A Heart of Metal chat with Andy Carr, founder of Spoon Customs.
Ciao Andy, great to have the chance to chat with you. Can you give us a brief introduction about Andy Carr and Spoon Customs?
Hello! I’m Andy Carr, I own and run Spoon Customs which I started with the first frame I made in 2013, which was made with Columbus parts: Futura rim brake fork at the time, and Columbus Spirit tubing. The reason for wanting to start my own business in the first place was because I have ridden Columbus tubed bikes and became obsessed with the idea that a steel bike can and should be a good contemporary choice. Also, I was uninspired by what was available in the market in terms of off the peg bikes. Lots of black and red mass produced gear, and I figured there must be a better way to build a bike. Columbus steel products seemed so relevant in that context, but people weren’t aware of just how good modern steel feels. And of the limitless ways we can hone and refine the ride quality and fit. With steel drawn to higher profiles and reliable thin walls I could get close to contemporary weight targets, and deliver a more refined ride. I’ve never looked back and used Columbus tubes religiously since.
And what was the name of that frame?
At the time it did not have a name, it was just a prototype. Then, when I moved to France and located my business there in 2015, I took it with me. I rented a workshop in Montgenèvre, near Sestriere. Everyone who’s anyone in bicycle engineering is between there and Venice. In fact, everyone I work with now is located in Padova and Vicenza and they have been trusted partners and friends since then. It was my proximity to the mountains and that rich source of engineering expertise that meant I was able to make great bikes from the very start. In fact, the first time I visited Columbus was in 2015, while I was also working as a transfer driver, ferrying tourists into the mountains for cycling and ski holidays, so I had the chance to be in Milan and Turin pretty regularly. I have a strong interest in aesthetic and design and for me, visiting Columbus HQ for the first time and seeing that beautiful mural on the door, as you walk into the workshop, I just knew I was in the right place. You could feel and touch the sense of aesthetic and design that goes with the engineering and for me that is really important. I know Columbus talks about being the soul of cycling, but there is a real soul to what we do with a steel bike and I think that to not understand that is to miss something special and essential about steel bike building.
You are very very passionate about this, thanks for sharing Andy. Now, let’s get back to Trittico and the Izoard RR bike…
The Izoard RR is made using Columbus tubing, in the disc and in the rim version, although everybody nowadays wants the disc brake version. With regard to the material it’s made of, we chose the Columbus Spirit HSS tube set for this bike. The front triangle is built from Columbus HSS lightweight steel, TIG-welded for strength. The rear end is all lightweight, Columbus Spirit. The drop outs are full stainless steel. The tapered 1.5” carbon ‘Trittico’ steerer of the new Columbus Integrated fork, allows us to retain our proven oversized 44mm head tube, with the beautiful Chris King headset as standard. Our oversized stainless BB shell provides a stiff platform and big weld area for the high profile HSS downtube. The shell is precisely machined to T47 specification, in a 68mm wide shell for external bearings.
Regarding the Trittico, you see, in the last two years, at least, customers have been putting pressure on me to deliver an integrated front end system for their bike. I didn’t want to do it, if it compromised the bike. And as much as I resisted, I resisted on the grounds of aesthetics because a steel frame bicycle needs to have, in my view, a sense of proportion in the tubing and this can be disrupted by oversized head tubes – there is no need to have a tube that big, so why would you have it? It’s a question of function over form in my opinion, and it’s not good. So, we have been looking for a solution for years now. We tried several innovative forks with D shaped steerers, but we felt that the performance we were able to achieve in the steering system was compromised. Trittico allows us to retain our steering precision with an integrated solution for the first time. So trittico was really exciting and when Columbus proposed this system to me some months ago, we looked at the CFD data for the performance of the steerer and immediately ordered some samples for testing.
So, you’re confident that your customers will be interested in this kind of proposal?
Yes, for sure, we have already been back to our existing customers and because the existing frames are actually upgradable using Trittico.
The parts have also been produced with custom painting in mind which is really important because since 2017 we have only produced one bike without a custom stem, so the ability to paint the stem is also important and some hardware manufacturers understand that and make it easy for us and some don’t. So it’s brilliant to see that Columbus has thought about that as a part of the development process. The first bike we fitted with the system has just been awarded ‘Best Finish’ at the Bespoked Show in Dresden. Perhaps because the stem is so easy to paint!
You have essentially already answered but in two words how do you think the Trittico works specifically well with this model of yours?
We are known for the excellent handling characteristics of our bikes paired with a strong aesthetic and neither has to be compromised in using the Trittico system.
Let’s talk about the assembling and fine tuning of the Trittico
The adjustment of the angle is really helpful. We custom fit everything that we sell so every part needs to fit very precisely and new parts let us change a customer’s fit and fine tune the set up. The seat post design also allows us to change the offset.
So do you also think that this is also easy to use for the final customer, the fine tuning system of the seat post?
The seat post is a real treat, it’s fantastic; as you know many are famously almost impossible to adjust, this is literally a relief.
And the advantages of the cockpit?
Trittico can stand alongside anything else on the market of high-end products and it’s beautifully finished. It’s finished to the standards we would expect from Columbus, at the top end of the market.
What is your favourite part of the Trittico, Andy?
The seat post is brilliant and everybody should look at that but clearly for me the benefit that I need to show my customers and deliver is the integration: the cockpit is really cool.
Regarding the Izoard, how do you think Trittico helps this model to be even more precise and unique?
It was designed to be a contemporary fast road racing bike and thanks to the Trittico, now it has the integration that many customers want without any compromises. A recent review in Cyclist Magazine called for this capability specifically, and with Trittico, Spoon Customs is able to respond properly to this question.
And to close the circle, finally jumping back to what we said before about Columbus being the Soul of Cycling, how do you think that the Trittico reflects this fundamental statement and value?
I think that the development of the system and the way Columbus has chosen to take the more complex route to finding a solution to a problem that largely only exists if you care deeply about the aesthetic and the performance of steel bicycles, speaks volumes about the attitude to design at Columbus. Other systems in the market do not retain what is special about a steel bike. Columbus really understands that.
