Once more for the sake of clarity.
Frame and fork (unpainted) and headset are $1150. I don’t know what a “frame only” price would be. Probably closer to $850.
We build bikes in small production runs. Building bikes like this keeps the quality very high, and the price reasonable. You may neither understand nor agree with either of those statements, but everything in my experience proves this to be the case.
Our (myself and my partner, Tony) background is in bicycle manufacturing. We’ve worked at Kinesis and Sapa, large producers of mostly aluminum suspension bikes. Although we did some steel projects at Kinesis. I believe Tony started at Kinesis in '96 and myself in '01. We are not recent UBI graduates. When that poster mentioned he’d rather get a Panasonic because they’ve been building bikes a long time…I agree. I think that’s very sound reasoning.
I’m not a “designer” either, but I know what I like. I’m also a guy who has looked at a LOT of unpainted frames over the years. Some distinguishable, some not.
It’s important to me that our frames are recognizable without huge logos. Maybe this means something to you, maybe it doesn’t. However, it inspired me to maintain a continuity of design with our bikes that I feel is very important. I don’t think the Supernaut track frame is far off from our Fall Guy, or our Cross bike. I’m proud of that. Perhaps our design language is 180 degrees from what you prefer. That’s absolutely fine with me, and I don’t seek to sway your opinion in this regard. You may not like the way our frames look, but they do work very well. We have a team and between them, and myself nothing is going to get sold which doesn’t work. For example (again) the Supernaut dropouts. Alfred thought they where too small to be practical for track racing. So, they got changed.
To place where I’m coming from in some sort of context…I prefer Hutch over Hetchins. While I respect craft / vintage bike culture, what Klein was doing in the early '90’s is far more interesting to me.
Anyway, I suppose this is a long way of explaining yes, we can tweak a Supernaut. The cost do do so will vary according to the change. For example, we just finished a Supernaut with a level top tube. We didn’t charge for this. As far as geometry changes…I’d prefer someone get in touch with me via email to discuss this.
However, we aren’t going to build a “custom” bike with Paul’s dropouts or other off the self parts and small tubing. There’s nothing wrong with a bike like that, but it isn’t a Tonic.
Fortunately, loads of other people are doing exactly that. Probably 25 in PDX alone.
As far as fit and headset spacers and what not. A longer HT can be problem on a track frame because the higher BB can really eat up stand over height. One solution is to just have a (relative) mile of head tube sticking above the top tube. We chose to use shorter head tubes to keep the top tube height in check for a given size. Our headset adds between 28.5 and 41.5 mm to the HT length, depending on which top cap you choose. I think this arangement is far more attractive than headset spacers, but who am I judge?
If that still doesn’t make sense, yes we can build the frame with a standard HT.
Thanks.
-L
