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That's great. Thanks for the link.
I've been more and more interested in this lately and have heard, or thought I'd heard about courses available where you can learn to build a frame.
Does anyone know of such a course?
Pretty sure Dave Yates runs a course on frame building?
Edit. Yes, yes he does.. [url=www.daveyatescycles.co.uk/custom_bike_frames-about_the_course-44.php]Dave Yates[/url]
And the vast majority of bikes sold in the UK are made overseas and sold through a handful of national chains such as Halfords to customers content to buy standard-sized frames.
So no LBS!, just a few Halfords out there selling bikes. Bollocks!
Yes thanks for that. A Quick Google about suggests the cost of a 5-day course with materials is getting on for about a grand. Maybe something to save up for.. 🙂
I like the look of the Bicycle Academy too, and I feel guilty saying it, but I'd love to keep the frame I made instead of give it to charity.. Perhaps I could give them my old one?... 😉
So no LBS!, just a few Halfords out there selling bikes. Bollocks!
In terms of numbers, the LBS is niche - most bikes are sold through big chains like Halfords, ToysRUs, Asda etc.
Regular cyclist Paul Timlett has two made-to-measure bikes which together cost him more than £8,000. One of them was a fiftieth birthday present to himself:
LOL, only £4k a piece? The man is a mere amateur.
It's a good article but interesting on how much it focuses on the price of the bikes.
Also I know that there is a boom in frame building ATM but it's not as if people haven't been getting hand made frames for years. I have two Dave Yates (1995 653 and 1999 853 vintage) in the gargage.
Yes, I'm not sure whether it's actually a boom or just that it's been discovered by media hipsters 😉
Price is what non-cyclists want to know about bikes - when a non-cyclist comes into my shop and sees the weird stuff I have, their first question is never "why is it that shape?" or "is it fast?", or "what's it for?", it's always "how much is that one?"
Often followed by "you could buy a car for that!"
So no LBS!, just a few Halfords out there selling bikes. Bollocks!
In terms of numbers, the LBS is niche - most bikes are sold through big chains like Halfords, ToysRUs, Asda etc.
I'm far from the niche kind of person but I can honestly say I've never bought a bike from a chain. Always from a lbs. That goes for my raleigh bikes as I was growing up and my diamond back ht that I use for commuting and my current fs.
Hate to use the cliche but with the lbs it's the service you want. You know any problems will get sorted and as we all know new bikes have teething problems to start with.
If you're the kind of person to buy a bike from asda you're *generally* the kind of person that will take it back and get a new one after the first 3 weeks when the gear cables stretch and they start slipping.
It's great to see, I do hope it's a trend that will stay. I'd love a custom build one day, maybe for me 50th 😉
I met this nice chap from Brighton at the London Bike Show a few years back. [url= http://www.chickensframeemporium.co.uk/ ]http://www.chickensframeemporium.co.uk/[/url]
Yes, I'm not sure whether it's actually a boom or just that it's been discovered by media hipsters 😉
Anna Collins, a climate campaigner from London, is here looking for her dream bike.
Ka-Ching
Good luck to 'em.
Anna Collins, a climate campaigner from London, is here looking for her dream bike.
Climate campaigning must pay very well.
Climate campaigning must pay very well.
she might be a trustafarian
I've been more and more interested in this lately and have heard, or thought I'd heard about courses available where you can learn to build a frame.Does anyone know of such a course?
Pete Bird from Swallow, who is mentioned at the start of the piece, used to run frame building courses for both solos and tandems at one time. I built a cyclo cross frame on the course way back when.
Thanks a bunch, I now desperately need a Field frame.
I've been more and more interested in this lately and have heard, or thought I'd heard about courses available where you can learn to build a frame.
Do you want to build one frame, or do you want to learn to build frames?
For the former, one of the courses like Dave Yates' one is perfect - you spend a few days doing fun stuff and end up with a frame you can ride.
For the latter, maybe a course but perhaps better to go on a brazing and metalwork course at a local college, then spend all your spare time practicing.
You can learn the basics of building a frame in a weekend - getting good at it takes a bit longer 😉
she [s]might [/s] [u]could only[/u] be a trustafarian
FIFY
I don't mean that in a disparaging way (well OK maybe just a teensy bit); I've always thought that if I had a big win on the lottery I'd still need to do something constructive to give life meaning and purpose and something charitable would be the way to go.
A friend of mine worked and saved hard enough in his 20s and early 30s that by the time he reached 35 he had enough money in the bank and had paid off his mortgage and chose to work voluntarily full time for a large charity. He lives a frugal but very meaningful life.
The field bikes look better in the flesh than in pictures by the way, and Harry is a really nice guy, I spent a lot of time chatting to him at the weekend. They finished painting that stand about an hour before the show opened to the press too.
If I lived in London, had no need for a car, then why couldn't I plan to spend what many do on a car on a bespoke bike instead?
You can rubbish the media hipsters getting into it all you want, get down to bespoked and tell me there is nothing there that doesn't take your fancy!
when a [s]non-[/s]cyclist comes into my shop and sees the weird stuff I have, their first question is never "why is it that shape?" or "is it fast?", or "what's it for?", it's always "how much is that one?"Often followed by "you could buy a [s]car[/s] proper bike for that!"
😉
😀
kayak23 - MemberI like the look of the Bicycle Academy ...
Little piece here about Charge Bikes and the Bicycle Academy.
I found the bike academy a bit confusing / misleading.
To me it looks like they'll teach you to build a frame but this gets sent to Africa. You then have access to their workshop but have to pay for materials.
So you spend a week building something but have nothing but a warm fuzzy glow to show for it unless you take another week off work and fork out another chunk of cash.
I like what they are doing but you actually get to take something home at the end of the DY course where as with BA you don't
So you spend a week building something but have nothing but a warm fuzzy glow to show for it
..and a lot of new-found skills...surely?
Handmade bike frames eh, isn't there a company in Halifax making them out of filing cabinets or something?
😉