Spanner Bikes

Spanner. Be your own brand.

admin — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:41:16 +0000

Spanner TiBride - the first 'prototype'

Have you ever thought – “Hey, all these UK micro bike brands are just some bloke in a shed ordering frames from China and then making up some marketing bull to flog em”?

Well I did too, and just for a laugh I thought that if they [...]

Gallery – Introducing Titan Product: Dave’s Custom Titanium Audax Frame

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:01:59 +0000

Oranges are not the only fruit – it turns out there’s more than just one enterprising Chinese company that will deal with you directly if you’re after a custom titanium frame; introducing Titan Product.

Titanium audax frame found roaming in the wild, carefully trapped and tamed by Titan.

Dave got in touch with [...]

Gallery – V2: Adrian’s second radical e-stay titanium 29′er by XACD!

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:46:46 +0000

You might remember Adrian’s radical prototype from a few months ago, where he set out to build a 29′er with the shortest possible chainstays – well, he’s back again with V2!

Lighter, slimmer and stiffer; Adrian learnt a lot from his first frame and tweaked his design for 'V2'

Adrian caught the frame design [...]

Catching up with H-Bicycles and Skyde…

admin — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:36:49 +0000

I thought the other day that we’d not caught up with our favorite French microbrands recently – so here we are. Even if their frames might not be to your taste there are often examples of finishes and other options that you might not have considered before.

H-Bicycles – Horton

First off let’s check out [...]

Gallery – Johnny’s custom Newsboy road frame by XACD (and how to work with Porter!)

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:38:20 +0000

Johnny contacted me back in April as he was looking for something a bit different and had approached XACD for a Newsboy style road frame. His order didn’t go quite as smoothly as some so I thought it would be a good one to share with the rest of you.

Looking for something [...]

Gallery – WS01 Carbon Time Trial frame and wheels from GoToBike

admin — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:27:55 +0000

Some of you might be wondering what this Darkside Tupperware content is doing here, well….

As well as Mountain Biking I also like to dabble in the dark arts and do a bit of Triathlon (the sport for gadget freaks with Attention Deficit Disorder). Having signed up for IronMan UK this year I thought it was [...]

Gallery – Adrian’s radical prototype e-stay titanium 29′er frame by XACD

admin — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:20:25 +0000

And now for something completely different. Just in case you were worried frame design was looking a little conservative at the moment, here comes Adrian to save the day:

OK, safe to say I've not seen one of those before! E-stays allow radical short wheelbase design and check those custom adjustable dropouts.

One good [...]

Gallery – Josh’s custom titanium XACD 29′er

admin — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:38:50 +0000

I was cruising the forums over on Singletrack World a little while back and spotted Josh’s post about a 29′er he’d had made by XACD. Not wanting to miss documenting someone else’s experiences I got in touch to find out more. Here’s the post that started it all off:

Evening..

I am very very [...]

Gallery – Martin’s custom titanium XACD ‘Yorkshire Rose’ hardtail

admin — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:00:49 +0000

Martin's first XACD frame - now running as a fully rigid singlespeed.

Martin recently got in touch with me to let me know about an XACD frame that he had made a little while ago and about his plans to have ‘frame 2.0′ produced. I asked him about what he had [...]

Amaro bespoke bikes made by XACD

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:34:00 +0000

Following another tip off I found out about bespoke Spanish designers Amaro. They specialised in making unique frames to order, tailoring them to match customers requirements. They’ve now decided to bring their fabrication ‘in house’ and no longer get frames made by XACD, but I liked their variety of designs so much that I couldn’t resist [...]