Spectrum Cycles

[csbmo]

jeff's seat stay spoons are the white lillies of the frame world.... wondrous floating flowers.

[Too Tall]

This that, a little of the other and the rarest commodity of all a dab of T.K. genius = this:CWC2009mea.jpgmini-10.JPGmini-TK.jpg

There is much I could say about my own experience riding and racing my Spectrum and thought I'd share the most often repeated comment that other Spectrum owners say "It is the best bike I've ever owned".

Tom touched on "it" in his bio, his ability to "see" the project and what's needed to accomplish an great outcome. BUT ENOUGH of the compliments, if he'd JUST gain some weight and get wider I'd have a decent draft off that skinny sawed off guy!!!! Hey, eat more doughnuts will yah???

I'm most fascinated with Spectrum's range of abilities from meticulous Brevet bikes with quick release bags to Kirin track bikes to my crazy 66cm Ti. sloper and every one of these flavors I've seen in use under the fannies of very happy customers.

PS eat LOTS more doughnuts. xxoo, Josh

[Tom Kellogg]

Thanks. He takes a lot of care and pride with them. You may want to go back a few weeks to Pic Fest #60 for a few shots on how he does it. There is no magic, just care. I think the aspect of the way that they look that is most interesting is that they seem to create such a delicate and light look, as though they are floating just off of the lug, but at the same time, they are soldered well down into the lug. A paradox, but a nice one. Thanks again.

[Tom Kellogg]

This that, a little of the other and the rarest commodity of all a dab of T.K. genius = this:CWC2009mea.jpgmini-10.JPG

Is that Liz on the River Ride?

mini-TK.jpg

I was kind of hoping you wouldn't post shots of that funny looking bike. Yes, I know it works, but who would want to buy from a builder that makes bikes that look like that?

[Too Tall]

Is that Liz on the River Ride?


I was kind of hoping you wouldn't post shots of that funny looking bike. Yes, I know it works, but who would want to buy from a builder that makes bikes that look like that?

Yes, that is Liz....new presidental appointee no less. Ain't she something?

Beats heck of me T.K. Darn shame, I hear you bub. it is also the most amazing handling bike ever. I've been meaning to say something about the bike, I think the geometry is really messed up becuase I can't seem to pass you downhill ;)

[Tom Kellogg]

Yes, that is Liz....new presidental appointee no less. Ain't she something?

Beats heck of me T.K. Darn shame, I hear you bub. it is also the most amazing handling bike ever. I've been meaning to say something about the bike, I think the geometry is really messed up becuase I can't seem to pass you downhill ;)

Liz is a peach, a hottie and smart as a whip. She deserves her appointment.

You never asked me to pour lead shot down your seat tube during the build-up. Its your fault kiddo. The other part of the no passing thing may have something to do with the hooks I send your way every time you try, and maybe those gravel trucks we blew past on Crabtree last spring.

[anthonymaietta]

Tom,

It was a great pleasure meeting you in Richmond this year, thanks for stopping by my booth to check out my work.

Spectrum is obviously also very well known for the paint side of the business. As a framebuilder who also shoots thier own work I do feel somewhat of a connection. During my growth as a framebuilder/painter I forecast a crossroads in the future. At the end of the day I could fabricate a frame in the time it takes me to paint a frame. The net revenue of building a second frame in that time is greater than the cost of outsourcing the paint. Was there a point at which you concluded that painting Spectrum frames was as essential to the brand as fabricating the frames was? Do view painting your frames as non-negociable? I struggle to seperate ego from good business. Do I want to continue to paint my frames just because I think its cool, convenient, enjoyable, and fun to be a builder/painter. There's no doubt its convenient; I finsihed fabriacting one of my show bikes 3 days before Richmond, and painted it the next day. There really aren't a lot of small shops that do the full deal, not just rattle can rustoleum. Is it that people don't have the equipment/skill or is it that they've concluded its not good for business.

Sorry if this was all over the place. Your thoughts are appreciated! Thanks.

[Saab2000]

I was kind of hoping you wouldn't post shots of that funny looking bike. Yes, I know it works, but who would want to buy from a builder that makes bikes that look like that?

This is the exact reason I would buy a bike from a builder who builds a bike like that. It allows the rider to get the most out of it. Everyone knows TT is a tall rider, but rides much 'smaller' on the bike. You're not aware of his height until he gets off the bike. Best tall rider I've ever seen. I have a buddy in MI who is about the same height and I keep trying to get him to make that call, based on what I've seen of TT's bike.

It's not really about the bike, it's about what the bike allows the rider to do with what he/she has. Isnt' it?

[nahtnoj]

Tom,

I've been waiting for this one. I have a few questions, but I'll ask this one:

I understand you have had quite a role in the development and testing of various carbon forks over the years. In a recent pic fest I saw two different steel forks - one for a small woman and another for a track bike. Two very different applications.

Are there enough options in carbon forks right now to match the options for ride quality, stiffness, etc that you can dial into a frame? Do you anticipate making more steel forks in the future, and do people order steel forks with a titanium frame?

[Moke]

Dayammmm, That TooTall model is a bike all right. Looks like Treefarms cross position. I bought Bobby Lea's Spectrum (Jr. vintage ) track frame with the Fuji brand on it a few years back and I hate to admit it, but sometimes after a beer or six I just sit and stare at the lugwork and seatstays. The way the lugs are feathered and the seat stay caps float over the seatlug just never gets old. Then the depth of the paint is something out of this world. I have way way too many bikes, but someday will need another Spectrum in the house. Tom, you and Jeff are two heros of the steel lugged frame (Fillet ain't bad either) and spray booth. I am glad to have you guys keeping the faith in steel and Ti in a carbonfiber world.

[dave1215]

...I was hit by a car, rear ended outside Salisbury, England...

I KNEW IT, Tom Kellogg IS the Highlander - Scottish and all!!!


And, oh my, what a sword he built for me ----> Serotta Competition Bicycle Forums - Mango Green Spectrum Titanium Super
"...it seems as if what happens among Tom, Jeff and Colby at Spectrum Cycles is A KIND OF MAGIC"
"...critical, objective advice uncluttered by his personal preferences to help you develop your ONE VISION"
"...certainly is a PRINCE OF THE (framebuilder) UNIVERSE"

[VA_MEL]

Tom:

As I sit in your queue for Ti, I have to say that the much shared love affair Spectrum owners have with their bikes was a big push for me in making the decision to go for it. In fact, after seeing me talk to you at NAHBS, one of your past customers sought me out in the crowd just to say how much he and his wife love their Spectrums.

Now, on to my question. Looking at Too Tall's bike, it's obvious that isn't on the shelf, as it were, at the LBS. For those of us of average proportions (the 56cm crowd), do you feel that a custom build is still likely to make a significant difference in terms of providing a fit that works optimally toward whatever the intended function?

Mike

[Tom Kellogg]

Tom,

It was a great pleasure meeting you in Richmond this year, thanks for stopping by my booth to check out my work.

Spectrum is obviously also very well known for the paint side of the business. As a framebuilder who also shoots thier own work I do feel somewhat of a connection. During my growth as a framebuilder/painter I forecast a crossroads in the future. At the end of the day I could fabricate a frame in the time it takes me to paint a frame. The net revenue of building a second frame in that time is greater than the cost of outsourcing the paint. Was there a point at which you concluded that painting Spectrum frames was as essential to the brand as fabricating the frames was? Do view painting your frames as non-negociable? I struggle to seperate ego from good business. Do I want to continue to paint my frames just because I think its cool, convenient, enjoyable, and fun to be a builder/painter. There's no doubt its convenient; I finsihed fabriacting one of my show bikes 3 days before Richmond, and painted it the next day. There really aren't a lot of small shops that do the full deal, not just rattle can rustoleum. Is it that people don't have the equipment/skill or is it that they've concluded its not good for business.

Sorry if this was all over the place. Your thoughts are appreciated! Thanks.

Whether I would paint the frames I made early on or not was just never a question. When I worked for Bill Boston, he had a wonderful paint booth and painting was simply part of the process. When I was booted out of Bill's employ, Jim Redcay let me rent his booth until I had the opportunity to move into our current location. So my early history had me looking at final finish the same way as I looked at design and fabrication, just one of the parts of the entire process. Of course, that is not the way many builders see what they do. It is not just in the US that frame finishing is frequently a separate business. The Euros have done it just about forever. Not all of them of course, but many.

If the only painting I did was on our own frames, I would consider farming it out since there wouldn't be all that much paint work to do. In our case though, refinishing is a pretty significant part of the business. If there was a good reason to do so, I could paint full time. There is enough work out there. The money is OK, but I want to keep building frames as well. So we have come to balance the various parts of the business. The workload balance is largely controlled by the various backlogs ... when we get six months back in repaints, we stop getting additional work.

Now for the things that really matter. When you paint, you see things about your own frames and the frames of others that the non-painting builder will not see. Paint work has helped us as a QC check so many times over the years, and with that comes better building techniques. During glass beading and priming, we can see surface shapes, problems, imperfections, etc. that are simply invisible until the finishing process has begun. Painting frames teaches you a lot about building frames. So there's that.

Changes in the future? Likely not. There are about five finishers around the country that I would trust with our frames. You know the names. The problem is that I maintain quite a bit of flexibility with our clients, allowing them to make changes right up until I begin to shoot the base coats. When a builder uses an outside painter, even the best of them, the finish decisions need to be much more structured in order to avoid misunderstanding and mistakes. Because I am working directly with the client, we have that opportunity to massage the design of a paint job to the "Nth" degree. Good for the client and it can be fun for me as well.

As some of you know, I have developed a series of tricks over the years that I use to make our finishes tougher, glassier, sharper, etc. None of these tricks are secret, but the fact that we use them on our frames does make them a bit more unique.

Why doesn't everyone else start right up in the paint business? Cost. Cost in both bucks and time. The learning curve is very steep, the materials are very expensive and the buy-in is a bear. Setting up a proper, safe and legal booth is no easy task. I don't blame others for not wanting to bother especially considering the quality of some of the painters in the US.

Helps?

[Tom Kellogg]

... I keep trying to get him to make that call, based on what I've seen of TT's bike.

It's not really about the bike, it's about what the bike allows the rider to do with what he/she has. Isnt' it?

And that's the truth! By the way, you may want to put your friend in touch with TT so that he can get an idea of what a vertical guy can get out of a properly designed bike.

[Tom Kellogg]

Tom,

I've been waiting for this one. I have a few questions, but I'll ask this one:

Are there enough options in carbon forks right now to match the options for ride quality, stiffness, etc that you can dial into a frame? Do you anticipate making more steel forks in the future, and do people order steel forks with a titanium frame?

In answer to your first question: No. It would be great if we could order composite forks from ... whoever ... with not only custom rakes, but custom layups as well. We can't. At least not one at a time. When I was working with Mike Lopez at Reynolds developing the UL fork, I was able to ask him to, for example; increase torsional rigidity while reducing longitudinal rigidity. The next prototype would come through in a few days with exactly those characteristics. WAY COOL! But building forks like that, one at a time with custom layups just does not work in the real world. We had to settle on a layup that made the most sense for the most people.

We continue to make steel forks for our steel frames and have no plans to stop. We also make them for some of our titanium frames as well since we can't get composite forks with the range of offsets, clearances and fittings that we need on occasion.

Is this what you were looking for?

[Tom Kellogg]

... I just sit and stare at the lugwork and seatstays. The way the lugs are feathered and the seat stay caps float over the seatlug just never gets old.

I showed Jeff your note. It gave him a smile. Jeff is one of the unsung heroes in our little part of the world. His work is so nice, and I get all the credit. Oh, wait. That's good. Never mind.

[Tom Kellogg]

Tom:

As I sit in your queue for Ti, I have to say that the much shared love affair Spectrum owners have with their bikes was a big push for me in making the decision to go for it. In fact, after seeing me talk to you at NAHBS, one of your past customers sought me out in the crowd just to say how much he and his wife love their Spectrums.

Now, on to my question. Looking at Too Tall's bike, it's obvious that isn't on the shelf, as it were, at the LBS. For those of us of average proportions (the 56cm crowd), do you feel that a custom build is still likely to make a significant difference in terms of providing a fit that works optimally toward whatever the intended function?

Mike

Mike: That is a questions that I have gotten so many times over the last thirty-five years that I lost count about thirty years ago. The answer is really pretty simple though. Most riders do not need a custom frame. In fact, I'd guess that only about fifteen percent of riders will get a significantly better bike for themselves by going custom. By "significantly better" I mean that they are really being held back on their stock ride. Josh is one of those riders. So am I. But I have kind of the opposite issues.

So why bother? There are lots of reasons and our clients have them all. But the one that makes the most sense to me as a builder is that with a custom frame, I can take another seventy-five percent of the riders and create a bike that is in some important ways, better for them than they could buy off the shelf. If not an improvement in fit, then in weight balance, handling, ride, aesthetics ... something that matters enough to them that they are willing to wait a pretty long time and that they are willing to pay me what it costs to make what will work properly for them.

So, no, most riders don't NEED a custom frame/bike, but would they be better off on one? About 90% would. That's why custom builders are here. We offer something to the market that is worth something. As long as each of us is good enough at it, we'll still be here.

That didn't answer your question quite. To answer it directly, a properly designed and built frame will make a significant functional difference for a rider in somewhere around 70% of the cases form our experience. For the general public, the number is likely a bit lower since we get the odd ones like me and Josh.

[PCW]

Titanium is kind of odd stuff in a lot of ways, but when it comes to designing with it, there are three basic things that require builders to think somewhat differently as they design a frame.

A) Common alloy Titaniums are only about 62% as stiff as steel so a builder needs to either use heavier gauge tubing or larger diameter tubing to come up with a frame that has roughly similar stiffness properties compared to a steel frame. Would that is was that simple though. Bending stiffness and shear (torsional) stiffness do not have a fixed relationship to each other like they do with steel. For example, 6/4 Ti is a couple percent stiffer in bending than 3/2.5 is but 3/2.5 is stiffer than 6/4 in torsion. Like I said, odd stuff.

B) Titanium's modulus varies under different stresses a lot more than steel's does as well. What this means in the real world is that even a pretty rigid titanium frame will still have a little bit of flex, or give, before it seems to lock up. This is why so many riders know of titanium's comfortable ride. Those little vibrations aren't absorbed, like they will be with some composite frames, but they just don't bother the rider. In the same way, a well designed Ti frame's BB area will seem to flex a little bit, but then will stiffen up under higher loads. Odd stuff, indeed.

C) Under torsional loads, steel and titanium tubes distribute stresses almost perfectly evenly, end to end, assuming straight gauge tubing. Bending stresses are a whole different thing though. Because titanium has that little bit of low modulus flex, bending stresses are not concentrated quite as locally as they are with steel. The stresses are spread down the tubes farther than they are with steel. This requires a Ti designer to consider butt lengths and gauges more carefully than a steel designer needs to.

Helps?

This is awesome. As a degreed Mechanical Engineer, I get really excited to read this kind of stuff from folks that aren't engineers. I spent several years in a machine shop (while going to school) and have to say that experience alone was just as valuable if not more than what I learned in school. Having seen "both sides" I'm always amazed to see one side or the other not respect the other side's point of view. Both are valid, both are valuable, but experience sure is important too. I certainly appreciate this and this is a morsel of information that I'm stoked to see you share. Great stuff!

[Tom Kellogg]

This is awesome. As a degreed Mechanical Engineer, I get really excited to read this kind of stuff from folks that aren't engineers. I spent several years in a machine shop (while going to school) and have to say that experience alone was just as valuable if not more than what I learned in school. Having seen "both sides" I'm always amazed to see one side or the other not respect the other side's point of view. Both are valid, both are valuable, but experience sure is important too. I certainly appreciate this and this is a morsel of information that I'm stoked to see you share. Great stuff!

PCW: I am surely not an engineer. As someone with a degree in Sociology, and no engineering classes during my undergrad years, I have learned what little I now know about this stuff along the way from those I have worked with who are much smarter than I am. My own experience has come into play as well though. Using Ti frames as an example; I couldn't understand why the first prototype Ti frames we built with Merlin did some of the things they did out on the road. So I started asking questions about the material from those who knew their shit. Once I was able to connect what the engineers and materials people had taught me with what I was feeling, I was then able to figure out better ways to use the material. I'm kind of like a leech. I take what I can get out of someone else's knowledge on a subject, combine it with the knowledge and experience of others and develop our own designs and techniques from there. Thanks for noticing.

[steve garro]

thanks, Tom! So: other then a stereo & sharpies, what are the tools that have stood the test of time in your shop, the ones you reach for? the ones that *made* money? on the flipside, which ones were a total waste and got sent packing? - Garro.