Hampsten Cycles

[hampco]

As a current future customer, I'd like to ask:

Is a regular steel SB a feasible everyday commuter in the pacific NW? Or is it really better to go with Ti (or stainless)?

Any chance of getting Kent E to make stems to match his ridiculously beautiful seatposts?

Thanks.

Steel would be - and is - a great material for a rain bike. A little Wiegle's Framesavr, make sure the BB can dry out after most rides - should be no problem at all, if we assume fenders are being used. But the other materials work great too, no wrong answer.

We can ask him... for myself, welded stems just don't thrill me so much. Not sure why - but those Moots stems sure are things of beauty.

Oh yeah, how does one get a pair of the wild boar socks you talk about on your blog?

Thanks again!

1 - buy a bike

2 - buy a frame

3 - buy the Warmth Package

4 - come by the Towers here and pick up a pair

5 - see us in Austin at Nahmbs

I guess I'm doing everything I can to avoid putting a single pair of socks in an envelope and mailing them. Would two pairs at $25 with shipping fly?

[grscha]

I like the sound of option #4. I'm planning a trip to Seattle next month...I'll be in touch.

Thanks!

[fixednwinter]

Wow....

Following the tour, maybe a few days on a beach on Elba, which will just get us warmed up for our invasion of Corsica. On Corsica we should have a chance to compare and contrast the differing varietals and porc-derived dishes from those in Tuscany, as well as rating the quality of sand on the beaches. A typical day should look like this:

Wake up slowly

breakfast

2-3 hour ride

a heavy lunch

siesta/read/beach

cocktails

dinner!

walk around town and sneer at other americans

bed

Rinse/lather/repeat

We finish our little bacchanal in Paris where the liver undergoes a final intensive workout consisting of repeated treatments of foie gras and Calvados.

Then home, tanned, rested, and fattened.

[fixednwinter]

Hi grscha;
Not to contradict the Man, but frequently using both a steel and a stainless steel Hampsten for errands, chores and inner city driving in either rain, snow or slush, it gives me more peace of mind to be driving the stainless steel Hampco. My 853 steel SB is no wimp, but I do regularly touch up paint at the fender and rack eyelets, minor paint scratches from locking the bike to metal bike racks, etc. I also need a drop of oil where the shifter cables exit the stops at the top of the downtube.

And after a deluge, I always remove the post and flip the bike overnight to let the seat tube and BB shell drain. Next morning, a 5-second blast of Wiegle's finest spray. Not a big deal - on the other hand, my Hampsten stainless needs none of that.

[grscha]

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it. Looks like the ultimate solution is to have multiple Hampstens...

Funny, too -- I was admiring your winter Hampsten in another thread not long before you wrote this. That's a great red.

Cheers.

[grscha]

[F]or myself, welded stems just don't thrill me so much.

Interesting...now that you mention it, I realize that I'm somewhat underwhelmed by welded stems. I appreciate the craft and the contribution to the overall look of the bike, but I'm not inspired to get one. Maybe they lack the visual impact of the modern stem...

[grscha]

Huh...I seemed to have caused this thread to grind to a halt. I can fix that--I have some more questions:

1) The Classic seems to have been a popular model (at least on VSalon). What has replaced it in the lineup? The Crema? And if one needs custom geometry?

2) Can you talk a little more about the relationship between Hampsten Bicycles and Cinghiale Tours (which sound effing awesome)? Do customers get a Hampsten for their first tour, or do they go on one and get one for the next tour? Etc.

Thanks again!

[fixednwinter]

I'm pretty sure you can order a Strada Bianca and have its custom geometry designed to the slightly tighter specs of the Classic. My red Hampsten in the winter thread is basically a Classic. Its stays are 5mm shorter than my Hampsten SB, the front dimension is also slightly shorter, and tire clearance maxes out at 28mm or 30mm, instead of 33.3mm, due to the Alpha Q fork. For the kind of roads and gravel I ride, I have a slight preference for my Classic over the Strada Bianca.

But I could just as easily live with the Strada Bianca if it were my only bike as well. It's no slouch in a fast pack with 25mm Michelin ProRace3's on and the fenders removed. And when you need those 33.3mm Jack Brown's, nothing else will do.

[hampco]

Huh...I seemed to have caused this thread to grind to a halt. I can fix that--I have some more questions:

1) The Classic seems to have been a popular model (at least on VSalon). What has replaced it in the lineup? The Crema? And if one needs custom geometry?

I think Marco nails it above. Classic never really caught on for the two-three years I pushed them but I rolled the Classic options - MAX tubing (or other), steel or molded carbon fork, shorter wheelbase - into the Strada Bianca line, et voila. Crema is, essentially, a non-custom Classic with round-sectioned tubes. If it involves custom and 57mm-reach calipers, it's a Strada Bianca; short-reach calipers and it's a Gran Paradiso.

2) Can you talk a little more about the relationship between Hampsten Bicycles and Cinghiale Tours (which sound effing awesome)? Do customers get a Hampsten for their first tour, or do they go on one and get one for the next tour? Etc.

Thanks again!

Brother Andy is co-founder of Hampsten Cycles, we talk often, and he leaves the day-to-day stuff to me but has a full vote in the Big Decisions. Andy rides our bikes as do many of his Cinghiale Tours guides. Quite a few Cinghiale customers end up buying our bikes and more than a few Hampsten customers end up on Andy's tours. And we get folks with multiple tours and/or bikes from us - but we haven't tracked the average timeline for these types of transactions, however.

Andy is planning on coming down to Austin for Nahbs and I'm hoping to go on one of his tours next fall. Win-win.

[kimconyc]

Huh...I seemed to have caused this thread to grind to a halt. I can fix that--I have some more questions:

1) The Classic seems to have been a popular model (at least on VSalon). What has replaced it in the lineup? The Crema? And if one needs custom geometry?

2) Can you talk a little more about the relationship between Hampsten Bicycles and Cinghiale Tours (which sound effing awesome)? Do customers get a Hampsten for their first tour, or do they go on one and get one for the next tour? Etc.

Thanks again!

Hi, I found out about this forum from (Fermaguiana). I know that this question was not directed at me but I'll answer anyway :D

I was one of 14 clients who went on this year's Cinghiale Dolomiti Epic--as it was my first time in Europe as well as first time on a Cinghiale trip, I decided that my Merckx Motorola TSX was the most suitable tool for the job, although my carbon bike would have been the lightest.

While on the trip, one of the other clients had a freshly in-house welded Ti Gran Paradiso and I couldn't help how awesome it looked--it definitely had the "Euro tchotchke-esqueness", as A. Hampsten would say, in its flawless fish-scale welds and clean angles, yet it was understated, without the look-at-me graphics that seems to plague most of the mass-produced carbon bikes that are fabricated in a soulless matter.

I had toyed with the idea of having my Merckx bike geometry replicated with more modern materials and S&S couplers for some time but after seeing the quality of the Ti Hampsten GP in person, having A. Hampsten look at my fit in person, it all made sense.

However, what finally drove me to actually contact Steve about a frame build was when I was filing away the maps, papers, and such from the Cinghiale trip and a trinket fell out of a folder--a Gavia badge that A. Hampsten picked up for each client at the rifugio on top. I didn't know what to do with the badge, really, so the logical conclusion was that I would need another bike.

So far the process has been very pleasant and no-nonsense.

Furthermore, I was completely blown away when Andy remembered the minute geometry tweaks he recommended to me off the top of his head, months after we had come back from Italy! This, to me, is where the value lies in Hampsten cycles: having been fitted by the man, confidence in Max et al. doing the welding, and Steve doing the design and management of the whole process.

I hope to have the whole bike together some time before the spring so that I can get some good miles on it before my next trip to Italy during the summer! Obviously, I will be bringing the new Ti Gran Paradiso on the next Cinghiale trip I plan to go on in 2012!

[dashDustin]

Anytime I read about someone working with/ at Yellow Jersey back in the day, I have to ask...

Did you work with a fellow by the name of David Agger?

[grscha]

kimconyc, you are living the Hampsten Dream...

(I am only slightly a little envious)

[hampco]

Hi, I found out about this forum from (Fermaguiana). I know that this question was not directed at me but I'll answer anyway :D

I was one of 14 clients who went on this year's Cinghiale Dolomiti Epic--as it was my first time in Europe as well as first time on a Cinghiale trip, I decided that my Merckx Motorola TSX was the most suitable tool for the job, although my carbon bike would have been the lightest.

While on the trip, one of the other clients had a freshly in-house welded Ti Gran Paradiso and I couldn't help how awesome it looked--it definitely had the "Euro tchotchke-esqueness", as A. Hampsten would say, in its flawless fish-scale welds and clean angles, yet it was understated, without the look-at-me graphics that seems to plague most of the mass-produced carbon bikes that are fabricated in a soulless matter.

I had toyed with the idea of having my Merckx bike geometry replicated with more modern materials and S&S couplers for some time but after seeing the quality of the Ti Hampsten GP in person, having A. Hampsten look at my fit in person, it all made sense.

However, what finally drove me to actually contact Steve about a frame build was when I was filing away the maps, papers, and such from the Cinghiale trip and a trinket fell out of a folder--a Gavia badge that A. Hampsten picked up for each client at the rifugio on top. I didn't know what to do with the badge, really, so the logical conclusion was that I would need another bike.

So far the process has been very pleasant and no-nonsense.

Furthermore, I was completely blown away when Andy remembered the minute geometry tweaks he recommended to me off the top of his head, months after we had come back from Italy! This, to me, is where the value lies in Hampsten cycles: having been fitted by the man, confidence in Max et al. doing the welding, and Steve doing the design and management of the whole process.

I hope to have the whole bike together some time before the spring so that I can get some good miles on it before my next trip to Italy during the summer! Obviously, I will be bringing the new Ti Gran Paradiso on the next Cinghiale trip I plan to go on in 2012!

And we're finishing that frame up today: seat tube was reamed yesterday and the Gavia badge mounted. Today will be decals, headset and let's think about an invoice, hey?

Anytime I read about someone working with/ at Yellow Jersey back in the day, I have to ask...

Did you work with a fellow by the name of David Agger?

I think I remember Davey: tall, hairy-ish, rumor was he wrenched at the Tour day France? I think he was leaving as I was coming on board so my memories of him are fuzzy. Of course they were fuzzy times, being Madison in the early 1980s...

[dashDustin]

wow. awesome. finally someone (sort of) remembers the DAgger. Tall, hairy-ish, supposedly wrenched at TdF. Now he's known for the wooden clogs. He would always talk about the Yellow Jersey.

[hampco]

I, of course, wore clogs back in those days - for cooking in restaurants it was de riguer. What's Dave up to these days?

[Fourflys]

Hampco-
Thanks, I just had the pleasure of reading through the thread and loved it! Hampco has a lot of heart and soul, and I really dig that...

The problem with "Smoked Out" is I want one of everything from all builders... :D

[hampco]

Let me help you with that feeling:

[Fourflys]

that's just wrong Steve... :D My new wallpaper on my Mac is the full pic of the red Crema on the astroturf...

[hampco]

You mean THIS red bike?

[Fourflys]

You mean THIS red bike?

that's the one! I can't wait to see the dirt road version of this.... The Sterrato sounds awesome!