New steel custom road bike/last thing you made/home-built frame content

Thought I’d share a pic of my new road bike. The frame was built by my mate in his garage – he did a course at the Bicycle Academy about 3 years ago and this is his 5th frame. Columbus XCr rear, Spirit for the rest. Stainless dropouts from Paragon. TIG welded with the welds smoothed off. Paint is Subaru WRX blue with an unknown orange, bare metal rear.

Concept was an “Autumn Bike”. Same geo as my summer carbon bike, but with clearance of up to 32mm tyres and disc brakes. For use on damp days when the winter bike would be overkill. Summer bike has carbon wheels and rim brakes so a bit sketchy in the wet. There are a couple of oak leaf motifs on it to match the theme.

1 x 12 with a Wolftooth 40 tooth ring to get the same lowest gear as a 34/28.

Ooo, me likes…..

That is a thing of beauty!

Very nice!

I know nothing about road bike construction but personally would have avoided any potential risk of a stress riser from the hole for the internal routeing. I’m sure the chap who built it has considered that though.

I know nothing about road bike construction but personally would have avoided any potential risk of a stress riser from the hole for the internal routeing. I’m sure the chap who built it has considered that though.

His own bike has the same set-up and it’s not broken yet – that was the one designed under supervision at The BA, so I assume it’s an OK thing to do! I’m quite light too so hopefully it won’t snap.

Nice. I’m presuming that is a silver soldered oak leaf reinforcement for the cable hole in the chainstay? Has he done the same on the downtube entry? Something like that should be fine to minimise any stress raiser.

Is he fully set up at home with frame jig and welding gear etc? I try not to add up what I must have gradually spent on brazing stuff etc…..

I would love to have that level of skill.

Now, where did I hide that like button?

Nice. I’m presuming that is a silver soldered oak leaf reinforcement for the cable hole in the chainstay? Has he done the same on the downtube entry? Something like that should be fine to minimise any stress raiser.

Is he fully set up at home with frame jig and welding gear etc? I try not to add up what I must have gradually spent on brazing stuff etc…..

The leaf is painted, but the internal routing metal tube was silver soldered in, then smoothed off.

Yep, he bought the jig and TIG welding gear.

Very nice, I’d love something like that

Should be fine. In the unlikely event anything did happen it is an easy patch repair / reinforcement provided you spot it early.

So did you pay for labour or just tubing etc? 🙂

Just tubing, gas, solder, etc. I shudder to think of the labour… all that weld polishing. Although a 6 year old was roped in to help.

Was 15 months from first design chat – COVID shutting down the Columbus factory didn’t help.

I did a dave yates course a decade ago. Fully recommend it. Couldn’t weld or braise at all beforehand

Making frames must be easy if the OP’s friend has only done five and that’s where he’s at now 😉

In seriousness though, very nice and an impressive feat.

He’s amazingly good at making stuff – bit of a perfectionist too. Those chainstay ends, where they meet the dropouts, involved cutting little semi-circles of metal to fill the gaps, attaching them then filing/polishing to get the finish.

When we went to assemble the bike we realised we didn’t have a DUB BB tool… so he 3D printed one.

Lovely bike, but this made me chuckle

For use on damp days when the winter bike would be overkill.

Translation – “I need an excuse for another bike”

Gert lush!

Concept was an “Autumn Bike”. Same geo as my summer carbon bike, but with clearance of up to 32mm tyres and disc brakes

… and mudguards? 😁

… and mudguards? 😁

No, that would have made it a winter bike, and I’ve already got one of those. It’s a new niche!

personally would have avoided any potential risk of a stress riser from the hole for the internal routeing

The great thing about this bike is any problems you know where to go for a very cheap, professional repair. Sounds perfect to me.

I don’t suppose you weighed the frame before you built it did you?

Got any more pictures? Great job, love it. What a great mate 😊

It’s 7.9kg without pedals. Paint was probably 300g! I think we guessed 1600g for the frame but don’t think it was weighed, I’ll have to check.

Couple more pics. Chainstays are interesting, and another point of debate over snapping! No chainstay bridge, wanted a little lateral flex on cornering. Stays were cut and rejoined to create the angle.

Orange bars

Top tube oak leaf. Inside of the forks are orange, you can just about make them out.

Pre welding.

Arrgh, seatstays, not chainstays!

Nice👍

Tidy that.

Steel forks though eh? , come on ! lol.

Chuff me that’s gorgeous. I’ll have one in green and blue and in a gravel flavour please – ta!

@beej

 was probably 300g!

I was amazed how much paint weighed the first time I rawed a bike frame. I guess that’s why I like raw frames so much. Lighter, cheaper, easier to maintain and looks better (in my opinion) but maybe not with a steal bike 🙂

So how does it compare to the original bike you took the geometry from?

I’ve only been round the block on it so far, but seems quite similar in the corners. Waiting for a chance to do a decent first ride on it, hopefully Saturday.

It was easy to get the same saddle height/set back/reach right so he must have done a reasonable job cutting the tubes to the right length. I’ve got the same stem, bars and saddle as the other one – Focus Izalco Max.

Steel forks though eh? , come on ! lol.

They have been mentioned by the builder for his next project.