A picture’s worth a hundred words, so there’s not much to say about this post other than here are some frame graphics ideas we’ve been working on.

The intention is that these will be painted under a clear-coat lacquer rather than using decals. From an objective point of view, number 1 is probably the front-runner, but I personally like 4 as it’s gotta stripe – and as everyone knows, stripes make you go faster!

As ever, feel free to let us know what you think.

Alongside frame designs, we’ve been thinking about frame graphics and ideas for headtube badges. We’ll have frame graphics to share in the next week or so, but thought we’d show our preferred headtube badge design and would be keen to hear some feedback – good and bad!

The badge will be cast in pewter and although we’re in two minds about best method for attaching to the frame we think the no screw option is much cleaner. In the meantime we’ll be using this as our new Facebook and Twitter icons!

We’ve had a load of interest about what we’re doing with production frames for next year so I thought I’d do a quick update.

Brief history for those who’ve not been paying attention….

Shand Cycles have been hand building one-off custom frames since 2003. Custom building can be a slow process and with a lead time on orders of usually about 6 months, the ordering/building/receiving process could be frustrating for those wanting to get hold of a frame. So, for 2012 we’ve decided to introduce some ‘production’ frames.

These won’t be production frames in the normal sense of the word. Each frame will still be completely handbuilt by us in our workshop in Central Scotland but instead of offering an unlimited choice of geometry, tubing etc, we’ll have 3 models in 3 or 4 sizes. Planning up front like this allows us to make huge efficiencies in both buying our tubing and setting up tools to speed up the process. We will still offer ‘full custom’ frames as normal so please get in touch if you want/need something that isn’t covered by our production models.

We’re moving to a new much larger workshop and we’ll need to do an amount of retooling for this to work but we expect to be up and running, ready to start accepting orders in February 2012.

Here’s some more detail on what we’ll be offering.

Road frame: this is still at an very early stage in the design/planning process. We have some good ideas but the truth is we don’t want to get to crazy with a road race frame. Geometry has pretty much evolved to where it is right now for a reason, it works well, so our road frame will be steel with almost certainly an (optional?) steel fork.
Fairly standard geometry. Super lightweight steel tubeset (maybe Reynolds, maybe Columbus). Almost certainly with clearance for winter tyres and mudguards.

Cross frame: This will be an all-out, no compromise, cross racing frame. Reynolds 853 tubing, S-Bend stays for tyre/heel clearance. Steel straight blade fork. Agressive geometry. No bottle brazeons, no rack or mudguard mounts. Slightly sloping top tube for good standover without compromising the ability to shoulder the bike. Available with
cantis or disks.

AllRoad: This will be very similar to the Cross frame but with a *slightly* more relaxed geometry (slacker head-tube and slightly longer chainstays. Again, 853 tubeset with s-bend stays for clearance. Lots of room for big tyres, mudguards, racks, bottles etc. Disk brake only. Steel fork with brazeons for low rider front rack. This will still be a fast lightweight frame but more versatile than the Cross frame.

All frames available in a wide range of colours, either traditional ‘wet’ paint or powdercoat. Price will include any additional brazeons you want and any configuration of cable routing with internal cable routing optional but at an additional cost.

All frames are handbuilt, fillet brazed. Each frame is built to order and we anticipate something around a 21 day turnaround from order to delivery. Demand will be high for these and as a small operation our output will be relatively low.

Prices are still to be confirmed but we expect to be in the region of £1100-£1300 for frame and forks depending on the model.

We’re still working on a lot of these details and they’re subject to change. If you have any input you feel would be useful, let us know.

In the next few days, our site will be updated with detailed specs of each frame.

Got some new tubes in from Reynolds this week that I like.

Over the years I’ve developed a feel for what tubing diameters and wall thicknesses work for riders doing what they do. A lot of my frames have a 35mm downtube, 28.6 seattube (for a 27.2 post) and a 31.8 toptube. I like the way frames like this ride. I like the stiffness you get from a big downtube. It’s alway a compromise between stiffness and comfort but this is what I like at the moment. And I’m the boss.

Anyway, the one problem with those tube diameters is that the toptube to seattube join is problematic because you need to join a tube with a bigger diameter (31.8 toptube) to a tube with a smaller diameter (28.6 seattube). In order to miter the tube to get a good fit you need to ovalise the top tube so that it’s taller than it was, but the sides of the oval are now less than the 28.6 of the seattube. This is a pain in the arse to do and it’s not a task I’m fond of.

So, the good news is that I now have some custom drawn Reynolds 853 butted top tubes that are tapered from 31.8 at the headtube (front) end, down to 28.6 at the seattube end. This makes life much easier and building that part of the frame less stressful.

If you’re interested in how these tubes are drawn there’s a nice wee blurb here: Reynolds Butted Tubes

downtube-headtube, a photo by shandcycles on Flickr.

downtube headtube junction

BB junction, a photo by shandcycles on Flickr.

this was straight out of the soak tank and will take hardly any clean up.

Here’s some ‘in progress’ shots of Robyn’s 29er. This’ll be his 2nd Shand, the first was a Rohloff equipped 26″ off road tourer.

A sneak preview of some of what’s to come.
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