Building a bike purely from UK manufacturer parts. Possible?

As the title suggests. Just intrigued to see how close you could get to 100% designed and manufactured in the UK.

I guess Hope have a fair amount of this covered. And frame builders are a plenty now.

What about the rest of the build?

Tyres would be tricky I think

No rear mech or shifter, so I guess it’s single speed.

No. You won’t get tyres, tubes or chain for a start.

How close you want to get – nuts and bolts? Gear cables? I’ll take a guess and say no.

Just intrigued to see how close you could get to 100% designed and manufactured in the UK.

Yeah right, just intrigued eh?

You’re planning for a no-deal Brexit.

However close you get it’s going to be bloody expensive. As above, plenty of UK frame builders and Hope have you covered on a fair few fronts. Single speed with no tyres or chain will really make the trails come alive.

Trying to do a bit of a patriotic build myself, no UK tyres or forks (since pace stopped making forks) but lots of other stuff from superstar components, United components, fibrex for cables etc, fabric make seats in Somerset, Renthal for bars and stems,sure that you can get pedals and grips from UK.
Interesting to see other stuff available, superstar components certainly not silly money.

USE as well….

I tried this with my gravel bike, in order of preference UK made, UK designed, everything else you need.

Frame – take your pick, lots designed in UK, far less are made here, but they are out there
Fork – designed yes – made? Much harder
USE seat post, bars, stem, bottles
Hopetech rear cassette, brake callipers, discs, hubs, BB, headset and seat clamp
Saddle fabric
Wheels built in UK but DT Swiss rims and spokes
Bike build at LBS
Lights Four4ths

Yes it’s got an Easton crankset, and a Shimano Ultegra hydro / XTDi2 combo

Bar tape ? Fabric

Frame – take your pick, lots designed in UK, far less are made here, but they are out there
Fork – designed yes – made? Much harder

bike? or mountain bike?

if just bike, then there certainly used to be loads in the days of Reynolds steel frames.

even if there were UK manufacturing facilities for every component, there’d still be some bits that would rely on imported raw material (unless there is for example a forest of rubber trees somewhere in the british isles that I’m not aware of – is it near the Yorkshire tea plantations?).

I say embrace the fact that it’s a global world, not an arbitrary collection of segregated and sectioned off regions that *must* be self sufficient, and there is no choice but to move some product from one side to the other by some means of propulsion, but that maybe one for one of the other threads ;)

https://www.renold.com/products/velo-ct-cycle-chain/

https://www.chaterlea.com/

https://en-gb.facebook.com/ReynoldsTechnology/

Home

http://www.royceuk.co.uk/Royce-Uk.html

MBUK did something along these lines recently:

https://www.mbuk.com/articles/mbuks-great-british-hardtail-spec-check/

https://www.fibrax.com/

https://burgtec.co.uk/

https://www.geckorubber.co.uk/

http://arbr.bike/

http://bearframesupplies.co.uk/

https://www.clandestine.cc/product-category/components/

I think nukeproof is based in NI so if it’s MTB stuff you’re looking for then some of their components might be UK made.

Welcome to Hambini Engineering

I’ve got a simplex chain pull spiral spring derailleur that was made in England. Got the 5 speed freewheel and chain to go with it. Both UK made. Job jobbed.

Carbon Wasp will design and make you pretty well anything in Horsforth, nr Leeds.

Maybe not tyres though.

MSC Tires are a UK based company, some of their tires have been reviewed on MBR

Owned by Terraventure. Designed in the UK, unlikely produced here thou..

MSC TIRES

1. It’s an interesting thought experiment, but in practice, why would you want to? If you’re giving preference to suppliers based on nationalism, you’re implicitly accepting that you’ll accept lower quality – if the locally made product was the best price/quality then you would buy that without thinking about nationalism.

2. What does “UK manufacturer parts” mean (as mentioned above)? Does the ore have to be mined in the UK and smelted with UK coal? Do all the alloying metals have to be produced in the UK? Does the tubing have to be extruded in the UK? Does the welding have to be done in the UK? Painting? Do bearings, seals, etc have to be produced in the UK? Manufacturing now is so globalized that pinning down the origin to a single country is impossible. IMO, the best thing you can do is buy the best product. If it’s locally made, that’s great, you’re rewarding a local company for producing world-class products. If it’s not locally made then the local manufacturers are relying on flag-waving to sell inferior products so they don’t deserve your money.

https://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/nieuws/2015/03/gates-carbon-drive-launches-belt-for-city-bikes-10119901?vakmedianet-approve-cookies=1&_ga=2.49835430.1205990911.1564012744-109557066.1564012744

Gates launch Scottish made ‘value’ belt drive

Fabric are making saddles here?

In a global world it may be difficult to be too much of a purist, but it’s still a worthy thing to try.

If it’s not manufactured here, which supplier employs the most people here may be another way to look at it.

If it’s not manufactured here, which supplier employs the most people here may be another way to look at it.

Tesco bikes then? Or something from Amazon?

I did it about 15 years ago on a singlespeed MTB. Got fairly close using Middleburn, Hope, USE but rims and tyres were not so easy back then.

Don’t forget to wear your “Make Britain great again” cap when riding it…

which supplier employs the most people here may be another way to look at it.

If you’re worried about employment, you would want to know which supplier employs the most people per unit sold (i.e. who is least efficient, which is going to correlate with most expensive). The biggest employers will probably be the most efficient because of economies of scale, so less of your money will be going to local employment and more to corporate profits. The biggest employer criterion would obviously eliminate the small volume custom frame companies in favor of global mega-corporations.

brant

Tesco bikes then? Or something from Amazon?

Is that insider knowledge? I didn’t realise that the entire workforces of those companies were working in their cycle division. :)

I obviously should have worded my answer a bit more clearly.

Is that insider knowledge? I didn’t realise that the entire workforces of those companies were working in their cycle division. 🙂

I obviously should have worded my answer a bit more clearly.

I should have been a bit less of a dick too I guess.

Gecko and Greentyre both make (non-pneumatic) bike tyres in the UK.
Grab one of those Renolds track chains and you are sorted. Probably.

Nukeproof is all made in Taiwan but that gave me a chuckle .

Is Boris after a new bike then? or is this for Nigel?

Maybe expand the options to allow parts and materials from Commonwealth countries or former parts of the British Empire.

former parts of the British Empire

That’s a pretty long list. Includes the Indian sub-continent, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the United States. How much of the work would actually have to be done in Hong Kong for it to count as British? AFAIK, a lot of lower end Shimano stuff is made in Malaysia, so that’s pretty much sorted out the drivetrain and brakes side of things.