The Frame

OK, this thing has already been decided on. So, please do not tell me that it was a terrible move. I do not need you re-assurance, but at least don’t bring me down, don’t make me regret it. 🙂

The frame is still not with me though.

…the story

Most of the time I ride alone on the hills around my place. Generally I get along quite well with myself. I don’t have to accommodate to other’s speed, do not have to push harder, or slow down or stop when others need to pee.

But from time to time I ride with some friends as well.

And this year I was again with the boys, this time in Pécs.

During our stay - I received a message from a friend who is selling second hand bikes. The message was about a titanium bike - a gravel Ribble with electronic shifting - he was about to put on sale. And Peter - one of the boys I was riding with - received the same from him and said that titanium is amazing. It is a completely different world. Compliant and light weight. It looks real, nothing like carbon.

And if you scratch the frame you just brush it and it looks as if nothing has happened. He has a titanium framed mountain bike and that rocks.

And I was totally cooked.

By the time I could ask my second-hand-bike-dealer friend about that titanium he already sold it. Since then I’ve been wanting a titanium framed gravel bike badly.

I looked around the market. Not thoroughly, just a bit.

The one that my friend advertised was looking great, but it was gone. Ribble is selling frame sets as well by the way. So, that could have been an option. But since UK left the European Union importing has not been as smooth as used to be…

I also had a look at Moot, FireFly, Curve…

In most cases the geometry of those beautiful creatures was somewhat more aggressive than the one I ride today. I told you about my lower back and my age as well, right?

I wanted to buy joy not suffering.

Peter - the friend who said titanium is amazing, compliant and others - got his frame from Nordest.

Nordest is a small brand. The designer behind Nordest is Pedro Jeronimo. Hola, Pedro. I hope one time we can meet in person. And his other brainchild is Jeronimo Cycles.

And I contacted Pedro.

It happened through emails - we have a quite long thread by now.

Although I formally submitted an order through his website as he requested, we mainly communicated in emails. He wrote that he will start off from the designs on his Website but can customize my frame as much as I want.

I have chosen the Sfarrapa II Titanium kit. The kit means that it includes a carbon fork as well.

The name of the model has a story on the Website: it is named after a historical person, a smart smuggler. 🙂

I could not find real evidence of that story but this is what Pedro wrote on the Website:

Esfarrapa, hence our model’s name Sfarrapa, was a very well-known smuggler. He knew every single trail and path in the area, and would travel forever, always dressed as a beggar, although he was a pretty wealthy man. Esfarrapa’s life was an adventurous one.

This is specs from the Website:

And this is the original geometry - still from the website:

I have chosen the internal cable routing from the downtube not from the steering. Having in mind that it might have been double hassle to route everything even further, and even servicing could have been a pain in the ass.

All the customization that I asked for was a bit longer headtube and I asked not to put on the matte finish - or anodized decal - at the end.

So, finally it would rather look like the previous version (Sfarrapa without the II):

I asked to keep all holes and eyelets and what not of the original design to keep the compatibility with everything and not exclude possibility neither of 2x nor electronic or mechanical shifting.

It was late summer during our emailing process. He sent me a drawing with the geometry and after the approval of that he started working on the tech drawing or blue printing.

To be honest I got scared a few times when I thought Pedro was ghosting - not responding for a couple of days. He is not a big company. He might be busy - and then you have to wait.

I received the technical drawing. What a mess. At least for me as I’m not an engineer. It took me quite some time to understand - and I am sure I do not get all the details. I fed that to AI to analyze it and asked some stupid questions from Pedro to validate them. I did not even understand some of those questions. 🙂

But finally I signed off the technical drawing and asked if we can start counting now the 12 weeks. Pedro confirmed.

And he - or rather the manufacturer - is working now on my slightly customized titanium frame.

The frame is estimated to be ready within 12 weeks after the final approval. That is a lot, I know, but does not matter at all. I need time for lots of things.

And during this time I researched a bit on the titanium welding process.

Titanium welding is a delicate process and requires lots of care and precision. It is different from steel welding as in case of titanium you have to flood the heated area with Argon to avoid its contact with air that would damage the titanium structurally. So it is not exactly a do it yourself kind of thing.

I think even Pedro Jeronimo states somewhere he actually has the frames manufactured - as he is not doing it himself. There are contract manufacturers doing titanium bike frame welding.

I have found one specific manufacturer that might be used by Pedro. Not 100% though.

A Question that I asked myself:

Could I possibly contact a manufacturer directly maybe getting my frame at a cheaper price?

And the answer…

I cannot create a design blue print myself. Also there are certain quality assurance steps:

Checking on the weldings, checking the material use, checking the the compliance to the design: If what should be parallel are indeed parallel.

And that threads are good quality, and so on and so on…

So, no, I would not be able to do that myself.

Next time we will walk into the massive woods of components and compatibility.

Stay with me.