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A bike that fits- Strong Frames
BOZEMAN -Strong Frames http://www.strongframes.com/ maker of custom bicycles, finds customers for at least two good reasons.
Call it the long and short of it.
First, there’s 6-foot, 7-inch Ben Alexander.
Second, there’s 5-foot, 1-inch Jenny McCune.
There are plenty more reasons. Owner Carl Strong said he has a customer who is 6-foot-6 and weighs 370 pounds. "None of him is fat," Strong said.
By DAN BURKHART
Of The Gazette Staff
And there are Strong Frame riders like New York Knicks center Kurt Thomas, just shy of 7 feet.
Alexander said he had quit riding because it hurt too much.
"Now," he said "I have one mountain bike and one road bike. They fit."
Making bikes that fit is Strong’s niche. When customers are able, they come into his shop to be measured. It’s a case of the man – or woman – makes the bike.
"At first I just wanted to join some gals for bike rides around town, but I realized pretty quickly I needed something more than a store-bought bike," McCune said.
McCune found a $200 Trek bike at a swap meet, but she still needed something tailor-made for her petite frame.
During the Internet heydays McCune, a freelance writer, found plenty of work writing for Internet sites.
"I could afford a decent bike back then," she said.
A Strong frame begins at about $1,200. The price for a complete bike depends on the component parts. If a customer wants top-of-the-line wheels, gears, handle bars and fancy extras, it can run as high as $4,500, Strong said.
"The great thing is, they service it until you, or the bike, dies," McCune said.
Basically the price is for "the sheer quality of the work," Alexander said.
McCune and Alexander bought two Strong bike frames. One for roads; a second for mountains.
Some customers choose a hybrid of the two, a cyclocross that combines the strength of a mountain bike with some of the svelte features of a road bike.
"It’s a road bike with bigger tires, basically," Strong said.
The bikes are built of several metals. There is a lightweight steel or titanium or aluminum. They are powder-coated, not painted. The powder is applied by an environmentally friendly electrolysis process and baked to a shiny shell.
Strong is famous for the welds, kind of an autograph of the builder.
"That’s the most difficult part. It’s crucial," Strong said.
He is proud enough of his welding ability that he often does not buff or paint over the weld. It is a signature of an artisan, evenly scalloped, like a seashell.
All of the exacting measurement, alignment, assembly and machining is why the bikes don’t roll off an assembly line. Strong and his partner, Tony Smith, and apprentice Dan Smith build the frames one at a time.
"They have to be perfect," Strong said. "They’re meant to last a lifetime."
Strong’s passion for building bicycles began when he was a youngster hauling home junkers from Goodwill.
"My parents didn’t believe in buying brand new bikes so I made kind of a mongrel bike with parts from wrecks. I thought it was really cool," the 37-year-old said.
He loved all kind of bikes. He was competing in BMX races by the time he was 8. He liked road races and backcountry marathons.
He was always searching for the perfect bike. When he didn’t find one, he built his own. That was 10 years ago, working in his grandmother’s garage.
He was selling real estate, and not liking it. He knew he wanted his own business, but he hadn’t decided what kind.
"I bought a condo for $50,000 and sold it for $70,000. The profit was my capital," he said. "It hit me I should do something I knew something about and something I really liked."
With $16,000, he bought welders, sanders and compressors before he even knew how all the equipment worked.
"I learned as I went," he said. "Any time if I could get someone to show me how to weld on their dime, I would have taken advantage of it."
Instead, he perfected the delicate welding on thousands of frames. He learned the difference between welding steel, aluminum and titanium.
He sold his first bike frame in 1991, and Strong Frames was born.
In the early days, he built bikes mostly for friends. But the friends told other friends, and soon he was building custom bike frames for a growing clientele. It helped that he was part of the bicycling community. He knew what people wanted.
"If you have a lousy bike, it pretty much wrecks the enjoyment of going out every day for a ride or even once a week," he said.
A BMX accident resulted in a partner. Tony Smith was a chemistry graduate student, but he knew Strong and liked what he was doing.
"I broke my collarbone in four places so I couldn’t be building frames. That’s when Tony said he’d help until I could get up to speed," Strong said.
Smith traded his labor for an interest in the business.
"Our different skills came together really well," Smith said.
Smith liked machining parts and powder coating.
"There wasn’t any way I could do the kind of welding Carl does," Smith said. "It’s really high-tech, virtually like aerospace welding. Very precise. Very fragile."
Rounding out Strong’s crew is Dan Smith, who is developing the welding skills under Carl’s tutelage, and office manager, Loretta McPherson.
Building between 200-250 frames a year, Strong doesn’t need more employees yet.
"Our capacity is still bigger than our sales," he said.
Strong is adding a less-customized bike line this year. Called the "Signature" series, it will feature a "stock geometry," in four models, a mountain bike, a single-speed mountain bike and a cyclocross bike.
"We’ll make a couple hundred and see how they go," he said.
While none of the four is getting rich, they enjoy the work. The schedule is flexible, the atmosphere laid back. Shop dogs roam the shop.
They step outside to enjoy the sun. Rock music overwhelms the machine noise.
They make time to sponsor a series of Montana road and trail races.
"There has to be time to bike," Smith said. "Work isn’t allowed to get in the way of that."
For now, the partners agree, earnings should be put back into the business.
"We’re flying pretty close to the ground, just getting by. We’d like to get a bit more elevation," Strong said.
But Strong is confident that reinvesting in the business will pay off.
"We’ve got a good market. My niche are people who ride 20 to 100 miles every week. They want something light and fast and infinitely durable," he said.
"Its like the people who like a good fly rod or a good guitar. There’s a mystique about it, just like there is with a good bike," he explained.
The bicycling community continues to expand, and people starting out with a Wal-Mart bike will graduate to better equipment.
"They’ll come, and we’ll be here," he said.
The increase in the number of bicyclists is the reason he’s building a $600,000 building under a giant oak tree just off downtown Bozeman’s main street.
The oak tree is a good symbol.
Not only does it signify the strength and durability that are mainstays for this 10-year-old company. But it’s a symbol for a larger view by its owner.
"We definitely wanted the oak tree incorporated into the building design. We certainly didn’t want it cut down," Strong said.
The oak will serve as advertising for where Strong is located. It will be a meeting place for those who share the same passion for cycling that Strong has.
"We hope to hold regular rides where we’ll say ‘Meet under the oak tree.’ We look for having a large patio where people can gather. We may have a cafe," he said.
Big dreams for a small bike-frame maker. But big dreams are what have made Strong’s business successful.
While he started it out of his grandmother’s garage, he knew even then that some day it would grow into a larger facility. When the business developed into a premier frame maker, it found a home in one of Bozeman’s older commercial districts at Story Mill. When it continued to flourish, Strong searched for a more permanent home.
"We looked at several buildings, but it always came down to costing as much or more as building new," he said.
He easily and happily complied with Bozeman’s progressive building codes.
Apartments will be added to help with affordable housing. The building will fit in with neighboring businesses. And, of course, there will be ample parking, especially for bikes.
"That’s what we’re about," he said. "Bikes and more bikes."
Dan Burkhart can be reached at 328-7133 or at [email protected].
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