What would you pay for a 100% British made frame?

How much would you be willing to pay for a 100% British made frame or built bike. Not so much a complete custom frame but an off the peg that you can at least can spec drop out type, colour scheme.

Say top of the range steel Reynolds 953 29er hardtail,

What would you be looking for apart from price to buy British over the main established players.

Less than I would for a 100% Taiwanese made one. The Taiwanese have a hell of a lot of practice at welding. Id pay more for better tubing though.

Realistically I can’t see the frame you state being any less than£1300 that’s based on custom prices for a 953 I’ve seen at about £1600/1700. I just don’t see there being a big enough market to allow volume to get the price down any lower.

surely if it was top of the range it wouldn’t be a 29er?

I would pay a small premium for made in the UK or Europe given the option, probably around 10%. But as Stoner points out, I wouldn’t want to pay that much to be a guinea pig for a new start-up, only after the products have been shown to have the required quality.

I paid £700-800 for an 853 curtis about 7 years ago (plus £100 for paragon dropouts from the states), at the time an 853 inbred was £300, and 853 rockymountain was £600, I think it was good value as at the time what I wanted wasn’t available elsewhere. I think now I’d struggle to justify it.

Got my Curtis for £180 from CRC. British steel assembled by British workers. I can’t help feeling that someone lost some money along the way.

Realistically if it’s off the peg then maybe a £100 premium on a Cotic Soul equivalent?

…which part of Britain ?

No premium at all… But then I don’t buy based on where it’s made I buy on its technical capabilities and my need for a specific type of frame.

Some months back Steven (Shand) asked a similar question.

Made for an interesting read.

Basically we know you can get frames from the likes of Cotic, Singular, One one, Pipedream, etc that are all designed here and made in the Far East or there are all the small boutique full custom builders where you are paying at least £1000 for a frame. We are looking at frames similar to say Cotic, Singular type or 26 and 29er frames but fully built in the UK and with custom options that the others just can’t provide. These would be drop out style, disk/canti, BB type, paint colour, graphics colour, etc.

Proces would be well under £1000

Quality wise they would be equal to the custom builders. However we would not be offering fully sized custom frames.

as letmetalktomark said – a search on here would be good. I know 18bikes said they could get quite low prices for largish orders but if it’s still a man in a shed with his files then prices will remain high.

go on then, “quote” me for a

29er
Reynolds 853
EBB shell
vertical drop out/Rohloff dropout on NDS
removeable gear hanger
disk brake mount inside rear triangle
tapered headtube for 120mm sus corrected.
EDIT: Oh and a choice of really good paint.

😀

I think Genesis were saying their 953 race bike was costing considerably more than Ti to work with as even Reynolds were struggling to form the tubes into the shapes they were asking.

So, what would I pay? I wouldn’t, 953 is silly money for something I want to be able to treat badly! 4130 gas pipe or 853 (or somewhere inbetween) on the other hand I’d maybe pay Cotic money for (versus On-one money for tiawanese made)? But it would have to be different in some other way than just a “made in Britain” tag. If you turned up with a £500 british made Singular Swift I’d buy it. But only if you went back in time and prevented the £400 tiawanese made one from being built.

What would you be looking for apart from price to buy British over the main established players

Probably something completely bespoke designed and built by someone I can trust.

As a counterpoint I just bought a carbon 29er frame and forks direct from China for £240 + £30 p&p + £40 import fees. It’s light, looks good, and rides well. No idea what it’s lifespan will be (which also goes for 953 frames) but it would have to be pretty special frame for me too fork out an extra £1000+ for.

Basically we know you can get frames from the likes of Cotic, Singular, One one, Pipedream, etc that are all designed here and made in the Far East or there are all the small boutique full custom builders where you are paying at least £1000 for a frame

Just to clarify has the person making them used any 953 tubing before?

Certainly no more than I paid for any of my On-One frames….they do more than I.m capable of and I can buy better spec parts with the cash I save on an expensive frame.

Its an idea we are kicking around to see what we can offer that adds value but still gives a well priced frame. The key thing is that we would be able to offer lots of customisations by changing a few of the manufacturing procedures and processes.

Stoner, give or take what you ask is all the type of stuff we would be looking to offer

953 tubing was just an example of the types of frame level we would be looking at. We won’t be making British made frames out of cheap steel or scaffolding!!

£350 tops

We won’t be making British made frames out of cheap steel

Why not?

cheep =/= crap

What if I came to you and said I wanted a stiffer frame than you’r 853 model? Would you (assuming we’re already at some practical limit for tube size)
a) overbuild in 853 for the sake of it, costing the cutomer more money for strength they don’t need.
b) switch to thicker wall 753/631/525 etc

Didn’t cotic try 953 and it was too flexible if you try and save weight over 853?

Bloodhound SSC is IIRC using ‘cheep’ 531 tubes.

funny this should come up as i asked for a quote from a local framebuilder a month or two ago…..

came back as follows:

Good to hear you know what you are after! I only use 853 for top and down tubes. Its properties are wasted on seat tubes and stays so I use 4130 cro mo which is easy to get hold of and cheaper. I could do an 853 seat tube if you were desperate.
I would shy away from a tapered head tube, it’ll add so much cost. 44mm head tube is a nice option if you can live with the look.

The frame would be in the region of £1000 and would include the following:
44mm head tube
853 dzb top and down tubes
columbus seat tube and stays
fillet brazed throughout (no lugs)
custom made dropouts for the bolt through
any number of cable guides exactly where you want them
replaceable mech hangar and a couple of hangers
68mm bb shell
142 rear spacing
31.6mm seatpost size for max dropper compatibility

BTR charge about 650 for a UK built semi-custom frame

29er
Reynolds 853
EBB shell
vertical drop out/Rohloff dropout on NDS
removeable gear hanger
disk brake mount inside rear triangle
tapered headtube for 120mm sus corrected.
EDIT: Oh and a choice of really good paint.

About £1200 – but it’d be powdercoated ‘cos I don’t do posh like. And I’d try to talk you into sliding dropouts instead of an EBB.

woody74 – I don’t think you’ll find many people who will pay a “Buy British” premium. If it’s a good frame and competitive price-wise then it’ll probably do okay, but if you’re only offering a few custom choices it might be better to make batches of frames and not do custom at all (or not call it custom).

I have always liked the Whyte Steel frames, look lovely and mine was a blast to ride. Not sure if the whytes were made in the uk.

ben – if I were talking to you about it, youd have to throw some SS couplings in too 🙂

I would pay no more than a Taiwanese frame. Why would I? I pay more for more quality, not some romantic notion of where it’s built that makes no difference to the ride.

I currently ride frames made in the USA, UK, Italy and Taiwan. The USA one was a premium but higher quality and unique, the others ride better than anything else.

You talk about not being “custom” but the only option you Don’t seem to be offering is size. BB style, dropout type, choice of colour – how is that not “custom”?I can’t see how a frame could be made without it’s BB until customer specifies. Painting if you have 20 frames sprayed in the same colour it will be one price. If those 20 are all a different colour there will be extra material wastage, inter colour cleaning labour and materials, small batches of paint and possibly primer as opposed to a bulk purchase. Thus adding cost.

I don’t want to be negative but I don’t see your costing model being very robust. Sorry

Saracen managed to get Enigma to UK build their ‘top of the range’ steel frames recently didn’t they?

I have always liked the Whyte Steel frames, look lovely and mine was a blast to ride. Not sure if the whytes were made in the uk.

AFAIK they are all designed in the UK but made abroad (which I suppose is a reasonable compromise if you still want to “buy british”)

Whatever Ricky ( Feathercycles) tells me it’ll cost…

Ive been allowed one for my 40th by my wife. 🙂

Mind, thats not for a couple of years, so I she needs to start saving.

ben – if I were talking to you about it, youd have to throw some SS couplings in too

Doable, but not for that price – not unless you want a unicycle 😉

Pay ?
It’s the whole process for me ,so I like the idea of buying from the man in the shed with his files.
There is no doubt that factory made stuff ,is built by robot perfect,I just enjoy the custom part,where you talk to another human and get something that feels a bit special.
I shall be having a chat with a frame builder soon ,and will pay what I need to pay .
Having done off the peg for too long my mutant body deserves something nice 🙂

Would said frames be:-

A) Made in a shed.
B) By a man with a beard.

?

quote]–try 953 and it was too flexible if you try and save weight over 853[/quote]dunno about that, I had a 953 MTB made to a lighter spec and same geo as an 853 frame around that time, a lovely ride, only a tad more flexible than the (relativly stiff and mid-weight) 853 frame and about a pound lighter, passed CEN. If it was made to pass the same # of cycles as the 853 it would have been a bit heavier, but the 853 was pre-CEN and if anything was over-built. The 953 was still plenty stiff compared to a number of ti frames available at the time (a couple of which I would rate as wet noodles..)
What you seem to get with 953 is wall thicknesses that would be coke-can like in cr-mo at 32-37mm OD and marginal for MTB use in 853; since dia affects stiffness so much more than wall thickness it should make a good MTB. 931 opens up lower-price possibilities and newer 953 manufacturing seems to have solved early cracking issues.

Back to the OP – A Rourke 953 road is £1600 full custom, I’d not risk a 953 mtb unless the builder had a great track record and experience but up to £1000 or so for an 853 frame with the right options, design and back-up would be OK. It’d need to offer options that a stock frame didn’t since there’s some damn goodbulders in Taiwan making stock frames.

Millhouse, I reckon your potential builder talks much sense )
wwaswas, they were Taiwanese – only the samples were enigma made as an idea trial.

Personally no more than I would pay for a Taiwan frame. Why should I?

If a frame took about 1 week to be built by 1 person, and parts were about 200 pounds for quality tubes etc, then would it be reasonable for the frame to cost about 800? That’s about 600 pounds for around a week’s work???

With workshop running costs etc, that may be optimistic to generate a wage, then there is tax etc. But if it took less time for an experienced engineer to do, and if it was not full custom, just perhaps tweaks to basic designs and so one, perhaps this would be reasonable???

(Lots of ??? I know, but I am just guessing here).

I know that I would pay a premium of 100-200 over the price of a Soul for it to be UK built with perhaps choice of cable guides and dropouts etc in a ‘limited custom’ form.

I wouldn’t pay a premium. More interested in quality of frame rather than where it is built. British is not a kitemark for quality.

I want my frame brazed by the local frame builder out of 531 in his kitchen and I want it lugged . It should last me 60 years or so

Personally I feel some of the figures above are crazy money. I can appreciate the effort and costs that go into it. But as a buyer weighing up the options I wouldn’t consider going near anything over £500. Even that I’d be unlikely to go for (I’m not a big spender by nature) but I could justify the costs should I fall in love with the idea.

Anything higher than that is just expensive art in my eyes. Which is all well and good if you have money to throw away – I’d probably buy one then.

depends who is building it. its not so critical for mtb’s but i wouldn’t dream of giving my ££££’s to some of the upstarts who are building road frames that are beautifully finished but lack the years of knowhow that the likes of Rourke, Pegoretti and Richard Sachs etc have yet they are charging the same amount or more.
it’s not so much the construction more the speccing of tube sets and how to tune the ride and fit.
i don’t want the 5th frame you have made i want the 1000th.

I’d probably pay a premium of around 10%. I understand the arguments for the benefits of trade to both parties, but I still think that it has to be better (for me) in the long run if my cash stays in the country. More importantly a bike purchase (for me at least) has never been a purely rational thing. They are more than just a tool to do a job and I like to feel some attachment to them. Being British helps to provide some of that attachment.

However, in practice, I think you need to offer something distinctive and not just a British made version of what’s already out there. I like my Brompton, not just because it’s British, but because it does what no other bike does and is a design classic. Similarly Orange bikes, or at least the iconic Five (love it or hate it) looks distinctive and again could be called a design classic.