Looking at some of the prices now for stuff built in Taiwan and the rapid price increase in UK bespoke frames, I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't a niche for a simple, quality UK built off the peg steel hardtail?

Anyone got a rough idea what sort of unit cost I might expect to pay for say an order of 100 29er frames and rigid forks in something like reynolds 725 with a simple paint job, or alternatively what the tubing and paint costs per frame would be plus the kind of annual salary a UK framebuilder could command – plus the buld time per frame?

You could always contact on-one?

steve – I think you're missing the point entirely.

…and what you think an attractive retail price would be..?

Since off the peg, about £600-£700? Or thinking about it as its not 853 perhaps £500-£600?

Its true that in my industry (engineering) lots of work that was only economical to have made in china, taiwan, or the ex eastern block is now becoming viable in the UK again. Inflation out there plus more and more unemployed workers here means that this is defo considerable. And its about as patriotic and cool as you can get, I applaud your thoughts.

Talk to these people Engineering Industry Authority they can put out a request for tenders amongst lots of talented UK manufacturers. There are lots of auto parts manufacturers (especially exhausts) out there who could easily turn there hand to this – typical UK exhaust manufacturer would have cnc tube bender, tube cutting, welding and C frame presses for tube forming. If you want to talk to me offline I could help you define the right grade steels and I know a bit about welding.

I was wondering if you could make a reasonable margin aiming at a sub £500 price (noting that Bob Jackson for example are still selling new off the peg UK built reynolds road frames for sub £400).

I don't really understand why (with the exception of BJ) UK built frames have leapt in price so much recently assuming that raw tubing costs are a minority of the total costs and that labour costs should have remained relatively stable.

thanks for the encouragement!

It's something I looked into (as well as EU production) at the outset of getting Singular going. The main problems I saw were price and capacity. A one man band is not going to have the time to output a few hundred frames a year, whereas established larger concerns (and there are not many of them) have quite distinct ideas about what they want to be doing and how. Outsourcing production is certainly most easily done in the far east.

That said, starting up a factory of your own with in house builders (there are certainly enough capable people in the UK) to build your/others' designs could be a nice idea – though clearly the size of investment is significantly larger and the process longer.

Would be happy to talk more about it off line, by all means give me a call or an email.

Perhaps in recent years, eg since the advent of the MTB, UK frame builders have seen the potential to earn a decent salary. I remember a C4 documentary in 89 where they talked to the Taylor brothers. They talked about their youth and how they dreamed of an empire of cycle building. Then they realised that it wasn't building bikes that was the problem it was selling the. I assume they were talking about the mid late 60s onwards when the bike had begun to decline. Now of course cycling has made a relative resurgence so to a degree easier to sell nowadays.

I asked about a bespoke Rourke last year Painted in a solid colour with a couple of contrast panels in 625 they quoted £650 F&F.

As stated above the more economical route may be to approach a non-cycle industry fabricator such as exhausts. A couple of years ago I was talking to a lady taxi driver and she told me that a local bespoke exhaust firm had made a complete stainless steel exhaust for something like £200/250 which I was amazed at. If going this route I imagine you'd need to run quite a few iterations/prototypes. (I'll offer my services now as a test rider). Also probably need to read up on the CEN tests that everyone is talking about. There's an article in the new issue of "Wideopen" mag (google the title), with contributions from Cy and Brant.

Very interesting and why do Orange and Cotic charge so much for their Taiwanese steel frames?

100 x 29ers?

Well – here's your basic tubeset – http://www.cycle-frames.com/bicycle-frame-tubing/29er-Tubeset-38-X-858-DT.html – they're $78 a time

Bottom bracket – http://www.cycle-frames.com/bicycle-frame-tubing/LUGLESS-STD-69MM.html – $4.25

Dropout – http://www.cycle-frames.com/bicycle-frame-tubing/DO-W-DISK-BRAKE-and-DERAILEUR-MOUNT.html – $17.50

So that's $100 in hardware per frame, plus vat and duty and carriage, so thats about £85 landed for the bare frame parts.

Mitring everything up? Batch building? Save 16 joints per frame, 3mins per joint, that's 48mins a frame, say 75hrs, or 2 weeks per 100, say.

Then you've got to weld everything up – well… double the joint times? So let's say 4 weeks for that. That'd be about 4 frames a day.

Braze ons. Forgot them. Couple of bottle bosses, cable guides (5), 5mins a time? 35mins a frame – That's another 50hrs I guess- a week and a half?

Face the BBs and disc mounts? Another fifteen minutes a frame – 25hrs – call it a week?

So we're on 8 weeks labour, for a skilled worker – what? £6k, say?, spread across 100 frames is about £60 a frame?

Then you'll need to paint – £25 a time?

You'll need some boxes – £3 a box I'd have thought.

Decals – Fiver a time.

So we're looking at about £180? For something built in quite basic tubing.

You'd have to sell for double that at lest unless you were silly.

Plus the vat.

And you haven't costed in a jig (buy one for about £2500 or make your own).

typical UK exhaust manufacturer would have cnc tube bender, tube cutting, welding and C frame presses for tube forming.

I have no knowledge of exhaust systems other than buying one when mine breaks. But I would guess they are not made out of 0.8mm thick steel.

Anything from 0.8mm to 1.5 but I'm not suggesting they make their bike out of exhaust tube, only using the kit they would have. A mandrel bender is a mandrel bender – its all about the mandrel tool, which your average exhaust outfit would not have, they would have to buy tools if they want to bend it. With a tool at 1-3k and a cnc bending machine at 30k plus, if you have an idle cnc machine, a tool to bend bike frame material isn't such a big investment. (actually there are some cheaper mandrel benders which might suit a bike outfit, I cant remember the name of the company but I'll dig it out.) Anyway I think maybe you would only need bending kit to do the seat and chainstays which is smaller dia. Brant why don't you get involved this is a great idea..

Seat and chainstay bending really isn't the hard bit. I'd say mitring for production assmebly is probably the hardest (as opposed to doing a one-at-a-time fit on a jig, as you would if you were custom buildng a one off).

In Taiwan mitring will often be done by a third party factory – who just take the dimensions off your drawings and provide tubes cut to fit.

curtis do kind of what you want, although a bit more towards the bespoke end, and you can even get them in howies blue (sure to be an opinion divider 🙂 )

Curtis Bikes

in terms of cost it looks like they struggle to get their uk made frames much below £700.

Another vote for Brian Rourke, if you could run for a bit more get a Roberts.

My current ride….

18bikes?

Thanks Brant

so could you produce the same frame in 725 tube set or nearest Reynolds combination for £250?

I've no experience of pricing with 725. But I would guess it's about twice the price of a basic tube – sort of inline with this Deda set – http://www.cycle-frames.com/bicycle-frame-tubing/COM-OVERSIZE-MTB-TUBESET.html – $159.80

So yeah, roughly you're looking at £250ish I guess if you wanted to do it in the UK and you can find someone with the facilities. And I would guess you'd get a bit of a volume discount on some of them bits.

So retail around £599 if you want to make even reasonable margins.

And the market for £599 frames, from an unproven, new, UK source? Not easy!

Then you get the "can you make mine with a Rohloff, in blue, with cable guides under/over,inside/outside… etc…

And fancy bits add money – http://www.bikelugs.com/store/index.php?strWebAction=item_detail&intItemID=138 – another $90 for some sliders, for example…

Thanks again, so leaving VAT to one side a 725 tube UK built hardtail retailing at £499 with a decent profit is not impossible?

I like everything about that Roberts apart from the dogsbollocks mess on the frame.

Thanks again, so leaving VAT to one side a 725 tube UK built hardtail retailing at £499 with a decent profit is not impossible?

Not impossible so long as you're doing it direct.

i like this, it's proper got me thinking, been sat here for a hour now!

using brants figures of £250/unit and 8 weeks/100 units for one skilled worker, if you can sell all you can make then that's 650 units/year which equates to profit of £226850.

now, assuming you want to produce a great product as opposed to simply making money, then you can afford to up the quality (to the best), offer options, get some good marketing, sell them cheaper and still achieve a decent profit. if you offered that then you're meeting china/taiwan etc head on for price and blowing them out the water on quality, flexibility and desirability. i'd say there is a market.

i'd say there is a market

I'd agree

now, assuming you want to produce a great product as opposed to simply making money, then you can afford to up the quality (to the best), offer options, get some good marketing, sell them cheaper and still achieve a decent profit. if you offered that then you're meeting china/taiwan etc head on for price and blowing them out the water on quality, flexibility and desirability. i'd say there is a market.

if only it was THAT easy

How realistic is 650 units a year though I wonder, especially if selling direct and before you've made a name for yourself. The 50% margin on the frames also has to fund sales & marketing and all the other costs – and you'd need a fair chunk of cash up-front as well.

The truth is you could build it for a lot less than Brants figures – those tubes are expensive because they are designed for diy/home builders. The interest and numbers some of you are talking about here means you could consider doing this from the ground up and not buying an airfix kit bike.

"So we're on 8 weeks labour, for a skilled worker – what? £6k,say?"

I'm going to learn how to weld.

I've often flirted with the idea of frame making. I can weld and have some transferable skills, which is a good starting point. Me = http://www.peterflynnclassiccars.com I'm not sure if the market is really there to create enough of a living. Only a few UK frame builders have survived, a lot IMO has to do with niche, and even if you are good, without that, you may not survive. Solitude produced some lovely frames but, somehow didn't ever have the status, or any where near, as Mather, Yates and Roberts to name a few. He did try off the peg frames too towards the end, can't remember the prices off top of my head. A lovely idea, if it could work without huge risk, personally I'd much prefer to buy a UK made steel frame than a Taiwain one. I will probably go custom myself, at some point.

Clunker, very nice, I was only looking at the Roberts flickr gallery yesterday, I'm sure your frame is on there? A couple of questions please; how do you find the 'horse shoe' rear end, for comfort and compliance/flex, over a traditional full height with two tubes seatstay? Also, did you spec the gemetry, the Dogsbolx even the newer ones, always look a bit old school/roadey around the top tube/head angle (from appearance anyway)?

thanks

Young Dave Riley wrote, "Very interesting and why do Orange and Cotic charge so much for their Taiwanese steel frames? "

With Cotic, you're getting expensive and hard to work tubes, absolutely first class finish, I think still some custom parts for the dropout, maybe, and also a chain protector and hope QR. Still a bit expensive maybe 853 frames are expensive.

With orange, it seems the stickers are very expensive or something 😉

I think the question here is, where does the skilled workforce experienced in welding bikes come from? We have boutique builders but not a lot of frame builders. The bottom line is that if you're going to charge more for a "made in UK" product it needs to be at least as good as the far eastern equivalent- ideally better, but that's a fairly big ask and IMO you're not very likely to get it immediately.

Young Dave Riley wrote, "Very interesting and why do Orange and Cotic charge so much for their Taiwanese steel frames? "

With Cotic, you're getting expensive and hard to work tubes, absolutely first class finish, I think still some custom parts for the dropout, maybe, and also a chain protector and hope QR. Still a bit expensive maybe 853 frames are expensive.

With orange, it seems the stickers are very expensive or something 😉

Norton – if you're serious about this, give me a shout.

Reckon on 1 frame/day as a tops – so 100 days for your 100 batch. brant – your timings are a little on the low side, but depends on tooling/how much of a batch it'd be. For our custom frame, we're working on around 3 working days.

Along with not costing a jig, you've missed all the other tooling. Our TIG setup's cost more than the jig, plus oxy-acetylene, lathe, miller, drill press, hand drills, vices, benches, taps, facing kit and all the hand tools and abrasives.

Maybe Orange prefer to sell whole bikes rather than frames?

air compressor(assuming you're running air tools), fume extraction, paint spray booth, air mask and the list goes on………

Selling 650 frames a year is not going to be easy. Plus there are a heck of a lot of other costs involved with running a business in addition to just the cost of the frame. Not trying to be a downer, but while such back of a napkin calculations may seem enticing, there is a lot more to it than that.

how much would CEN testing cost?

and liability insurance?

While folks have said there's a market, you've no idea of the size of that market- you need to get an idea of the number of frames sold by, and the growth of, the companies that work similarly to the way that you're planning.
Presumably on-one, cotic, singular, ragley. How they perceive the market at the price point you're looking at.

Maybe think seriously, and honestly about why people would pick your frame over say, a Soul, at the same price- what's your unique selling point?

To me 650 frames sounds like an awful lot…

How much does an 18 Bikes frame go for?

it was me who suggested 650 units/year, this is a maximum based on brants production figures for a one man band (8 weeks/100) it was by no means meant to be any kind of target.

vinnyeh – what's your unique selling point?

doing a bit more research, i think a £599 price tag is to high, just a quick look around the net and you can find british companies selling off the shelf frames made in the far east for considerably less, orange p7 £460, cotic soul £470, singular hummingbird £420.

speaking from a personal viewpoint, i am new to mtb riding and recently purchased a (2nd hand) orange hardtail, i was attracted by the idea of buying british, though i later learnt that orange hardtails are outsourced at least i've got a british connection which, to me, is better than buying 100% non british.

however, if i could purchase a 100% british frame, of comparable quality and in the same ball park price-wise as a british/far east mix then i would gladly do so every time and i think that that has to be the unique selling point – same price and quality but 100% british.