Spectrum Cycles

[Blue Jays]

"...Now I'm waiting for someone to notice the final very subtle difference in this frame from our others up to this point. Hint; it's not with the fork..."

Here are my ideas from looking at the frame above:
Possibly the unique double-pinstripe along top tube leading into lug?
Larger diameter downtube to allow fitting the bolder SPECTRUM graphic seen on titanium frames?

[nahtnoj]

Is it the diameter of the ST?

Black paint makes spotting differences tricky!

[Tom Kellogg]

Awww I tried hard. I looked at the bikes on your site and didn't see any FD tabs. I was hoping to win a Ti frame. Coffee I've got Ok. This brings up a question as I might be in the market for a Ti road frame. Will your Seven Cycles collaboration frames be in your style or Seven's? I've had a Seven Sola mtb frame for 11 years. Can I get a ballpark cost on a Spectrum Ti with no fork, paint or doo-dads? A plain-jane frame like a Potts. PM me or eee-me if you like.

Excellent question. The only noticeable change to the "new" frames is that we are switching over to the Seven style seat and chain stay caps at the dropouts. I had tried to get Merlin to change their original flat style for many years to no avail, so this is just want I had been looking for anyway. Matt up at Seven had asked if they could use their style early in the transition process and I jumped at the idea. His purpose for asking was simply that their tooling is set up for it and it makes our work easier to get through the normal flow of the shop.

We are switching over to Seven's head tube micro bosses even though they cost us a tad more because Tim finds them a little easier to weld up. One final thing that makes no difference in the end is that we are using Seven's raw BB shells. They start out a few thou. shorter and the change allows them to do the final alignment and BB machining without reprogramming the CNC. Merlin's use of a tiny bit longer piece of tubing came from way back when they started making frames with threaded shells. When they first set up their new CNC, their programming engineer suggested a bit more material than they really needed just in case there were warpage issues that they might need to deal with. It was never needed but it was never changed in Cambridge and narrower ones were only implemented on Merlins about eight years ago. When Merlin finally did make the change to their shells, they didn't think to ask me if it was OK to make the change for my shells and they just kept making the long ones for me. Probably wasted a few inches of Ti tube over the years ...

I'll PM you Re: a new frame.

[jim d]

could it be a isp or some sort of an extended seat tube i see there?
awesome looking frame!
jim

[Too Tall]

T.K. This move has me excited to see a new crop of bikes. I like the way Seven uses an insert for the ST. Will that be in the mix?
Also, is there a possibility to make Ti tandems or Unicycles? Pogo sticks? The usual questions ;) No kidding about the tandems however, the collaboration between your proven abilities to design the best tandems with Seven's record for also producing very solid Ti tandems seems like a match made in tandem heaven...so to speak.

[Tom Kellogg]

could it be a isp or some sort of an extended seat tube i see there?
awesome looking frame!
jim

Thanks for the compliment. Sorry, but although the ISP is new for us, the original post in the FNL comments thread ( http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum...tml#post259703 ) was all about the ISP.

I doubt that anyone is going to be good enough to figure this one out. Maybe someone who already has one of our steel frames from the last few years will figure it out, but that is it.

[Blue Jays]

Chamfered drain hole in bottom bracket shell with threaded guide?

[Tom Kellogg]

Oh, come on! We've been doing that for years now. Nice plug though and thanks for that. ;-)

[Tom Kellogg]

Now that we've started getting the "new" Spectrums from ABG via Seven, I thought I'd post a few pics of this one, going to a fella' up in Vermont. You might guess from the photos that Tom is now a very happy camper. Holy smokes! Can it get better than this? And Tim is out of practice with our weld style. By the way, when we got the frames in raw condition, the alignment was perfect, threads; perfect, bores; perfect, dimensions; perfect. Hot damn! Now look at the brake bridge weld again. Like fillet brazing, but not. Sending good vibes to both ABG and Seven as I post this. Maybe I should send them both a jar of June's raspberry jam.

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[Tom Kellogg]

Here are my ideas from looking at the frame above:
Possibly the unique double-pinstripe along top tube leading into lug?
Larger diameter downtube to allow fitting the bolder SPECTRUM graphic seen on titanium frames?

Naw, the down tube is a pretty standard 1 1/4" 7-4-7 tube and the stripes, while a bit different than most in color, are surely not unique for us. It's in the frame itself, not the finish. Boy, you really want some coffee don't you?

[Blue Jays]

"...Boy, you really want some coffee don't you?..."

Fresh out of reasonable guesses now! :-)

[blue boy]

(concerning the steel ISP frame; I'm goin for the coffee Tom! ) Sloping top tube, slightly anyway, and / or rear vertical dropouts? :)

[nahtnoj]

Now that we've started getting the "new" Spectrums from ABG via Seven, I thought I'd post a few pics of this one, going to a fella' up in Vermont. You might guess from the photos that Tom is now a very happy camper. Holy smokes! Can it get better than this? And Tim is out of practice with our weld style. By the way, when we got the frames in raw condition, the alignment was perfect, threads; perfect, bores; perfect, dimensions; perfect. Hot damn! Now look at the brake bridge weld again. Like fillet brazing, but not. Sending good vibes to both ABG and Seven as I post this. Maybe I should send them both a jar of June's raspberry jam.

This is probably a good time to ask what is different/better about how Spectrums are welded versus how other titanium frames are welded?

[Tom Kellogg]

T.K. This move has me excited to see a new crop of bikes. I like the way Seven uses an insert for the ST. Will that be in the mix?
Also, is there a possibility to make Ti tandems or Unicycles? Pogo sticks? The usual questions ;) No kidding about the tandems however, the collaboration between your proven abilities to design the best tandems with Seven's record for also producing very solid Ti tandems seems like a match made in tandem heaven...so to speak.

Josh: Seat tube inserts; we are continuing to use the ones that ABG uses. They work just fine and they allow us to use 31.6 seat posts. The Seven inserts sleeve down to 27.2. Nothing wrong with that really, but because of the 16% increase between the circumferences of the two sizes, the required clamp bolt tension is greatly reduced. Eventually, we hope to be able to get composite inserts for our post size, but that may be a ways off.

Pogo sticks; how many do you want? There may be an issue making one tall enough though. Tandems; well, we could make one, but I am afraid to ask Rob what it would cost. It would be fun to run the numbers to see how fat we would need the tubing to be.

[Tom Kellogg]

(concerning the steel ISP frame; I'm goin for the coffee Tom! ) Sloping top tube, slightly anyway, and / or rear vertical dropouts? :)

Old stuff.

[Tom Kellogg]

This is probably a good time to ask what is different/better about how Spectrums are welded versus how other titanium frames are welded?

I've addressed this somewhere before but I can't recall when or where it was. Our weld style (or at least the style we have Seven use) is really just a standard double pass weld. The same as Merlin always used on their frames and Seven uses to this day. The only difference is that during the second pass, there is no attempt to pause puddle the bead. It does make it somewhat more difficult for the welder to make it look really nice. Cosmetic defects are more obvious with smooth welds. Why do we have Seven do it this way? I just like the looks better. Simple as that.

The other general way that Ti frames are welded is with single pass welding. This is how most of the Litespeed welding is done. It saves time, uses less heat and in most instances is just as strong. However, it is somewhat more difficult to get good tube fusion AND a nice looking weld with single pass. I saw it done once down at ABG a few years ago though. They have a welder down there who with no apparent effort put down one of the most perfect weldments I have ever seen in one pass. She was showing one of the guys in engineering something and she was talking the whole time she was welding. Amazing. Of course, not all welders are like she is.

[blue boy]

Okay, how bout the bottom bracket, is it a BB30?

[timto]

My guess - the sti stops on the bottom HT lug looks different than Steel Spectrum's I've seen - tell me i'm the winner!!

Awesome new ti frame, awesome cool steel frame. Spectrum are amazing!

[Tom Kellogg]

Alright, enough of fishing for higher post numbers. The distinction is just too subtle. On this Bob's frame, we took the lug shorelines quite a lot closer to the miters than we have in the past. My guess going forward that Jeff and I will vary the shoulder width by the type of frame we are building. Thinner shoulders as the frame's purpose gets more towards the race end of things and wider shoulders as we have done in the past for frames in the touring and brevet end of things. The ones on Bob's frame took me a lot more time to get the thinning right. When the shoulders are narrow, it is more difficult to get the surface shape just right. I just have to be a lot more careful.

... clipped ... Awesome new ti frame, awesome cool steel frame. Spectrum are amazing!

and Tim; thanks for that. We changed the way that we do head tube micros about six months ago to make them lighter and a lot stronger. They take more time, but they are better. I'll keep the coffee (hee, hee)

[blue boy]

Rats! ( hateful ole framebuilder; I wanted that coffee. ) :D