Company Profile: Lynskey Performance Designs
January 9th, 2007 by Guitar TedNote: This is the first of what we hope is many Company and Personal Profiles. A post that gives you a look into a particular companies inner workings, or a well known individuals life from a Twenty Nine Inch perspective. This is the first of a two part post on Lynskey Performance Designs. Enjoy!
Never stopping the learning process, getting to know their customers, and starting over with a clean sheet of paper, these are just some of the themes that help write the story of Lynskey Performance Designs. I had the pleasure recently to find out about these themes and some of the other stories behind this company.
Lynskey Performance Designs may not be a name that you have heard of before, but the folks behind that name have had their hands in cycling for years. The business is family owned and they have been building bikes from titanium since 1986 when the company was founded as Litespeed Titanium Components. However; the story with titanium actually goes back much further than that, which will become important to this story a little later. Litespeed was sold in 1999 and eventually the Lynskey family all dropped out from bicycle production. However; that old bicycle passion began to motivate the Lynskey’s to start up Lynskey Performance Designs in the early part of 2006. This time; however, the way the company was to do its business was far different than the previous way.
Based in Tennessee, Lynskey Performance Designs is essentially a custom bicycle builder. Unlike the previous iteration, where certain models were produced and sent to dealers to be sold, the new company incorporates the end user in the design process. David Lynskey likes this aspect of his new company. “We kind of missed that the way we did things before.� he mused, “I like being able to talk to the rider, get to know them and how they ride. That way, I can build a better bicycle for them.�
That’s a centerpiece of the Lynskey Performance Designs system now. Getting to know the rider a little bit better by actually “interviewing� them. The whole process is centered on building not only a custom bike that fits you, but one that will perform in the way that you desire. They believe so strongly in this that they actually will guarantee the bike to perform the way you expected it to, or they will build another one! That’s some bold guarantee there.
The biggest reason they can make that claim is in the hands of their tubing maestro, David Lynskey. David has spent nearly his entire life around the grayish metal, starting as a floor sweeper in his father’s factory when he was 14 years old. David observed and learned the knowledge necessary to work with titanium tubing and to fabricate titanium tubing from scratch, using sheets. He learned how to form and draw the metal into shapes that would perform in a manner suitable for bicycles. If he couldn’t find the answers from watching, he would ask, adding, “I asked politely. It helps if you’re polite.� Apparently, he was appreciated for that, as David now can not only select tubing from a vast selection on hand, but he can fabricate just what is necessary for the design if the standard tubing shapes won’t do. In this way, Lynskey Performance Designs can tune the ride to the performance and weight requirements of the rider. Not only that, but David himself is the one that interviews each customer before the design is executed.
I was able to go through the process used to obtain one of Lynskey Performance Designs fine creations. In the next article, I will describe that process and give you all some specific information about building a titanium custom bicycle with 29 inch wheels.
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Just stumbled on this site, and I have to laugh. These are not “reviews”, they are essentially paid advertisements written in an editorial format. I love the Litespeed “profile” that reads like the company’s own ad copy. Nice one. Good to see that bike geeks won’t sell out for a few free shiny things… oh, wait… every single article on the site consists of the editors waxing poetic about the virtues of the latest free frame or fork they’ve been provided with.
Colorado: Well, you are not the first to be so cynical. Alot of folks feel like you do, make assumptions, and pass this sort of judgement on reviewers. Certainly it would seem odd that you would even bother to comment, as far as I can see.
That said, alot of cycling reviews are done with equipment provided by the companies and manufacturers. Not just in cycling, but in alot of other categories as well. I hope you are as discriminatory in other areas as you seem to be in the cycling arena.
Furthermore, what would you consider a “profile”? I am introducing some folks to the company for the first time, and I have absolutely no reason what so ever to doubt that the products and the folks behind them are genuine and on the up and up. Do you?
And just so you know, we do not get everything for free, as you assume.
Thanks for your opinion and for stopping long enough to read at least a bit.
How do you make tubing from sheet?
-M
very carefully…..!!!!
Colorado: Since I own this site I’ll give my two cents…
First off, gotta love how all you wankers that leave comments like this never have the balls to leave your name and email address so you can be contacted later on.
That said, we don’t get cash and free stuff in exchange for good reviews… we simply call things how we see them which is often a big thumbs up. If you have something to bring up where you think we’re wrong, please do so, but these overarching “you guys suck” comments don’t do much more than make yourself look stupid.
But oh wait, we don’t know who ‘you’ are since you didn’t leave your name…
I have followed this site for awhile now… obviously I like the content enough to stick around. But I have to say that having a company profile (that does sound like ad copy) before a product has been reviewed is dubious at best. My personal preference would be to not see these ‘profiles’ at all. I really don’t care how x company was formed, just how their product performs.
To argue the against the positive reviews so far, I would say you have had good products to review and no need to slam them.
Bla BLa Bla. do a search for “sloping top tube madness” for a sample of some of the whiny ranting (in your defense) that goes on here.
HOW DO YOU MAKE TUBING!
Am I going to have to go to howstuffworks.com?
-M
Justin R.: Fair enough, but alot of people appreciate finding out stuff like this. It gives them more options, and honestly Lynskey isn’t your typical titanium frame builder.
wolfy: Making sheet into tubing is an old technique and is still employed by several manufacturers in several different types of metals, so no big deal there. (Think welded seam tubing and you have an idea of what I mean) What makes Lynskey different, (and what I was going to touch on in Part II) is that they have not only developed an effective means by which titanium sheet can be rolled into tubing, they actually made many of the machines and tools to do it with. Not only that, but they also extrude tubing into their own shapes and specs. I’ll get into that a bit in terms of frame designs they offer in the next piece.
To Tim and Guitar Ted, Keep up the good work, I enjoy all the reviews and as Much info as possible on the builders.
as for Colorado, GO BACK TO pinkbike.com!
Hmm. I didn’t take this to be a review. It just states a company profile and from the context of this site I figured it to be a profile on bike terms. I could be an arse too and demand a financial profile of the company… Actually I wouldn’t mind more of the Lynskey background info, such as how bike design became implemented in the operations of their company. I’m assuming that bikes were a small part of their company’s manufacturing when Litespeed started.
I’m looking forward to the review of the Lynskey. I’ll likely never be a customer but I still want to know the outcome. Will it kick the Badger off the pedestal of Ted’s sweet handling bikes or just be a pricey Tibike?
Rolled and welded tubes= Stress riser city! EEEWWWWWW.
Dirt McGirt: No reason to worry. Tubes made this way perform well for years with no issues as long as the correct prep and technique was applied at manufacture.
Plenty of examples out there. Too numerous to mention.
You guys who have no idea of how tubing is made obvisouly spend to much time doing.. oh well… what ever it is you do.
I have been to the Haynes factory and have seen tubing made for Litespeed. It starts with a flat plate that is pulled thru rollers that eventualy form it into a tube. An autogenous weld (i.e. no filler metal) is then made to make the weld. The tube is then heat treated if specified, then further made into additional shapes using of all things high pressure water.
Additionally, years back the majority of Ti tubing that Haynes used came from scappped Russian MIG fighter jets. It was melted several times under an inert atmosphere to remove impurities and tramp elements.
Finally the tubes are assebled into a frame of specified geometry. This is where the true craftsmanship comes into play (i.e. not assembled with resin and C fiber in a foreign country by poorly paid workers).
Hey Dirt McGirt!!
What’s up there dude?
Please tell us all what a stree riser is!
Why do you think the majority of alloy tubes are stress relieved and generally radiographed to look for defects.
Here is the $64,000.00 questin there Big Dirt… What would you rather be riding (if you do indeed ride).. A caron fiber frame or a conventional alloy frame?
(In the background hear the theme from Jeporady.)
To all who ride:
Think of it this way.. Would you rather be swimming in a gunite pool or a liner pool?
For all who answered gunite, go out and by a welded alloy frame of your choice that was most likelt assembled by a true craftsman.
For all the wheel suckers that chose the later, go out and buy a carbon frame, and keep your fingers crossed on the rough downhills.
Andy: Thanks for your points on tubing manufacture. Much of what you have revealed was also told to me by David Lynskey, but in order to not get too technical and for purposes of brevity, I left that out.
As for carbon fiber, I think that the naiveties that you accuse Dirt McGirt of regards to tubing manufacture and titanium could also be aimed back at you in regards to carbon fiber. At least you are showing your disdain for the material, which is fine, but trolling for an argument with Dirt, or anybody, here is not cool.
Besides, everybody knows that in Jeapordy the contestant gets the answer and has to come up with the question. Duh!
Guitar Ted: Hey, have you heard about these new Stainless Steel frames being made?
I have tried to find out what the material is and who the mfg. is, but have so far come up with nothing.
Thanks,
Andy
Andy: Check out this: http://badgercycles.com/ Rob Pennell has been working with Columbus to get a tube set in stainless for his frames. I guess right now only tubing for road bikes is being produced, so 29″ers will have to wait on this for the fore seeable future.
Reynolds also has a tube set, but I don’t think it’s available for mtb’s either, at least not 29″ers.
Guitar Ted:
Thanks for the info. I checked with several tube sippliers that I know. I guess after talking to them and doing a little research, I still cant see a stainless steel frame.
Have you seen any or better yet, ridden any?
I can see some limitatons already regarding, that I dont think are currently an issue with either Carbon Steel, Carbon, or Ti.
Andy: I’m afraid that I have neither seen nor ridden a stainless steel framed bicycle. I do remember reading reviews of a Rhygin made stainless steel hard tail mountain bike back in the day, and the reviews were very positive. As to the long term durability of such a frame I can not comment.