After a new winter bike, steel frame only. Apart from Genesis, are there other brands that come to mind to look at? I’ve just called rourke and they said 6 months waiting list :/ not gonna be in time for winter. Never mind.

There are other custom framebuilders about 😉

Plenty of other small framebuilders.

Or ebay for soemthing 2nd hand.

Ribble do ( did?) a nice looking one..

Gunnar? Awesome bikes.

Rock and Road do them. Well worth a look.

Cotic Roadrat

Ye I know there are other custom frame builders around, sorry, I’m just being narrow minded but I assumed that 6 months for one but be fairly standard but maybe not! :-/ ill have a look at those links tho, and didn’t think about ribble. Cheers all.

Ribble, £220, what a gem!

I’m just being narrow minded but I assumed that 6 months for one but be fairly standard but maybe not!

Depends, really – about 10 weeks for me at the moment. Shand also do some lovely things.

Bencooper, excuse my ignorance, who’s ‘me?’

My framebuilding: http://www.kinetics-online.co.uk/framebuilding/

And Shand: http://www.shandcycles.com/

(we have no connection – it’s just that they’re also Scottish and make lovely frames)

My colleague has a rather nice Lee Cooper custom steel frame (no relation to Ben as far as I know).

Kaffenback if you’re on a budget and don’t mind the slight weight penalty (none of which may be true if you’re considering custom!)

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRPXKV2/planet_x_kaffenback_swap_out_frame

Or

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRSRSR/sarto_rovigo_steel_road_frame_and_fork

Singular?

I’d love to be shopping for a new road/CX bike 🙁

Baum?

sit down before looking at prices and probably a bit too nice for ‘winter bike’, on reflection…

Condor

Condor Condor Condor

Ye, I think althought speaking to rourke, and as lovely as your work appears online Ben, I think I’d rather keep the budget lower as at the end of the day it is a winter frame, however one of my reasons for choosing steel is I like the idea of hanging it up in the garage and using it year after year.

One of the reasons I considered custom though was to get the geometry matching my summer bike, CAAD10, with no spacers, a flat headset cap and a 130mm stem, as the looks of the genesis suggest its going to be a little high.

I may have said this before here, but many modern steel bikes are nothing special.To many 531 was a standard. Sub that was cheap and heavy. Above was nice.
I would suggest that many modern mass produced bike steel bikes fall into the sub category. I have both a Kaff and a Cotic X. Both are heavier and a poorer ride than my 1983 531c Raleigh. All sorts of fancy labels are slpped ont eh frames to tell you what wonderful steel they are made of but realisticall they tell you nothing.
Now of course weight isn’t everything and a nice riding heavy frame is better than a bad riding feather weight but buyers should be aware of the nature of many modern steel frames. The cheaper ones especially. Buy a nice 531 frame from the paper and modernise it a bit at a time .

Spa Cycles do a nice Audax frame.

I may have said this before here, but many modern steel bikes are nothing special.To many 531 was a standard. Sub that was cheap and heavy. Above was nice.

Yup – though it should also be said that, while old frames used pretty good tubing a lot of the time, the standards of framebuilding were sometimes shockingly bad.

Enigma? Bit nice for a winter bike though! I’d go for alloy and fatter tyres myself.

Those Shands are lovely in the flesh.

Buy a nice 531 frame from the paper and modernise it a bit at a time

This. 525 is the standard now and is 531’s replacement but I’m not sure it is as thin as the 531c(ompetition) I had. Modern cheaper Cro Mo tends to fall more into in the 501 category.

Well, there are a lot of custom frame companies here. You guys are great!

Mercian make classics http://www.merciancycles.co.uk/