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what on earth is an albannach?
in the latter part of last week, as i departed the newsagent's, grasping a copy of my daily newspaper, i was overtaken by the desire for a ristretto. this may have been the immediate proximity of a coffee shop, or just a fleeting fancy that needed to be satisfied, but either way, i popped in for an impossibly tiny cup of rocket fuel. in the process of making my way to the coffee counter, i passed a table occupied by persons of my acquaint, all of whom hold affiliation to a political party currently in power, north of the border.
i made some flippant remark about being unaware that they now held party meetings in the coffee shop, then continued to stride towards the machinery of delights. as i waited patiently, a member from the table described above, arose and attempted to fasten to my jacket, a badge featuring the logo of the party to which i have just referred. aside from the fact that this was something of an unwanted imposition, given my party political agnosticism, the jacket was a not inexpensve garment that might well have been damaged by the fastening of this yellow and black pin badge.
i made my objections known to the person responsible and stuffed the badge in a pocket, for i have no intention whatsoever of advertising affiliation to any political party, let alone that described by the logo. do not misunderstand me; i'm quite happy to be a scotsman, but i am considerably less than fanatical about it and i certainly have no great wish for scotland to depart the united kingdom, simply to satisfy some nationalist whim.
however, that's not to say that, through these black and yellow pixels, i cannot exercise a form of nepotism and sing the praises of scottish velocipedinal effort, particularly when it relates to a compact and bijou range of rather fine looking titanium bicycles. these are the brainchild of a fellow by the name of jim cameron, a man who hails from an island not that much farther north than where i currently reside. in fact, clear enough were the skies this past saturday, that, on my way to gruinart flats on islay's north western coast, i could see the hills of jim's home island of mull.
now resident in glasgow, and very recently a father for the first time, to all intents and purposes, jim is albannach bicycles. the word is gaelic for 'scottish', or 'scotsman', but as jim said "I like to use the literal translation; 'to belong to Scotland'. however, unlike the archetypal framebuilder, cooried up in a garage or bikeshed, feverishly brazing or welding metal tubes into a double-diamond shape, jim cameron never actually has to break sweat when providing custom titanium for his eager customers.
" I design the frames to my customers' exact specifications. While I have a set of geometry tables for my CROIS (cyclocross), RATHAD (road) and TORRAGAR (randonneur) models, the geometry is also completely customisable. That, combined with their choice of brake type (rim / disc), derailler actuation (mechanical / electric / wireless) cable routing, contact-bearing pieces (bottom brackets, head tubes, rear axles), I like to think I can provide a thorough solution for my customers.
"I'm a civil/structural engineer by education and trade. The great thing about offering this kind of service, is that there's always some daft problem that a customer would like to fix. As an engineer it's always a pleasure to be able to provide a solution to their particular problem and see it through with a shiny new Albannach."
the days are long gone when a new frame for a new season would entail a simple choice between reynolds, or columbus tubing if in europe, or possibly true-temper if across the pond. nowadays, we are totally spoilt for choice, with not only aluminium and titanium on the shopping list, but even one or two builders offering custom carbon. as the sayng goes, 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'. i asked jim if albannach frames were always going to be titanium or had he argued with himself over the other possibilities outlined above?
"Albannach sort of started from me looking to design my own frame, as I could never get what I really wanted from stock frames. Too often I would maybe find a frame that would be ideal for my body shape (I'm kind of T-Rex shaped, long femurs, short humeri) to then only find design flaws that I couldn't stomach. For example, cyclocross frames with external, bare, down tube routed derailleurs. That's shite and reeks of a designer who's not ridden many cross races.
"So I decided to design my own. I've always admired the aesthetics of titanium frames from afar and there's something quite Scottish and modest about titanium. Why would you need to tart it up in paint when the raw metal alloy looks so vibrant? Truthfully, however, it's the ride quality of titanium that matches the kind of riding I like to do, to the kind of places I ride."
on a totally unrelated subject, i am currently in the process of designing a bass drum head for the community pipe band, now that the two principle manufacturers of drumheads offer a custom service. disappointingly, the process is becoming seriously bogged down by the continual addition of one feature after another, instead of retaining the graphic simplicity evident at the outset. simplicity is almost always the best policy and it's one that seems inherent in all three of albannach's current range of titanium frames. was that jim's desired intention or did they just turn out that way?
"Definitely intentional. While I appreciate the classic aesthetic of Nervex lugs on a 'Flying Scot', my frames are absolutely designed with end-purpose at the forefront. For example the CROIS, as standard, comes with a flattened underside to the top tube. The design rationale to this is to spread the load of the bicycle when shouldering it during a cyclocross race. I have often been asked if could I add that to a customer's non-'cross build, as they like that look; however I tend to talk them round to the reason why I use that feature only for the CROIS build. In turn this helps me build a aesthetic that is recognisable as an Albannach."
i confess that, in my early years of cycling as we know it, the rationale behind owning more than one bicycle seemed built on decidedly shaky ground, though even i could grasp the necessity of a specific offroad machine if such proved to be your pedalling proclivity. however, many years and many bicycles later, i am as inured to the n+1 rule as seemingly everyone else. the intervening years have educated me to the pleasures and vicissitudes of each genre, but certainly rarely from a builder/designer's point of view. what notable differences are there between road, cross and randonneur framesets and has jim ever considered an albannach mountain bike?
"All of my frames are designed with a nod towards racing geometry, whether it be cyclocross, road or ultra-endurance. In the most simple of descriptions, the frames are increasingly aggressive, leading from TORRAGAR, to CROIS, to RATHAD. They are built with features for their specific purpose. For example, the TORRAGAR is covered in mounts for racks, cages and mudguards, while the CROIS doesn't have a single mount, as it's purpose is to be rattled around a cross course as fast as possible for an hour.
"That doesn't mean to say that features cannot be used interchangeably. I often have requests for a 'TORRACROIS' (TORRAGAR features, CROIS geometry) or 'RARRAGAR' (RATHAD geometry, TORRAGAR features). As far as mountain bike frames go, yes I've designed a couple of personal XC frames, the BEINN, but I'm not quite ready to offer that publicly."
it's pretty apparent that i'm not a framebuilder, nor indeed, a frame designer. i still delight in the one-inch steerer, head tube and headset featured on my colnago master frameset, and to this day i still cannot fathom the need for anything larger. the same goes for bottom brackets; i've become used to the externality of bb cups, but as to the effectiveness of press-fit, well... however, even a brief perusal of the titanium on offer from the albannach website, will reveal many of those features on albannach's titanium. in fact the road frame's head tube flares from the ubiquitous 1.125" to 1.5" at the crown. is this not a tad excessive on a road bike? after all, eddy won many a race with a 1" headset, so has jim become a slave to the great god stiffness?
"I'll need to take you for a spin round the lanes south of Glasgow! Honestly though, the industry had gone towards tapered 1.125" to 1.5" diameter fork steerers long before I started designing frames in 2012. Now, if your material of use is carbon, it is more difficult to find a straight 1.125" diameter fork steerer than a tapered one. There are options to adopt a straight 44mm ID head tube with zero stack cups up top and external cups down below to fit the more common tapered fork, but I prefer the uniformity of a tapered head tube with zero stack cups top and bottom. In that sense adopting a 44mm to 56mm ID head tube allows a bit more future-proofing of the frame. It is for that reason that I also prefer to adopt PF30 shells, as the allow the frame the use of 24mm and 30mm diameter crankset axles."
regular readers of the post will, perhaps, be fed up with my reticent attitude towards the so-called technological developments that afflict the bicycle industry, many of which seem more like inveterate tinkering than true progress. however, i'm almost in a minority of one, so i daresay i'll have to learn to live with that. however, when it comes to custom frames, i'd like to think my luddite attitude could prevail, given that i'd be the one paying. in which case, i asked jim if, hypothetically, i'd be able to order a titanium 'cross bike with cantilever brakes, external cable routing, a 1.125" non-tapered head tube/headset, a standard threaded bottom bracket and a braze-on front derailleur bracket, whether he approved or not?
"Yes, definitely. The ultimate goal of the Albannach FRAMEWORKS is to build your unique Albannach, made to your unique specifications."
that leaves only the matter of the front forks which, on the illustrations shown on the albannach website, seem all to be fashioned from carbon fibre. is that always the case, or is there an option to have a set of titanium forks to match those glorious, raw titanium frames?
" Titanium forks are an option, but I personally don't like the aesthetic of a metal fork built from tubes. I think that the straight forks made with carbon, suit Albannach frames far better."
so, having created a fine range of three different framesets, all available for custom order, and the mere hint of a future albannach mountain bike frame, what is jim's cunning plan for the foreseeable future?
"In the past I've had a stab at ultra-endurance races such as the Transcontinental (cue the birth of the TORRAGAR). I love this format of racing, however I'm more inclined to get further and further away from public roads (cue the birth of #theFaultlineTrail) and while I might never get the chance to enter the race, as my first daughter arrived just a few days ago, a real bucket list event for me is to enter the Tour Divide. I've been brewing up something special for that for quite a while. I just need the push to enter the race and see that wee project through. If I do, look out for the ROINN."
if you're in the market for a new frame sometime soon, with a penchant for titanium sporting a scottish flare, a scottish name etched on the downtube and a distinctly scottish head tube badge, you can contact jim cameron via the albannach website.
sunday 03 november 2019
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