This may have been asked a billion times before but I'm interested to know about bike companies that are based, or at least have an engineering presence here in the UK. I don't care about where the bikes are manufactured.

Ones I can think of off the top of my head:
Brompton
Orange
Ragley/on one
Cotic
Marine/atb sales (I think?)

Doesn't seem to be many…are there any more?

Charge, Pace, Dialled, there's loads of 'small' brands.

Marine? do you mean Marin?

whyte more than marin but that's just splitting hairs really

Pashley

Isn't Marin american? Marin County Californ I A?

Yep, but Whyte isn't.

curtis
saracen
nukeproof, when the bikes come out anyway

Sanderson?

Thorn
Curtis
Dawes
Singular
Genesis
Boardman
Condor,

there's squillions, add in the framebuilders – Roberts, Jackson, Doaln et al, and you might want to narrow your selection down a bit 🙂

Kinesis UK? UK based company owned by Kinesis TW UK based design but manu in Taiwan 🙂 + DMR

Raleigh??? or are they foreign now

Reynolds
Highpath
Scottoiler
HOPE

Ok, forgot about all the little hard tail companies like Curtis, dialled, etc. Marin (my phone auto completes it to marine!) are American but I believe they have a design presence within atb sales along with whyte, although that could be crap.

So there are quite a few but not so many that produce a wide range of bikes (ie not just hard tails)?

Marin suspension bikes designed in Cheltenham, by the same team that design Whyte.

Cheltenham? Really? Thats interesting, do you have any more details? ATB Sales are down Sussex way somewhere.

24seven
Identiti
Moulton
Ridgeback
Claud Butler

Just bikes or components too?

Bikes mainly but interested to know about component companies too. We've already had hope…

USE
Middleburn
Royce?
Goldtec
Superstar 😉

I'm interested to know about bike companies that are based, or at least have an engineering presence here in the UK

Why?

I don't want to know about companies that import generic mass produced frames/components like superstar, I'm interested in companies that design their own products in the uk. Most of the above do I think?

Why?

Wondering whether there is any scope for employment as a design engineer in the UK.

sabbath

Groundhog day.

Groundhog day.

Has this one been done to death?! 🙂

Quite interesting to learn how many companies there are in the UK. When you list them out, there are more than you think.

Specialized probably employ more people in the UK than most of the companies listed here.

Specialized probably employ more people in the UK than most of the companies listed here.

But not in an engineering/design capacity I assume?

As a UK design engineer, if I had to do it again I'd still not go into the bike market. I'd look into what is going to take me all round the world and choose something like the energy or transport industry to specialise in.

Mike who sometimes posts on here and has worked for a few bike places here an in the USA is also a bit of a wizard with carbon and as such i now believe he is working for the Manor motor sport / Virgin Racing F1 team. Brant did a lot of journalism before making design his full time job, Stevo did fish tank lights and I think Si was a rail contractor. so basically you can make your way in from any angle, plus why just limit your self to the UK, if you are good then it doesn't matter where the company is based.

A lot of the UK bike industry is rider / designer owned and those that are now big business want the previous design experience.

Specialized probably employ more people in the UK than most of the companies listed here.

which is why it makes me laugh when everyone is on about buying British

Halfords are after a premium bike desginer

Phototim – Member
> Specialized probably employ more people in the UK than most
> of the companies listed here.
But not in an engineering/design capacity I assume?

How much engineering and design do you think goes on at, say, Dawes?

Here's the advert

http://www.jobsnation.net/joblisting.asp?jobid=433244

thepodge,

Thanks for the post. My engineering experience is in the aerospace industry and mainly stress engineering. My bike design experience is all through personal interest and it is obviously hard to convince potential employers on that alone. A little design/build project I'm starting will hopefully go some way to rectifying that but I'm hoping that might lead to starting up my own company. Who knows, I know there is not much money in the bike industry but innovation, design, development and test of bikes is the crème de la crème as far as I'm concerned.

I have thought long and hard about looking for these jobs abroad and almost contacted some companies during my year in Canada, however I'm happy in Bristol at the moment so moving abroad would be too big a step right now. Just thought I'd throw the question out there to see if any companies popped up around Bristol!

Halfords are after a premium bike desginer

£40k?!!!

How much engineering and design do you think goes on at, say, Dawes?

An odd statement. Are you suggesting that none of the companies listed above put much engineering/design thought into producing these bikes? I don't know anything about Dawes, maybe they import mass produced frames, but if not then you would be surprised at how much engineering is actually involved and suggesting otherwise is a bit insulting to those designers who work hard to produce their own designs!

I see you're from the I-O-W. As an aside, Joe Higgins used to live there and is now doing great work for Scott.

Scott Carbon Genius LT (Long Travel) First Ride.

Is £40k bad? That seems a pretty decent wage to me. Maybe I should have studied engineering….

Back to the list:
BURGTEC

Tim, email me. I might have something of interest for you

engineers (degree qualified, experienced, capable, skilled) as a rule, don't get anywhere near £40k.

sturmey archer?

engineers (degree qualified, experienced, capable, skilled) as a rule, don't get anywhere near £40k.

You need to renegotiate.

rj – Member

engineers (degree qualified, experienced, capable, skilled) as a rule, don't get anywhere near £40k.

You need to renegotiate.

Indeed.