Tunk Times #12
Greetings from Tunk HQ. The days are short, dark and wet. The nights are long, dark and wet.
December 2025
Greetings from Tunk HQ. The days are short, dark and wet. The nights are long, dark and wet.
But activity here is greater than ever before! Every day we are prepping and packing frames, going thru emails, fixing stuff and decorating the office and workshop, building the webshop. And between it all discussing future plans, new products, business strategies, life and other random stuff.
Preordered frames have mostly all been delivered and it is super exciting to soon see some pictures of customers' bikes! Another great step in making the original idea become reality. The encouraging emails and good wishes from our first customers provide light and warmth that the current weather is lacking.
The webshop is now open to the public and it is interesting to see how the frames will sell. It is certainly not the best time of the year to be introducing a bike frame to the market, but we are quite confident that they will keep trickling out. Now there are big FORT branded cardboard boxes full of frames and forks everywhere here like you can see in the picture! It’s kinda cozy but we’d rather see them fly the nest.
One of the biggest open questions is ordering the next batch of frames. When to order, how many frames, do we want to change something and so on are on the table. The delivery time is six months from the date of order. We wouldn’t want to hurry with ordering, but to get feedback, see what sizes sell most and think everything through of course. But of course we would also need some product to sell once these run out.
We are also trying to finalize the order of stems and racks from Fort. But they seem to be very busy, like people tend to be right before Christmas. These will have approximately a four month delivery time, as they dont have special materials like the framesets do.
The rim order mentioned in Tunk Times #11 is also now a reality. We have ordered 100 pieces of Alexrims “Adventure 2” rims in the 650B/584 size. It is a shallow profile, medium-width tubeless ready rim-brake compatible rim. In a low-key grey finish, not polished. The retail price will be around 40-50€ per piece, which sounds very reasonable. They should be ready in January and the sea journey from Taiwan should take around 2 months, so we expect to have them in early spring.
Feel free to send us any comments, wishes, ideas or questions. And for the locals, we are open for visits on most working days. Email us beforehand if youre coming from furter away to avoid disappointment, our office hours are not yet set in stone.
Until next time
Tunk Crew
Tunk Times #11
The days are gray and November rain is drizzling down.The sun has not been seen since the last newsletter went out, or so it feels. Nothing exciting has happened, mostly boring paperwork and problem solving and head scratching has been done. Money worries, insurance and delivery contracts, parts supplier registrations and such. The reality of running a business really.
November 2025
The days are gray and November rain is drizzling down.The sun has not been seen since the last newsletter went out, or so it feels. Nothing exciting has happened, mostly boring paperwork and problem solving and head scratching has been done. Money worries, insurance and delivery contracts, parts supplier registrations and such. The reality of running a business really.
The many delays with the frameset delivery times are not helping to lift the mood, but now we have a date that seems final, at least for the preordered frames, as we agreed on taking the most acute ones first and getting the rest a little bit later. The truck should take off on the 21st of November, they promise from Fort. Let’s see!
Due to delay in frame delivery we have had nothing to sell for months and thus have had strict money constraints and all other projects are stalled. Stem and rack manufacture have been on hold as there was nothing to pay for them with, and producing them by ourselves, at least in larger quantities, does not seem like a viable option in the end either.
We did manage to negotiate an offer for a batch of 650b rims from Alexrims in Taiwan, but they are slow to respond, and delivery time will be multiple months. Still it is something! If you are involved in any type of business looking to get silver, 32 hole, low-profile, TL-compatible, 650b rim brake rims for a decently affordable price, you can contact us and we can try to co-operate on the matter.
One thing that did happen is that we had our first ever business meeting at the new office!The agent of Sapim Spokes happened to be on a Finland/Estonia tour and wanted to drop by. Our spoke volumes are extremely small for now but maybe in the future we will have a wheel building program and this type of contact will prove useful. And it’s always fun to chat with bike people, just to talk about where to go on bikepacking trips and so on. They were also showing off their new woven fiber spokes with thermoplastic coating and such. It is improbable you will see those on wheelsets sold by us anytime soon…
I (aki) was convinced though to consider their “D-light” spoke design (1,65mm mid-section), versus the “Laser” (or DT Revolution) superlight spoke (1,5mm mid-section) that I would have previously used for my personal wheels. They claim it is as light and as strong, but easier to build as there is less wind-up. The only apparent downside is less shock absorption by the spokes, which maybe is not a huge deal to begin with. Finally I also made sure to point out the bladed CX-Ray spokes that were used on the bronze show bike for fun and aero gains.
The happy news is that our office is starting to look like an office, there is some actual furniture here! We will possibly have a smaller welcome party for friends to test it out and a more official launch party after we get the frames. Until then it’s doing some jobs that actually pay and some more head scratching and patient waiting.
Until next time
Tunk Crew
Tunk Times #10
We are back home from Bespoked Dresden. The leaves are falling and frost is on the ground here in Helsinki.
October 2025
We are back home from Bespoked Dresden. The leaves are falling and frost is on the ground here in Helsinki.
The preparation, the exhibition and the trip in general was hard work but eventually a success: we had tons of positive response, friendly conversation, meeting many potential customers, friends, framebuilders and other bike industry professionals. Having worked on the show bikes making stems and racks and assembling the bikes, pondering the details and so on for 12+ hours per day the week before the show, we were happy to get on the boat to rest. Like last year, we took the Finnlines ferry, duration 36 hours, and drove 6 hours to Dresden, and returned the same route. The boat is starting to feel very familiar after taking it a total of five times in the last two years! The two show bikes were nonchalantly hung up on a Thule rack on the back of the car, and made the journey unharmed. Unlike last year we didn’t have the whole Tunk team on board, just Aki and Aleksi with our trusted companions Inka and Negin who got a Fun trip with Tunk, as our group chat was titled.
View of Dresden Altstadt
We signed up last minute to the show, which led to some confusion regarding our booth. When we arrived, the booth location had been moved about 4 times, and the ready made stand/wall structure was not where it should’ve been. But we weren’t in a hurry, we hung out at the show grounds, eyeing other peoples work, bantering amongst ourselves and some of the staff building the show and so on. Finally after 12 hours of moving stuff around, building our booth, taking it down, building it up again etc we got everything in place: the bikes, the test forks and the prototype frames and some tunkish real world bicycle touring paraphernalia were on show.
Cleaning the bikes right after arrival to Dresden airport
We were exhausted and excited to start with the actual exhibition! This would be the first proper public display of our bikes, and thus a culmination of years of work. And we were really happy how the bikes and the booth turned out. The show itself was just as you’d expect, crowded at times, slow at others, all the talk and encounters forming a happy and interesting blur with most details now forgotten and/or mixed up.
Most people of course encountered Tunk for the first time, but also surprisingly many had heard of us already and were happy to see the bikes and our persons in real life. We gave short interviews to bikepacking.com and also to the Path Less Pedaled youtube channel . Also the Fort factory manager Daniel was there and we had a good brief chat and were glad to be able to present our product, of which they were very curious about and seemed genuinely impressed! There’s always bad news mixed with all the good, and that is the delivery date is once again delayed for one more month, and we expect the frames to be ready in mid-November.
As for the other exhibitors, I (aki) personally enjoyed most the Dlouhy, Meerglas, La Fraise, Tim Tas + Rek and Upcycle Earth booths. We were too busy to take any pictures, but there is plenty of coverage on the event for example on the Radavist, bikepacking.com and on Path Less Pedaled as already mentioned.
I tried to chat with everyone a little bit and also enjoyed talking to the people at Clandestine, bikepacking.com, Brooks, Purple Dog, Hahn Rossman and others that I may forget. I was happy to see Frisch offering wool fleece and high quality cotton jackets, a rare sight in this modern world, though I'm more than content with my second hand outdoor gear and Ruskovilla stuff for now. My personal favourite after the Meerglas recumbent (best of Show award well deserved!) was Tore’s personal bike. All in all it was again a great inspiration to see so many people committed to the bicycle.
A lucky mistake was that we forgot the pedals of the other show bike at home, and right before the start managed to borrow some ethereal Aurora pedals from the nice people at MKS. We were also gifted a bell from Crane as a thanks for using their bells on our custom stem bell mounts. We also need to give a special mention to Jean Michel of Tim Tas + Rek for making our amazing custom bags on such short notice! People (including ourselves) really liked the rose+brown colorway, and we will seriously consider offering it as a Tunk special in collaboration with Tim Tas + Rek.
Outside the expo, we didn’t have much time or energy to do anything except eat late night falafels at the various Döner spots and maybe drink a beer or a glass of wine. We dragged our weary selves to the official afterparty for a bit but after Aleksi literally passed out due to overworking we decided it’s best to go rest and get ready for the final day of standing around, trying to look respectable despite the fatigue and explaining in detail the bikes to everyone interested. It was hard but it sure was fun too!
We are already looking forward to future events where we can show off the bikes and meet bike people, whether it is Bespoked again in London or Dresden or some completely other event, we shall see!
Until next time
Tunk
Tunk Times #9
Hello and greetings from our actual, physical, permanent-for-now office! This is still being written on the couch though as we don’t have much furniture yet. We will try and have an opening party one day, but for now there is no time to arrange that.
September 2025
Hello and greetings from our actual, physical, permanent-for-now office! This is still being written on the couch though as we don’t have much furniture yet. We will try and have an opening party one day, but for now there is no time to arrange that.
Again everything is running late, now mostly due to us being very busy trying to prepare for the Bespoked exhibition in Dresden in a few weeks. Though it is mostly a custom-handmade bike show, we got permission to exhibit as we do our own prototyping along with handmade components. We asked twice whether it’s really ok for us to go, and we are now convinced enough.
Of all things that are late, Aki did manage to finish the “How to load up a Tunk Hike-Use article” and it is now up on the blog at tunkbicycles.com/blog.
Next Fort is sending us two fully painted final framesets, so we can show the production colours and then build them into show bikes for Bespoked.
The production run is delayed once again due to a problem with fork material, (pre-orderers have already been informed) and we now expect delivery of the frames in late October. For anyone wanting to make sure they get their size of Hike-Use frameset, but missed the preorder, we can take unofficial reservations via email.
Aleksi is making the stems and front racks for the show bikes, which will also function as new prototypes for the production models. We already got two handlebar bags made by Tim-Tas-Rek to our specifications, and are trying to get a color matched framebag+handlebar bag set for the show as well.
Getting close to finally selling the product, in small details it is once again seen how the well established bicycle manufacturing in Taiwan probably makes stuff easier for brands. We need to source our own fork protectors, our own carton boxes, order the decals and paint powders separately et cetera. We are guessing the factory or the agent-in-between usually sorts all this small stuff out for the manufacturers, but this is only guessing of course. Maybe it’s just as many puzzle pieces for everyone.
We are slowly stocking up on small must-have items like under-bb-cable-guides and seat-clamp bolts while also getting some rims, headsets, cable stops, canti hangers and so on, to make it a bit easier for the customer to find these. It is still a bit open how large of a selection of components we can offer, our amount of cash being very limited at this point.
Until next time
Tunk Crew
Tunk Times #8
It looks like we will soon have an actual physical location for our office, workshop and showroom in north-central Helsinki. This feels like a major step forward again in making Tunk a “real company” and not just our own weird and long bicycle design project.
August 2025
It looks like we will soon have an actual physical location for our office, workshop and showroom in north-central Helsinki. This feels like a major step forward again in making Tunk a “real company” and not just our own weird and long bicycle design project.
All the articles we promised in the last edition of the Times are still unfinished, as more random stuff to do pops up every day. A press release, ‘How to load up a Hike-Use’, ‘Choosing parts for your H-U’, ‘Front fork design process’, etc are in the works.
Aki has been riding an unpainted production spec frame & fork for a few days now, and everything fits correctly and the slightly modified tubing spec works like intended.
In the size 59, compared to the prototypes, the top tube is 5mm shorter, 0,1mm thicker in the middle with a shorter “belly” section, chainstays are 0,2mm thicker, and the head tube is 0,1mm thicker. And the front fork is a few mm larger in diameter in its lower half than on the prototype.
All this makes the frameset a tiny bit stiffer (and about 150 grams heavier), and whereas the prototype was very flexy, bordering on too flexy, the new one seems a bit more “normal”. So the frame is a bit less extreme, and riders weighing more than the 63 kilograms of said test pilot will probably feel more at home on it, while still maintaining a lively feel. Also all the larger sizes have been fed a little extra steel, but smaller than the 59 remain largely as they were before.
We are preparing now to receive the actual framesets, which should be done in the next few weeks, though we do not have the final word from Fort yet. For this, we ordered a bunch of shipping boxes and 90 pieces of Shimano BB-shell cable guides and we still need to get dummy axles, seat clamp bolts, front canti hangers and such miscellaneous little things.
The preorder is still open for a week, after which we will start contacting people to finalize their orders and hopefully soon after start to ship out the frames! Locals can also start looking forward to the opening party of the Tunk headquarters!
Until next time
Tunk crew
Tunk Times #7
Summer holidays have been had and the team is back in the office(s). A three week bike tour, where one’s attention is (almost) completely on other things than work is quite the refresher!
Summer holidays have been had and the team is back in the office(s). A three week bike tour, where one’s attention is (almost) completely on other things than work is quite the refresher!
In the last few weeks after the preorder launch, we have gotten a surprising amount of coverage as Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat did an article on Tunk, and briefly afterwards bikepacking.com also did an intro piece on our frameset. You can read them at HS (link) and at bikepacking(.com) (link). The company’s existence seems a lot more real and less precarious now. Just seeing our name in print (well, online) makes it all feel much more tangible.
The preorders have had a pretty good start, and the largest size, 65, is even sold out! We only ordered a very small amount of the extreme ends of the size scale, thinking there are not as many customers. Seems we were wrong... Though we havent sold a single 53 yet.
What is also a bit surprising is that our customers are so international. We thought we would mainly sell in Finland the first few months, but actually about 90% of orders so far are from outside Finland and mostly outside EU even. The feedback has been very positive and we feel seen, thank you for that!
We are finalizing the decal design, which will be a bit avant garde, though simple as well. The production fork blades are being made at Reynolds around this time and the framesets should be ready around end of august. So a little bit of delay again, but nothing major.
In the previous Tunk Times we showed a sample of the Dark Bronze color, we still need to figure out a way to display the Racing Burgundy, as we don’t have a physical sample of the very final version at hand. Here’s the powder manufacturers page on the color, which gives some idea:
https://www.prismaticpowders.com/shop/powder-coating-colors/PMB-5941/racing-burgundy
The clear coat will be a foggy semi matte, which makes the color a bit lighter maybe.
We are working on a “How to load up a Tunk” article which will explain the carry capacity, rack and bag compatibility etc of the Hike-Use. This should be ready in a week or so.
We will also soon show the final fork designs now that we have test samples back from Zedler’s laboratory, and maybe write a little piece about the whole fork saga.
Until next time
Tunk crew
Tunk Times #6
Hello and greetings from our n-th office space (Aleksi’s kitchen). We are looking to rent an actual work space, Tunk showroom and office, for which we are seeing a candidate tomorrow, but for now we are working from wherever happens to be convenient.
Hello and greetings from our n-th office space (Aleksi’s kitchen). We are looking to rent an actual work space, Tunk showroom and office, for which we are seeing a candidate tomorrow, but for now we are working from wherever happens to be convenient.
On the news today, we have finally decided on the frame colours! It took about 25 test samples and many more discussions and multiple colour theories (of which the most famous is the ‘Pants’-theory, as put forward by Aki, the idea being that a real-world bicycle should be in a colour like your pants that you can put on any day without feeling weird. The theory definitely has something to it but maybe it is not the final truth.)
The final two production colours will be dark bronze and burgundy. We wanted calm and real-world compatible but not overly neutral colours. Both colours will have a semi-matte clear coat.
Sample tube of the dark bronze colour. The final version of the burgundy will be a surprise! But the general look and feel is similar, slighly metallic with a subdued matte coat.
In case you missed it, we also published a Sizing Guide on the blog, which you can find HERE
We are also launching the preorder this week, possibly already tomorrow. A 100 € refundable deposit will ensure your order for the colour and size you need. The framesets are estimated to arrive in Finland in August and we will be shipping them out as soon as possible.
The final price of the frameset is also decided and will be 1500€ including 25,5% VAT. The final powder coats and the heat treated fork blades added to the price a little bit.
We are eagerly awaiting your orders.
yours,
Tunk Team
Tunk Times #5
Greetings from our temporary headquarters in Uusmäki, Finland. Birdsong and the smell of grilled tofu & zucchini fill our office as we are working on our website and final details of the frames.
Greetings from our temporary headquarters in Uusmäki, Finland. Birdsong and the smell of grilled tofu & zucchini fill our office as we are working on our website and final details of the frames.
The most happy news is that the latest fork samples finally passed EN ISO stress testing! The heat-treated Reynolds 853 fork blades did not deform at all in the 1000N bending test where the previous forks failed massively, and passed the “crash test” with only minor fractures. The material has a theoretical ~60% higher strength, which seems to hold true in the real world as well, at least in the test laboratory.
This certification was the last true obstacle to having a ready product. Only paint and decals and other visual details remain to be finalized. The frames actually are being made as I write, but the production batch of new fork blades of course have only just been ordered from Reynolds. About one month from now the framesets should be ready and for sale! Once we have the color schemes figured out we will open the official preorder system.
We will soon have a product page where all the frame details are easily available. Some small changes to the frames we have made since the prototypes include a CNC-machined headtube with reinforcements, a brazed-on rear cantilever hanger, integrated seatpost clamp and few more millimeters of fender mounting distance to have luxurious clearance with 48mm tires.
We are also working on a sizing guide to help you choose the right size frame, along with some ideas about our particular style of bike fit. It should be ready in the next week or so.
On the product testing side, commuting with Tunk bikes is going on every day, along with some long-weekend spring tours, day-rides, a gravel-heavy 300km brevet and building up new configurations of the prototypes.
Until next time
Tunk crew
Tunk Times #4
Hiker sends their greetings from the underworld. But fear not, we are very much alive.
Hiker sends their greetings from the underworld. But fear not, we are very much alive. After a moment of clarity and legal consideration, followed by a few weeks worth of wordplay and a bouquet of mixed feelings, we are now happily and proudly announcing our new brand name: TUNK. To make Real World Bicycles is still our aim and ambition and we will strive to overcome any obstacles! Tunk will continue on this rugged path we have chosen.
We won’t maybe go into the details and various sidetracks of the naming process here except to open the meaning of Tunk. Tunkata, “to tunk”, is a Finnish verb, meaning the action(s) you need to do when you and your vehicle, for example a bicycle, are challenged due to the difficult terrain you encounter. Like deep snow, mud, roots, uphill, rocks, fallen trees and so on. You get off your bike and tunk your way ahead by any means necessary. The history of tunking in Finland probably goes back millenia, when sleds and pulks were getting stuck in some tricky patch of swamp or soft snow.
We are not saying it’s the most fun type of biking you should look for, but it is often the reality for those who venture off the main roads and look for the alternatives in life. The road to paradise is not usually paved smooth and the easiest roads lead you to the busiest places and to find something new you need to blaze a trail. And so on. To embrace the difficulty is the only option.
To continue on this theme, our new prototype front forks had some more delays for the n-th time, but should be ready for testing any day now. Reynolds has bent some ‘631’ fork blades to our specs and heat treated them, making them into ‘853’ fork blades and they have been sent to Fort, where they were made into some more fork samples out of them for the stress & safety testing. After which we will possibly have a frameset that complies with both letter and spirit of the law if all goes well.
We still need to decide on the final colours of the frames and design new graphics for the new name. Otherwise most things are set for production, and the framesets should be available in early summer. But at this point we are not anymore surprised if there are a few more bends in the road.
As soon as production is really underway and all obstacles are cleared, we will open an official preorder system. But we can already make an unofficial invitation: if you are serious about pre-ordering and pre-paying a frameset or complete bicycle you can email us at hello@tunkbicycles.com Test rides can be arranged as we have one of each size of the frames built up. We could do some special deals at this point to get some much needed funds!
Especially if you are interested in a complete bicycle with all the bells and whistles like custom stems and racks, lovingly installed fenders, internal dynamo routings etc, it would be wise to announce yourself in good time, as when the framesets come in we will be super busy and it will be hard to make time for assembling bikes.
Until next time
Tunk crew
Hiker news #3
After some holiday time-off from Hiker and other work, we are now back in our offices and starting to roll things forward again.
After some holiday time-off from Hiker and other work, we are now back in our offices and starting to roll things forward again.
Just before christmas we heard that our second round of test forks did not pass the safety test either. We still had made them too flexible, and they bent quite massively in the “Static braking test” where a 1000N force is applied for 60 seconds onto the tips of the fork blades. It begins to seem like it is not possible to make a very thin and supple front fork while fulfilling the EN ISO requirement, which is not a huge surprise. But we had to try, even if it cost us a small fortune. Our next idea is to use a super strong material, a heat treated high end steel which will resist cold-setting more and thus should do much better in static bending. This should help the forks pass the test without making them overly stiff and heavy. We will still probably need to make them more stiff than they are now.
We are quite certain that even the non-approved forks would be safe to use at least for the small and medium sizes. I don’t remember ever seeing a front fork that had bent due to hard braking, and searching on the internet I couldn't find any examples either. But we are not sure if we can afford to take a risk like not having the safety certification.
Some other stuff to do is to try and think on the final colours, continue on the stem/decaleur/rack designs, plan on the possible complete bicycle and which parts would that use and so on. And of course to try and work on some advertising!
To let you better understand our point of view on bicycles, we present to you the following article which hopefully sums up the most important ideas concerning why and how we designed our first model. It’s written by me, Aki, and I believe my colleagues will agree for the most part if not completely.
Hiker design philosophy
The world is being filled with crap at an ever increasing speed, which makes me doubt the whole idea of producing more bicycle frames in the first place. Old bikes work fine. But then I have to admit I have a very particular taste in bicycles, and there are not enough used mid-century french cyclotouring bikes to go around for everyone. And not everyone considers restoring one a nice and fun project… And because I believe in my own opinions and feelings, I think other people might find similar bikes fun and useful as well. This is how I ended up in the Hiker project.
So, if we’re going to introduce a new product to this world, let’s try and make it without cutting too many corners. True economy, meaning least resources spent, is not the same as “economy” in the everyday sense, meaning cheap. This is why our design has lots of stupid and difficult solutions considering efficiency of production. Three different wheel sizes, three different forks, 7 different frame sizes with most of them with every tube of different strength all adds to the cost. Add the fancy fork bend, custom chainstays and minor details like that. Most customers aren’t going to see that cost, but many will just think that “Oh, the Hiker costs 40% more than a brand-X steel frameset, but it’s just an ordinary TIG-welded powder coated frame like the other one.” This is why we need to believe there are enough geeks out there who will see the added benefits… Those who believe that the whole is more than its parts listed in an excel sheet or a product description list. Best would be to have people test ride it of course, but that will be tricky to arrange for most customers outside of Helsinki.
Geometry
I'm not the type who believes in linear progress. I'm more bent on cyclicism and golden-age thinking. Like digging Minoan culture in 2000 BCE: peaceful, prosperous, artistic, led by a belief in the Goddess, before aggressive hordes of barbarian men ruined everything for everyone, that sort of thing. This is why I don’t have a problem using a 1950s geometry that someone would consider outdated. To me, it’s tried and true. Possibly the world has even gone in a worse direction since then! At least the laws of nature which finally dictate bicycle handling are not evolving, I think? The Hiker geometry is based on bicycles from the cycle touring golden age, inspired by designs of makers such as René Herse in France and Jack Taylor Cycles in Britain. Most measurements on the Hiker have been also compared to my late 1940s french touring frame by Allegret & Desbeaux that I have ridden extensively and have been very happy with. We wouldn’t buy geometry in a bag without trying it out first!
My bike called Myyrä, the proto-Hiker. The frame dates to the late 1940s
Anyway, much more important than “progressive geometry with insert-new-radical-design-here” is to make the different sizes fit well. First of all, you can’t claim to have the best geometry for everyone and everything in a production frame. That’s why we have chosen to optimize the frame for relaxed-ish and comfortable long-distance and everyday riding. The frame will be too tall for most people concerned with short-term aero-optimization or those who want to be positioned aggressively for high power outputs. Having a “fast” and aggressive geometry can be fun when you’re feeling fresh, but after that feeling is used up and you’re getting tired, you will appreciate completely different characteristics.
To make the frame fit really well, we decided to scale not just the frame but also the wheels. The framesets use 3 different wheel sizes. This makes it possible to avoid many compromises in design. Take for example the smallest size: most production frames have much longer top tubes, and thus longer reach to not run into the problem of toe overlap. This makes it very difficult to use drop bars comfortably on these small bikes. Most manufacturers dont want to use the difficult 559/26” wheel size that is going out of mainstream fashion. And also because they dont want to make separate runs of front forks for this size, which would decrease their margins.
Frame design
Frames used to have level top tubes for almost a century. I consider this “pure” geometry, with no long cantilevered things sticking out of the too-small frame of so-called compact bikes. Compact frame design is a different approach, and it can work: a small steel frame with long non-steel seatpost and stem is naturally a lighter assembly, and you get a possibly stiffer frame and a longer, more flexible and thus more comfortable seatpost. This design is not necessarily as strong though. But on (all-)road bikes where standover is not really an issue, I prefer the simplicity of the level top tube. With my mind’s eyes I can imagine the bike under the rider, with force vectors from the saddle to the handlebars bending the frame sideways. To me it makes sense to have the top tube align directly with these vectors, and not be in an angle. It’s quite hard to prove anything completely and finally, and this is maybe one of those things.
We use chainstays a few centimeters longer than the minimum, which is what most other designs aim for. Making them longer adds space for fenders, tires and chainrings, while at the same time making the bike more stable. Which is exactly what you want on a comfort-oriented bicycle. The bike will track a straighter line. Also bumps hitting the rear will be offset further from the saddle which decreases their magnitude when they reach your body parts.
To keep the chainstays stiff laterally even with the added length, we use a round/oval/round chainstay that is stiffer than the nowadays standard fully oval chainstay. The medium and large sizes (57 and up) also use custom made extra-thick wall chainstays from Columbus.
Tubing stiffness and strength
Here is our tubing chart for the frames. The colors indicate stiffness progression, green being most flexible, yellow medium and so on. SL, ZONA etc indicate the manufacturers’ model name. The first number below is the tube’s outer diameter in millimeters, and the second number is wall thickness. For example, the top left corner is a Columbus SL top tube with an OD of 25,4mm and butted wall thickness of 0,8mm in the ends and 0,5mm in the middle.
As you can see from the chart, the 7 different frame sizes scale not only in size but with progressive rigidity of the frame and fork tubes. The small sizes use thinner, thus lighter and more flexible tubing. The medium sizes use tubes that are a bit stiffer, and the largest sizes have already considerably heavier tubing.
This is due to the fact that tubes will flex more as they get longer, so by scaling the tubes the overall rigidity does not decrease when going to a larger frame size. We also assume people get heavier as they get taller, so the larger frames are built more robustly.
The progressively stiffer tubing used across the range is specified with a light-ish, careful and not-overly-powerful rider in mind. The type of riding we imagine the bicycle doing is quick and steady but not hurried nor forced pace, and without the need for a final sprint, where extra rigidity might be needed. A flexible, more comfortable frame is easier to pedal without large power-input. This might hold you back in a race if you have that large power, but the softness will aid you on a ride when you are tired and weary, or even better, keep you from becoming tired and weary in the first place.
We could have made the frame a bit lighter by using oversized extra-thinwall 0,4mm tubes instead of the thicker wall but smaller diameter tubes. But this would make them more prone to denting and rust. The tubing has been chosen for comfort, decently light weight and durability. Like you might notice, not every tube is different between every size, which would be ideal of course, but I do think our system is quite elaborate already. I don’t think most manufacturers scale their frames even close to this extent.
Many high-end steel framesets nowadays use ovalized tubes, but honestly we did not have the capacity to think that far. How I see it, they might add some marginal benefits, but they might also add some marginal oddities that round tubes will not have. There is some overly theoretical computer aided design -vibe in oval tubes, like you could take one part of the bicycle frame and optimize that without considering all the other variables. Round tubes are proven to work well all-a-round. Maybe Hiker version 2 one day will have ovalized tubes, maybe not.
Size 53 from the first batch of prototype frames. Subject to change.
Fork design and brake choice
Like stated, comfort is one of the main priorities of our design. The front fork plays a very big role here, as it has the potential to flex much more than the rigid diamond shaped frame. This is one of the main reasons why we did not choose disc brakes, as this would make it impossible to design a properly flexible front fork. The disc brake acts on one side only, highly stressing the left fork blade, which then needs to be made extra strong.
For the brakes, we did consider using braze-on centerpulls, which probably are better than cantilevers, but as they limit the fender and tire clearance to about 52mm and 42mm, we opted for the more common cantilever brake instead to be able to run 48mm tires with 60mm fenders, or even larger tires without.
The original idea was for the fork to have extra thin blades with plenty of rake concentrated near the dropouts for maximum suspension. But as the demands of the EN ISO tests have made themselves very apparent, we need to figure out how to sacrifice the least amount of compliance and still pass the test.
Whatever the final strength and stiffness of the fork will be, the three different wheel size specific forks are of course adjusted for the different loads of the different sized riders. We might even end up making a not-EN-ISO-approved fork for the smallest size, as the test is thought to cover a system weight of up to 100 kgs, and our smallest frame is designed for riders much lighter than that.
Wide tires
The reasons bikes had wider tires back in the days (pre-1950s) were a bit different: there simply were no good smooth roads. Now there are “good roads” but those are taken over by automobiles, and the good roads for cycling now are mostly byways and small gravel roads. So the end result is the same: one will want about 42-48mm wide tires to ride on those roads too bumpy and slow for cars. And if you use high quality supple tires, the wide ones won’t slow you down much at all even when the road is smooth.
The Hiker fits a 48mm true-to-size tire with fenders. Or about a 54mm tire without fenders. This is with decent clearance left over that won’t be filled with debris too easily, or if you break a spoke you can most probably still ride home.
Real-world compatibility
The weather here in Finland doesn’t suck completely, but it can be challenging! I had to check some statistics: on average it rains on 192 days of the year in Helsinki where we live. This means proper mudguards are a great help in staying comfortable. And it is very dark half of the year… You will need lights. This means dynamo systems are super useful. Also the comfort-oriented geometry, not overly thin tubing walls etc are all designed to work in everyday life.
A bag to carry things with
In the real world one needs supplies. This means it’s handy to have a bag attached to the bike. This is a crossroads in bicycle design: do you load the front or the rear? Both have their merits and pitfalls. Someone might argue that a framebag is the best answer, but I don’t consider it very handy in everyday use as it’s tricky to take off and the shape doesnt accommodate random shaped objects well at all.
One could argue, and this is what we chose, that loading the front distributes the weight better on the bike, as most of your body weight is already on the rear wheel. The load is also constantly visible, and with a smartly designed bag can be accessed while riding. For photography it’s quite handy to not have to get off your bike to take out your camera. Or to eat some fruit, add or remove pieces of clothing and so on.
The geometry of the Hiker is optimized for this front load. The steering can feel a bit too sensitive without any front load, depending on what you are used to. But with a few kilos in the bag, the steering slows down just the right amount, while still maintaining agile handling.
We cannot recommend loading the bike up super heavily. We wanted to ensure a light and lively feel instead of high carrying capacity. You can load it up for a tour, but make sure you pack sensibly. Large rear panniers are probably not going to work well with the flexible frame.
The vision
We started out with the basic idea: a comfortable lightweight steel frameset for real-world conditions. The important decision was to try and make it as well as possible, not fearing the added cost too much, while also avoiding unessential add-ons that do not directly contribute to the usefulness or ride feel. The second important decision was to clearly outline the nature of the bike, and not end up making an overly compromised product that kind of fits everything and everyone and can be built up in any way. Even with, or maybe because of its limitations, we feel the Hiker is a good all-rounder for most types of riding, with the exceptions of racing, mountain biking and heavily loaded touring. A good standard bicycle.
Until next time,
Hiker Crew
Hiker News #2
Since our last news, we have been doing lots of official stuff concerning the company and production. Our new company is now officially registered as Hiker Real World Bicycles Oy. Congratulations to us!
The new test forks are ready at Fort and will be sent to Zedler Institut for another run of fatigue testing. There will be moments of dread to come but we must have faith that the forks will survive. We have forks with the new crown mentioned in News #1 and as a backup some forks with thicker Reynolds fork blades.
To proceed with production, we need to pay the materials prepayment and buy 13 kiloeuros worth of steel tubing. That’s a bit exciting and not only in a good way. But one can’t do business and be afraid of money I guess… Then if all goes well we will have 88 framesets on around 1st of June.
On the side, we have been drawing stems, decaleurs and thinking about a front rack for production. We got a price estimate from Fort for all three, which is quite competitive, but as the Japanese Yen is very cheap, Nitto is a surprisingly cheap option at the moment. We just don’t have the connections needed to make custom products there, and no “stock” Nitto product fits our needs perfectly... They would be fine, but not perfect. If people are willing to pay the same price for something made in Europe by a more unknown manufacturer as they are for famous Nitto quality, I’m not sure…
Visit to Bespoked exhibition
and the Fort factory
A highlight of the company's journey happened just a while ago when, quite extempore, we decided to go visit Bespoked exhibition in Dresden, Germany and our frame factory Fort in Ústí nad Orlicí, Czechia. We figured we could see some competing designs, new ideas, network with bike industry people and pay a long due visit to the factory. We hadn't met the people at Fort before even though we had done business for years already. And of course we could spend some quality time with our team! We were taking the ferry to Travemünde and driving south from there, so the trip would take a week in total. 31 hours of ferrying + hours in the car there and back gave plenty of time to discuss and just to fool around and be without internet for a while.
Business in the ferry cabin.
None of us had visited a proper bike expo before, so all was new and exciting. The event was much bigger than I think any of us expected and filled with bike stuff to stare at. I (Aki) chatted up some of Töölön Pyörä's suppliers like Brooks and SON, and together we questioned Reynolds Tubing staff and Columbus distributors about properties of steel fork blades and things like that.
Most of the show was about carbon this and 3D titanium that, which don’t interest me personally too much, but still it was good to see all of this in real life. I as my critical self was mostly pointing out all the problems and weird overengineered solutions that were on display. My personal favourite was Tim-Tas-Rek's crazy but still utilitarian modified vintage frame that stood out from all of the super blingy mega expensive bikes.
Our other favourites from the show were Hulsroy, Meerglas of course (seeing a new Nivex derailleur live was definitely a moment for me), Wünderlich, Quokka and Alonukis. You can probably see their bikes at some coverage of the event, I was too busy chatting with people to be able to focus on photographing.
We also had a good discussion with Hahn Rossman about our fork design and the fatigue tests which was good and helpful so thanks a bunch to Hahn! I didn't have time to praise the removable extra mixte-stay -design that was shown at some previous bike expo, I forget which. Definitely one of my favourite bike ideas in the last few years! Everyone we talked to was really helpful and not gatekeeping at all which was super nice. Hopefully we can help someone just starting out in the future as well.
We were so deep in the zone by the end that we even went to ask Madit Metal about the possibility to 3D print our own fork crowns and what would it cost. We found out it would cost about 10 times as much as a cast crown we now use so it's probably not gonna happen anytime soon.
Get yourself someone who stares at you like Marko at this bike.
We also visited the afterparty for a bit which was crowded and hot and loud so we decided to go browse the streets of nightly Dresden instead. There were tons of people hanging out in the street and in front of spätverkauf corner stores. Drinking, eating döner and falafel, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and legal and semilegal weed was going on steadily everywhere. We enjoyed the atmoshpere for an hour or two and then went to bed, as we had to drive to Czechia the next day and get ready to take on our main quest: visiting Fort Frames.
Fort Frames factory.
Located in the small charming town of Ústí nad Orlicí in a sort of mountain valley, Fort headquarters is a medium sized factory building plus a separate storage hall near the town center. We got a tour of the premises which were very authentic and well worn as they have been in business for about three decades If I recall correctly. Someone would maybe say that's where the magic happens. But really it's just regular factory work where the staff is grinding and machining and welding and brazing in what appeared to us a well thought out pattern. It was super interesting to see the machines and processes along with all the products, mostly steel bicycle frames, that were being made.
Arriving at the final destination.
And of course we had a meeting with the design and management team, Michal and Daniel. Our present of special edition Jaloviina and chaga mushroom seemed to spark some genuine curiosity in them! Friendly relations were established and production methods, problems and timetables were discussed. Mutual understanding was surely greatly increased during the visit. Our concept of high-performance-but-relaxed all-road alt-touring bicycle was surprisingly not self-evidently a normal business idea??
On the way home we had again plenty of time to discuss and plan the future of Hiker bicycles. The return journey on the ferry was especially relaxing and comforting after an intense week of business tripping. We are already looking forward to visiting both destinations again next year!
Until next time,
Hiker Crew
Frame jig at the factory.
Hiker News #1
Welcome to the first edition of Hiker News. Here we present the current situation of launching our bicycle brand, our product development, insights to the process and ideas concerning bicycle design along with lifestyle content.
A more detailed history of the bike and company is maybe to come someday, but to sum up our path to this point:
We have been slowly developing our first frameset over the last four years. We are currently testing third-generation prototypes. The first production run will be for sale in May/June of 2025 if all goes according to plan.
In case you have missed our marketing pitch on Instagram here it is, the basic idea for our first model: a comfortable lightweight steel frameset for real-world conditions. Classic cyclotouring geometry is thoughtfully scaled across a wide size range along with proportionally stiffer construction. Made in Czechia by Fort Frames with high-quality Columbus tubing.
We plan to sell Hiker framesets, special racks, custom stems, decaleurs and components to be used with the Hiker frame and similar bikes. We are aiming to produce racks and other accessories locally here in Finland, but the schedule is yet to be determined.
If our so-called ship stays afloat financially and we stay in our respective pieces mentally and physically we are planning to design more frames and accessories in the coming years.
Some very basic information about the first frame model:
Tire clearance on all sizes is 48mm max with a 60mm fender. Without fenders about 54mm.
Wheel size is 559/26” for size “53”. 584/650B for “55” “57” and “59” and 622/28” for “61” “63” and “65”. The size number equals roughly stack height in centimeters (or seat-tube center-top which is pretty much the same).
7 different sizes, fitting riders from about 160cm to 200cm in height.
sizes 53-59 use a 1” threadless headset. sizes 61-65 take 1&1/8” headsets
Brake posts for cantilever or v-brakes
Down tube shifter bosses, which can be converted to housing stops for brifters/barend shifters of course.
Front-load optimized low-trail steering geometry
Vertical dropouts
Tubing is light-ish steel, so no heavy camping-load capacity. You can still fit a front and rear rack.
Frames will be made in Czechia from a mix of Columbus and Reynolds tubes. Tubing chart for all sizes TBA
Frames will most probably be powder-coated and ED coated for durability.
Price for the frameset (frame+fork) will be around 1400 € including VAT
More detailed specifications can be found at bikeinsights.com
Countless discussions, chats, emails,
prototypes and some broken forks
It's been a long way to where we are now even though we are just getting started. I don’t even want to think too much about the process right now as it makes me dizzy to consider all the work, time and money spent on the project. Let's just believe we're gonna be alright.
Most stuff for production is now clear. The prototypes work well and need only minor adjustments in the geometry and tubing choices. Last week we got word from Columbus that they are willing to make extra strong custom 0,9mm wall chainstays for us, which is the final piece of the puzzle for our proportionally stiffer tubing across the size range. Otherwise we would have needed to use the same 0,7mm tubes for the largest sizes’ longer chainstays, making them less stiff than the shorter ones in smaller sizes.
One of our remaining major problems is getting a fork design we are happy with and that will survive the EN ISO safety test, and possibly even a more advanced fatigue test where the previous prototypes failed. Testing has cost us thousands of euros so far, and is going to cost thousands more. Had we known this beforehand I'm not sure we would have not abandoned the project already a year back...
Fork gave in from the shoreline of the crown during Zedler-Institut’s testing.
Mauled frame from the test lab.
The frames survived the tests well enough even though they are quite lightweight, but as the front fork is more critical to safety the requirements are higher. The frames cracked in testing but still passed. The fork cannot crack in the test, which it did. All three of the test forks did actually. As we see it, it is due to the crown design that we used, the Pacenti Paris-Brest. The crown is beautiful, but unfortunately, probably suboptimal engineering-wise, as it seems to create a stress riser in the front of the fork blade where most stress is concentrated. This is in the laboratory setting where the machine is bending it thousands of times with a force of 1100N that is. At least our Columbus Cromor fork blade with a wall thickness of 0,9mm gave in.
We have now changed the fork crown for the next sample batch, which will be made ASAP and sent for re-testing. We are trying to keep the fork blade design the same, but have requested a bit stronger fork blade version to be built just in case.
The crown to be used is the Tange TC007, which looks like this:
Not the most visually striking crown, but it complements the frame’s simple shapes quite nicely. And most importantly it should distribute stresses better
Even though we decided early on that the frame would be in the light touring/randonneuring tradition, with rim brakes, steel frame and so on, it has still taken all these years to arrive to the design we have now. And that it is quite basic is quite telling: the idea is hard to improve upon. In retrospect it's easy to say that our attempts to "modernize" it were mostly futile. But all the ideas and prototypes and mistakes made along the way have grown our understanding of bicycles and especially how manufacturing works. It's different to make one frame than it is to sensibly produce a hundred frames in a certain price point and time line. We have some ideas how to improve the frame but they are mostly purely aesthetic and not functional, so we felt like we can live with the current design and do not have to make everything happen in the first production version. We have enough on our shared plate as it is.
Until next time,
Hiker Crew
