21 December, 2009

Snow and Polyvalent



We're digging out from a major snowstorm here in Annapolis. Most of our staff made it to work so we'll be shipping orders today. This may not be much snow for you Northerners, but in a town whose snow-removal equipment consists of  a few pick-up truck with little plow blades, it really slows thing down. If we don't get our normal package pickups we'll load everything into Annette's station wagon and make a few runs to the central post office and to Fed-Ex. Then it's off to the park for a little XC skiing.

In other news, Polyvalent frames have been reaching dealers and we're getting overwhelmingly positive feedback from shops that have already built them up.

The very cool shop called "Old Spokes Home" in Burlington, Vermont built up a Polyvalent as a Porteur, but with drop bars. The have a very nice blog post about it here.



A VO customer who saw that very bike made this comment on the VO blog:
Seeing this thing in person kind of made up my mind as to whether or not I want this. While their photos do it even less justice than yours, seeing the thing in front of you is different.

The welds, in particular are very nice, and give it the appearance of a brazed frame. The logo treatment looks better and more subtle than I expected, and in reality, it just looks much nicer than I'd expect a $400 dollar frame to be.
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10 comments:

  1. WickedCold12/21/09, 1:13 PM

    The Old Spokes Home is five minutes from my house. I can't wait to go check this thing out in person.

    They built my custom bike for me (complete with many shiny VO components) and it's quite the beauty.

    ReplyDelete
  2. bmike12/21/09, 3:00 PM

    vermont and the old spokes home getting some love. nice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12/21/09, 5:26 PM

    I hope none of those gin palaces in the first photo are yours, Chris; your readers expect better of you....
    mburdge

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown12/22/09, 9:51 AM

    the VO polyvalent display at OSH is particularly interesting because of its juxtaposition with a classic Ruche mixte porteur.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/22267176@N02/4194047714/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anon of Florida12/22/09, 12:00 PM

    Looking at those photographs, I think VO has achieved a first impression confusion in apparent building construction for a mass produced frame.

    This has only done before by the likes of Schwinn's electro forged frames causing confusion between their EF frames and their fillet brazed frames.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jim B in Tx12/22/09, 2:39 PM

    What does that first paragraph mean?

    ReplyDelete
  7. erik12/22/09, 4:13 PM

    you're producing a frame that fills such a notable need in the market while retaining a good deal of quality.

    if it came in a bit larger size, i would line up.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12/22/09, 7:36 PM

    Methinks Anon of Florida needs to lay off the egg nog before he
    posts . . .

    ReplyDelete
  9. doc12/23/09, 9:49 AM

    I love the potential this build presents for a camper bike, but I wish there were a way to affix lowrider panniers to that porteur rack. The price is also very attractive.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anon of Florida12/23/09, 3:12 PM

    What I meant was that Schwinn made a number of lightweight fillet brazed frames that were rejected by the general public because the fillet joints looked too similar to the Electroforged frames of Schwinn Varsities and their ilk.

    http://www.sheldonbrown.com/schwinn-braze.html

    The welds on the Polyvalent are of such an impressive quality, so much so that I think they could be now be confused for fillet brazed joints.

    I wrote the comment as a compliment to the high quality of Velo Orange frames.

    ReplyDelete