Stainless still rusts, especially with prolonged water exposure. Put a piece of cable housing in a curved stainless tube, pour in water every couple of days, and in a few months pull out the housing. The brown stuff on it will test positive for ferrous oxide. For a faster test take a pair of stainless scissors, dunk them in water, and then keep them wrapped in a wet towel overnight. In the morning there will be brown stuff on the inside surfaces.

Swapping a flat on a bike with rear facing dropouts and properly fit metal fenders is a pain, try it some time. Standard diagonal horizontal dropouts also maintain better brake alignment as the wheel moves in the dropout. The only reason to do track ends on a rim brake bike to use a chain tensioner. There are no other advantages, plain and simple.

At first glance I thought this was a 105 crank, and I’ve seen a lot of hack job bikes like this with a standard 105 double with a chainguard in the outer position. Looking again this is actually worse — it’s the version of the Alfine with two chainguards, which means the chainline is 49mm. If you look at the top perspective shot on the Shape SF site you can see just how bad the chainline is. A couple mm is one thing, but 7mm is bad. They should have used the single chainguard model, that one has normal track/ss chainline.

All my other points stand as well. When you pay thousands of dollars for a custom bike like this it’s one thing to have a couple of iffy design decisions around the details, but you should at least get your $120 fenders mounted correctly. Sadly, this is probably the most botched fender installation I’ve ever seen.

Those are mostly solutions that have arrived since the tark bike fad. Some of them are actually there to accommodate the problems introduced with disc brakes, which are irrelevant to the matter at hand.

” . . . whether they are better is a completely different matter . . .”

If a problem is solved, and no new problems are introduced, in what manner is the solution not better? Engineers what to know.

Do you even know what the problem is?

” . . .the minimal, ubiquitous, low-cost solution that a horizontal dropout provides.”

That is the solution I allude to. Go to Walmart and look at some actual mass production bikes with fenders.

You say that, and yet, virtually every production bicycle that uses an internally geared, single speed, or fixed gear hub has a horizontal dropout, and only rarely one of the “better” solutions you allude to (a chain tensioner, or a pivoting/sliding dropout). Look at Globe, Batavus, Trek… even many custom builders.

I agree completely that there are more evolved options… whether they are better is a completely different matter, Simplicity of aesthetics, simplicity of operation, simplicity of fabrication are all complicating factors. Certainly, alternatives provide more elegant operation, but there is something to be said for the minimal, ubiquitous, low-cost solution that a horizontal dropout provides.

“Forbidding an entire genre of dropout because you want fenders seems much more foolish. ”

And yet by 1930 or so they had been not forbidden (nobody is forbidding them, they are criticizing them), but largely abandoned, for the simple, foolish reason that they had . . . a better idea. Those that retained them were coaster brake bikes that sloped the slot downward toward the rear (which would be a really stupid thing to do on a caliper braked bike).

They cause problems, they don’t serve to keep the bike traditional, we know how to do it better; they are a “tark bike” affectation.

If it were a traditional Dual Purpose bike things would be different, as then it would be a requirement that it be track legal and the fenders would be expected to be on and off all the time. One would simply choose to put up with the problem to not need two bikes.

“a realized concept bike.”

This stretches the concept of concept bike to the point where the concept becomes meaningless, as every bike would be a realized concept bike.

It’s just a bike. One that wouldn’t even have drawn a stare riding down the street in 1950. It is perfectly fair to judge it as what it claims to be.

- First, the front rack. Unquestionably they wanted it to line up with the top tube, but that isn’t necessarily a negative. In fact, according to both the laws of physics and the gods of bicycle handling dynamics (Papadopoulos, etc) a fixed front load can actually be more stable when higher in many conditions! (Counterintuitive, maybe but it means that the front wheel has to make less rapid lateral travel in order to stay beneath the higher center of mass. The situation does of course reverse itself when the bicycle is stationary, but there are likely many ideal configurations dependent on frequency of stops, rider experience, and terrain.)

- Then, the second top tube. Even if the frame isn’t large enough to warrant it for steering stability , it surely helps keep the downtube from deflecting when the front rack is loaded. I agree that the lack of lugs there isn’t ideal, but it’s certainly not breaking with tradition. Even on old bikes, lugs were far less common than a fillet braze/weld on those joints. See Azor, other big dutch bikes.

– Internal routings is “faux” on an all-weather bike? Hmm, I could have sworn something called stainless steel tubing existed. I’m sure you know that those aren’t just open holes, and you know that a curved tube is brazed inside, connecting the two openings. If they used stainless steel for that tube, you could submerge the bike daily and that particular feature wouldn’t fail.

- Horizontal dropouts + Fenders = Foolish? Really? The only thing wrong with the set up is that the rear fender stay isn’t adjustable. Fenders are flexible things, easily moved the ±10mm you’d ever need with a horizontal dropout. Forbidding an entire genre of dropout because you want fenders seems much more foolish.

- Shimano two-piece cranks give you an incorrect chainline? You mean 42mm, the de-facto standard for track and internally-geared hubs? God, sounds terrible.

Anyway, what I’m really saying is that I think it is an good looking design and a thoughtful execution. Sure, there are little things that could be changed… that front fender, certainly… but let’s be fair with our expectations from a realized concept bike.

Tell me about it, I own a Quickbeam. I have no idea what Grant was thinking on that one, but he’s persisted with it on the new model despite all the trouble it’s caused people.

- the wood plaque screams out wall bike
- the fenders aren’t bent to create the right curve around the tires (an easy fix)
- the seat is tilted back a lot farther than most people would care for
- the rear brake cable routing caused extra twists in the housing
- the crank is horrid for a lugged bike. find a classy looking square taper instead.
- the brakes shown look to be the ones that are outrageously expensive but have gotten bad reviews