https://robotbike.co

http://olsenbicycles.com

Two amazing British made bikes which seem to offer really good value for money, customisation, UK support.

I’ve not heard of anyone that’s bought one.

The Robot seems only slightly more expensive than a Santa Cruz carbon. The Olsen actually seems much cheaper than many.

Is it the custom aspect of these bikes that frighten people? Whilst many on here seem to be happy to discuss at length how X model has reach+rise that are “old skool”, people are cautious about ordering a bespoke model with the geometry that they would have to define themselves?

only slightly more expensive than a Santa Cruz

really good value for money,

Errr …..

(and I say that as an ex-SC owner and as someone who has had custom frames made)

The Olsen is £1200!

Maybe that’s “really good value” to people who buy trousers from yourselves, to me that’s a months wages!

Remember when you made 456 frames 10 years ago and they were frequently £100-£150 in the every other week On-One sales? A lot of the country has had a real terms pay cut since then.

And before someone points out that a pair of £100 trousers is good value because they last longer than a 6x pairs of jeans from sainsburys, how many people have actually killed a 456?

Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.

– Oscar Wilde

1. Website is crap

2. Links off models page do nothing useful on my browser

3. Bikes don’t look anything special

4. Never heard of them

5. What makes them stand out over all or any others?

And what’s  that Olsen website doing? White text on a pale grey background that changes as you read it?

Did anyone actually try the website on a mobile device before hand? God it’s a monstrosity.

Why would I not just buy 2 Stanton frames for example?

personally if I had the cash I wouldn’t be spending it on a santa-cruz . It would be on a smaller brand though (German or poss UK).

Unfortunately I don’t have the cash…..

Imo santa-cruz are dangerously in the ‘orange 5’ category of a few years ago of being the go to brand of the audi brigade. Nothing wrong with them, just a bit 2 a penny…..

Custom is scary for a lot of people.

I’ve been road riding for over 40 years and I reckon I’ve only just sussed out what works for me.

Would love a custom road frame and I know that with the help of a good designer and  builder I’d get exactly what I want.

Off road, I’d be a bit lost tbh.

I nearly went for one of your custom titanium frames (fancy a versatile flat bar  hardtail with modern geo) but I’m still learning. Haven’t ridden enough bikes yet to trust my own experience.

I suspect I’m not alone.

There’s so much contradictory info out there, bikes change at a frightening rate. It’s not surprising that people stick with the seemingly ‘safer’ option.

If say a custom road bike is a damn site more common than a mtb though – I have a few mates with maybe 4 or 5 custom road bikes between them. None of my mtb mate have a custom bike.

Strange as it seemed to be more common in the 90s. Maybe the big brands are doing better high end bikes now for better value than we used to get. Also the marketing power of a big brand is huge!

Look at Starling cycles though – he seems to be selling a fair few……

@thisisnotaspoon – I had forgotten that Wilde phrase was in Shady Wonder Mere’s Fin, I know it from A Picture of Dorain Gray, when Lord Henry Wootton says it.

The Olsen doesn’t appear to be that customisable geometry-wise.

And why did Robot name their Horst suspension design dw6?

I think there is so much choice with excellent off the peg bikes just now, you have to really want a custom build or are such a mutant shape* that only custom will work.
It’s a bit like buying books or music. Downloaded or bought from a big supermarket ,it’s still the same material that you get from an independent seller, just a different shopping experience. Some people really like that.
I bought a custom build, but it was mostly for small frame details (add ons),colour scheme and talking through the process with the builder.**

* My mutant shape only requires small tweeks

**This is what I enjoyed the most,oh and that nobody else in the whole wide world has one like it.. 🙂

The robot bikes are £900 (30%) more than the santa Cruz cc frames so not really “slighlty” more.  And whilst you can customise the geometry you can have either a 160mm 650b or a 130mm 29er so you are fairly restricted on the bike choice.

So if they fit exactly what you want regarding wheel size/travel, and you’re happy to pay a 30% premium on top of an already top end frame then they’re great.

As someone who could easily have been an Olsen customer (he’s relatively local to me and I wanted a gearbox bike) I can tell you why I didn’t buy one and ended up taking a punt on a Sick bike instead. I wanted a 650b bike that can take bigish tyres and has at least semi long/low/slack geometry and a Pinion gearbox. I looked at the Olsen bike repeatedly but ultimately decided it was a 29er old school xc geometry bike that was now being bodged to fit current trends. Much as I wanted a gearbox this one was not for me

I agree with the comment about custom geo being scary.

I reckon most, including me, like to think we are buying what’s considered “good” geo by current standards and what we are told is “good” but having to actually choose it and wonder if we then got it right (with limited resale options I would think) is frankly scary to me!o

4. Never heard of them

That basically.

Never heard of one. The other I’d only heard about in a FGF or something as a niche type thing one might find as a near 1-off custom prototype at a handbuilt show or something.

£1200 – not so bad, I thought. That’s kind of in the the same price as my fullsuss.  Oh £1200 is only a hardtail?

What I can afford and what I can justify are not the same thing.

1. Website is crap

I think I need to go to specsavers. Had to highlight all the text on the screen to be able to read it. Cos for half the autochanging backdrops the words are the same colour as the photo.

only slightly more expensive than a Santa Cruz

really good value for money

I see them as overpriced far too common bikes. Apologies to SC owners. I did contemplate buying one though.

There are hundreds of custom frame builders. And that’s just in UK. Most are going to be niche or rare regardless of price, mainly because they are hidden, and not in plain sight.

I think that whilst FGF and  lot of the press coverage gives the impression that the industry is all about carbon superbikes with  country mile of wheelbase and angles slacker than a politicians morals.  The reality is most of my riding group still ride mid range hardtails, mostly a a few years old. Fads like fat bikes, CX/gravel are represented but they’re probably only 1 in 10, whereas ST would have you thinking you can’t be a real MTBer unless you own every n+1 personally.

I’m sure those people exist, infact we all know some of them, but they’re not common.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>And why did Robot name their Horst suspension design dw6?</span>

It’s not a Horst/4bar. There’s 2x links behind the BB which effectively do the job of controlling the axle path just like an old skool DW link frame, so there’s actually 3 elements between the BB and rear axle.

The idea is that the chainstay follows a set path regardless of length, so of you want a longer/shorter chainstay you still get the same travel and suspension characteristics. Whereas a 4/bar or single pivot would get more travel and higher shock rate as you made the bike longer.

I wonder how  a robot hard tail would cost? Probably still prohibitively  expensive. It would be cool though.

Never heard of them. poor advertising? Airdrop is another small uk builder that most probably have heard of, offering solid bikes with very good vfm. Probably going after a different market though I guess.

Both the websites seems ever slower than here, so I didnt bother to dig too deep.

Also Im not sure I could be bothered to spec my own geometry, I would rather an expert decided this for me. Its like having a forum where you have to be a web developer to be able to post anything more than text.

Never heard of them. poor advertising?

Never heard of one

Until now……

Airdrop are not a UK builder/ manufacturer.

Anyone else think Brant has got bored of making troos and is doing some stealth market research for a new project?

Yep. It smells like it

Santa Cruz have been around for ages – chances are they will be around for a long time more. They have proven designs with a track record and more importantly a track record of build quality and warranty. What happens when a niche frame builder either goes bust or simply just decides to close one company and start another…..where is the proven track record and warranty then. Sure you might be OK but……….

Can’t really understand why you don’t see many £1,200 hardtail frames from a brand never heard of either 🤷‍♂️

Never heard of them. poor advertising?

Maybe not the most effective advertising I’ve ever seen.

But at least, by making it look like a normal forum post, it was free 👍

Nice follow up to Fresh Goods Friday… 🙂

quote

Airdrop are not a UK builder/ manufacturer.

quote

airdrop are a uk company, where the frames are build, i do not care.

Also, if you’re looking for lightweight, a SC CC frame is much lighter than the equivalent RobotBikes.

Didnt the Olsen guy take over at Planet X only to leave when Brant went back?

By press coverage you mean the advertorials? Or the copy manufacturers send in to PR their products via their mates websites?

That Olsen is properly ugly

Its like having a forum where you have to be a web developer to be able to post anything more than text.

😂

I had a ride around on a Robot 29er at the world cup last summer.  I thought it felt great, and looks amazing.

At the time though, I was after a B+ full sus.  I asked them if they had plans to make such a thing, since each BB junction is ‘printed’ individually anyway and it would just need wider swingarm mounts then to glue the tubes into.

That was a no.  So I bought a Pole.

I think they are missing a trick by not being a bit more custom.  I appreciate it’s niche, but it’s a niche market they are after anyway.

If it’s just a 29er or 650 bike, then there are so many really good, off the shelf options available that  it makes much more sense.

Perhaps making a BB 27mm wider is much harder than I appreciate though.

I’d also worry about handing over all that cash to a small company that offers a warranty, but may well fold at any time.  I run a small business myself so know how precarious it can be.

IIt’s not a Horst/4bar. There’s 2x links behind the BB which effectively do the job of controlling the axle path just like an old skool DW link frame, so there’s actually 3 elements between the BB and rear axle.

The idea is that the chainstay follows a set path regardless of length, so of you want a longer/shorter chainstay you still get the same travel and suspension characteristics. Whereas a 4/bar or single pivot would get more travel and higher shock rate as you made the bike longer.

I wonder how  a robot hard tail would cost? Probably still prohibitively  expensive. It would be cool though.

Ah I can see the extra pivot now.  So it is a “two short link” with a Horst link added on to that.  Groovy.  But surely to keep suspension characteristics the same, the shape (not length) of the suspension path would need to alter with chainstay length?

@bedmaker, why new BB shell for ‘b+?  They run on standard cranks unlike fatties. Back end wants to be wider, but BB she’ll itself should be unchanged…

I’m not working for Robot Bikes. I saw their frame in fgf and thought that it looked cool. That reminded me of Olsen, who I don’t work for either, and who block me from most of their social medias on most of my accounts.

I’m not starting my own bike brand (currently) though if I were, it wouldn’t be a mountainbike brand.

Really interesting responses though. Thanks for all contributions.

@vincienup  Correct!  I’m talking rubbish.  IT was just the wider linkages required to widen the swingarm.

As it happens, there’s another custom fatbike frame buzzing around in my head at the moment putting me doolally…

when robot can fabricate the entire bike using additive manufacturing with options for ‘braze-ons’ bb, dropouts, etc. and do it for a reasonable price i’m in.

wrt to the olsen, is there a quicker, more effective way of making an ugly frame look uglier than by sticking a lauf fork on the front?

I think the robot bikes look great, id much rather pay the premium over a SC.

Can’t say I’ve much interest in a pinion bike, not until you can use one with a proper shifter. The Olsen is not something I’d look out for. Are the complete geometries quoted on site?

They look interesting but way out my price range. I’d rather have either than a santa cruz though. MTB is very brand orientated and fashion/lifestyle influenced, especially in the stw readership I’d imagine, where you’d need a santa cruz on top of your audi, not some olsen that nobody will recognise and be unable to categorise you as a wealthy successful aspiring enduroist