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 – Dave’s Custom Titanium Audax from Titan Product Part II: the build

admin — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:39:21 +0000

I know a few of you have been interested to see how Dave’s order with Titan Product ended up. As you might remember we saw the frame a few months ago:

http://www.spanner.org.uk/2012/02/gallery-introducing-titan-product-daves-custom-titanium-audax-frame/

…and now Dave’s been able to get it built up!

Looking very smart - Dave's Titan Product frame brought to life

[...]

Gallery – Michael’s custom titanium 29er by XACD

admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:06:57 +0000

Michael contacted me before Christmas as he had a few interesting ideas he wanted to try out on a custom XACD build, things like removing the chainstay bridge and mounting the rear brake ‘inboard’. I thought the results would be rather interesting – and they are! I’ll let him take up the story…

I [...]

Gallery – Introducing Waltly Titanium Technology from China

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:38:10 +0000

Jenny from Waltly Titanium got in touch with me the other day to introduce themselves – I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as there must be loads of these little companies around, but you do wonder where all their customers come from?

(OK, now I’m starting to answer my own questions, taking a closer [...]

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 [...]