The Lynskey Peformance booth is always a welcomed sight to my eyes in the crowd of 1100 vendor booths at Interbike. David Lynskey is someone who in the Bay Area we call a "maker". Has never ever has tried to sell me anything. He likes, and most probably needs, to make things. His eyes light up when I ask him about projects he is working on that require new applications and fabrication processes for titanium. David Lynskey and his family founded and sold Litespeed almost ten years ago. Lynskey Performance is the custom titanium bike frame company that they launched at Interbike a couple of years ago. The frames are titanium, so they never rust, never fatigue, and are lifetime guaranteed.
Lynskey is applying modern designs to their bike
frames, tubing technologies, and titanium material technologies. But, for me, they also give off that familiar
old school, stable, manufacturing vibe of guys and gals who for decades
have been successful in a specific manufacturing industry.
Here is one of the curvy single-speed mountain bikes Lynskey Performance brought to the show. (Michael you asked about this bike after you saw it on the Lynskey site. So, this video is for you. I took about four videos of new offerings at the Lynskey booth.)
Jack, my sales rep, has the job of making sure my custom shop has the
Lynksky ti bike frames it needs. He is highly customer-service
oriented. In the middle of the bike show, with an estimated 23K attendees from 60 countries (according to the Interbike website), surrounded by over a thousand vendors all selling their wares and trying to open new accounts, Jack is talking
to me about resolving the toe overlap on a smaller frame for customer Margo. Jamie is the can-do guy
in manufacturing and finishes who says, "Your customer wants that? Ok, I'm pretty
sure we can do that. No problem," and then makes it happen. There is no smoke. There and no mirrors. They nod, smile,
and then just get the job done with little fanfare and no excuses.
I commute everyday on the custom ti track bike Lynskey made me. This is
not your grandma's titanium bike frame. The Lynskeys can tune the
thickness and width of the tubes to match your riding style, body
weight, and riding conditions. The ride is vertically complaint.(Rough
pavement doesn't knock loose your fillings.) But when I stomp on my
pedals, I can't whip the rear triangle around like a noodle like I can on most steel
frames and older ti frames with skinny tubes. The bike is crazy fast
and smooth. I am always happy when I get to work.
(Here is an another more detailed video about the geared curvy 29er race bike with a cruiser heritage that was at the North American Handmande Bicycle Show.)
