intense inspection that this forum is.

A last point as this is getting very long. I am passionate about manufacturing here in the UK. That’s one of the biggest reasons I do what I do, I want to make stuff and I want to employ people who want to make stuff. The truth is, it’s really hard. Like really, really hard. I want to build a better company for everyone involved at Shand and if that means looking elsewhere for revenue streams to help keep the workshop lights on so we can carry on making stuff, then I’ll explore every avenue possible.

Respect.
Manufacturing is dying here so why not use the cause to help sustain it?

I agree that the wording is a little misleading though.

When you manufacture something in the bike industry, it seems to me that you can get a lot of free marketing, fans, word of mouth, loyalty, etc. But in return you also get people thinking that they have some kind of a stake in your business and the ability to take offence at every decision.
Very odd.

That’s true, but it’s not odd. Brands loyalty is something that most manufacturers strive for – they want customers to identify with their ethos etc. In this case that includes attributes such as: hand crafted, British made, high quality and attention to detail etc. But brand loyalty cuts both ways – if the company does something that customers feel goes against the ethos they’ve identified with, some adverse response should be expected.

How do you order from Workswellbikes? Do you have to order a batch? Can you order a sample?

No different to ordering Light Bicycle rims for example. Of course you can buy just one. The Chinese “factories” or “manufacturers” producing this stuff are largely just distributors/ resellers so you get in touch, get a Paypal invoice, pay it and the stuff arrives.

If you buy a bike from ali and you ride it, the forks snap and you end up in hospital and off work and a persistent medical problem you will have little or no chance of compensation from them.

So you buy a Shand Chinese frame so you have the ability to sue Shand? Great! There haven’t been (m)any(?) reports of these frames failing as far as I am aware, just the frames from the cheaper vendors are rougher around the edges. It’s not like Shand didn’t previously pay any insurance before either so that doesn’t justify the markup. Paying double to be able to sue a small company like this is an odd logic.

I think what this comes down to more is you trust Shand and that is fine. I guess they’ve done the research for you as to where to buy from and saved you trawling through the massive MTBR thread. It is plausible the convenience is worth £500 to the right person

I also think a shand or on one has a better resale value. It’s a risk buying a generic carbon frame new, not sure I’d buy a 2nd hand one.

But it is a generic carbon frame.

People say, “How can you sell this for such a low high price?”, I say, “because it’s otherwise people will know it’s total crap.” 🙂

Cycling is all about having fun, even more so for the Shand customer base. His customers buy into the brand,the lifestyle and the bespoke ethos. They hand over their cash to be part of that journey. They/potential customers have every right to get upset & annoyed.

The generic carbon thing has nothing in common with thee above. I feel sorry for the poor sod that pays out the £1,100 based on the bike ‘porn’ description. They may feel by visiting the site and seeing the steel offerings that they are joining the club with something unique that Shand has put his input into and ‘worked closely with’, but in reality he places a wholesale order, it comes out a box, get’s painted, has some decals applied and is then forwarded on. None of that love and craftsmanship goes into it.

If people wanted generic China stuff then the likes of Shand wouldn’t exist in the first place. Leave that to on-one.

If it’s about increasing margins and growing the brand, I don’t understand why he didn’t commission a series of off the peg frames in standard sizes. He’d get the same end result and could probably steal market share from the likes of Cotic.

Weird.

I think it is always a dicey decision engaging with STW if you are a part of the UK bike industry, these threads do normally burn out, but as is often said round here “haters gonna hate”…

TBH I struggle to see the problem, shand make some lovely frames in the UK, support dwindling UK manufacturing and happen import one product which would be too costly to make here, but which there is a market for, and people feel justified in rubbishing the whole brand? Saying stuff like:

In my opinion it has devalued the brand, wouldn’t entertain a Shand now.

Really?

Maybe they mean diluting the brand?

Sure, there’s some gobby shitebags that like to have their voice heard, so they shout louder, but those people are never going to be our customers, I kind of think of them as the same people in the audience at Top Gear, moaning about how crap the new Porsche 911 is and how they were just about to buy one but how now they’ll just buy a Clio instead.

As is evidenced by just about every thread on this forum that mentions us, STW forum regulars are just not our type of customer (that sounded wrong, I meant that we’re not their type of bike company).

I am in the position of looking for something a little special, probably custom steel and definitely a 29er for covering the miles. Options and little details are pretty clear in my mind but open to suggestions from a builder. Shand was on my list of those to contact. I currently have a Chinese carbon 29er which is an absolutely perfect bike functionally but doesn’t get me all that excited to ride it and it is so stiff that it feels a bit dead…

I feel Singletrackworld is also exactly the customer base you describe. You’ll struggle to find a collection of mid life crisis IT middle managers with disposable income anywhere else that absolutely buys in to the niche products you provide (UK made, steel, hand crafted with passion, etc, etc)….

Anyway, if anyone reading this ever was a potential customer then I fear they may not be now. Some of the web descriptions are pretty misleading as has already been mentioned (if people don’t make a link to the generic Chinese frames then they’ll likely ask why it looks almost identical to the Trek) but the patronising stuff above about how a clued up or passionate customer (the ones I think would naturally gravitate to steel Shands) will switch a lot of people off. I guess it comes across a little like you taking your customers for idiots (rightly or wrongly) and the delivery of something that is such a radical departure for the brand wasn’t very subtle. You’ve basically said that you customer base as you see it is numpties with more money than sense. If the vocal people here are like gobby Top Gear types then your comments are like a wood burner or Audi salesperson coming in and telling STW you are not our type of people 🙂

The decision to do this carbon frame is a little odd, yes, but sticking to the bit about extra support, ability to provide new exciting products in the future as a result, offer better value on full bike, etc would completely makes sense. No-one can argue with any of that. As I said, Shand was on my list but now I will look more to some of the other steel builders in the South West first and then hunt further afield.

I absolutely do sympathise with the situation and can’t begin to imagine how demoralizing it must be to read negativity when you are excited to introduce something new but I do genuinely hope the feedback as a potential customer helps in some way.

Anyway, if anyone reading this ever was a potential customer then I fear they may not be now.

True. They’ve all gone and bought small French cars now.

I think what stumpy01 has pointed out above is the crux of it – this bike is being misrepresented as a Shand design, as opposed to a catalog frame. Reading the reply from shand, I can see hsi point of view, he’s building his business, and doing something that almost every manufacturer does, but that bike sticks out like a sore thumb in the range precisely because it’s a catalog fram, and lacks the craft and attention that makes all the other Shands so desirable. If Shand had designed it, I’d imagine this thread would be full of folks drooling over it – was certainly the case with the fat bikes they’ve done in the past.

I think the steel bikes are stunning – I very much want a Stoater, and I don’t think this particularly changes my mind – I suppose that dpends how much importance you place on “the brand” versus the bike/frame itself.

for me, I’d love to be financialy able to buy a Shand. Relatively local and as others have mentioned, the image is one of meticulous craftmanship and uniqueness.

The carbon bike seems to be an interim, a distraction from the purity of handbuilt steel bikes, like a trainee yoof has badgered and badgered about these new chubby semi fat plastic bikes and shand has dismissed the ‘if it’s not been in the industry 15 years it’s not going to stick*’ philosophy to shut them up.

*this is merely a perception based comment relating to traditional standards, akin to roadies still insisting that campag is the best.

The reality of course is more likely to be trying out a market as best they can before committing to in house techniques/improvements/designs.

I doubt there’d be this level of fervour if this bike (and other, similar products in future) where marketed as a sister brand called “shhh…and”. Probably the opposite.

And I don’t get how people would now not consider buying British-made steel from them – that side of the business and customer experience is still exactly the same as it was last week.

I would love a Drove. Think they look stunning!

I’ve seen Shand paint jobs up close they are truly lovely 🙂

I applaud them for doing what’s necessary in a very competitive market !

If you google “Shand Oykel” this thread is the top result so I guess any customer who does even the tinyest bit of research will know what they are getting.