# Kelly frames?



## unclefuzzy_ss (Nov 23, 2002)

I've got a fantastic lead on a new Kelly cross frame. I'll assume that quality is pretty good. How's the ride? Quick? Smooth? Comfortable? Versitile? Got pics? Specifically of the orange? Thanks!


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## Fire Horse (Sep 30, 2004)

*ive heard mixed reviews...*

folks ive seen riding em say they love em, some bike shop owners (Freewheel in SF) say they are not well made. personally i think they are over priced.


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## Vegancx (Jan 22, 2004)

Fire Horse said:


> folks ive seen riding em say they love em, some bike shop owners (Freewheel in SF) say they are not well made. personally i think they are over priced.


I'm curious about why or how they are "not well made." At their price point ($850) Kelly's quality is equal to, if not surpassing at times, that of similarly priced TIG welded US made steel frames. 

That said, Kelly's cross frames are a bit eccentric in their set up. 

Chris designs them for 135 rear spacing and mountain cranks. The ideal set up is a road length BB (like a 109.5 octalink) with a mountain crank (XTR 952). This puts the chainline spot on. Chris also strongly encourages the use of v brakes on his cross bikes. You can run cantis, but if you check out the Kelly cross team bikes, they are mostly XTR (Cranks, RD, FD, Brakes, Hubs) with a road cassette.

The Kelly sizing is also a bit weird. Chris wanted to put me on a 55 x 57 (ctc) or in his sizing 57 (ctt) x 57 (ctc) cross bike. I don't know much about bike fit, but I know that's too big for me, and the coach I pay to fit me to both my road and cross bikes agrees. 

If I had the money right now, I'd buy another Kelly (I had one, but it was too small). I wouldn't race it. That's not a knock against the bike, so much as personal preference. I don't need a triple to race cross and the bike won't let me run a double all that well. They are nice bikes and I'd love to replace my mtn bike with one.


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## cycloscott (Dec 16, 2002)

One of my buddies had Chris build him up a bike before they moved to Nevada City. My friend worked in a local shop, had referred people to Chris in the past, and was one of the key people in a large local club. If I were a builder... the kind of customer that I'd make sure was happy.

Chris fitted him up, and they mutually tweaked a few numbers. When the bike came, my buddy was just a bit surprised. The geometry was different than what they had worked out. The paint was different, because Chris didn't have the color in stock. And there was weld spooge all over the down tube from the head tube junction. Apparently Chris didn't think it was important to clean up the frame after welding, left a bunch of crap on the tubes, and just painted over it. Great workmanship there.

Forgot to mention originally: The rear triangle was also wickedly out of alignment. Good thing my buddy worked in a shop. Chris's advice to him was to just go ahead and cold set it. Also mentioned at the time that he didn't use a framing jig, and just eye-balled it when he was welding it up.

My buddy rode the bike for a few months, hated how it handled, and sold it soon after. I wasn't saddened to hear that Kelly had moved out of the Bay Area. There are plenty of other great builder around here.


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## gregdogg62 (Aug 9, 2004)

*Another story*

Several years ago, maybe 6 years or so, I knew someone that had a road frame built by Kelly. When the bike arrived he put it together, and was placing the rear wheel in, and it wouldn't fit. After closer inspection he realized that the chain stays were two different lengths. The people at Kelly of course fixed the problem Built new frame), but that doesn't sound like great craftsmanship. This has always stuck in my mind, and a reason I will stay away. Go with someone like Curtlo, whose prices are just as good, and I personally have never heard anything bad about.


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## mekkon (Jul 6, 2003)

*bad kelly experiences...*

Can't speak of the frames per se, but a year or so back I had a wildly bad experience dealing with their customer service (or lack thereof...). Long story short it took me something like 3 months of working with the Better Business Bureau to get things resolved, and to that end Kelly maintained that the trouble was due to their relocation at the time, and ultimately that it was my fault for trying to buy things and contact them while they were in the process of moving... Eventually I got my refund, but the response from Kelly was insulting and left me with a bad taste in my mouth -> alas, I went elsewhere for a new frame... At the time there was a post here about it, and I heard from a couple other people who were less than impressed dealing with Kelly as well.

On the extreme other side of things I had Gene from Spicer Cycles do some custom frame work for me and it was really top notch, plus he was great to deal with. I know that he makes all sorts of frames as well, including a Ti cyclocross for about $850 that he will build to order, which is likely where i'd go if I was in the market for a bike in that niche again.


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## Steve-O (Jan 28, 2004)

*Feedback*



Vegancx said:


> I'm curious about why or how they are "not well made." At their price point ($850) Kelly's quality is equal to, if not surpassing at times, that of similarly priced TIG welded US made steel frames.
> 
> That said, Kelly's cross frames are a bit eccentric in their set up.
> 
> ...


I spent the last 3 years on a Knobby X and was fairly happy with it. I managed to log about 15k miles on the frame mostly commuting and singletrack. A couple of notes that may be of interest to you:

- I initially set up my bike with an MTB crankset but later switched to an Ultegra BB and Ritchey cross crankset. No real chainline issues with this combo. It worked very well with only some adjustments to the FD to make it functional.

- My bike was set up with a variety of canti brakes. I also got the V-brake recommendation from Chris but chose canti's since they were what I had in the spare parts bin. Sometimes with really hard braking I would get some front fork chatter which I attribute to the compliant nature of the Kelly fork. I would imagine this chatter would be more pronounced with a stronger V-brake.

- Kelly powdercoats their frames. While I never gave much thought to paint with the bikes I own I really appreciated this finish. It is extremely durable and won't chip like standard automotive paint.

- Weld quality and finishing all seemed good on my bike.


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## unclefuzzy_ss (Nov 23, 2002)

Thanks Steve-O. This is the type of feedback I was looking for. Not whether or not he has good customer service, or stories of "I heard this one shop, in this one town..." I could care less about heresay. If its not ride time under your ass, I don't need to hear about it.

My dealings with him(him being Chris) so far are top notch. Enthusiastic and cheerful. What about the top tube? Is it level, or is it sloping? For referance, I'm looking at a 61cm frame. I can't and don't want to afford Ti. This bike will be used primarily for road use, with a smattering of 'cross races thrown in, as well as some adventure riding. I could care less about what spacing it is. Its steel. I can change that myself if I need/want to. Chainline? It's most likely gonna be ENOized(read single speeded), so that won't really matter.


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## piercebrew (Aug 6, 2004)

*I have a 61*

I just bought it. I was having a hard time getting the shifting working but that was bc the front Deraileur was an XTR with a compact crank. I'm a mountain biker, so my regards to how it handles and rides are limited.
Though I was in your exact same spot about three months ago. 
I looked at Spencer as well, though I heard bad things about his Ti forks, for 29ers, and that his frames were made over seas. 
Back to Kelly...
I've ridden an Airborne and Bianchi Cross Concept back to back. The Airborne didn't feel as nice as my Kelly. It wasn't as smooth and wasn't more responsive.
The Bianchi was amazing, smooth but really snappy. But I got my bike for the cost of the frame. 
I'll attach a picture. 
I'm using it for road and cross, I like it.


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## Steve-O (Jan 28, 2004)

*More Feedback*



unclefuzzy_ss said:


> Thanks Steve-O. This is the type of feedback I was looking for. Not whether or not he has good customer service, or stories of "I heard this one shop, in this one town..." I could care less about heresay. If its not ride time under your ass, I don't need to hear about it.
> 
> My dealings with him(him being Chris) so far are top notch. Enthusiastic and cheerful. What about the top tube? Is it level, or is it sloping? For referance, I'm looking at a 61cm frame. I can't and don't want to afford Ti. This bike will be used primarily for road use, with a smattering of 'cross races thrown in, as well as some adventure riding. I could care less about what spacing it is. Its steel. I can change that myself if I need/want to. Chainline? It's most likely gonna be ENOized(read single speeded), so that won't really matter.


My Knobby X had a level top tube. I am 5'11" with a 33.5" inseam and about as flexible as a 2x4. I got a 55x55cm frame with a level top tube and ran a 120mm zero rise stem with about an inch of spacers.... 

One note I forgot to mention. The BB I ran is the 118.5mm Ultegra (for triple cranks) with the Ritchey Cross cranks. My FD was an XT unit thus it had the reach in the parallogram to make it to the big ring. I ran Ultegra shifters with no issues.

One final note... The dropouts in my avatar are the Kelly dropouts from my bike ;-)


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## OnTheRivet (Sep 3, 2004)

*Yikes!*



gregdogg62 said:


> Several years ago, maybe 6 years or so, I knew someone that had a road frame built by Kelly. When the bike arrived he put it together, and was placing the rear wheel in, and it wouldn't fit. After closer inspection he realized that the chain stays were two different lengths. The people at Kelly of course fixed the problem Built new frame), but that doesn't sound like great craftsmanship. This has always stuck in my mind, and a reason I will stay away. Go with someone like Curtlo, whose prices are just as good, and I personally have never heard anything bad about.


Maybe a little too much chronic at work?


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## flyweight (Mar 7, 2002)

I also worked at a shop in SF that used to sell Kelly frames. I personally owned a Kelly MTB. Also owned a pair of his funky shifter mounts and had him custom build a stem. 

My frame was a bit...iffy. For starters the canti braze-ons were not level. Nothing catastrophic but when you looked at the bike you could clearly see one side was higher than the other. The wheel also didn't sit centered in the rear triangle. It was a few millimeters closer to the left chainstay than the right. Again, nothing that made the bike unrideable in any way but also not what you come to expect from a high-end builder.

On the shop front, the general consensus was that Chris did not appreciate negative feedback on his work. This made him somewhat difficult to deal with from a dealer perspective. 

Personally, I liked the guy and never had any problems dealing with him. He's a tinkering cook in the best sense. I've also heard that many of his quality control issues have since been fixed and all the recent frames of his I've seen have been spot on.


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## PNW Rider (Sep 9, 2002)

*Had A Kelly*

I sold my Knobby Cross frame at the end of the 'cross season last year. While I did get 4 seasons out of it, it was not a great ride. At least not as nice as the Bianchi Cross Concept (first generation) I have now.

My Knobby 'Cross had the whacked rear triangle as mentioned earlier. I had attempted to have the LBS straighten it but it never really got exactly straight. As a result, riding no handed was always an adventure and mud tended to clog on one side (closes to the BB shell) then the other.

The most frustrating thing about my Kelly was the rear brake cable routing. Instead of two cable stops to allow cable housing between top tube and seat stays, mine had a small loop welded onto the seat tube to allow just the cable to pass through. As a result, rear brake action was never strong. The unforeseen bonus was that I get very good/comfortable at descending quickly with little braking power.

I've heard that Kelly's production issues have for the most part stopped, and certainly, the bike pictured above is beautiful.


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