The Rychtarski thread

One can only hope that with amount of complaints he's getting, he'll start to do better...

Such a shame though - the build quality of my frame is so, so good.

Yeah, he seems to have been top notch until recently. And atleast my issue he solved very fast and seemed very sorry, so all hope is not lost, i think.

Must be getting sloppy due to the amount of recent orders? All my three frames have been perfect (except some odd part choices).

Walk away from the guy. Get your money back and just put it down to an education. A pity really but you buy cheap and thats the risk you take.

I don't have any complains about the build quality, it is very good on this frame. We are all human, and mistakes can happen. I hope he will take care of that and fix it for me. As I said before I own other Rychtraski frames and all of them have been perfect.

Probably this. I've seen so many rychtarski projects in this site alone lately, and still he has very slow lead time...For example mine was done like a week after the deposit.

Anyone know how much a Rychtarski or Orlowski alu track frame goes for,thinking this might be a decent way to get new track bike in club colours..

A part of the explanation could also be on the customer side of the order process. People should know by now that when ordering from Rychtarski you have to be specific down to the smallest detail, and if you don't know exactly what you're doing that will come back at you.
I.e. if you order a road f+f with canti studs, that is what he delivers without regard to if it will work. If you don't specify where you want your bottle mounts he will just put them somewhere - it would have worked fine for a 1x build.

I'm not trying to defend him, because those assymetric chainstays should have been spotted, but a lot of the errors lately are because people wanted full custom, but don't want to pay for the service.

We are not talking about mielec here, we're talking about a guy who has done this since forever, so one would assume he'd know some basic stuff about bike building by now. (also, if you're referring to my bike, i never said to him to only make road frame with cantis , you should see our email-conversation ;))

This in spades.

Last time I was toying with an idea of ordering from him I had links from ceeway for fork crowns, lugs, head tube and tubing that I wanted and exact measurements in mm of brake studs/bridges (you can get the measurements from shimano frame builder manual). It is safe to get a band on front mech for flexibility.

And of course right down to detail BikeCAD including braze ons, bottle mounts, cable stops etc.

Or you know order from someone who will do all that for you. Being a bike geek I like both.

so what you're saying is that if you're not a pro-ish bike builder and wouldn't know exactly where to place the canti studs you might want to consider ordering from someone how can decide those things for you?

I.e. if you order a road f+f with canti studs, that is what he delivers without regard to if it will work.

this seems like a stupid way of offering service

when I made an order for a custom, I gave the geo and listed option what I wanted and got just that - from Orlowski.

But obviously I want the options ordered to be functional and that should be a given to the frame builder as well.

e: it's the builders responsibility to let the customer know if something is not doable/not wise

it's the builders responsibility to let the customer know if something is not doable/not wise

this

only thing that boggles my mind with this black road frame is that I had the illusion, that the guys at rychtarski are somewhat internet-savvy, and would know how easy it is to google this topic.

That's bullshit. He's a frame builder. He should know if he's brazing on bottle bosses too low down a tube - which he did. I exchanged over 40 emails with Kuba before we went ahead with the build - I was incredibly specific - I didn't think I'd need to tell him where to braze bottle bosses.

^agreed

as if you would have to specify that you want your BB to be in a certain position (and of the correct taper/diametere re the bb cup sitting loose)

This still confuses me. How could he know where the deraileur would sit if he didnt know what size chainrings you were using, the type of mech and which clamp? Any change of those 3 would affect where the derailleur clamp sits

Well if this wasn't discussed(which I'm quite certain was) it'd still be the builders responsibility to ask about the chain rings because the builder knows how this affects the placement of the bottle cage mounts due to derailleur placement.

Surely position of the bottle cages should be in position to the rest of the frame. Ie if they were too high some bottles wouldnt fit and if they were too low itd get in the way of the DT cage. Chainrings could change as well so it wouldnt make sense to choose cage placement like that, especially when it can be fixed by just using a different clamp

I could understand the bottle boss issue if the frame was tiny, and for some niche purpose, but it's a road frame. Chainring size does not really vary between 50t and 53t, unless he was under the impression it was going to be single ring. He must have built hundreds of similar frames and got it right.

That said I had a few "different" specifications for my frame (track ends and cantilever bosses, maximum mud/tyre clearance with, at largest, a 39t chainring) and everything seems bang on.

You're right and all of that should be discussed with the builder. If the customer does not bring those things into conversation the builder must.

No - sorry. Still don't think it's my responsibility to let him know that. It's not a small frame. He's got it right on all the other frames he's built that I've seen?

I'm using a compact as well. If I was using a 52/53 the chainrings would actually get in the way of having a bottle cage on there altogether. Fundamentally, the bosses are too low down. You can see that just by looking at their position on the tube.

£700 vs £1500+ innit

Yes.

Rychtarski is a frame builder, not a frame designer.

and when we take cost of living etc into account, they are pretty equivalent sums in their own countries.

frame builder should also know how to design frames, non?