Tunk Times #15

March 2026

‘Tis the season for bicycles. The cover photo was taken a few weeks ago, and Helsinki has completely changed since, into spring! Gloveless teenagers have been spotted riding bikes to school. Of course we also ride year-round but it’s just not the same – in winter biking is a struggle, on a sunny spring day it is blissful!

Sales have been very slow. It is a bit of a shock after the good initial response last year. We’re not sure if it’s lack of marketing, something wrong with the product itself or just general worldwide depression and chaos… It’s understandable that buying an expensive special bicycle frame is not the first thing on people's minds right now! Many people seem to really like our work, especially deeply involved avant-garde early-adopter types, which is nice, but that doesn’t mean our sales are great.

So we are trying to get more serious about marketing, it seems like the product doesn’t sell itself (who would’ve guessed??) We are planning traditional ads in touring-minded magazines, trying to work with a certain YouTuber to test the bike out and so on. If anyone has good tips on which media(s) or people to reach out to, please let us know! We are especially trying to expand our reach in Europe, as right now most of our audience seems to be in the US, and the extra tariffs are making sales there difficult. We would love to work with any weird niche tunk-ish magazines, blogs, websites, artists etc. Either to send our bikes to be tested or do paid ads or anything really. 

The new products mentioned in the previous Times are going ahead. Racks are being made locally in small numbers and Fort has received the tubing for the stems and production starts soon. We are also working on a universal model of the decaleur, to fit any bike. The world lacks a simple working decaleur design and the venerable handlebar bag thus cannot reach its full potential!

We are also due to receive our rim shipment in a few weeks. The better availability of good, affordable 650b rims will maybe also help with the frame sales, as the availability of rims seems to only have gotten worse, close to non-existent actually. We will be also offering complete hand-built-in-house wheelsets for all three wheel sizes in the next month or two.

Our webshop shipping also needs to be figured out, right now the automated shipping costs for smaller (not a frame) items is way too high. We want to offer a curated selection of good products in addition to frames, so this needs to be solved. 

To end on a positive note, we discovered that our PayPal account had ten thousand euros from frame sales that we didn’t know about. We simply had forgotten to activate transfers from there to our bank account! So we’ll be buying some good stuff with that to offer in the webshop.

Tunk Times Extra Art supplement

For something completely different, here' s some fiction from the world of Tunk! 

Real World Bicycles

a short story

by Aja Venir

Painting by Inka Kynkäänniemi

It's late, you stayed too long, you need to go home, it's kinda far, it's drizzling, you're thirsty and hungry... Don the rain cape, take a sip of bidon juice, dig out the prepared sandwich from your handlebar bag and sit down to eat for a bit. Maybe even lay down for a minute if that doesn't feel too weird. Who cares about social norms at this hour? It's time to get on the bike and head home. You remember your rear tire has a slow leak that you havent bothered to fix, it's feeling soft. Grab the frame pump and do a dozen strokes and the tire is good enough for now. Now let's go! Atleast there's no head wind. Saddle covers come off and the seats are taken.

Shoes into the toe-clips go and chain on the conservatively sized big ring. The front shifter cable is also a bit loose, really should do some maintenance... Not that it matters, shifts fine. Drink some more juice from the bidon and keep going. The rain is maybe getting a bit heavier, running down the cape and forming a puddle between your hands, throw it off every few minutes.

After a quarter youre starting to feel warm, remember you still have a couple of sesame bars in the bag side pocket, you give one to your friend who realizes they also are hungry and did not prepare sandwiches. Watch out for those potholes! And the bus splashing water onto the sidewalk, keep to the far side! Good thing the dynamo lights are bright tonight, like every night.

Let's take the forest road? Sure. Total darkness illuminated only by the bikes. The smell of the sea bay and garbage from the processing plant. Muddy puddles are not all avoided, mudflaps block most of the inevitable dirt that is summoned forth at us. Gallant pieces of plastic! Deer in the headlights – Just go on now! 

Carried on the wet soft dirt by big soft tires, but even on small uphills need to shift the front to the small ring, tired. Kind of enjoying it as well, the dark woods, silence, almost hot under the cape. Need to stop to pee, try to keep the cape over the saddle so it doesnt get wet. Drink some more juice too. Almost there now but what's the hurry?

Smoothly rolling along again. Can’t see much in the dark but the familiar tight turn is not even thought about, the mind map knows it from many years. The moon's come out above the fields. You wonder how come you never see anyone else cycling on these roads in the middle of the night? How do all the others get home? The bus I guess? 

Few last straights and here we are at the corner store, closed at this hour. Final little path, dig the keys out, squeeze into the elevator, bikes come in of course. Let's put them in the bathroom, theyre dripping with muddy water. We can clean them tomorrow if need be. Let's see in the morning if people are really wanting to go ride.. In the party everyone seemed up for it. The rain is supposed to stop sometime in the early morning. Any late night snacks? Some bread and margarine. Glass of oat milk. Swap into some dry clothes, brush teeth and that’s it. Good night.

Until Next Times

Tunk Crew