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Except Orange Brompton and Pashley to name 3 who have been making things for years.
It's relatively easy (but still far from easy in an absolute sense) to keep doing manufacturing here in the UK (unless you're dependent on a major supplier who quits the business). Buy you try starting up from scratch!
If I had held on and waited for my rocket, I would be sitting at just over 18 months now, waiting on another 'just a few weeks yet'. My patience ran out after 10 months however. Hindsight is as ever, a wonderful thing, but I can't help but think that they should have used a prototype, say the mini rocket, as the test piece for moving manufacture, and kept producing the rocket in the mean time.
Thing is, around the time I ordered, there was a huge buzz around the rocket, which has now gone, sadly. The whole 650b will just have added to this.
Ironically, I love what cotic are doing, very bold and fantastic to see. I hope they go from strength to strength.
have the people waiting 18 months for a rocket paid up front?
Agree with Nobeer, about the mini rocket and production. But now it's nearly 2 years in the making times have moved on and the rocket will be out of date. Like or hate 650b it has decimated the 26 inch wheel market.
So Cotic WILL have to get a 650b version and prob a 29er version to market as soon as humanly possible or force losing even more sales, even though they are still struggling to produce the 26 inch model. So I doubt the mini rocket will ever see the light of day.
If I had held on and waited for my rocket, I would be sitting at just over 18 months now, waiting on another 'just a few weeks yet'. My patience ran out after 10 months however
Its looking like you could buy a different frame, run it, get bored of it and when you are ready for a change the Rocket will finally be available/on sale.
If I had paid money I'd want it back asap. 18months etc is too long to give money away.
That's some glass-half-empty thinking there Rik.
They've only really got one problem and that's not being able to make them quick enough. The rest isn't a reality yet.
As far as I can see it, they've..
// got a unique product.
// almost sold out the first batch based on old reviews, good will and their manufacturing approach (and good price to be honest).
// apart from the (debatable) wheelsize, almost every other part of the geometry is bang up-to-date.
Once they get some frames out there and people start raving about them again, they'll probably sell some more. Meanwhile they can get the 29er into production and prototype the 650b and create even more interest and sales.
I'll admit that I see them through slightly rose-tinted specs as I've got a lot of time for what they're trying to do.
I haven't ordered yet, but it's high on my list of next bikes.
The real point of it isn't so much "make the rocket in the UK" as "make bikes in the UK"- so once that's delivered for the Rocket it's a smaller matter to do it for the 29er Rocket, and whatever else may be. Remember it's intended to be a contract factory too building bikes for other people.
Also, bear in mind they didn't cut off taiwanese production of the Rocket in flow, that was already a problem before they decided to move to UK production. Maybe they could have sorted that out faster, who knows with hindsight.
I think they'll have it in production just in time for The Industry to declare that 650b is dead and we all have to replace our bikes with 25.5 wheels 😉
I'd consider a Rocket partly due to the price which makes it affordable. post-production issues if they looked at demand and raised the prices. Well.
Hora, I never paid any money, and afaik no one else did either.
Needs to be 650b to position itself in the correct area of the marketplace. 26" is dead and 29ers are more suited to XC.
Dunno what it's taking so long mind, welding some steel tubes together ain't that hard.
Dunno what it's taking so long mind, welding some steel tubes together ain't that hard.
+1. A few months yes but so long?
+1. A few months yes but so long?
I't takes about an hour ,what takes so long is starting a factory from scratch and making sure everytime I put those tubes into a jig they position better than 0.25mm there are pictures showing this and everyone of them is repeatable ,it took 5 months to develop a jig system which framebuilders all over the world are desperate to get their hands on but its accurate to 40 microns no matter which way i throw tubes at it
BML was set up to be a frame factory .In that the factory started from a dusty empty shell ,it had to be painted wired for three phase wired for single phase ,alignment tables had to be sourced CNC machines bought and we just got a new machine to surpass the old one this means things get put back post processors need to be written programs proven cycle times reduced,and thats before I even start making tools for holding subassemblies for Rocket production, lathes and equipment needed to be calibrated purge systems design tested, and proved and thats all mingled in with working as many hours as you can justifiably get away with before your homelife starts to suffer
Further to this we have to source every material and you can spend days dealing with suppliers external suppliers can be unreliable we try 3 different anodisers and some are good some are poor do we release a sub standard product, ****ing no chance ,painting finishing if I were building custom frames it would all be under my control but we aren't though each one is hand made to a very high level of both precision and quality, we have to some extent had to rely on certain external resources and they invariably present more problems than they resolve
The actual time spent working on Cy's frames has been in the order of months no one ever tells you the amount of shit you have to deal with running a company, I'm an engineer so rely on Cy to deal with a lot of that shit for BML
Even then Im not a cotic employee so should not be commenting things on the Rocket have been refined redesigned analysed based on the fact that the features on the current bikes are how they like to make things in the ROC and we can actually do what Cy asked but was told in some case No buy the Overseas makers ,and 26" might not be dead but in doing this we also configured everything to take into account 650 and 29 production though as a non employee I cannot tell you if they exist or not
We piss and moan at one another me more than him BTW but i think this is more borne out of frustration than anything else because to be honest when we sit and look at what we have achieved in 18 months with our sensible heads on ....we aint done bad
have a go at bringing a product to market and actually competing with thte overseas crowd its awesome fun
Take that Haterz!
For those of you who don't know, Mick is the manufacturing brains behind BML who are making the new Cotic Rocket frames. And I'd agree with everything he said. It's been the hardest thing I've ever been involved with, massively stressful for both of us with plenty of sleepless nights all round. It's probably one of the most frustrating situations too, due to ending up not having Rockets to sell to people who want them for so long just when we'd really got some momentum going with the sales and buzz about the frame.
It's easy to say decisions could have been made differently with 20:20 hindsight, but I didn't want to source any more from Taiwan and we thought we'd be up and running sooner. But as Mick says, it's very much not just sticking frames together any old how and hoping for the best, there was a hell of an amount of set up work that needed doing before we really got into moving towards production. Call us naive and optimistic if you like, but if you weren't a bit naive and optimistic you'd never try and do anything because it would always seem impossible.
We've not delivered frames to people who have ordered them yet, and for that we're both sorry and truly gutted to have disappointed them, but it's not for want of trying to get them out the door. Writing each of the emails out to customers with orders each time we've missed a deadline, because we've come up against yet another unforeseen problem, is just the hardest thing I have to do at the moment and it kills me each time I have to. But it's not like we're purposefully going slowly just to annoy you, we're just trying desperately hard to achieve what we set out to achieve. On the flip side of that, the emails we receive back from patient customers who are committed to buying a frame because of what we're trying to do is just fantastic and we can't wait for the day we can repay your kindness and patience with delivering the very best frame BML can make.
Good luck guys.
Mick & Cy, best wishes for your project, respect.
I don't really see much in the way of whining on this thread tbh, certainly pretty low grade whining in stw terms!.
fair point, whiners comment redacted.
Writing each of the emails out to customers with orders each time we've missed a deadline, because we've come up against yet another unforeseen problem, is just the hardest thing I have to do at the moment and it kills me each time I have to.
I'll write them for you.
Fiver a pop? 😀
Take that Haterz!
Who said its 'hate'. Its a question on why so long.
The topic is a discussion and questions on delays are highly relevant.
The answer is:
what takes so long is starting a factory from scratch
As I mentioned earlier the frames piqued my interest too.
If Specialized posted on here I'd call it fair-game/open-season/time for fun.
Good luck to you both - when that short travel play mini-Rocket does eventually roll around I might actually have the cash for it.
Bit sorry I started the thread; not sure it's serving any purpose other than to give an opportunity for people without any interest to express angst on others' behalf. I'm sanguine.
No such thing as bad publicity, merynella.
Bit sorry I started the thread; not sure it's serving any purpose other than to give an opportunity for people without any interest to express angst on others' behalf. I'm sanguine.
From the sounds theres very few with any real angst value to add , more poking fun
Bumpity bump!
Any developments?
From what I heard the firm has gone to the wall that was trying to make them, however on the grapevine they were still going to make them in Sheffield,
From what I heard the firm has gone to the wall that was trying to make them
[url= http://www.bicyclemanufacturing.co.uk ]BML[/url] website is still up.
Thought people would have forgotten about these and moved on by now.
Many people still on the waiting list?
There is an article in the current edition of one of the mags (can't remember which) about a 29er Rocket. It mentions all the stuff about British manufacturing, plans for carbon fabrication in future and fifty 26" Rockets being made first, with the 29er shortly after. I thought that was all out of date now, but you'd have thought the editor would have checked before going to press, so maybe not.
There is no waiting list, Those who had 'pre ordered' were informed their slot had been cancelled in August
Edit due to poor memory!
The article described sounds similar to one in MBR, October edition
BML definitely still very much in business
It'll all come good I'm sure. I still want a Rocket more than I want a super-value-component-bargain-Euro-offering, however good/amazing/world series they are. If it's a thing I want, I need to [i]really[/i] want it, y'know?
Please cy, build the rockets x
I test rode one in August 2013, and really wanted it then. Great bunch of guys, couldn't have been more helpful, and the bike was fantastic. Unfortunately nothing changes the fact that they couldn't sell me a frame, and (after waiting for a knee injury to recover) got a Whyte G150S a couple of months ago, which is also pretty fantastic.
How about one of my frames instead of a Rocket?
I've got the design mostly sorted, but the quality needs a bit of improvement.
Steel, 650b. Keep an eye on my Pinkbike page. The frame is in the painters now and should be built up over the weekend.
[img] 
[/img]
More photos [url= http://www.pinkbike.com/u/phutphutend/album/JMc007/ ]here...[/url]
I'd be happy to build one at cost plus a little bit for anyone willing to take a small risk of a relativily untested design?
[i]It'll all come good I'm sure. I still want a Rocket more than I want a super-value-component-bargain-Euro-offering, [/i]
Yeah. 😀
phutphutend, that's really nice looking, your own design?
All designed and made with my own fair hands.
Steel. Carbon. You might even be able to buy one,one day.
http://www.swarfcycles.co.uk
phut, it's really nice, you must be dead chuffed 😀 Can't wait to see what it looks like painted.
can you tell us a bit more about the design? geometry? what you're aiming for?
Frame geometry is:
66.5 HA,
1190mm wheelbase;
435mm CS;
-10mm BB drop.
Single pivot with 150mm front and rear. Main pivot bang on line with 34T chainring. Slightly rising rate suspension.
It a development from my last frame, see Pinkbike album. This was designed for 650b wheels but they didn't fit. So I used it with 26", but the BB was just too low. Also, the HA on my last frame was closer to 65deg and just too slack. The swingarm design has improved with the use of some waterjet cut parts. A minor change to swingarm and seatpost positioning has allowed the shock mount to drop giving a better spring curve.
Nice work!
So does -10mm BB drop mean 10mm BB rise? I usually guess based on BB heights as manufacturers are so inconsistent with this...
No sorry, the BB is 10mm below wheel axles. Not the double negative I implied!