SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

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landsurfer
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by landsurfer »

My dark green metallic frame came with black transfers .... almost invisible ... :lol:
The nice chaps at SPA have sent me a set of gold ones .....
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landsurfer
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by landsurfer »

barrym wrote:I haven't had a steel frame since my 531 Carlton in the early '60s. You can imagine how carefully that was treated by a young teenager. Don't recall that ever getting dented.


My problem was that I was 326 miles away from my bike when it was blown over and landed on my grandsons bike ! Doesn't matter how careful you are when your 326 miles away :(
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
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531colin
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by 531colin »

fastpedaller wrote:I asked for my frame to be supplied without transfers - alas I didn't consider the tubing transfers! Where the frame transfer usually is on the seat tube, I've fixed a rather nice Gold 'Regina extra' transfer.


Bugger! The crown is the same, I don't think I could tell them apart by the braze-ons or the dropouts...... :?
Gronnz
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by Gronnz »

Hi Colin, I really like spa cycles steel Audax but I like 28mm tyre as minimum and I hear that Audax with mudguards Are really tight for 28mm and sometimes causing it to rubbing? So would steel tourer be better? I mainly cycle everyday commuting with pannier on rack also not a lot but sometimes I go Audax event for fun with friends. Thank for your time
pwa
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by pwa »

A steel Elan (with disc brakes) might be an option if you want something like an Audax but with room for wider tyres.
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531colin
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by 531colin »

Yeah, 28mm tyres and dual pivot sidepulls really limits mudguard clearance.
If you really want to ride 28mm tyres, theres a frame and wheels languishing in my garage just because 28 is the maximum tyre it will accommodate (reasonable clearance with cantilevers)....yours for a donation to sustrans or the cyclists defence fund.
Its the blue one here

Image010 by 531colin, on Flickr

My Elan uses light 35mm tyres at 40/50 psi front/rear ....I'm only 70 Kg.
On real world road surfaces, its more comfortable and quicker than rattling your fillings on narrow tyres.....the energy for all that jolting about comes out of your legs!
I wasted a lot of time worrying about disc brakes, because I was 70 years old and I could do anything I needed to do on rim brakes in the dark with cold hands.....but my BB7 cable discs are dead easy to live with.

Phone Spa to check they have test bikes in your size, and go and ride them.
If you want the pace of an Audax and the practicality of a Tourer, then Elan is a good place to start.
geocycle
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by geocycle »

Gronnz wrote: 5 Apr 2022, 4:46pm Hi Colin, I really like spa cycles steel Audax but I like 28mm tyre as minimum and I hear that Audax with mudguards Are really tight for 28mm and sometimes causing it to rubbing? So would steel tourer be better? I mainly cycle everyday commuting with pannier on rack also not a lot but sometimes I go Audax event for fun with friends. Thank for your time
I have an Audax with 28mm tyres (Schwalbe pro ones) and yes they are a bit tight with mudguards. It is also difficult to replace a wheel past the brakes with the tyres fully inflated. In fact I ran the 25mm tyres over the last winter to give better clearances when we hit the muddy season. But, it is a lovely bike and although I prefer the 28mm tyres I have thoroughly enjoyed the last three years of riding it (thanks 531Colin!).
wjhall
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by wjhall »

wrote: ... ....
If you want the pace of an Audax and the practicality of a Tourer, then Elan is a good place to start.
Where does the Aubisque fit into the set? The description seems to suggest that it is the modern wide tyre capable version of the Audax. It seems to have shorter wheelbase than the Elan, which has a longer wheelbase than the 1050 of the typical 1980's tourer.
st599_uk
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by st599_uk »

I have an Elan with carbon forks and 37mm tyres - I actually went in to look at the Wayfarer and D'Tour, but had a long chat about what I was using it for and ended up test riding the Elan.

45/55 PSI at the moment and it glides over normal crap tarmac, canal towpaths, small gravel, mud etc. Might drop it down a bit or go tubeless in future.

On OK Tarmac it just cruises at 25km/h with not much effort. Big cassette allows one to go up hils with a couple of panniers on.

I did downgrade the chainset to Spa TD2 because it looked nicer than the 105.
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531colin
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by 531colin »

wjhall wrote: 6 Apr 2022, 2:21pm
Where does the Aubisque fit into the set? The description seems to suggest that it is the modern wide tyre capable version of the Audax. It seems to have shorter wheelbase than the Elan, which has a longer wheelbase than the 1050 of the typical 1980's tourer.
Last time I counted up, Spa had more bikes in the list than Surly, and Surly cover a much wider range of riding types, so yeah, there is a good deal of overlap.

To be honest I can't remember which came first out of Aubisque and Elan.

When I started on the bike which subsequently became the Elan, the design brief was for a disc brake version of the (original rim brake) Audax, at the time our best-seller. But at the time the only carbon disc brake forks available were for cyclo-cross; and as I have been caught before, I said "Show me the fork".....when I saw a disc fork with clearance for big tyres I decided it was sensible to match up tyre clearance fore and aft, I didn't see any point in clearance for a big tyre one end and not the other.
I would expect an 80's tourer to fit 32mm tyres and to have about 71 deg head and 55mm offset. The Elan was forced to have 45mm offset, as that is what was available in carbon disc forks, which requires a bit steeper head angle for nice steering. I wanted to fit about 40mm tyres with mudguards, so you can either have massive toe overlap or longer front centre. The big rear tyre needs the chainstays to be quite long as well as quite heavily manipulated. Wheelbase is (for me) the result of other more important design considerations, I would never set out to design a bike to a particular wheelbase.

Design brief for the Aubisque was a clubmans winter bike, steel frame and forks, with disc brakes.
Steel forks allow me to use different offset and head angle for different sizes, so the small bikes have toe clearance for about 32mm tyres without being too long reach.
wjhall
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by wjhall »

.... wrote: .... there is a good deal of overlap.
Thank you, that has helped me to a clearer understanding of the overlaps.

I picked wheelbase as a rough proxy for reach because it can be read off the geometry table, because being familiar with mass market tourers from the 80s (and nothing else) makes me sensitive to the manufacturers' then habit of using 1050 mm as the wheelbase for all mass market sizes, and because I suspect that approaching seventy I should not be working towards a longer bicycle. I get the impression that modern tourer designs do tend to be longer, at least in my size, about 58 cm in old terms.

It does look as though the Aubisque brief best fits what I am thinking of, which is an additional bicycle for lightly loaded day trips with lower gears, and no longer, although 3x10 speed is a bit out of my class, I am tempted to enquire about 3x8 speed.

The suggestion that the Audax is a bit tight for 28 mm tyres probably rules it out as I normally use 28 mm, so the Aubisque normally being supplied with 32 mm suggests that it will do that easily. As I also think carbon fibre is a bit out of my class the significant effect on the Elan design of using carbon fibre forks also seems problematic.
Last edited by wjhall on 2 May 2022, 6:52pm, edited 1 time in total.
PH
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by PH »

Gronnz wrote: 5 Apr 2022, 4:46pm So would steel tourer be better?
The answer to that depends in part on your size and weight. At 6'2" and 95kg my Hewitt Cheviot tourer, built in an Audax type spec with lighter 32mm tyres, loses nothing to the Audax bikes I've had (Racelight TK, Linsky Sportive, SOMA ES) A shorter/lighter rider might come to a different conclusion.
slowster
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by slowster »

wjhall wrote: 6 Apr 2022, 8:45pm It does look as though the Aubisque brief best fits what I am thinking of, which is an additional bicycle for lightly loaded day trips with lower gears
I am sure that the Aubisque would suit that requirement, but I think so too would the Elan. I would strongly recommend visting Spa and test riding both the Aubisque and the Elan.

Regarding your comment "in my size, about 58 cm in old terms", I think it is necessary to be *very* careful which measurements you use and compare when buying modern frames.

For example, the 57cm Aubisque has a 574mm Effective Top Tube. The ETTs of the Elan are 593mm (58cm), 584mm (56cm), and 574mm (54cm). NB It is possible to compare the ETTs of the two models directly, because they have the same seat angle.

Similarly the 57cm Aubisque has a 165mm head tube, a 59mm bottom bracket drop, and a 380mm fork. The Elan has a 395mm fork and the head tubes are 190mm (58cm), 185mm (56cm), and 170mm (54cm), all with slightly varying BB drops.

Consequently the lowest possible height of stem/bars will be higher on the Elan, even for the 54cm size. If you want your bars close to level with the saddle, or even higher, you would be able to achieve this with fewer spacers with the Elan.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data it uses, since I think it is entered by users, but the website below is designed to compare the geometries of different bikes. I have picked the 54cm Elan and 57cm Aubisque, but you can change them.

https://bikeinsights.com/compare?geomet ... 017b589b0,
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531colin
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by 531colin »

wjhall wrote: 6 Apr 2022, 8:45pm ........... I suspect that approaching seventy.........
Seventy isn't so tough.
In the summer I shall be 75, and my favourite bike is still my shiny titanium Elan with carbon forks.
(Last summer, despite a pandemic, lockdowns and reduced club cycling, I still got back to doing 40 mile days with 3000 feet of climbing.)
I use the lowest gears I can conveniently get, and I have done for several years. Now that my hands are arthritic I can't brake from the hoods properly, so I have swapped to bullbars....but the forward reach of the bars duplicates my old "hoods" position.

ImageIMG_5139 by 531colin, on Flickr

If you are cycling regularly, and in good health, I don't think there is any reason to go looking for an "Old man's bike".....I was pushing 70 when we first started prototyping the Elan, and this is me at 5'10"on a 54cm Elan when we took a couple of testers out for some photographs.

Image_DSC0829 by 531colin, on Flickr

I don't know if you ride tracks, but it will cope with that, too

Image_DSC0652 by 531colin, on Flickr

As Slowster says, its worth phoning Spa and checking they have test bikes in your size (tell them your height) and getting some test rides.
If you want to compare reach with an existing bike, probably the easiest way to do it is using "effective top tube"....this is the horizontal measurement from the centre of the headset to the centre of the seatpost, and it works as well for sloping and horizontal top tubes.
Or if you are modern, you can use "reach" which is the horizontal distance from the bottom bracket axle to the centre of the headset.
wjhall
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Re: SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

Post by wjhall »

... wrote: I don't know if you ride tracks, but it will cope with that, too....
No, apart from short lengths that make useful links:
270705-1V-c Common Lane.jpg
But perhaps the question could be rephrased as "Will I be riding tracks?". The answer is probably no, Avon is not Yorkshire. The Elan, I suppose, allows the question to be postponed.
Effective top tube is, as you say, closer to what I really want, provided the defining line does not disappear into a blur on the diagram, or use a different definition, which must be the case for two of the columns in the table below. For the Spa tourer, Old Tourer, Elan and Aubisque, I make these 577/590, -/580, 574/-, & 565/574 for the 54 cm / 57 cm sizes, which just about supports the suggestion that the 58 cm physical length seat tube now corresponds to longer bicycles, which possibly merely corresponds to the fact that modern bicycles are no longer made with the same wheelbase for all sizes. Modern shorter seat tubes will have lesser wheelbases.

Geometry table-a Screenshot 2022-04-08 at 10.44.17.png

And here we have the cheap 1970s touring bicycle, Peugeot AE-8, 57 cm, 27 in wheels, 1050 mm wheelbase, British Eagle, 48 cm, 26 in wheels, 1050 mm wheelbase. One length fits all.
20-31 Cam valley from Therfield 1050 bicycles.jpg
So two sizes, three types of bicycle, equals six test rides, an excuse for a week in Yorkshire.
Last edited by wjhall on 8 Apr 2022, 11:34am, edited 1 time in total.
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