Hambini on Bowman

[Tomwoodbury]

I’m not a fan of this guy but the recent video on bowman cycles is fascinating and very scary. He seems to have toned down the needlessly foul language and casual misogyny a little for this one, possibly because the analysis of the frame and how the bicycle media are involved in promoting the brand is entertaining enough in itself.

I’ve seen a few Bowmans on the road round my way so hopefully the owners will get wind they are riding a death trap before something nasty happens.

[ScotRoutes]

they are riding a death trap

Please don't promote the guy. He is a tosser of the first order only gaining notoriety due to his shock-jock approach. I wouldn't believe a word he says.

[riderdown]

Please don't promote the guy. He is a tosser of the first order only gaining notoriety due to his shock-jock approach. I wouldn't believe a word he says.

His approach isn't one I would go for but if he was talking rubbish someone would have sued him. IIRC one company did try but clearly failed. To be as critical as he is he must have some confidence in his statements.

His cynicism of the cycling media as just another advertising outlet for brands is obvious and well founded.

He had an unnecessary spat with a writer for Cycling Weekly which didn't do either of them any favours

[pistonbroke]

if he was talking rubbish someone would have sued him.

Interesting though that his current target is a company that has gone into liquidation so has no interest or means of suing him. Although his non too subtle implying a less than healthy connection between the company's owner and writers for cycling weekly is skating on thin ice, especially after his run in with their female tech editor which didn't end well for him. How many t's are there in vendetta?

[slarge]

Can you provide a summary? What's wrong with Bowman cycles? (How does a bike become a deathtrap unless it's made of papier-mache?)

[Tomwoodbury]

Extremely poor manufacturing standards basically. It’s an interesting watch, and appears completely legit IMO.

[johnnystorm]

I'm almost tempted to have a look and YouTube is very keen as this this cropping up in my suggested videos. Then again, as Scotroutes has mentioned he's a twit of the highest/lowest order and doesn't deserve the oxygen of attention.

As Bowman sank without trace because of supply, rather than demand, issues and I've never heard mention of their frames buckling under the loads of their riders I'm happy to live without his insight.

[rollindoughnut]

I never liked his childish presenting style, but I learned loads about bearing alignment, types of bearings and what the numbers on them meant etc.

[Lazarus]

Just because he has not been sued does not mean he is not talking BS.
Suing someone is incredibly expensive, publicise the thing you are complaining about so often does more harm than good . See the MC Libel case for example
Basically not being sued does not mean what he says is correct ( not watched and will agree with him

[chris n]

At best he's unnecessarily confrontational. At worst, he's a misogynistic arsehole.

I wasn't convinced by the video that there was enough evidence to prove that he was right about the Bowman frames. They didn't look great, for sure - but death trap? I dunno.

[ledburner]

At best he's unnecessarily confrontational. At worst, he's a misogynistic arsehole.

I wasn't convinced by the video that there was enough evidence to prove that he was right about the Bowman frames. They didn't look great, for sure - but death trap? I dunno.

Death trap. I thought Stu has bagged that name

[riderdown]

I've never heard mention of their frames buckling under the loads of their riders

He flagged that the way the frame was manufactured would contribute to early frame failure and pointed at what appears to be a common chainstay failure on the bike on Instagram

Welding was pap

Alignment terrible on head tube and forks

QC not worth the name

As for a CW conspiracy, he relies on people sending him frames.

As for magazines when have any of them given a manufacturer any grief for issues? Any in print reporting of the Shimano chainset corrosion issues? Etc etc

[Scud]

I had a Bowman Palace and it was what you expected, a mid-range frame and it rode well, Bowman were great to deal with and i have seen a number of Palace frames raced in crit races and the like. I think they were good value.

Interesting that if you Google it, i cannot find a single instance of someone moaning about frame failure at all bar this tw*t?

[riderdown]

Just try the Bowman faceache page

https://www.facebook.com/bowmancycles.uk/reviews

A quick Google of bowman frame chainstay crack found more than a few as well

Plenty of comments say they ride well, plenty of unhappy owners of scrap metal

[jameso]

That cut up frame looks pretty bad. What I wouldn't take from that is that every one is the same. None should be like that, of course. Just that one frame is not a full QC check of a model or brand. A few broken stays might be that they simply indented the stays too far, I've seen pics of steel frames that have failed there in the same way and probably unrelated to the bridge position or weld (though you'd expect it to influence it).

The review questions the stress relief of the frame but if it's 6000 series Al it will have been heat treated, you'd not get far on it if that stage had been missed out.

Wonder when it was produced. Supply chain chaos has affected quality of so many things. They got rushed out or new staff didn't match the skills or checks of previous staff, plus QC has been done remotely due to lack of travel - not an easy thing to do even if you can hire in SGS etc. I can't imagine Bowman being the only brand caught out by this.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think the bike media could ask harder questions in this area. Some already do. I'm not sure how many have much knowledge of the production side of things though and it's not something brands tend to open up on if they use contract manufacturing.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Watched a bit of one clip on YouTube.

[riderdown]

I don't think it's unreasonable to think the bike media could ask harder questions in this area. Some already do. I'm not sure how many have much knowledge of the production side of things though and it's not something brands tend to open up on if they use contract manufacturing.

I have yet to see a bike review where any non destructive testing or fibre optic camera pics have been done. Or even a disassemble to check on visible welds and alignments

Just the usual 10% more compliant rubbish that we are supposed to swallow

Oh look an ad for the brand......

[Bearbonesnorm]

I've not watched the video so won't comment directly but I wanted to say, there's an awful lot of products out there that really should be far better than they are. We believe they're far better than they are but never delve deep enough to find out. Ignorance is bliss.

[jameso]

I don't think it's unreasonable to think the bike media could ask harder questions in this area. Some already do. I'm not sure how many have much knowledge of the production side of things though and it's not something brands tend to open up on if they use contract manufacturing.

I have yet to see a bike review where any non destructive testing or fibre optic camera pics have been done. Or even a disassemble to check on visible welds and alignments

Just the usual 10% more compliant rubbish that we are supposed to swallow

Oh look an ad for the brand......

There are some that do destructive testing, tbh non destructive wouldnt give a complete picture so not sure it's of value. Neither are part of the usual bike media review where they're looking at spec and ride quality. German mags do the testing side of it well though.
On media impartiality, I don't believe it's all rigged with ad funding but I appreciate how the business model works and it can't be totally bias free. The whole thing is very subjective anyway.
But if you want to know how a bike rides, ask someone like Dave Arthur. He knows his stuff and rides enough to have a qualified opinion. None / few of the reviewers have ever claimed to be in a position to give a production engineering tear down of the bikes though. How many people are qualified to do that? For carbon in particular it's a very small number ime.
More investigative journalism in the bike industry would be interesting. It'd take a mix of engineering and production experience, commercial perspective, as well as professional journalism and then figuring out how to earn a wage doing it. There's probably some scope for it to work.

[jameso]

^ Luscher Technic are making it work. That's an interesting channel.

[redefined_cycles]

^ Luscher Technic are making it work. That's an interesting channel.

Come across as a very nice non arrogant sort aswell. The way he cuts things up methodically really seems to be of alot of benefit. I really like him and so do lots of others...

Not having a dig at Hambini myself personally but am happy that someone finally took the helm to give rubbish engineering a run for its money. Don't forget he also has some bias (his bottom bracket where it all appeared to have started off) but I've learnt loads from him.... But then the swearing started and it all went out of hand.

To deal with though he seems a top bloke but the fact that he feels French engineering is 'the lick' makes me think he's never owned a Renault past the 4 year mark... Just saying

[riderdown]

Don't forget he also has some bias (his bottom bracket where it all appeared to have started off)

Easiest way to put him out of business is for bike manufacturers to sort out their QC and tolerances

There are others, Peak Torque is quite good, there's another Australian one I can't remember

Things like GCN tech tend to be a lot more dumbed down /advertorial

[sean_iow]

[he's never owned a Renault past the 4 year mark... Just saying

I saw a documentary about when the Peugeot factory was taken over during the war. To sabotage the Nazis the workers would do things like leave a few ball-bearings out of a race, not put all the rivets in the clutch plate, put the notches on the dipstick in the wrong place so it looked liked it was full of oil but just about empty. The vehicle would last long enough the get out of the factory into the field and then break down a few weeks later. Someone needs to let the Peugeot factory know the war is over

The issue with Hambini is he wants fighter jet/F1 levels of engineering and QC on a bike. That's fine, but who wants to pay £20k for a bike just so each frame has been x-ray inspected and the bb is faced square to 2 microns. The level of QC in products is based on the balance of risk of harm for failure/cost of warrantee replacements/purchase price.

He's deliberately confrontational to get his watch figures up, I don't watch him anymore (watched 1 ages back) as I don't want to contribute to the figures.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Good points Sean. It's about proportionality and suitability (for use, build standards, etc). Just bloody bikes afterall

Most mags and journos won't have the time, money or experience to do reviews at the level some mention. Most punters won't get (or probably want) it. Then you have an industry getting closer and closer to the outdoor clothing and equipment industry that runs on nearly seasonal cycles rendering a review that takes a long time to produce almost redundant because it's talking about last year's (or at least a superceded) model. Nevermind the statistical issues (1 bike reviewed out of X00 or X,000 produced).

IMO, HYOH, P&L etc

[fatbikephil]

Visual QC is fine for a welded frame in most cases and you are going to get a few that fail in any event (Original Cannondale 3 series anyone?) CE standards are a performance spec rather than a design spec so you are only testing to fail on a series of load tests, not weld penetration or butt size etc. I guess it's an issue for small scale manus looking to source frames from the far east as they will not have the facilities to do more than a visual check in any case. I've no idea who this guy is and from what I've seen above I won't go looking - I came across his comment 'its an accident waiting to happen' on a search for bowman frame failures and switched out there. Ultimately its a risk if you buy from a small manufacturer (says the Jones owner) as you can't expect the same level of QC as someone like spesh. As long as warranty back up is good then it's fine. That said I'm also recalling a former acquaintance's experience with a supposed high quality custom frame builder who turned out something that looked like an O'level metal work project....