Hoefer Cycles: Tramontana

[hoefercycles]

Originally Posted by coelacant

Very cool bike. I like the swoopy, skinny stays, a good influence from Nate?
Can you detect any compliance from them, other than the extended seatmast?
Rob English does similar stays but his tend to be more wishbone liked, and he claimed no. I also like your choice of standard dia. tubing, and the super paint job too.

I'm in the camp that says 'no', compliance is more a factor of tire selection and pressure than bike tubing. I used the same tubing (3/8" 0.028; 9.5mm 0.7) on a gravel bike I built for myself (much more s-bendy) and compared to the previous frame which used almost straight, 16/12mm tapered seatstays, I couldn't tell you which was which if I were riding them blindfolded (If that were a thing).

FWIW I'm also 150lb and 5'6" (low load, short tubes). ymmv.

[hoefercycles]

Originally Posted by coreyaugustus

...What wheels are those?

Enve carbon hubs laced to Nextie NXT20T02 rims w/ DT Rev spokes. 0.98kg on the scale.

[R3awak3n]

looks fantastic!

[KarlC]

Great bike and build, so cool to see something different.

Please stick around and share more of your builds.

.

[coelacant]

I see you also got a hardtail at the show, are those top and down tube the same dia. pre-bent tubes from Reynolds? I attempted to do that for a Heat treated top tube and it snapped in two, maybe I would have better luck filling it first with sand or water and freeze it or Cerrobend?

[Mustangski]

Bike looks amazing! Love everything about it, checked out your site too. You have many interesting builds on there.

Definitely keep posting!

[hoefercycles]

Originally Posted by coelacant

I see you also got a hardtail at the show, are those top and down tube the same dia. pre-bent tubes from Reynolds? I attempted to do that for a Heat treated top tube and it snapped in two, maybe I would have better luck filling it first with sand or water and freeze it or Cerrobend?

The toptube on that hardtail is 32mm; downtube and seattube are both 35mm. All main tubes were bent using the Cobra TOOBbender (+1 would buy again). Heat treated tubes don't typically want to be bent. I suppose you could anneal them, but then you've lost the benefit of the heat treatment.

I don't fill my tubes for bending (ymmv), I just bend them. Sometimes it doesn't work; I go a little too far, I have the bender set to the wrong radius for the die I'm using, or maybe that tube just wanted to go live in the scrap bin and not be bothered with a life of providing joy to a cyclist. I try not to get too upset about the last one, and I typically purchase 1-2 spares of each tube I plan on bending.

[Krenovian]

Beautiful bike! Love the paint job. I like the special touches lsuch as the carving on the BB shell and the fact that you placed the Whisky label on the fork as it would be located on a factory fork.

[beartrapper]

Love this!

[emrubin]

just wow.

Art. Too nice to ride.....but would 100% ride one