# Custom made mountain bike



## ralphy1976 (Sep 18, 2009)

My childhood friend has finally achieved his dream of building his own MTB frame, it may not look like much but there are no 2 frames like this one.

The tube set was chosen for various reasons (he is a metal / crystallography engineer if that means anything to you then you know!!) including, welding properties, fatigue resistance, elasticity..etc..

all welds are hand made. Welding material chemical composition chosen such that it would enhanced some of the tubing characteristics.

Frame geometry custom made to his specs.

Before building everything has been ran through FEA 

all tabs, disc attachment etc hand made...

His next step is to build a full suspension, but if you'd be interested in gettting a custom frame for a lot less than what you see in shops (isn't that surprising?) let me know and i will pass on the message.

Warning though, you will have to answer questions like : head angle, slack angle, top tube length, bottom bracket height, what do you want it for..etc..

thanks for reading and now some pics
Ralphy


----------



## Apophis (Sep 18, 2009)

I know nothing about bikes, but this looks cool, so RAW


----------



## ralphy1976 (Sep 18, 2009)

RAW indeed...just a lick of varnish and nothing else...who needs paint when you can look at a modern day "sculpture".

thanks for your support Sebastian


----------



## hufschmid (Sep 18, 2009)

I like the headstock 

 nice bike man


----------



## ralphy1976 (Sep 18, 2009)

Thanks Patrick


----------



## Mattmc74 (Sep 18, 2009)

Awesome looking bike. Now go out and take some riding pics!


----------



## ralphy1976 (Sep 18, 2009)

Mattmc74 said:


> Awesome looking bike. Now go out and take some riding pics!


 
well he has been riding this thing non-stop for the past month (to see if it would break of course, being the 1st one) so i don't have any pictures of him riding it, but shouldn't be too long, i will post them when i do so

thanks for the interest all.


----------



## synrgy (Sep 18, 2009)

Looks rad. The whole '1 of a kind' thing makes it pretty epic.


----------



## TomParenteau (Sep 18, 2009)

Then what is the tubeset?

Closeup photos of the welds!

OK, I'm a bike geek.


----------



## ralphy1976 (Sep 18, 2009)

tubeset on this one is 4140 and i shall ask for some nicer pics, no problemo there

i think he has got 2 orders on with same tube set, and then his next hardtail protoype will be with Al.


----------



## Bevo (Oct 3, 2009)

Hope he put a clear coat on it...

Looks great but a couple things would make it better.
Gusset at the head tube to take some of the force away from top, down tubes.
Cable guides, the type with that are half C so you can stick a hose in and zip tie in place.

Ripped off a few head tubes in my day and it was never fun.


----------



## ralphy1976 (Feb 26, 2010)

Bevo said:


> Hope he put a clear coat on it...
> 
> Looks great but a couple things would make it better.
> Gusset at the head tube to take some of the force away from top, down tubes.
> ...



Don't worry about the gusset : he is a material engineer and the entire process is done in CAD with FEA calcs and i am willing to accept the fact that it is ok without..!!!!

As for the ties, yes the big wasn't totally finished!!!

And now his 1st customer's bike.... slight "pimping" requested by the owner!!! (just for Tom : 4140 again this time!!! TIG welded)


----------

