Belltown Bikes: CT NEMBA member starts framebuilding business

Bob Spooner, East Hampton CT resident and 29er pioneer in CT, has been building fillet brazed steel frames for himself and his friends for in his spare time several years. He's decided to make it official and incorporate as "Belltown Bikes". The pictured frame, Bob's 12th overall, is the proud possession of CT NEMBA board member Al Tinti, and a great example of Bob's craftsmanship and level of detail.

Check out the curved seatstays, offset seat tube and plate for direct mount front derailleur (allowing for extremely short seatstays of 16.9" for a 29er), tubular head tube reinforcement (drilled for derailleur cable routing), thru the top tube routing for a dropper seatpost cable, use of a salvaged brake rotor for a brake reinforcement, and cowled Paragon Machine dropouts with replaceable hanger. Bob even cut the outline of a bell into the front of the seatpost reinforcing lug, and a T into the back!

Here are some of Bob's own words on his new enterprise:

"East Hampton at one time had 30 bell factories...hence the name. I struggled with a name for my little operation. I wasn't too big on plastering my own name on the DT. The kids and I came up with a dozen names, but none seemed right. We finally went with Belltown. My buddy Rob is a sign/sticker maker and I traded him my old FSR for stickers.

Al's was #12, and I'm just about done with #13. I'm confident of the fabrication by now, but am still tweaking the process. Every one is very different at this point. Perhaps the designs will begin to narrow down and I'll actually have a certain "style". I do like short chainstay bikes that like to go around corners...that's for sure.

I have no intention of feeding my family with this deal. I would have to pump out 2 frames/week. If that is the schedule then one is pumping out plain-jane frames. I like doing the fancy-pants stuff. There are a few builders getting by doing 15 frames/year...but one has to have a strong following for that.

I have a few more projects in the works and am looking forward to riding this 650B rando/commuter I'm working on now. Just brazed my first fork last night."

Bob Spooner