Price
 

Buy the Baum... this is delusional

An interesting discussion, and certainly appropriate for this thread, in my opinion. I tend to agree with your viewpoint. It's not incumbent on the frame builder to provide those specs. Indy Fab actually sells them. (for $20, I think).

But being polite never hurts as a PR strategy. Two recent personal examples. Alchemy has been nothing but stellar in my communications with them (shout out to Joel). I prefaced the inquiry by saying I wanted to pay for his (their) time, but Joel declined and was more than happy to help. Ended up talking with me for about twenty minutes. I purchased some schwag (four water bottles).

Erik at Alliance was very quick to send the geo for an MTB I wanted to sell here (I was not the original owner) Not only did I not end up selling the bike (which I was reluctant to do in the first place) but I am in the process of getting another frame built with him.

A little generosity can go a long way …

Under all real world bike angles, the effective ('level') top tube will always be longer than the actual top tube length.

whoops, geometry is hard.

As an economist, I think putting a price on the build sheet is the right solution in most situations. For a builder, supporting the secondary market for their frames can help build the brand, generate goodwill, and attract new customers. On the flip side, I can imagine it can be annoying if someone puts X brand bike up on ebay without geometry details and the builder is suddenly bombarded with 50 separate requests for a build sheet. Putting a price on it helps strike the balance between facilitating the secondary market and not having the whole business bogged down with non-revenue activities.

Ditto, that subtlety in to whom Baum’s message was directed had escaped me, and I agree that their answer was appropriate.

a very long way IMO.

here in 2019, with stock bikes being as excellent as they are, i think buying a custom frame for big $$$ largely comes down to how you feel about the builder/company.

even if it's a pain in the butt, or costs some time/money in overhead, i think building and maintaining good will and good vibes in this business is hugely important.

setting clear expectations is also a very prudent and good business strategy. IF's policy of selling you a build sheet for a pretty nominal cost is brilliant. keeps the casual speculator away, but reasonable enough for someone to shell out a few bucks to get a build sheet. Better that if that's their written policy, everyone is on the same page, and expectations are clear.

of course, all this is easier all around if there exists a good electronic filing system. oh, serial number 62549, bingo - here's the sheet.

The "economist-turned-bike builder" is a pretty exclusive club, I imagine :)

Unless the STA is steeper than the HTA, as may be the case on a gravel bike.....no?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

No. The shortest distance between a point and a line is perpendicular to that line. In your example, let the line be the seat tube, and the point be the point on the head tube where you want the top tube to meet. In the ST angle is steeper than the HT angle, the higher up on the head tube, the shorter that distance will be, but it will always be perpendicular to the seat tube. So for a 73 ST the shortest top tube would be one at a 17 degree slope. For a 76 ST, the shortest top tube would be at 14 degrees.

The only situation where level would be shorter than sloping would be if sloping was so extreme (like a step-through bike) where it actually went well past perpendicular, or if the angles were so steep that level was closer to perpendicular than normal slope.

I think once you've received the bike from the builder it is yours, not his (ok, hers). As the original customer I think you're entitled to receive a copy of the detailed product spec, and if they want to charge a price for their time & effort to fish it out and send it, that's fine. I guess that means that people selling their custom frame can charge a premium for including the build sheet.

But given that you bought and paid for it, you're free to do with it what you like, including selling it to someone else. If a builder really thinks that someone other than the designed-for customer riding their custom frame reflects badly on the builder, they should offer some kind of incentive that would prevent re-sale…yah right.

It's a good thing I majored in words :help:

Messaged seller, he quoted about $120 for shipping and confirmed that there is a dent in the TT. Oh well.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F274051961163

Great Divide 56cm for $2250!!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I dont doubt for a second your geometry is better than mine but im wondering if you are perhaps applying this example incorrectly?

seems to me that cleans idea would be correct in practise but then again ive been wrong before..

The green line in example 1 where sta is always slacker than hta will always be longer than the blue sloping line.

But in example 2 where sta is steeper than the hta it would seem to me the level tt would always come out shorter, no?

excuse my poor image but its late and i have little to work with :)