Never ridden any of the Scottish trail centres, so was guessing they are “bigger/longer/nastier” than anything I’d normally ride or have ridden.

It’s not (IMO) that ‘big’ bikes are bad, they’re very good, as others have said they pedal acceptably well and allow you to ride stuff in more controll, (or) faster, etc.

But (again IMO) they suffer for it, they make everything a bit average. A bit like I imagine doing a track day in an M5 is like Vs a Caterham, it’ll be as fast but I bet it’s not as fun.

Personaly I reckon I lose more fun manhandling a 140mm+ bike arround the less technical 90%* of a loop than I gain on the remaining 10%*.

*Being generous, it’s probably >99%, <1% for most trails.

that’s awesome according to this UK manufacturing best close up shop today and go sit watch jeremey every day

ARSE

That’s not what I’m saying, but Orange do kind of illustrate a failure to adapt inherent in a number of British manufacturers over the years, the market they operate in is changing, and they really are not, OK they’ve cottoned on to the whole 650b and 29er things but fundamentally its still the same brake press and weld stuff…

What do you want me to say? That they offer good VFM? That Orange will survive with their current approach? Its hard to see how if they just price themselves out of the game…

Like I said they need to invest in their own future. The future of MTBs (IMO) is probably going to have a fair bit more of the black stuff in it.
The actual tooling and skills to work with it are not all that difficult to acquire, and yes they can continue to charge a premium for that “Made in Britain” badge if what they are selling is on a par, quality, technology and performance wise, with the rest of the market… Carry on as they are I an’t see them being about in another decade or so…

I don’t really understand the angle from which the criticism comes.
Fine if you don’t want to buy one and have reasons, but taking a swipe at the company in general when they seem to be doing pretty well seems a bit odd.

I know as many people on Orange as I do on Santa Cruz who are seen as very successful.

Just because you don’t want one, doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty that do.
Perhaps it’s a Peak District thing, but there are loads of new ones about the place.

Its a joke right?

Oh I give up. Leave innovation and exciting ideas to the new breed/anyone else in the industry.

Orange since 1988, making old shit since 2006-

Like I said they need to invest in their own future. The future of MTBs (IMO) is probably going to have a fair bit more of the black stuff in it.

But is it better? Do many companies sell a carbon frame for orange 5 money? If anything with time their frames are starting to look cheaper. A Five is £1500, a Tallboy LT aluminium is £1750, the carbon is £2600!

A friend who runs a company designing and marketing sailing dinghies when we asked why he didn’t make a competitor for a certain market which even a small slice of would reprisent a big proportion of his business, remarked “what’s the point of competing directly with something unless you can do it better”. Basicly his boats have a USP that sells, Orange bikes have a USP* that sells, why lose that to compete with something different?

*IMO it’s their simplicity, bearings that last, frames you could drop off a truck and not worry about hidden carbon delamination, just look at the state of some old 5’s downtubes that get sold on as “cosmetic damage only”.

But is it better? Do many companies sell a carbon frame for orange 5 money? If anything with time their frames are starting to look cheaper. A Five is £1500, a Tallboy LT aluminium is £1750, the carbon is £2600!

Do you actually think a single pivot frame should be £1,500?

There are plenty to chose from on the market in alu and for 0-just £200 more I can get a Rune, Blur TR, Bronson etc etc etc etc frame.

SC Bantam frame £1300 full bike £2500
SC Heckler frame £1350 full bike £2500
Orange Five frame £1500 full bike £2500
All single pivots. I haven’t checked all of the specs but prices are not too dissimilar really.

One of the least inspiring bike releases ever

This.

Have you seen the Orange range? Can you see anything exciting in there?

http://www.orangebikes.co.uk/bikes/

If you like Excitement, follow Harry Heath over the 31 foot gap jump on the 650 Five video!!
I can show you exactly where it is!!

making old shit since 2006

Dead wrong, the 2007 Five was the best of the bunch, before they went too slack and lost that edge.

Orange have tried mixing it up suspension-wise with the Blood and the ST4, (which are single pivot but linkaged) but it’s the single pivot bread and butter stuff that sells in volume.

So why not?

Do you actually think a single pivot frame should be £1,500?

Do you think an extra £30 of the SKF catalogue is worth £250 more on the RRP?

There are plenty to chose from on the market in alu and for 0-just £200 more I can get a Rune, Blur TR, Bronson etc etc etc etc frame.

Excatly, so the Orange is cheaper (or at least mid-priced). Not some overpriced dinasaur some on this thread make it out to be.

This is not Orange though is it? My understanding that is Orange are an small off-shoot of a family sheet metal business. Why would they suddenly start investing in carbon fibre? Then, if they out-sources it.. “they’ll probably lose half their fans in the process” +1

Oddly, I think they’re an offshoot of Tushingham, the windsurf company, so sheet metal bikes is the odd one out, lightweight carbon fibre composites would be right at home!

Orange are expensive because they have become an aspirational brand. People believe that buying one buys them into some kind of club whose motto is “it must be better because it’s more expensive “. Orange know they can charge what they like and still sell

In general British manufacturing is guilty of believing it’s own hype that it’s the best just because it’s designed / built here. Thankfully there are some around who are still pushing boundaries but they have to keep doing so otherwise our high value / low volume stuff such as aerospace and motor sport will dissappear overseas too.

I think orange are also guilty of not having a plan, their lineup changes seem slapdash and ill thought out, this bike is so similar to others they produce they are confusing their customers.

thisisnotaspoon Its not just skf bearings sellotaped to a frame though is it?

The SC frames have to be made in Taiwan, shipped to the US (import taxes costs etc), then imported over here, shipping/duty etc ontop.

I’m guessing here and fabricators aren’t paid rockstar wages – Orange full suss’s dont have shipping or import duty here, nor the Distributors mark up.

Once upon a time Orange were bang-on in the market place. Nowadays no.

The Union jack badge should be licenced to new and innovative British products or companies. OT I guess but more annoyingly are the companies that put a Union Jack on their product with ‘designed in the UK’

Oddly, I think they’re an offshoot of Tushingham, the windsurf company, so sheet metal bikes is the odd one out, lightweight carbon fibre composites would be right at home!

Isn’t the only connection that Lester Noble used to work at Tushingham when they did the bikes, then split off to form Orange?
That’s how I understood it anyway.

I’ve no idea when/how the uk manufacturing part of it all started.

The SC frames have to be made in Taiwan, shipped to the US (import taxes costs etc), then imported over here, shipping/duty etc ontop.

And you think this makes them better value!?
That’s so messed up

£1499.99 for the basic Five frame, £2.5K for the ‘S’ build with no options… you really think that’s particularly good value?

And no I don’t expect to be getting a Carbon five equivalent for the same sort of money (today), but Orange aren’t even dabbling with it yet are they? Where other Niche and mainstream manufacturers have been making carbon FS bikes for a few years already…

Orange are supposed to be a “premium brand” they certainly don’t have any cheap products, and its interesting you mention SC as they seem to have understood the market trajectory far better, and already produce versions of most of their bikes in both Aluminium and Carbon (obviously for at a higher price point), composites have come a long way quite fast, and within the next 5 years or so I’d expect to see some of the big boys (Specialized/Giant/Trek/Kona) or maybe even some of the smaller manufacturers, get a Carbon FS frameset/complete bikes on the market for ~Five money… And where will Orange be? Still asking for your left kidney as a down payment on a vaguely tweaked, two decade old design, Aluminium FS frame…

Simplicity may be one of their strengths but its not like that can’t be replicated in Taiwan for a fraction of the price, So really they’re relying on our affinity for “Britishness” while there are already brands quietly taking sales away from them in their home market that none of us had heard of a decade ago…

Who said better value? The max I’d pay for a single pivot frame is £999. Basically prices from 5yrs ago. I just think the mountain bike market/whats on offer has moved on sooo much since then.

Hora, please just stop.

Genuinely the most innovative bike I’ve ever seen Orange produce. Without question I will buy one 😉

The max I’d pay for a single pivot frame is £999

Now that you’ve said that they can get right on with making the perfect frame for you.

Which you will sell after a fortnight.

If you don’t get it, then fine. That doesn’t mean that people that do are wrong. They just don’t share your opinion.

I think orange are also guilty of not having a plan, their lineup changes seem slapdash and ill thought out, this bike is so similar to others they produce they are confusing their customers.

True, but equaly their production methods mean they can make them almost one at a time, so no need to plan ahead production runs, Trek probably make a year’s worth of Remedy’s in a month, then shelve the tooling to make way for a years worth of Fuel’s. Which then means they have to launch them and hype them up to get them shifted out of their stock.

The advantage to Orange is it probably makes little difference to them whether you order a 5, an 5 alpine, a patriot, a gyro, a segment, or any other size/variant, it’ll take them the same time in the build que. So no harm in offering similar bikes, launching new ones and quietly dropping others because they don’t have either the R&D/tooling costs or the inventory of other brands. Infact the big boys are building to the model the british car industry was stuck with, long development cycles and large stock inventories, Orange are closer to the Toyota just in time manufacturing and kaizen/continuous improvement.

£1499.99 for the basic Five frame, £2.5K for the ‘S’ build with no options… you really think that’s particularly good value?

As pointed out, that’s slap bang in the middle of the aluminium frame market. Appart from Hora it would appear that’s what people are paying. There are a few notable exceptions which are cheaper (Codine), but overall the frames seem to be the same price as anything else.

People believe that buying one buys them into some kind of club

And buying a santa cruz doesn’t?

Orange are closer to the Toyota just in time manufacturing and kaizen/continuous improvement.

maybe more by accident than design, but its a better place to be

But is it better? Do many companies sell a carbon frame for orange 5 money?

without a doubt ,not many why would you have a cow and sell the milk cheap to supermarket if you can sell it to yuppies for double bubble

thisisnotaspoon – Member

True, but equaly their production methods mean they can make them almost one at a time, so no need to plan ahead production runs

Though… There’s normally benefits to the consumer with that as well but that doesn’t seem to happen with Orange. You can’t buy parts for discontinued frames frinstance, they stopped providing non-warranty replacement parts for the 26 inch Five the day they canned it. (ironically the bits you can buy, are the more mass-produced bits like bearing caps etc, because they make or order those by the batch)

Looking at the factory shots it looks like Orange do produce-to-sell rather than produce-to-order.

maybe more by accident than design, but its a better place to be

I was thinking allong the lines of why they wouldn’t change than why they’d ended up there, if they (as someone sugested) outsourced to Tiawan it would probably (as Hora points out inadvertantly whilst trying to make out they’re too expensive) cost the same as making them in the UK. And they’d probably now have a warehouse of Gyro’s on offer that (seemed to have) stopped selling when the 5 alpine came out.

a slightly longer slacker gyro

basically next years gyro

I guess they have some gyros to sell then it will go

I think orange are also guilty of not having a plan,

Their problem was the unexpected and long-lived success of the original Five. Without breaking confidences of private conversations they have been worried for a while about the Five “bubble” bursting and their sales pretty much drying up, so trying to make ‘on-trend’ versions of the Five and follow the market is an obvious move.

I’ve never understood people buying their full builds, especially with upgrades. As has been said before in similar threads, Orange charge you pretty much the full rrp for the new part (eg. CCDB, Hope bling) as an upgrade cost, but don’t give you the original part (eg RP23, SLX). They should be charging you the difference, as it is youre basically paying for two shocks/bottom brackets/whatever and only getting one.

Irrespective of the rear suspension design, which is a personal choice there are few true 140 mm travel trail bikes with as good a geometry as a Five, the Banshee Spitfire is very similar.
Likewise the Banshee Phantom is similar to the Segment in concept, as is the Kona 111.
I don’t think 27.5 lbs ( without pedals) for a 650 Five is unduly heavy, despite not being Carbon?

I don’t think 27.5 lbs ( without pedals) for a 650 Five

Pfft, (without wheels) maybe 😛

The medium RS was weighed by Bikeradar at 28.7 lbs, even with the nobby nics fitted which you’d almost certainly replace with something heavier… You could lose an extra pound I reckon but it’d be quite expensive, and that’s a £4200 bike already.

But the frame is not a bad weight at all. It shouldn’t be to be fair, pretty simple design- most companies invest tons of effort in making their linkages and pivots light 😉

Why do Orange persist with ISCG Old?

They’re the one design where nothing’s going to interfere with chainguide placement.

You could lose an extra pound I reckon but it’d be quite expensive, and that’s a £4200 bike already.

but no one bats an eyelid at a 5k trek or spesh? which lets face it spesh has had a horst link for 18 years

honourablegeorge – Member

Why do Orange persist with ISCG Old?

I think they bought 10000 ISCG plates in 2003 😆 It works though and I reckon a lot of Orange owners upgrade through the years so it’s nice to keep standards the same from that point of view. I like it, I got a very cheap MRP G3 for mine because no bugger wants modern guides in Old.

mickmcd – Member

but no one bats an eyelid at a 5k trek or spesh?

Neither company makes a £5000 mountain bike in this bracket?

But here’s a fair comparison, a £4500 Expert Evo Carbon has a meaningfully higher spec through most of it than the £4200 RS- comes ready to ride/race which IMO the SE does not- and weighs in at damn nearly 2 lbs less. That despite the 29er weight penalty.

I’m not sure why people have a problem with this from either side; Orange are obviously not trying to compete on price. They apparently sell every bike they can make so why would they? But it seems like some folks get quite tied up in defending their decisions.

(I’m not in the market for a £4500 bike but if I bought one and it had Mavic 319s and £500-bike-spec Nobby Nics on it I’d wee in my own shoes)

I think they bought 10000 ISCG plates in 2003

…. I’d wee in my own shoes

that’s 2 lots of Hobgoblin Ruby I have to wipe off my laptop screen, so thanks for that 🙂

I’m not sure why people have a problem with this from either side

any comment made on a forum can be turned into spin

People need to get over the weight issue, it is a non issue in reality.
When Peat won his WC he used a heavy old DH bike on a course more suited to enduro machines…. people quibbling over a 2lb difference need a reality check, I bet blindfolded nobody on here could swap between bikes with a 2lb weight difference and notice…. and that’s before some riders then go putting dual ply tyres on the bike, carrying around 2 litres of drink in their camelpak, fitting heavier than standard dropper posts, wider (heavier in most cases) bars, knee pads, elbow armour etc etc….but yeah, keep on believing you’re enough of a connoisseur to notice a 2lb weight difference between mountain bikes!

The average STW-er could be riding a 25lb enduro rocket and Nico Vouilloz would still come haring past on a 40lb tank such is the skill difference….and that’s what actually matters not a trifling 2lb in weight…. this thread is comedy gold.

deviant – Member

People need to get over the weight issue, it is a non issue in reality.
When Peat won his WC he used a heavy old DH bike

Er… You do know they went as far as to remove the paint from the wheel rims to save weight? 😆

Not long bought me second orange, had a 5 for a few years now using an alpine RS. Totally agree about all the weight malarkey. Makes no difference 2ibs. I’ve ridden all the main brands over the years and more than happy with the crane. Each to there own kids. Did like the dig at strava though. Made me chuckle.

Where’s this price list by suspension design that Hora seems to have gotten hold of?

“When Peaty”. You know hes one talented rider no?

If you asked him what the best bike was- what would he answer?

Like I said now the loyal circle of fans are posting. Tend to be older/ageing (44+) demographic too 😉