made in the uk

hubs, hangers, chainrings
http://www.betd.co.uk

pedals, stems
http://www.burgtec.co.uk

pedals?
chainring?
http://www.thebicycleacademy.org/2013/05/03/balance-bike-course-details/

Brompton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB37ONIpN1Y

Quite british as in frames are brazed here and they are put together here

but spokes, from belgium, cranks from france, hubs from Taiwan (SA), tyres Taiwan, cables (jagwire) taiwan, saddle seatpin etc etc all from somewhere else.. etc etc

why are people so obsessed with this?

key thing – Brompton designed here..

why are people so obsessed with this?

key thing – Brompton designed here..

I think that’s the main thing, it matters less that we make Everything as a nation and more that we make Something i.e. innovative high quality products especially as you pointed out British designed ones.

The key to arresting a declining manufacturing industry is not to Horde manufacture and make poor VFM, expensive products in some sort of protectionist effort, but to try and identify areas where we can bring better skills and technical knowledge to bear on specialist products, Brompton and Moulton folders are a good example, products that have been copied to a certain extent in the east, but not really bettered.

When I bought my Colnago I wanted to build an ‘all Italian’ road bike but it is not really possible… my frame is made in China, the tyres in France, the inner tubes in China, the pedals in Malaysia, the bar tape ‘who-knows-where?’ etc… I think the only things really made in Italy are the Fizik Arione saddle and Campagnolo Record groupset. Possibly the Deda bars and stem.. but not sure about those really.

What I’ve ended up with is not an ‘Italian bike’ but more of an ‘Italian-flavoured’ bike. I’m happy enough with that. 😀

I would think that you could easily get an ‘UK-flavoured’ bike together. There are enough good UK brands in the market to do so.

It would certainly be possible – but I doubt you could do it with off the shelf parts.

Here’s a woodworking project built by one of my students earlier this year (I should add, it was a furniture making course – we don’t normally build bikes!).

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