Manufacturing

Sturdy works to one simple rule: if something can be made in the Frome workshop, it's made there. Controlling a process is what makes it possible to keep improving it, and every process Sturdy has brought in-house has led to real improvements in the finished bike. Tube processing and shot peening were both once sent out; bringing shot peening in-house unlocked a whole range of finishing options. The frame junctions are the latest step.

From printing to machining

Sturdy started 3D printing in 2017, one of the early pioneers of additive manufacturing in bicycle frames, and for several years was one of only a handful of builders in the world using it. Printing was the method that let Tom build bikes the way he wanted to, and Sturdy refined it as far as it could go for its needs. It's a demanding process to design and make for, and getting it right took years of learning. Every bearing seat, thread and mating face was machined after printing, so each part fitted exactly as it had to.

Taking printing that far showed where the next limits were. Printed material has its own inherent properties, and they had become the limiting factor: in what could be designed, and in how parts could be made and finished.

Printing was also the one major part of the frame not made in Frome. The Fosse and Drove junctions are machined from solid in the workshop, so their fits and tolerances come straight from the machine, under the same roof as everything else.

Printing served Sturdy and its riders well. Machining is the next step in the same direction.

The business side

Sturdy became closely associated with printing, though it was only ever the means, never the point. Now that printing is far more common, it says less than it did about what makes a Sturdy different. What does is where the bike is made, and by whom.

Producing printed parts at a competitive price takes industrial-scale machines and infrastructure. That isn't the business Sturdy wants to be. It's a small workshop making frames one at a time, and machining in-house suits that.

The last few years have been hard on manufacturing, with logistics and commodity costs rising sharply and changing unpredictably. Making more in-house gives Sturdy much closer control of its costs, processes and stock, and makes it far less sensitive to things outside its influence. That makes for a more sustainable business.

More and more riders also want to know the true provenance of their bike. A bike like this is bought for the love of riding, and knowing its story is part of owning one. Making the best bikes possible with the tools, knowledge and expertise in the workshop has always been Tom's passion, and now more of that story happens in Frome than ever.

Machining in-house

Titanium is demanding to machine. It holds heat at the cutting edge and work-hardens, so it needs rigid setups, sharp tools and patience. Frame parts add their own challenge: complex, thin-walled structures that have to stay true as the metal is cut away, with bearing seats and threads that all have to line up.

Sturdy has machined titanium for years: chainrings, stems, seatposts and jockey wheels, and the critical faces of every printed junction. That experience is what makes it possible to machine the Fosse and Drove junctions here. They range from the seat stay yokes, with each model's name cut into them, to the clam-shell junctions, machined as two halves and laser-welded back together down the frame's centreline.

Fabrication in-house

Everything after machining happens in the workshop too. Tubes are processed here and every frame is welded here, including the laser welds that close the clam-shell junctions. Titanium only welds well when it's scrupulously clean and fully shielded from the air, inside and out. The Materials page explains why that matters.

Each Sturdy frame is designed, engineered, machined, fabricated, finished and assembled under one roof in Frome, one at a time.

Every Sturdy is supported

If you ride an earlier Sturdy with printed junctions, nothing changes. Sturdy supports every frame it has made, as it always has.