# Pig Iron Rob Stowe Built Frame?



## JJY (Jun 6, 2004)

I have the chance to pick up a Rob Stowe built for Pig Iron Cycles frame/fork/stem. His name rings a bell but can't place the frame. It is a steel frame unknown tubes, built around Fat Chance geometry. Pre or post Yo design I don't know. It has canti mounting & 1 1/8" headtube. Does one of you have any inofrmation on the man or bike? -John Y.

http://web.mit.edu/~jhyatt/www/random/pigiron/Page.html


----------



## ssmike (Jan 21, 2004)

Rob Stowe was (is?) a builder out of Rochester, NY. He did frames under the name Phase 3 as well as his own name. We used to sell his frames at a shop I worked at in the 80's. Really nice work. The owner of the shop new frames intimately and wouldn't sell anything less. The frames I'm familiar with that he built were mainly road and lugged.


----------



## crconsulting (Apr 11, 2004)

That sure will be a nice looking bike once you get some new paint on it along with the original fork and stem. :thumbsup:


----------



## MendonCycleSmith (Feb 10, 2005)

Yeah, Rob built some gorgeous stuff. All his lugged work, and brazed was top shelf, and really sought after in the early triathalon scene in Rochester, and far beyond. He got pulled into the MTB scene in the mid 90's, and had someone working with him to TIG frames. Most of those were very heavy and improperly welded, so the tended to break frequently. Unfortunate, but the way it went. He then got into Scandium and had a series of failures with those frames too, but many are still around. I think he got kind of burnt out on frame building, and switch to custom furniture. Alot guys do that, why, I have no idea. At any rate, if it's a brazed or lugged frame, it's gonna be a sweetheart. Cheers!


----------



## ssmike (Jan 21, 2004)

MendonCycleSmith said:


> ...and switch to custom furniture. Alot guys do that, why, I have no idea.


That's an interesting observation. Ross Shafer (furniture, musical instruments), the Sycip gang(furniture), I believe Bruce Gordon (furniture too - I think), Jeff Lindsey (glass work), Steve Potts (anything wood or metal from handrails to houses). All these guys are artists / artisans first and foremost. They just made their name known to us by building bicycle frames.


----------



## Captain Dondo Retired (Aug 31, 2006)

*Let's do the Time Warp again...*

Wow. You guys are hurting my brain again. Rob Stowe was one of my team mates on the Saratoga Freewheelers cycling team when we were junior category road racers. The Freewheelers were sponsored by Ben Serotta. None of us could afford to own a Serotta at that tender age, but we had his name plastered on our chests, fer sure.

I ran across Rob again when I was working for _Bicycling_ magazine in the late 80s. He was welding bikes for Georgina Terry and later broke free to do his own thing. I remember him as a skinny kid who was always up for a racing adventure. Ben's shop was above The Bike Shop on Maple Avenue in Saratoga and tucked behind his dad's store, Farmer's Hardware. Upstairs there was a big room with enough space to race rollers in pairs. We had two sets of Weyless rollers connected to a clock with hands that ticked off 200-meter laps. I remember 25-lap races being really, really long. We hauled them to sports shows and malls all winter long and put on racing demos. Fond memories from the mid-late 70s. Then Scot Nicol invented Ibis, which invented the mountain, and everything changed. Or something like that.


----------



## pooka (Jul 16, 2006)

synchronity is what I would call that. Actually I am looking again for some informations ´bout that bike.
I know a few things that may be interesting, because of ownership. Because I also tried to get any information, I know how difficult that is.
@JJY: few month ago I droppecd that seller a mail. His offer isn´t very new yet. I fond his offer, and it very much looked like my frame. Mine is a smaller size but despite that identically. He responsed quickly:
...rob stowe is a welder who worked at serotta.
he also did some frames on his own, with his own name.
he also did some custom frames through a shop in connecticut called pig iron. that is my frame. they were made to order for local customers....

The connection Rob Stowe/ Serotta worksman I found several times in different contexts. Rob Stowe as custom builder of tradditional lugged road bikes, can also be verifyed. He built high range stuff under his own brand "phase3cycles" in Rochester/NY
But what about MTB?
Well there is one pic of a Stowe Mtb (http://www.bikecult.com/works/archive03.html) but it isn´t the "pig iron".
Pig Iron is a shop in Conneticut, wich still exists. Stowe made maybe 10 frames for them that were sold as Stowe pig iron. This was probably 1996.

My frame, as the offered one, is mostly welded. The canti bosses, dropouts, gusset and the 2 small tubes between the chainstays and the seatstays are brazed. The top of the seattube is a very solid lug. The brazing looks very fine, but the welds aren´t very pretty. 
The painting, wich looks like a very ugly color on the offered one, is quiet beautiful in sunlight but of a crap quality. And the frame is not very light. It is about 2,1 kg in 18inch.
But otherwise it has a stiff BB section. My frame is very short, especially on the rear with a low BB, even with a suspension corrected rigid forks. To my feelings it is made for a fork height like the RS Judys. It rides great in narrow singletrails and steep sections. You very much sit in the bike tan on it. If the offered one is like mine, I would go with it, if you are looking for a classic riding bike. But it is not that famous or beautiful to go with it for hanging in the living room of a collector.

What is still unclear for me is that "custom" thing. The similarity to the Fat chance geo can maybe decovered if anyone of you can post the mentioned geo specs. I´ld like to compare them with my stowe. If anyone still has connection to Rob Stowe, it would be great to get a Headtube decal or something for my frame is going to get a new paintjob next week. Should I wait?

best regards
Bastian


----------



## ssmike (Jan 21, 2004)

pooka said:


> Well there is one pic of a Stowe Mtb (http://www.bikecult.com/works/archive03.html)


If looking for this bike, it's near the bottom of the page. The bottom bracket on that bike is interesting. It has Ritchey Logic square taper cranks, yet what appears to be an external bottom bracket. Interesting.


----------



## JJY (Jun 6, 2004)

*Too Big For Me, I'll Pass It on*

Hey,

Much thanks to all who replied, this is just too big to make work for me. The older (40's) I get the more I crash. I think it is a lack to quality time on the bike and I would like to preserve the family jewels. Below is a link to the sale if you are interested. I Managed to get him to sell the frame, steel fork & stem. He tossed in the crank & BB. You could do a package deal on the whole thing. I don't know if you (East Coast) guy check this site often But I do. There is a MB3 on here that is now on ebay. I'm looking for that stray Fat Chance to pop up, it's right in there back yard. -John Y.

http://www.nemba.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16799


----------

