Waltly Titanium Gravel/Road Disc - a year in updates & thoughts

[MaraudingWalrus]

Received my Waltly titanium frame today.

I'd posted in a few comments various places about it.


I'll give my thoughts on the process as follows

The price was way reasonable, and the timeframe was pretty quick.

From the first time I contacted them until today receiving the box was 58 days.
From sending payment to receiving was slightly less at 49. Obviously that's considerably quicker than lots of (all of?) the more traditional builders.

All in I paid $982, which includes shipping and processing fees. $780 of that was for the frame with the custom geometry and features, $10 was for beadblasting a custom logo on the headtube, $150 for shipping, $42 was paypal fees. Again, considerably less than any or all of the more traditional builders.

Now, for details on what I had done.

Custom geometry: I basically liked the geometry of my GT Grade that I sold, except it was a bit big. So I took the geometry of the size smaller GT Grade and modified it a bit, by making it a bit taller in the front end. I sent that geometry to Waltly and asked if they could create that. We went back and forth a couple times with tweaks, and eventually wound up with something that I think (hope?) will work nicely. One thing that I think is worth noting about working with a framebuilder overseas like this is that I don't think they'd necessarily stop me from doing something stupid - that is to say, if I sent Rob English geometry for something that was just absurdly stupid, I think he'd offer input that it might be a bad idea.

Frame features: I specced the frame for clearance for 700x40 tires, and will likely run 700x30s on the road, and 650bx47s offroad. I requested three bottle cages mounts, and routing for full length external brake cable to the rear, internal Di2 routing, rear post mount brake, tapered headtube for zero stack headset, 142x12mm through axle rear, rack and fender mounts, and a replaceable derailleur hanger.

It looks quite nice, minor issue with shipping - there's evidence of a tiny amount of rub on the headtube, and I think they'd have done better to include a better spacer on the rear end, but it's a relatively minor gripe. It shipped with a rear through axle, and a seat collar - which were both a nice surprise. It also arrived with with bolts in all the bottle cage bosses, which was nice, as well as the little plastic clips for the cable guides.


Frame weighed 1660g without the through axle or seat clamp, but with the bolts and cable clamps.


The whole frame

Logo on the headtube, don't have a good sense of scale.

Rear brake mount, which looks quite nice

Rear dropout on the drive side, which again looks nice. Removable hanger

BB shell and fender mount

Bends for chainring, tire clearance

Scale shot



It looks nice, the welds look good to very nice visually, everything appears to be as promised, with some stuff I didn't expect. There are some good reasons to do this, as well as probably some bad.

Good:
if you know exactly what you're looking for, it's a very effective way to get that.

Price and turnaround were fantastic.

Communication throughout the process was easy.

Bad:

Obviously, without the backing of a company or person here in the states or wherever you, dear reader, are... it's harder to resolve a problem if one arises.

There's also not necessarily anybody to stop you from doing something dumb, just like there's a few less layers of QC. Those are things that cost markedly money, obviously.

I suppose this is theoretically not as high a quality thing as somebody else's thing, and potentially the craftsmanship isn't as good. I don't know, I don't have another thing to compare.

There are obviously some downsides to communicating with someone who was darn near 12hrs opposite my schedule, although I would occasionally get the chance to respond to emails that showed up at 10-11pm my time as I was heading to bed, or occasionally if awake in the middle of the night. Otherwise each one of those is obviously another day to have communication back and forth.



Conclusion:

So far, I would absolutely do again - even currently planning a fixed gear frame from them. What I might absolutely consider, is if I were going to get an heirloom quality, holy grail of a custom bicycle from an English, etc with a supremely high price tag and long lead time, I might get something like this first, to see if I'm happy with the geometry and hold over until the lead time is up. Could very easily see doing it as a proof of concept before a huge commitment like a more traditional custom frame. Also, quality looks good, but who knows if they let me do something stupid with geometry or if I'm going to die from an exploding downtube, the former is certainly more likely than the latter. I will also contact them for ordering another of the derailleur hangers, as I've not seen one quite like this'n before!


Apologies for gigantor photos...


As far as the build plans....

I intend to build this up with a Rotor UNO groupset, I'd been sort of promised the ability to get one from the Rotor reps, but they seem to now be telling a different story. I may wind up going with Campy EPS H11. Depends on what kind of information I can get out of Rotor about a time-frame. We'll see...it's been a month and a half or so since any firm timeframe was given (and then taken away), or really any info at all.

I've got a set of antifreeze green onyx centerlock hubs to go on a pair of 40mm carbon hoops if picked up off of dgoodwin here on the forum - thanks again for the hookup - I'll use CX-Sprint spokes on those, I'll use a 28mm Corsa on there. I also have a set of CLD hubs I'll be tearing out of a set of 700c Ailerons, to rebuild into a set of 650b ailerons. I'll use either WTB horizon or Byways. Whisky No. 9 fork is on the way, I've got a Cane Creek 40 headset to put in there as a placeholder until I can get my hands on a White Industries headset, and I'll likely run Ritchey Cockpit parts I've already got. I may try a Brooks C17 for the saddle. I have a Paul Set-n-Forget for the front, and intend to get another for the rear.



Update:
New post incoming at the bottom with some thoughts a year in.

[eddief]

i think the biggest negative is what you might have done had it not arrived in good condition or built to your specs. that could start an incredible hassle to get things taken care of. i thought of going direct too, but in the end went through Davis Carver. Paid a few hundred more dollars to get the peace of mind of a fairly well known U.S. designer / dealer.

My Carver is my fave out of about 50 bikes over the last 16 years.

Best of luck with your new shiny toy!

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by eddief

i think the biggest negative is what you might have done had it not arrived in good condition or built to your specs. that could start an incredible hassle to get things taken care of. i thought of going direct too, but in the end went through Davis Carver. Paid a few hundred more dollars to get the peace of mind of a fairly well known U.S. designer / dealer.

My Carver is my fave out of about 50 bikes over the last 16 years.

Best of luck with our new shiny toy!

Correct, I hadn't worded it as concisely as that, but yes.

[ultraman6970]

Looking good...

[MaraudingWalrus]

Things got really slow moving with a few things over the summer.

One set of wheels built, got some 30mm Strada Bianca tires on them

Another set of hoops on the way, some 650b Nexties to do my own version of the Boyd Joccassee wheels.

IMG_4732.jpg

[ragamuffin]

Looking good! I've always been on the fence for these Waltly's..the price seems right and the welding looks surprisingly good on yours. Have any other QC issues popped up since owning the frame?

[MaraudingWalrus]

Should have the (majority) of the rest of the parts tomorrow.

Will have shifters/brakes in hand tomorrow, as well as the bars - the new Pro Vibe alloy to run the bar-end junction box.

I also grabbed some Metrea rotors for the time being, because the new R9100 series rotors are apparently not available though shimano NA at the moment.


I did however realize I've forgotten to order lockrings for the rotors (the through axle variety don't come with the rotors..) and I forgot to grab a FD clamp.

I also don't have any wires yet, as I'm still dragging my feet hoping that the three way wires become available through distributors soon...


also got in my carbon 27.5 hoops..will tear down the old wheels and take the hubs out soon.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Got the bike built up over the weekend and took it for a small ride Sunday morning. A few changes still to come


still need to move the saddle into the right spot, so it'll be more centrally located on the rails, perhaps even moving towards a setback seatpost.

Going to trim down the rear hydraulic hose this week some time, as I left that a smidge longer than I needed to.

I also got some of the RT900s in the mail today to install.

[nalax]

It's good to see it coming together. I had discussed with Waltly a couple of years ago and found the communication pretty good and responsive. But I ended up with a pair of Black Mountain's instead.

[MaraudingWalrus]

I do also have my 650b "road plus" gravel wheels for this. I've attached a few photos with those

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by MaraudingWalrus

I do also have my 650b "road plus" gravel wheels for this. I've attached a few photos with those

[eBAUMANN]

great write up, thanks for sharing your experience, been curious about waltly for awhile myself, the bike looks great!

one question though - why not spec a larger headtube? (instead of 5cm of spacers under the stem)

[veggieburger]

Very nice! I'm also curious - did you price out a Ti fork? If so, do you recall the additional fee for it? thx!

[Bonesbrigade]

Nicely done! I'm also curious about the spacer situation since you would have known your stack height needed.

Tell me about the byways. What kind of terrain have you been riding them on, what pressure and can you compare them to any other 650x47s?

I'm loving my Switchback hills, but thinking of adding a tread option to my arsenal - Byways or a little more aggressive with the terrene Elwoods (light version) or even the gravel king SKs.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by eBAUMANN

great write up, thanks for sharing your experience, been curious about waltly for awhile myself, the bike looks great!



one question though - why not spec a larger headtube? (instead of 5cm of spacers under the stem)

Ah. I'm currently very fat. I would hope to be less fat in the future. I will move bars down as (if?) that happens.