Compact Vision #1: Designing it Together
Slow Spin Society has pretty much always been about its incredible community, and the people within it who are impressively eager to push cycling culture forward. Philipp was one of the first active members of the SSS Discord, and as we became friends, I watched him get into wheel building: first for himself, then for friends, then for clients. Over a year ago, he took things a step further and launched his own online shop: Randbezirk.
After his first prototype, which you can learn more about here, Philipp and I started playing with the idea of building a bike together, as a collaboration between Randbezirk and Slow Spin Society. But we wanted to do it with a twist.
Even though we’ve already laid the foundation for what kind of bike we want to create, we’d love to open the process up to you, our readers, and let you help shape this project. Should the bike have this or that feature? Should it be made in Europe or Asia? What should it cost? What should we name it? You’ll be able to weigh in on all of that through a voting system at the end of each article in this series.
So now that you know the general concept, let’s talk about the bike itself.
It’s going to be a 20” mini-velo, in the spirit of bikes like the Velo Orange Neutrino, the Cinelli Tuto Mini, and others. But with one big difference: we want to apply a track-inspired geometry to this format, and create something built for the fixed gear crowd.
Here’s what we’ve imagined so far:
20” mini-velo frame with clearance for 2.4” tires
Can be built as single speed, fixed gear, or geared, with sliding dropouts
Disc brake compatible
As affordable as possible, and available worldwide
The whole purpose of this experiment is to see whether a direct collaboration between a community and a brand can lead to a bike that people truly love, because they helped shape it from the start.
So, before we go any further, we have our very first question for you:
Would a mini-velo with track-bike DNA have a place in your riding life?
