Spoon Customs has launched its Sestriere Scandium bike at the Bespoke Handmade Bike Show in London. The brand says the new model will offer a custom build for each rider and can be built up into a full bike specced with Zipp 303 S wheels and SRAM Rival eTap for under £5,000, while a frameset will set you back £1,895.
The Spoon Sestriere Scandium is built by hand in Italy from triple-butted Dedacciai Scandium and 7005 aluminium tubing. Despite the exotic-sounding name, the scandium content of Dedacciai’s tubing is tiny at just 0.1 to 0.15 per cent, the majority of the alloy being aluminium, with other elements like zinc and magnesium making up a greater proportion of the composition than scandium.
But the addition of the expensive scandium does have a significant impact on the tubing’s strength, which Dedacciai says is around 25 per cent greater than its other aluminium alloys.
That allows the tubing to be thinner and so lighter than standard aluminium tubes, for a lighter frame. Spoon says that the tubing doesn’t need heat treatment after welding, allowing its frame to be stiff and responsive.
Spoon says that it custom builds all its frames so that they’re fitted to the rider. That’s based on the results of the same three hour bike fit process at its headquarters in Surrey as it offers for its more expensive frames like the carbon Vars Disc, which we reviewed recently.
According to Andy Carr, who founded Spoon Customs, the aim with the new bike is to make custom bike building and component choice accessible to more riders.
‘The big brands have convinced many people that making bikes designed for you just isn’t possible; it’s out of reach. This is surprising now that off-the-peg bikes cost just as much as custom work – it’s the big-brand business model that doesn’t deliver what customers need,’ Carr says.
Spoon Customs majors on custom colour schemes for its bikes and it says that it can offer an unlimited range of colour options for the new bike as well.
The brand is is headquartered near Guildford and also has a base in the French Alps in Montgenevre. It makes bikes in carbon fibre and steel alongside the Sestriere Scandium alloy frame.
Spoon merged with WyndyMilla bikes in 2019 and it sells urban electric bikes under the Cooper brand name as well.
More details on the Spoon Customs website.
Spoon Sestriere Scandium Disc example spec
- Frame: Spoon Sestriere Scandium
- Fork: Columbus Futura Disc
- Groupset: SRAM Rival AXS 2x
- Wheelset: Zipp 303 S
- Tyres: Pirelli Zero Race 28mm
- Handlebar: Pro PLT Carbon
- Stem: Deda Superzero
- Saddle: Prologo Dimension
- Seatpost: Pro Vibe Carbon
Intrigued about Spoon? Read our 2019 interview with founder Andy Carr.