rruff

I thought it was about Cannondales?

Hida Yanra

i'll quote since some people seem to be struggling with reading comprehension. Care to try again? (hint: it's underlined, linked, and in the thread title)

rruff - props for showing up in the thread after having someone who actually is an expert show up... still, I'd recommend taking yourself here, or perhaps making a substantive reply to Mickey's post?

Fat Boy

Dude, you got worked. Your acknowledgment or lack thereof of this fact does not change what happened.

The funny part is that I think you have some legitimate issues to raise. Certainly, the use of 6061 aluminum is worth questioning. You didn't question, though, you just came in and said how Spooky bikes will break because they're 6061 and blah, blah, blah. Pride goeth before the fall, Rocketboy.

rruff

I didn't say Spookys would break because they are 6061... in fact I explicitly stated that 6061 is likely as good as any aluminum to build bikes from... including scandium (#37). 6061 is certainly better than 7005 IMO. Kleins and Cannondales were made from 6061 in the old days, and Cannondales still are, with possibly a slight tweak on the mix.

The issue is making a 1000g frame out of aluminum... *any* aluminum. As I mentioned in #35 this is much lighter than Cannondale (or Klein or Specialized, etc) has taken the material, and they are a large company who has been at this for decades. Their frames are/were 1250g+. And ridethecliche mentioned "Even the CAAD9 says that you have to replace it every couple of season because of their being built to be light race frames, not ones that are long lasting" (#39). 1000g is claimed on the website, but I don't know if this is true or not. Anybody put one on a scale?

Another thing I mentioned was that the shaping of the main tubes (which is minimal on the Spookys) is not going to change the "ride" in any noticeable way, in response to ridethecliches post that "small variations in tube shapes totally changes the entire feel of a ride". I said that "shaping is beneficially done to improve the junction with other tubes" (#43)... ie improve the strength. You can believe that the ride is significantly altered though, if it makes you happy. Mickey's statement regarding this doesn't say anything different. "The only tubes we do significant forming on are the Seatstays (for clearance and some vertical stiffness), and the Toptube, which is domed at the headtube end for increased cross section area, ovalized at the seatube for better weld area and a little flex, and a Squish back from the headtube dome for a scooch more lateral stiffness and a "flex zone" for stress relief."

But I'm not buying this part though "If the Caad9 was built with the same slope as a Skeletor, it would be about the same weight. It'd be too damn stiff though." You won't be saving 250g by sloping the toptube... maybe 50g... 100g max. And the effect on stiffness is zilch. Also this "We designed these frames to ride like Ritchey Logic tubed Tange Steel bikes from the mid 90's." I hope not... those bikes had a lot of lateral flex... and I don't see how it would even be possible to design a fat-tubed aluminum bike that would have the same flex characteristics. All the reports I've heard so far say the Skeletor is quite stiff. The CAAD9 might be gaining a wee bit of vertical comfort from the radically smashed and curved seatstays, but the Skeletors are relatively straight.

And this statement of his is one that I'm in agreement with "Design bicycle tubes isn't rocket science dude... Neither is building good bikes." That is, if you do not depart from basic design principals that have proven to be reliable. If the tubing is butted as he stated, then a 1250g+ frame would be within the accepted range for a frame that an average person could ride hard for a couple years and not break in normal use. When I see 1000g, I'm like... how did you get there? That is a radical reduction! And there is nothing radical about the materials, design or execution that could possibly support it's being as durable as a CAAD9 while being 250g lighter.

And the explicitly stated *lack* of warranty on the website doesn't give me a warm feeling either. Mickey's response that "If your frame breaks, and it's our fault, you will have a new frame, free, in 3 days."... leaves a lot to interpretation as well. Is it Spooky's "fault" if a frame breaks in normal use after a year? 10 years?

Sorry to piss on the party... I came to this thread because I was interested in the bikes (I like aluminum), and so far I'm not impressed with the design and what I expect the lifespan will be. If it turns out that they are heavier than stated and have a real warranty in writing for X number of years, then I'll be interested again. I fully expect it to ride like a fat-tubed aluminum frame though (stiff in every way)... which is fine with me.

ridethecliche

The fact remains that any race bike that is ridden like it is intended to will probably fatigue at some point. I'm pretty sure even the carbon frames will probably give out after x amount of use.

Cannondale also says that people should replace their bikes after x amount of time because it allows them to sell more bikes. And their warranty process is as up in the air as Mickey's is. How do you know when cannondale will say it's their fault and when they will say that it's just fatigue?

Fat Boy

Just because you're in a hole and have a shovel does not mean you have to continue digging.

robncircus

And how many bike frames have you built?

I understand on paper how a car's engine works but I would not want to be thrown under the hood to diagnose a real life problem. Spooky has been around a long time (I knew them from the mtn. bike scene in the 90s) and they do one thing - build aluminum race bike. No BS. Their sole goal is to make good bikes. I plan to get a Spooky as my "upgrade" present to CAT 4 and I'm hoping my remaining 8 races come sooner rather than later

Hida Yanra

rruf - good post regarding your thoughts and concerns. I appreciate you contributing to the thread and the discussion. I'm all for discussing the product here, and your points in post #79 are all reasonable ones. I haven't heard anyone who has ridden a Spooky have anything but compliments for it, (and this includes Justin Spinelli and others), I am hoping to ride one next time I am in Portland......

As for life expectancy, I have no idea, nor can I think of any way to quantifiably know this other than get one and start riding it. Mickey has been doing this for quite a while and I've heard no complaints, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I doubt it would ever be an issue for me (a lightweight without much sprint) but who knows. I'd like to think that Mickey is making good bikes and is good for his word... but I don't think I'll ever know with any certainty unless I buy one.

My personal feeling from emailing with him and talking with people who do know him is that he will stand by his work if it is ever an issue - but you do have a good point... if you are looking for the safe feeling of a written, legally binding warranty with the backing of a major entity, spooky probably isn't the way to go... a very valid point.

Perhaps analogously:
I would rather buy my shoes/clothes from a craftsman in a workshop than go to Maceys/Nordstrom/etc. Quality attire may be purchased with either method, I am likely to receive different amounts of social recognition, customization, & product guarantees from either option. I am probably more secure shopping from a department store, but the craftsman will provide a different product at a different price.
Personally, I would rather buy in smaller quantities from craftsman than more (admittedly good quality) volume from a chain. I assume more risk this way – but for me, the price/benefit/risk factors work out in a way I prefer.

A discussion with no disagreement is terribly banal, thank you for thinking out loud and bringing up your concerns.


Off topic - considering the time of year, have some green chili for me? I miss that stuff terribly... it is amazingly addicting stuff.

ridethecliche

Mickey's frames break, cannondales break, cervelos break, treks break.

Point is.

Everything breaks...

That's why it's important to look over your equipment and make sure everything is in good order.

mickey@spooky

RRuff:
Give me a call 413.230.8733.
I'll sell you a frame for cost, and you can at least evaluate the subjective aspects of things for yourself... As we can all agree, "feel" can not be quantified. I feel ike you are underestimating the differences in weight that things like dropouts, headtubes, bb-shells make. You also need to realize how much weight cannondales double passed and ground welds add, and how they change their butting profiles to match. Suffice it to say, Cannondale tubes are much thicker at the ends, with a much longer transition area than our tubes. All that weldment(which is much stiffer than a tube) spread over a relatively wider area means much thicker tubes at the junctions. And a ride, that IMO is a lot more dead feeling.

Flex is good. Embrace it.

ridethecliche

Lol. I should complain more.

Mickey didn't even offer me that option!

pinky

dayum. if thats all I need to do to get a frame at cost...mickey please remind me to piss in your cheerios the next time i'm in eastworks....

robncircus

Mickey there is only one way to end this - GROUP BUY!

Seriously, though, you could off load quite a few frames through that process if you were so inclined

Hida Yanra

@rruf - the day one of the guys from giant/specialized/trek show up and stand up for their products the way mickey just did will be a donner-party festival in hell.

He's a craftsman and he stands up for his work... your move.

ridethecliche

Forreal.

Hell. I'd piss in fruit loops for a frame at cost. And I freaking love fruit loops.

Fat Boy

Forget this. Keep digging, before long you'll get a frame for free.

ridethecliche

Lmfao.

Well done.

rruff

Hey Mickey... that's a generous offer! I'm not in the market for a frame right now, but that might be too good of a deal to pass up.

That is the sort of thing I like to see... and it is missing from the website and any discussions I've been able to find online. If you have a logical train of thought that gets you from heavier designs to your own, and you can make a good case that no durability was sacrificed, then that is great. The more details, the better. I'd certainly love to hear more about this. There aren't so many geeks into MTBs (takes too much coordination I guess) but there are quite a few into road bikes.

In response to what some others have said, I very much appreciate that you have started a company to craft stuff domestically. I'm in that business myself and I know how hard it is... you are competing with 50cents/hr labor that the big companies employ, so you have to offer a superior product. I also know that it is much harder for a small company to offer the sort of warranty that the big ones do. Once they get the assembly line going their incremental cost of producing another frame is probably 10% of retail or less, so it's no big deal to just pull another off the shelf. A small company works on much lower margins so a rash of warranty replacements can spell bankruptcy. Still, a legally binding explicit warranty gives the customer some reassurance that the builder has confidence in the product... even though they can still go bankrupt and leave the customer hanging.

I've done a little research and I gather that you apprenticed as a welder at Spooky in the late 90s, then they closed their doors for some reason, and you recently revived the brand. Is this true? How long has Spooky been under your ownership?

Another thing I'm wondering is how much do they really weigh? If you've finalized the design you should know this pretty precisely. I've seen reports of 890g for a 54cm frame and 1150g for a 57, but I have a feeling that the 54 might have been a prototype.

Thanks for the offer! I'll be in touch.

ridethecliche

From what he told me, he took over the brand when the statute of limitations on the old crap expired. That way he wouldn't owe people money and crap.

FWIW, he used to race a lot more than he does now. Semi pro-mtb. He used to race road as well, and still races cross. So I suppose he's one of those MTB-geeks that don't exist...

He's been doing this crap for half his life. I 'interviewed' him when I went over there so I could write something up for my blog. I don't know what happened to the notes now. I hate moving. I'm seriously going to cry if I can't find them. In any event:

matkinstall

-1 for fanboys ****zing on someone who dares to (gasp!) question what they've read.

+10 for a thread with mostly intelligent discourse.

+20 for real talk from someone who puts food on the table (but not tap water, apparently) by building bikes.

grolby

Stereotype much?

Hida Yanra

qft

mickey@spooky

I am by no means a welder! I spent summers in highschool working at the shop and racing for the team, basically a shop grom done good. Kevin and Chris the previous owners convinced me to go to college instead of Belgium to race as an amateur so that I could take over the company from them when I got out of school (by this time we were $250,00 in debt and they were starting to have familes and needed to make some real money). At this point ('99) we were doing most of the fabrication for every US bmx company that wasn't part of S+M or Standard. The time it took us to turn their napkin sketches into bikes, and the super low margins of contract bmx fabrication, plus all the other contract fab, and a really shady UK importer had really made a mess of things.

The shop closed up in spring 2000 and I continued racing, now mostly road bikes, and finishing up a college degree at Hampshire where I focused on Exercise Physiology, business, Industrial design and science pedagogy. I use my physiology background nearly every day designing bikes, and not just for fits, but ideas about proprioception and kinesthetic awareness, and biomimicry when it comes to structural design. After college I did a lot of fun design and fabrication stuff, designing 70mph 80 pound human/electric tricycles, high end architectural fab, but mostly working with my friend Frank The Welder off and on, either in the shop, or helping out with the various brands he was working with at the time.
In March of 2007 it was time to restart the company- and using the accumulated traction and goodwill of the coolest bike company ever, I re-launched the company with $200 in the bank.

Things haven't changed much since. We've built a high capacity manufacturing facility with less than $5000 in expenditures for machines and tooling. We are scrappy, and scrappers, quite literally, finding and rebuilding old mills and lathes, getting gifted furniture, computers and other office stuff from people whose lives we help enrich by having fun building bikes and being ourselves. There are 2 of us here full-time, but a cast of probably 15 other people that do tons and tons of work to make sure the doors stay open. Some companies would call those folks volunteers, but they aren't really. They're family. The family gets bigger all the time. As America and American culture get further and further off track, more and more people, like our contract machine shop, our tubing mill, our painters come on board in a very anarchic way. We all love what we do. And by working together, we make our collective experiences more rewarding, and help each other keep the lights on.

We are damn near in the black now... but there are usually a few people calling every day asking for money for things like cutters, cutting fluid, or paint. That's reality in a small US manufacturing business that is completely cash-based. For instance, I need to sell $8k worth of stuff today to pay various very important bills. It's work. Very fulfilling, very tiring work.
So yes, everyone, buy some bikes today. I'll send ya some socks.

Hida Yanra

I just read your last blog post - interesting stuff there.

I hear you about being a cash based business... my own experience coincides with that comment, it makes life a lot harder.

Greg180

Mickey has/will/is done/do/doing good things. I have had a couple of confabs with him and worked a race with him. Left me with a smile and no concerns.

I will be riding spooky in time. Because its a tool and not a jewel.