Spondon is actually the name of a village in Derbyshire, England. It was
there in 1969 that Bob Stevenson and Stuart Tiller got together to start
their motorcycle engineering business.
In the mid 1960s, when BSA Gold Stars were still useable for club racing,
Stevenson figured he could improve things by manufacturing his own frame.
The BSA project never really eventuated, but when Stevenson began working
with a custom chassis and a Greeves engine, things really took off.
Disatisfied with his engineering job at Rolls Royce, Stevenson teamed up
with good friend, Stuart Tiller. One of their very early success stories
involved a custom chassis for Yamaha’s 125cc engine in the early 70s.
Soon there were chassis’ for 250cc and 350cc machines, culminating in
Germany’s Martin Wimmer winning the 1982 British 250cc GP Championship on
a Spondon framed Yamaha.
There were numerous British Championship wins for Spondon in those days
too, and even Barry Sheene had a Spondon connection.
This connection to road racing is crucial to the Spondon story. A similar
situation in some ways to Bimota, who also manufactured chassis for GP
racers in the 70s and early 80s.
Whereas the Italian specialists had begun working with road bikes by the
mid-1980s, it took Spondon until the end of the decade and as Stevenson
himself explained in an open and friendly phone conversation;
"We did have a number of one-off beam frames for road bikes made by the
mid-80s, but by the start of the 90s it was clear that people weren’t
going to throw their Japanese GP frames away any more because they were by
now so good. Obviously we had to find another avenue."
By this stage Spondon had of course become involved in the Norton rotary
project, supplying the huge - but light - beam section frame for the F1.
They were glorious days for UK racing too, with Steve Spray, Trevor Nation
and Robert Dunlop all scoring wins for the resurrected Norton marque.
The Roton that evolved from the F1 Norton (we’ll leave the intense
political situation associated with that one well alone!) continued the
Spondon success story, with Ian Simpson winning back-to-back British F1
Championships in 1994 and 1995.
While all of this road racing was going on in full public view, Spondon
were busy jigging up and manufacturing frames for a variety of road bike
engines.
Nothing is mass produced at Spondon, but chances are that if you want a
chassis for a GSX 1100 motor or a GSX-R1100, the English frame specialists
can find the appropriate jigs and perform their acts of wizardry.
Remember too, that a Spondon chassis carries more than twenty years of
racing heritage, so lightness and absoloute rigidity are fundamental
features, even with their road bike chassis.
It’s interesting to note that, while Spondon have made beam style chassis
in the past, their main focus today is on tube construction - for good
reason.
"Our customers want something that looks completely different to what
comes off the production lines in Japan and Italy," said Stevenson.
"There’s also the subtle fact that tube frames hark back to a classic era,
but we can now manufacture them to very modern standards."
The Fireblade chassis featured here was welded together from aluminium
round tube to 7020 T6 TF condition and T.I.G welded in accordance with
specifications EN 288-4.
Spondon’s GSX-R chassis has recently been granted Germany’s T.U.V approval
and the Fireblade chassis, manufactured to the exact same standard, is
soon to follow suit.

TAKEN FROM

'THE SPONDON FILES'

OFF

'RICK'S CUSTOM SHED'

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