SPA CYCLES STEEL TOURING FRAMES

[Jdsk]

Thanks, Colin.

Fascinating.

Jonathan

[pedalsheep]

Fascinating indeed. Thank you Colin, I'm a very happy Elan owner.

[531colin]

Fascinating indeed. Thank you Colin, I'm a very happy Elan owner.

People do like it, and thats great. I also like mine!

Its certainly the "quickest" bike I own, by that I mean its the one which accelerates straight away when I push the pedal.

Its sort of forgiving and comfortable over the bumpy bits, and stable enough so that I don't have to concentrate on the road ahead all the time, I can enjoy my surroundings, and I dont get into trouble if I corner a bit enthusiastically......but I expect all that from a bike of that type and price.

Anybody care to tell us why you like yours?

Hmmmm...and now I'm wondering if the bigger bikes would benefit from a bigger diameter seat tube......

[Jamesh]

Do you think the titanium is worth it over the steel?

Does it ride any better?

I see so many titanium frames cracked makes me nervous...

Cheers James

[531colin]

I think titanium is worth it for the reasons below (red)
I would argue it rides better (for me) because there is a gentler gradation in stiffness between tube sizes, and the stays are more flexible.
Of course, if you are strong and/or heavy, it may not work as well for you.
I can only guess what "the average" rider wants from any frame size, and I may have guessed very badly for you.
Phone Spa to check testers are available in your size, and go ride them. If you are strong or heavy, steel may be better for you.
Spas current titanium fabricator has very many fewer returns than the previous fabricator. i imagine this is due to better control of both welding and annealing.

I'm delighted to get so many good reports of the Elan.
I think what I enjoy most about it is the balance between stiffness against your push on the pedals and smoothness against road irregularities. Some of that is deliberate, and some of it comes from making a virtue out of a necessity.
On all the Spa bikes, I vary the top and down tube(s) diameter(s) with the frame size.....I think this may be unusual? Certainly, last time I looked at the Long Haul Trucker they had the same diameter tubes for the very smallest as for the very biggest, so the smallest frame is very much stiffer than the biggest when it wants to be the other way round.
A couple of the tubes are ovalised aiming for lateral stiffness....of course in a bike frame you want vertical compliance (for bumps) and lateral stiffness (for pedalling)....an impossible request, as the thing is triangulated vertically, not laterally!
The carbon fork has a tapered steerer....bigger at the bottom where the stress is greatest; so you are forced to have a big head tube. This actually works for you, because in the big sizes (in Ti) you need a really big downtube, and with a standard-diameter head tube you need to ovalise the downtube the wrong way to get it to fit. Also on a carbon steerer you can't have a huge stack of spacers, so to get the bars high enough I had a tall head tube; the head tube extends a bit above the top tube, but if you take that to the extreme it looks awful, so the front of the top tube ends up higher than it otherwise might. So to get decent standover, I dropped the back of the top tube well down the seat tube, so there is a bit of a "mast" of seat tube above the seat cluster; and this gains a bit more flex in the seatpost/seat tube than if the tubes all join at the very top of the seat tube....also it gets the top tube closer to the bottom bracket, although whether or not that stiffens the bracket significantly I don't know! (Its almost a dropped top tube)
Titanium is an interesting material. Its about one third less dense than steel, but also less stiff in about the same ratio. Where you win is that Ti tubes are made in one eighth of an inch increments, just as steel tubes are, so there is a more gentle gradation available in Ti than steel. Also, seatstay and chainstay diameters are about the same in both materials; apart from anything else there is no room for a fatter chainstay between the chainwheel and the back tyre.....so titanium stays are more compliant than steel.

[Bmblbzzz]

..........
That's interesting. I would have thought of the sloping top tube as, primarily, sloping down towards the seat tube and being lower at that junction rather than higher at the head tube. Thus the longer exposed seat post and lower standover. And unless you slam your stem, the bars can still be adjusted up and down. So it's interesting to get the view from an actual designer!

All I would say is its the seat tube you measure!.....

Good point!

But in my defence...

I did toy with the idea of sizing like Specialised do, where the "size" is the length the seat tube would be.....if the top tube ran horizontally from the top of the head tube to the seat cluster. Then we could have sized the frames, in inches, in the sizes we were all used to at that time.

...the only sloping top tube bike I have is a Specialized, so it is sized like that!

[wjhall]

You are going to have to make a decision....Wayfarer and Elan barely overlap.
............ a Wayfarer, its the logical successor to the Roughstuff. Its a stable, forgiving, "point-it-at-something-and-it-just-goes-over" kind of bike.
Elan will cope with easy tracks on a nice day, but I haven't tried it loaded!

So of Tourer, Elan and Wayfarer, which bicycle for which track?

1. Stock Lane:

2. Dolemoor Lane:

3. Woodend Lane:

4. Sandy Lane (A tarmaced minor road):

[brumster]

Looking at above photos, I think I'd base my choice of bike on preferred tyre choice.

[fbs]

Just add this to the previous request of what bicycle for what terrain. This is a good bit of one of my favourite local rides, in the dry. At worst it is like cycling on mixed railway ballast with plenty of pot holes for good measure. In the winter the previous pictures by @wjhall show it all. I have ridden it many times over the last 33 years on a Muddy Fox Monarch Pro rigid mtb (retro now lol) with 'narrowish' Schwalbes. These days my wrists and shoulders are less forgiving and I now ride it with front suspension and wide tyres. I also have the interest in getting a new general purpose steel frame bike for 'mixed terrain' and 'slow' road use. Yes, I have too many bikes

[531colin]

Its not so much "which bike for which track" as "which bike for which RIDE"

If I'm going on a day ride on the road which is long or hilly, but includes a short length of track, then its Elan. I will be taking the track because its somewhere I want to be so it doesn't matter if I have to go slow or walk, and it won't mean I'm out in the dark because its just a short section of the ride.

If I'm doing a moving-on tour taking in as many long tracks as I can (high cup nick; high street in the Lakes) then for me its my good old Roughstuff bike, although if I were to replace it I would have a Wayfarer for the disc brakes. (Hmmmm....74...I wonder if I'll do that sort of stuff again?)

Something in between could be the dear old rim-braked Tourer, which rides well unladen, or the Dtour with discs.

Stock Lane, with the deep tractor ruts is going to need care on any bike; the tractor tyre tread set in dry mud is a bit less uncomfortable on big tyres run at low pressure.
If you are going to do a lot of stuff like Dolemoor lane, with copious mud, then you will want disc brakes because mud and grit grind through your rims at a shocking pace. (My Roughstuff has Carbide rims, which are set to outlast me, but I don't think you can get them any more). Doesn't help transmission wear, either!
Woodend Lane (in the dry) is almost a road, you could do that on 25mm tyres.
The flooded Sandy Lane looks deep; you can't know what is lurking hidden by muddy water, and I would be looking to walk round on the grass. The bike might have to go in the water!

[531colin]

Just add this to the previous request of what bicycle for what terrain. This is a good bit of one of my favourite local rides, in the dry. At worst it is like cycling on mixed railway ballast with plenty of pot holes for good measure. In the winter the previous pictures by @wjhall show it all. I have ridden it many times over the last 33 years on a Muddy Fox Monarch Pro rigid mtb (retro now lol) with 'narrowish' Schwalbes. These days my wrists and shoulders are less forgiving and I now ride it with front suspension and wide tyres. I also have the interest in getting a new general purpose steel frame bike for 'mixed terrain' and 'slow' road use. Yes, I have too many bikes

In the dry, thats also almost a road, so just about any bike will do.

Much the same comments apply as above; it depends how bad the track is (and what sort of bad!) and how much of the ride it forms. In general I reckon a mile off road is "worth" 2 miles on road, but its ever so variable. I try to avoid carrying the thing!

When I'm "just riding along" I have a tiny bit of weight on my hands....just enough to steer with, without holding on to the bars. When I put a bit of effort in, (on a rising road for example) the weight comes off my hands. Uphill I'm pulling up and back on the bars. If you have a lot of weight on your hands it makes any rattling about from the track a great deal worse. (push the saddle back to take weight off your arms.)

I set the saddle low enough so that I can pedal in contact with the saddle but with no real weight on the saddle....on anything but a smooth track my weight is mainly on the pedals.

So riding along a bumpy track the bike moves underneath me a bit like a rocking horse; as the front wheel goes into a hole I let it drop in and "pay out" my arms; as it comes back up I flex my elbows almost like lifting the front wheel out. Then the back wheel drops down into the same hole. The trick is to let the bike do the jolting about, while you "float" above it.

Of course, you may be going faster than me!

Cue lots of people telling me thats not the way to do it; but in any case, have a look at my DIY bike fit piece linked below, and try it; its free and it might help. Mark and photo everything before you move the saddle etc.

[slowster]

Different people will have a different approach/attitude to riding on some of those roads and tracks. For example, the MTBer who ploughs through the muddy track on a gravel bike with no mudguards and is happy to get themself and their bike covered in mud, vs. the touring cyclist who leisurely and carefully picks their way or gets off and walks and maybe even shoulders the bike.

wjhall, the two well filled panniers on your bike suggest that you fall firmly in the touring cyclist camp. If you want a bike to continue that style of riding on those tracks, you would probably do better to get a Wayfarer for the benefit of disc brakes and the flexibility to use tyres anywhere between 32mm to 47mm wide (with mudguards).

If you want something different from your current bike, which encourages you (occasionally) to push a bit harder and which you will use mainly with a saddlebag or seatpack to reduce the amount of stuff you take with you and keep the weight down, then the Elan might be better. If you would want to use the Elan with your panniers, I suggest you compare its chainstay length (440mm) with that of your current bike to check whether heel clearance would be worse.

NB The Wayfarer and other modern steel disc braked touring bikes will be heavier than your current bike. Disc brakes, 1 1/8" steerer tubes and aheadsets, and oversize tubing will potentially provide significant improvement, but they do add weight. That extra weight can easily be compounded by the chosen build. Shimano STI levers add not only cost and complexity, they also weigh more than your current downtube levers and separate brake levers. The Tubus Cargo rack on many Spa bikes is much stronger and more reliable than the aluminium Blackburn racks fitted to tourers in the 1990s, but it weighs half as much more. I think it is important to be aware of this, otherwise you might be a bit surprised when lifting a Wayfarer, Genesis Tour de Fer, Surly Disc Trucker or similar modern tourer and comparing it with your current bike. However, once you add the weight of your panniers and your own bodyweight, the overall differences are small.

As usual, the best advice is to go to Spa and test ride the bikes.

[Bmblbzzz]

1. Stock Lane:

220411-6715 Stock Hill-track-sovereign.JPG

Is that between Oldbury and Littleton-on-Severn?

[wjhall]

Is that between Oldbury and Littleton-on-Severn?

It is, it is the middle of the set of three starting at the bend by Littleton Waterworks and ending in Oldbury. This is the start of that section on the top of Stock Hill. I have never ridden any of them, the bike is almost at the furthest point I have reached on this bit only, its main use is that when it has dried out in summer the ruts are big enough to act as benches for a short snack. Unfortunately the hedges mean there is no view once you pass the first gate.

I find it difficult to imagine any bike being ridden on it, I am tempted to answer the question as tyres 350-700, bike NEW HOLLAND TD5050. Do you ride the route?

It was probably extreme as a rough end calibration point creating too much of a gap with Dolemoor Lane and leaving a gap for something to separate the Elan and Wayfarer.

As Colin has spotted, Woodend Lane has been a tarmac road within the century, it can be ridden at a reasonable pace on 28 mm tyres. Why it was tarmaced is puzzling. Woodend is a deserted medieval village of which I have never noticed any trace.

Both Woodend and Dolemoor Lanes are about 3 km long, but the section of Dolemoor at that standard is only about 1 km. Dolemoor's main attraction is as a link avoiding the A370, Woodend because it is de facto traffic free and in the fields. The county are considering improving the surface of Dolemoor, which would make it more attractive as a trip out onto the moors in itself.

And so to the motor roads of Somerset. I rode through the Sandy Lane ford, which has formed recently, immediately after taking the photo, hoping that the surface was still smooth. This confidence is diminishing with time because the water is muddy and potholes and sandbanks could be forming, so Colin is right: Wellington boots (+Wayfarer?) next time, unless the council have fixed it, which I think they said they would.

The panniers are misleading. The bicycle has a rack so I prefer a few things rattling around in small panniers to a tightly packed saddlebag. Also, unlike everyone else I hardly ever go out for the day without waterproofs.

[Bmblbzzz]

Is that between Oldbury and Littleton-on-Severn?

It is, it is the middle of the set of three starting at the bend by Littleton Waterworks and ending in Oldbury. This is the start of that section on the top of Stock Hill. I have never ridden any of them, the bike is almost at the furthest point I have reached on this bit only, its main use is that when it has dried out in summer the ruts are big enough to act as benches for a short snack. Unfortunately the hedges mean there is no view once you pass the first gate.

I find it difficult to imagine any bike being ridden on it, I am tempted to answer the question as tyres 350-700, bike NEW HOLLAND TD5050. Do you ride the route?

I once tried to ride it. I didn't get very far before deciding it was a lot easier and probably faster to push. That was on 28mm road tyres but I think you'd really need a mountain bike with suspension fork to ride all of it at its worst.