Tournesol shuttered?

[MattTuck]

Inspired by that thread about touring bikes, I worked my way over to Hampsten's Tournesol brand, only to see this:

http://www.hampsten.com/tournesol

Tournesol is taking a little break right now and thank you for your support in the past. It may be back, it may not, but you’ll be seeing some fun new projects from Hampsten Cycles before too long. Merci Beaucoup!


Am I late to the party? Tournesol always seemed like a neat little sub-brand. Maybe it makes sense to consolidate everything under Hampsten....

Just surprised to see that.

[jds108]

I remember reading somebody's comment that they asked Steve to put the Tournesol stickers on their new Hampsten. And... Voila!

[jpw]

Hampsten blog;

MONDAY, JANUARY 07, 2013

On Tournesol
Right now my feeling with Tournesol is that it has been a fun project that lasted for seven years or so and we seem to be moving on to newer and simpler iterations. As much as I like big tires, rack/fenders/lighting/650B, it seems that other people are doing well with this combo and my enthusiasm for complicated builds - and I'm also looking at you, disc brakes and Di2/EPS - isn't what it used to be.
Hampsten blog;

Our Strada Bianca has been killing it, imho, with fenders, bigger tires, choice of material/forks/brakes and lack of complications to the extent that promoting Tournesol seems a tad redundant and, at times, self-defeating. Martin does great work with the frames and forks but having Max build the racks takes him away from the welded frames which currently have a six-month wait. And sourcing odd parts and dealing with the fussiness of rando bikes - well, bitchbitchbitch but I think one can see where I'm headed with this.

In addition we have a few other projects that could come to fruition in the next year or two and should be fairly intertwined - if you were to think new shop location, material choice, and alternate models you might not be too far off - and cleaning house now makes sense. But we still have Tournesol decals and graphic files, the rack benders still work, so who knows - maybe 650B electric-assist track racers will be the next new, old thing. And we'll be there!

[sancruz]

I'm actually considering selling my lugged Tournesol Sportif - 58cm TT. Maybe this news will help it to move quickly.