UPDATED | Orange Bikes Calls In Administrators

Sad news. Bought an Orange in the 1990’s & currently have one of their newer bikes, but bought 2nd hand as tbh their prices always seemed premium. I’m from a Yorkshire but love in Scotland and honestly can’t remember the last time I saw another Orange out on the trails.

I love Oranges (Had 2 Crushes and 2 Fives over the years, plus they’re the ‘home’ side) Saddened by this but not entirely surprised they’ve been too expensive for a long time, which is why I no longer ride one. Still have an itch for a Stage 5 though.

I think my old 2014 Five29 was ahead of its time, perhaps a little short by modern standards but would still hold its own today!

Don’t worry Orange fans, lots of other bike firms are struggling, allegedly Forbidden, Niner, Cotic, Santa Cruz. The SRAM/Zyro suppliers haven’t helped allegedly by changing terms of payment for components from quarterly to a year, and upfront payment. The latter is certainly not going to help anyone.

I suspected something when they had their recent sale. The thinly veiled references to some “more mainstream manufacturers” being in trouble was a bit of a clue too.

I’d also heard they’d lost their way over the past few years. If your reputation is for being bombproof you can’t afford for welds to split.

I’ve never owned one, but I’ve ridden one a couple of times and enjoyed them.

It’s a shame, for the jobs lost, for the loss of a big name in the history of the sport, and for a loss of diversity in bikes too.

halifaxpete
Full Member

I think my old 2014 Five29 was ahead of its time, perhaps a little short by modern standards but would still hold its own today!

Damn right, it was one of the very first really good long travel 29ers, out of the bigger brands only Trek had anything as good. And no bugger bought it! They always seemed to struggle to carry on the Five popularity into a 29er, but at the same time Alpine fans didn’t seem to want it either,maybe because it was a Five? They ended up renaming it and selling it unchanged for about 4 or 5 years IIRC and just basically repositioned what it was for

Bigger Oranges always = better Oranges imo. My 224 Evo was an absolute museum piece but it was so fun to ride.

This was our first trip to a Fort William WC.
Orange – a big part of the history of UK mountain biking.

Always had a soft spot for them after spending my first proper wages on a C16R. Although clearly not that soft as I’ve never bought another, the Five era passed me by (either not riding or couldn’t afford) and it’s just not appealed much since.

There’s a couple of recent-ish Orange hardtails in our local riding group, I sometimes pondered getting a modern P7 frame but I can’t think when I last saw a FS out and about.

My first proper mountain bike was a clockwork as a teenage apprentice back in the 80’s. Always had a sort spot for them and over the last decade when I have bough a new full-sus, hard tail, gravel bike and finally; an e-bike in October, I tried to convince myself to buy the Orange. Unfortunately cost and spec meant I didn’t, I suspect a few folk made a similar decision. Such a shame to see them in trouble and crap for the employees at this time of year.

Very sad news. For anybody who has been around a while, the orange to white fade steel framed bikes were synonymous with 90’s mountain biking. And not just because of the bikes themselves, but (perhaps more importantly), the support and sponsorship that Orange pumped into the sport. Without pioneers like Orange and Pace and their generosity, things wouldn’t be quite the same today.

That the company is based in Yorkshire should be a point of pride, which is very different to ‘Middle England jingoism’. It’s OK to have pride in home grown production without being accused of having a far right small minded mindset. Making stuff here is something to be proud of, not ashamed and it isn’t easy, so anybody doing it should be applauded and supported.

The  ghoulish negativity is unfortunately typical of some folks round these parts and a big turn off for quite a few people. Maybe it’s new year blues, but quite a few innocuous threads have degenerated recently due to a basic lack of respect and civility for each other. Fortunately there are enough people who are more sensitive to raise the tone, but that balance is tipping over time.

It goes without saying that for a company to make such big losses during the biggest cycling boom ever (the pandemic) is quite an achievement, and that to have called in the administrators something has gone wrong. Let’s just leave it there.

I would prefer to offer some thanks for what they have done, some sympathy for the staff and some optimism that administration gives them the opportunity to clean things up and and start afresh rather than disappear altogether. At that point it would feel more appropriate to offer what is I am sure well meaning advice about the complexity of their range and their business model. In the meantime, I am sad to see you in difficulty and wish you all the best for so many reasons.

It’s OK to have pride in home grown production without being accused of having a far right small minded mindset. Making stuff here is something to be proud of, not ashamed and it isn’t easy, so anybody doing it should be applauded and supported.

+100

It goes without saying that for a company to make such big losses during the biggest cycling boom ever (the pandemic) is quite an achievement, and that to have called in the administrators something has gone wrong. Let’s just leave it there.

But this … every bike company made losses somehow once the boom sales were had and Orange won’t have benefitted from the initial demand spike as much as a big box stock holder who could have cleared a warehouse full and re-ordered (and we know how those stories went).

Pretty much every bike company out there is on a knife-edge at the moment. A brand could be doing everything right and still get to this point, it’s just … : /

The owners are the sheet metal company. No idea if they’re also affected

I was coming down off the top of Skiddaw (walking) in the Lakes in 1987 or 88, and as we got to Latrigg two guys in full Orange kit (with the oranges on the jerseys 😍) were coming round from what is the Back-o-Skiddaw route. They must have been on the Formula O or original Clockworks. That was my introduction to mountain biking, and I was immediately hooked at the idea of being in the proper hills on a bike. That Christmas I got my first mountain bike. In the summer of 93 I saved up all summer hols and bought a Clockwork, all orange in colour, Deore LX groupset, XT thumbies, X-Lite bar ends etc. I was utterly in love and did most of my mountain biking on it – the offroad coast to coast route, Back-o-Skiddaw, the Borrowdale Bash, bothying in Scotland to tick off Munros (about 20 years before bikepacking), first time at Glentress. When I moved to Edinburgh I commuted to work on it until about 2012 until the stays developed a split. My favourite ever bike. The frame and forks are hung on the wall in my garage. An emotional attachment that I’ve never had with any other bike.

So really sad at this news, a shame for the brand and all involved and linked to them, and again highlighting the state of the industry and economy in general.

I can see why their later bikes were a bit Marmite and that they weren’t great value, but I’m surprised at some of the negativity in the comments. An Orange 5 was ‘the’ bike for a period of time, a UK classic. I hope they can survive.

An Orange 5 was ‘the’ bike for a period of time, a UK classic.

This happens all the time in UK manufacturing, we have an amazing ability to be the best and then just let it slip, we’ve been doing it since at least the 70s.

My A level metalwork project was partly made from two Orange X2 frames that they let me have out of the scrap bin after riding over there.

Surprised a lot of you don’t see orange bikes on the trails.

In Lancs there’s quite a few and there’s three 5’s and a P7 in our riding group.

Some of the the sweary northerners are still around posting crazy tech riding on Instagram.

I think the last few posts sum it up; outdated, niche & often appealing to riders due to geography. That’s all fine in theory if the brand is sustainable, but the reasons I wouldn’t buy an Orange nowadays (failure rates, design, etc.) are commonplace from talking to other riders. The (assumed) loyalty is understandable, but I’ve always felt it’s a bit misplaced.
I’ve owned an Orange, way back in the days of thumbshifters and toe-clips. It was relegated to a winter bike, then a singlespeed in ’95 – it felt like a gate then – and every Orange that I’ve ridden since has felt anachronistic. Good marketing & image aside, they weren’t forward thinking in design, for the majority.
I feel for the staff, of course, but the bike industry in the UK is just that; an industry. If you don’t move with the times in a market dominated by the latest shiny carbon sled, then where’s the market? Ploughing a furrow is Noble, but only if the product really is first-rate. So many comments here are about design, failure and a lack of trust in the bike. Sad times, but then there are other UK bike companies.

“The only time they were discussed on here seemed to be when some little-Englander decided they wanted to build a bike made from bits made in Britain.“

Ahh, you mean people who want to support local  manufacturing and properly paid quality jobs for adults? Payment of taxes to fund schools and the NHS, whilst not adding even more to the already atrocious balance of trade deficit the country has ?

Carry on helping the country’s economy get even worse instead, then.

I’ve owned an Orange, way back in the days of thumbshifters and toe-clips. It was relegated to a winter bike, then a singlespeed in ’95 – it felt like a gate then – and every Orange that I’ve ridden since has felt anachronistic. Good marketing & image aside, they weren’t forward thinking in design, for the majority.

They were very forward thinking in the late 80’s, early 90’s and often tweaked frame design a couple of times a year after feedback from the race team and linked riders (The ‘O’ Rangers, in the spotty black and orange tops). The C16 was called that because it was the 16th different revision of the Clockwork, in 6 years! I can only assume you had a late 80’s bike in the early 90’s, when frame design across the board was change dramatically every year? I find it hard to accept they lacked behind design wise for the first 20 years at least. Certainly wasn’t my experience.

As has been said, it seems the post take over frame cracking and lack of pivots and carbon has done for them. I’d personally can’t see what a mass produced far east carbon frame offers over my hand built aluminium Stage 5 but I’m clearly in the minority.

Agree with Chipps about the cheaper stuff too. I guess the Clockwork/P7/Crush/RX9 should be the big sellers with decent profit but for whatever reason the pricing in the last few years has gone insane which can’t of helped sales. When I was looking for a gravel bike back in 2021 I looked at the RX9 but it was almost twice the price of an almost identically priced Vitus. I’d have been happy paying a few hundred quid to have Orange on the head tube instead of Vitus, but not £1k+ over the £1200 bike! That was the point I stopped getting the lower end stuff I guess? Instead of a P7 I built a Pace.

If they do disappear I’ll be looking over the border to Hope I reckon. Not because I’m a right wing, little Englander (nothing could be further from the truth!), but because if I’m spending a stack of money of a push bike I want to feel some connection with it. Always have with Orange and Hope stuff (Pace too, to a point). I thought about replacing my full suss with one of the Nukeproof/Vitus bargains but they just leave me cold.

As for the range being too big, it certainly seems so but could be marketed much better. Ultimately they offer what most do:

Lower end HT.
Steel aggressive HT.
Aluminium aggressive HT.
Gravel bike.

Trail FS.
Enduro FS.
Downhill FS.

2x Electric FS.

Kids bikes.

It’s just they offer most of them in every wheel size and market them all separately!

That’s ignoring the bunch of new hand made bikes that appeared at the back end of the year which now seem like a roll of the dice to chase sales whilst in trouble?

I think the base is there for someone to make a success of the brand again but it’ll take big balls and deep pockets. Unfortunately, and understandably they are in short supply atm.

yet there are loads of comments on here, and the other Orange thread, saying people don’t want the UK made thing as they want things from the other manufacturers/countries…

I’ve not seen that. What I have seen is that Orang don’t offer value, even compared to other U.K. brands. Eg a Stage Evo frame being £400 more expensive than a Rocketmax. I know which of those two I’d expect to last longer too