Design

At Hampsten Cycles, our ideas about how a bike should fit and ride have been strongly influenced by Andy's many years of racing and riding. During Andy’s 22-year racing career he worked closely with coaches Eddy B, Paul Koechli, Eddy Merckx, and Dr. Max Testa, who all helped refine his riding technique and position. Andy’s career is covered in more detail elsewhere on this site.

Steve Hampsten started working in bike shops in 1975 and continued for ten years, interrupted by a hiatus to pursue high-end cooking. 1996 found Steve working in welding, blacksmithing, metal fabrication, and, ultimately, bicycle construction and design. Steve and Andy started Hampsten Cycles in 1999.

Our bicycle and frame designs reflect many of our past influences and present-day experiences, as well as a long-abiding love of riding bicycles. While both looking back at the past and ahead to the future, our designs focus on joining the best new materials using both traditional and modern construction techniques, but always with a traditional outlook.

Frame Fit

A properly fitted bicycle is centered on the stem, which we think of in terms of sizes: small (100-105mm, for frames in the 50-54cm range), medium (110-120mm, for 54.5-57cm range), and large (120-130mm, for 57.5cm and up range). A bicycle built around the proper stem length – giving correct reach - will have optimal weight distribution and handling characteristics. We believe that the cure for a poorly fitting bicycle is not a longer/shorter stem but rather a well-built frame using the correct length stem. Your saddle height and the drop to your handlebars are always taken into consideration when suggesting seat tube and head tube length. We use Bike CAD as a drawing tool and we are not shy about making fit and size recommendations.

Our custom frames are built using the following geometries:

Gran Paradiso and Z2/3 for fast road riding, training, racing using 23-25mm tires, short-reach calipers, carbon fork.

Cinghiale Pro and Team Pro for fast road riding and training using 23-25mm tires, short-reach calipers, steel fork.

Classic for a racy feeling on smooth and crappy roads using 25-30mm tires, makes a great winter bike using skinny tires w/fenders. Uses 57mm-reach calipers and Alpha Q CS25 carbon fork.

Strada Bianca for a stable feel and rougher roads using 25-33mm tires, 57mm-reach calipers, fenders w/27mm tires, custom Wound Up fork.

Tournesol are designed for fenders, lights, and a light load. Choice of brakes, fork, and tire size.

Mud Pig is our cyclo-cross frame, choice of material and fork, please order by June for September season.

 

Carbon
Z1 - $7300
Z2/Z3 - $6000
Classic - $3000

Titanium
Classic - $3400
Gran Paradiso - $3000 and $3400
Mud Pig - $3600
Strada Bianca - $3400

Steel
953 - $3400
Cinghiale Pro - $2200
Team Pro - $2400
Classic - $2200
Strada Bianca - $2200
Tournesol - $2200 and $2600
Mud Pig - $2200

Aluminum
Classic - $1800
Gran Paradiso - $1800
Mud Pig - $1800

All prices include a fork of your choice.

Materials

Steel has come a long way with the development of thin-walled oversized tubing, which can be heat-treated and air-hardened for greater strength. This allows us to build a lighter frame that provides a livelier road feel than was the case with steel frames of the past. We feel because of its strength, resilience, ride, and relative ease of working that steel is still one of the best all-round materials for a bicycle frame. We select from Columbus, True Temper, and Reynolds for our steel tubing.

Titanium has proven itself to be a terrific material for bicycle frames. Less dense than steel, more elastic than steel, carbon, or aluminum, titanium is an excellent choice for riders seeking a light, comfortable, and durable frame. We use 3/2.5 straight-gauge tubing for most of our builds.

Carbon fiber is particularly well suited for use in forks as well as frames. The beauty of carbon is that it can be flexible where needed - for example along the fork blades and stays, and strong and stiff elsewhere - especially at fork crowns and tube intersections. A well-built and carefully designed carbon frame or fork will do an excellent job of absorbing shock and dampening vibration at about two-thirds the weight of steel.

Aluminum is a material that has become sadly unloved in the high-end frame market of late. We are big fans of alloy here at HampCo and we feel that a well-designed aluminum frame can provide a light, stiff ride unlike that from any other material. Less dense than steel or titanium, alloy provides more road feedback than most carbon frames. Offering a high quality aluminum frame is an opportunity for us to design a genuine performance frame with an emphasis on custom fit and optimal racing geometry. Aluminum is coming back, just you wait.

Scot Nicol of Ibis Cycles has a great treatise on material selection here.