Not sure what I think about sticking a union flag on a frame made in the far east or the integrated headset, but leaving those two aside that does look like a lot of bike for the money. Love the lime green.

I heard that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith shit a brick when she saw that Union Flag on there.

Don’t Bird do the same, and Orange?

I’d like to see the numbers but i think Bird might have a bit of competition with this. A similar specced Aeris 145 is about £2800, but you are getting branded components like DT Swiss wheel, raceface bars/stem…whereas it all in house LoveMud component wheels and bits on the Evol.

Whatever the numbers are, the Sonders cable routing looks a hell of a lot
better than the birds and i’d be considering one for my first full bouncer.

Orange do make the frames here, so that’s fair enough in my book. But I’m not really objecting (and I’m sure her mag the Q doesn’t have bodily functions), just not sure about it. The bike itself looks great though.

Looks a lot shorter than the Aeris, the ML Aeris is longer than the XL Sonder.

Not a bad thing either way, but most people will probably prefer one over the other, and no point buying the wrong bike (or wrong size) just on spec which wears out and needs replacing anyway.

Not sure what I think…

In what way? It’s a pretty well worn path, it’s not a secret that know most bikes are made in Taiwan, those that don’t know, are still buying a product from a reputable UK company, everyone’s a winner, no?

roverpig – Member

Orange do make the frames here

They used to put the flag and some UK fluff on the overpriced taiwanese stuff they sold too, the G3 and such

I guess I instinctively think that “manufactured in the UK” is different to “assembled in the UK” in some way, so there should be some way to differentiate between the two. But, on reflection, I’d say that; if you are based in the UK, employ staff here and (most importantly) pay your taxes here, then you are free to stick the flag wherever you like. It certainly makes you more “British” than some of our sports stars who still seem happy enough to wrap themselves in the flag when it suits them.

I think it’s a bit like ‘Swiss Made’ on a watch – to qualify it only has to have a small amount of work/assembly carried out in Switzerland.

If you have ‘UK designed & Assembled’ on a bike I’d assume that the frame was designed in the UK, produced elsewhere with the final sticking together of the bits done in the UK.

roverpig – But, on reflection, I’d say that; if you are based in the UK, employ staff here and (most importantly) pay your taxes here, then you are free to stick the flag wherever you like. It certainly makes you more “British” than some of our sports stars who still seem happy enough to wrap themselves in the flag when it suits them.

What about someone like Giant, I imagine Giant employ more people in the UK through distribution, marketing customer services and concept stores than Orange, Bird & Alpkit combined.

As for the bike, amongst other things, the extent to which the seat tube is bent puts me off, you can see from the full compression pic that they didn’t need to bend it so much.

looks nice and definitely competition for Bird and Airdrop. Makes me wonder how the complete Calibre Bossnut comes out at about the frame only price for the above brands. The Bossnut frame isn’t significantly less fancy looking.

What about someone like Giant

If Giant UK are based in the UK and pay UK tax on all of their UK income then Giant UK are a UK company as far as I’m concerned. If they “avoid” paying UK tax by using the “standard tricks” employed by multi-national companies then they can’t expect me to feel any great affinity for them. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy their products but I wouldn’t consider them a “British company”. You are right though, drawing the line is very hard and at the end of the day a very personal thing.

Fender guitars used to make Made In America and Made In Mexico guitars, at about £800 and £350 each. Then some genius realised they could take all the parts of the MIM guitars and drive them over the border and import some staff and have the same people do final assembly in California, and they were suddenly Made In America and could be sold for £700. 50% of parts had to be made in the USA but that could include stuff like screws, it’s 50% by number not volume or value so all the bits that counted were mexi.

Perfectly good guitars mind, my Fenders are Made In Japan and Made in Korea and they’re imo better than the equivalent usanian ones.

This is the least exciting bike Sonder have launched, in my opinion. The other Sonder bikes are all a bit different to the norm. This is just a full suss trail bike but can’t blame them for heading more to the mainstream, as they’re likely to shift more units.

Well, my guitar is a Fylde, which probably tells you all you need to know 🙂

I’ve got the transmitter and its great, couldn’t care less about the flag.

The Bird Aeris seems better value than the Evol as it has Decent wheels. The Evol wheels are very heavy!

Bit 2015, but some people do complain that bikes are all too long these days – so maybe they can buy this.

When I bought my Smuggler it was marketed as “progressive geometry, long, low and slack”. The 457mm reach on the large made it easily the longest bike I’d ridden. Now that’s seen as a bit short for some folk. I quite like the fact that Sonder haven’t gone too long. We’ve got Bird for that.

Regardless of nationality, it’s a bit ugly.

I like Sonder, but the bike does look a bit ugly.

Price looks very keen, be keen to see what spec is on the £1,600 model.

Geometry point mentioned above is also quite interesting, as an XL Aeris owner not sure what I’d think of something that much shorter in reach.