UK built bikes.

reckless_rat

OK theres Felt, Orange, Dawes. But can anyone think of any other mountain bike manufactures from the UK?

blakef111

on-one and that new one Shedfire

KnightofCydonia

saracen?

Rodmc

How about Pace, Whyte, Genesis, Kinesis, Cotic, Charge & Zerofour these are the ones that come of the top of my head.

However with a bit of digging I am sure there are more smaller manufacturers out there.

However you have to define 'UK built', do you mean manufactured here in the UK or 'designed and put together' :?:

Many UK bike companies frames are UK designed and manufacturered in the Far East (and the US for titianium), then shipped over here to be sold & or put together.

For example I have a Trek that states 'handbuilt in the USA', which actually means the frame was made in the Far East and the bike was put together in America.

Mancunianfightingcat

Empire Bikes,


http://www.empire-cycles.com/

reckless_rat

Just built in the UK im not fussed about where the frame was designed -

I make Promotional Films and as part of a marketing stratagy my bosses finally started to listen when i say "why not try to get into promoting UK built mountain bikes you know like orange?"

so now i have the duty of finding out how many there are and getting the contact details for them !

thank you all for helping me in this

If you want to have a look at our website its

http://www.lenzflare.com

ratty2k

singular cycles

Raymondavalon

reckless_rat wrote:

OK theres Felt, Orange, Dawes. But can anyone think of any other mountain bike manufactures from the UK?

*Buzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Wrong! Felt is a U.S. company, not British.

Soul Boy

Curtis is another

sparrowlegs78

Merlin..of the Malt and Rock lobster bikes

Northwind

Though Merlin frames are designed and built by Kinesis aren't they?

On One frames have a nice sticker on 'em, "Designed in Yorkshire, made in Taiwan", which sums it up quite well- britain still has great designers but it doesn't make much sense to actually make the frames here, since the far eastern companies are cheaper, and every bit as good. But then again the manufacturers who really like to go for the "made in the uk" thing know that people will pay extra for that. Where it was made isn't really all that important, it's the design that counts IMO.

Graham Wallace

The History of Mountain Biking in Britain - (The Early Pioneers)

This History is periodically updated as new and verifiable information is recieved.

Last updated: 13/March/2009

This information is based on detailed research and is mostly based on published and verifiable resources. However, many of the events referred to were not documented at the time, but some years later. Many of the exact dates are not known.

1955 onwards The Rough Stuff Fellowship used a variety of existing bike designs and some modifications were made to improve performance. There is evidence that a few custom built frames were made and fitted with suitable components i.e: alpine gears, cantilever brakes etc. The idea was to, whenever possible, get off the roads and cycle along lanes and byways. If the going got tough the riders would simply get off and walk.


What was the first ‘Mountain Bike to be made in Britain? There is little doubt that the Geoff Apps designed Range Rider was the first ‘Mountain Bike’ to be made in Britain. These were designed without any knowledge of the American bikes and so should be considered as a seperate lineage of off-road bike. The first prototype was made in 1968 based on a Raleigh Explorer frame. Experiments using a variety of road bike framesets continued throughout the 1970s. His bikes mostly used 2 inch wide, 650b, knobbly snow tyres from Finland. His first Range Rider bikes, using a custom designed (un-braced) framesets were designed in 1978) I believe the frames where made by Dees Cycles of Amersham in 1979. These bikes had all the features of the Mountain bike, though their design was arrived at independently. I believe that these bikes were the first British made Mountain Bikes. (One version had drum brakes another rim brakes).
Later versions of these were sold by Cleland Cycles (Geoff’s own company), English Cycles, and Highpath Engineering over the next ten years. They were built to order and as far as I know never mass produced. In October 1981 Nick Crane rode a third generation Range Rider prototype up Snowdon.

The above bikes were designed as if getting off and walking was a criminal offence. Geoff Apps was also a trials motorbike rider. They were designed completely for off-road use. They are the tractors of the Mountain Bike world, tall, functional and reliable.

http://www.james-walters.net/cleland/cl ... story.html


Who made the first American style Mountain Bike in Britain?(
1981) A US style Mountain Bike was made by
Chas Roberts at the request of an American customer.
Amateur frame builder Tony Oliver also made himself one which he exibited at the 1981 York Cycle Show.


Who brought the first American style Mountain Bike into Britain?
(1978) Journalist Richard Grant brought over a 1st generation Gary Fisher built ‘clunker’. He exhibited this bike at the 1978 Olympia cycle show.

By the end of 1982 American built Ritcheys were being brought into England. I remember it being received wisdom that Norman Hiller of Covent Garden Cycles brought over the first purpose built US Mountain Bike, an early Tom Ritchey built Bike. Others claim that either Journalist Richard Grant or Richard Ballantine brought across the first Ritcheys from the States. Richard Ballantine's two bikes brought over for a Saharan expedition were the inspiration London bike shop, F.W. Evans Cycles, to design a Mountain Bike that became the FW Evans ATB, Saracen ATB. Both bikes were identical, apart from the first being usualy painted silver and the latter being painted black or red. In July 1984 I hired a black FW Evans ATB from Kinston Cycles, its frame no was 001.



Which was the first Mountain Bike mass-produced in Britain?
Raleigh Bomber? 1981 (I don’t think so). They were American style Beach Cruisers. Only three speed hub gears, calliper brakes and small frame/seat Designed for teenagers who were outgrowing their BMX bikes.

Early 1984 F.W. Evans ATB/Saracen ATB? (Manufactured by Bluemels).
In 1982/3, Richard Ballantine asked London bike shop F.W. Evans Cycles to build up two Ritchey frames he had brought from the U.S. for Tim Gartside's and Peter Murphy's ,February 1983, Saharan expedition. Evans were curios and persuaded Bluemels to build some bikes based on what they had seen. The resulting FW Evans ATBs were mostly silver and branded under the shops own marque. The Bluemels’ own Saracens bikes were identical, apart from being painted black.

The other early British made bike was the Dawes Ranger.

As for the Raleigh Maverick, I remember these as being surprisingly late to the party. The earliest contemporary reference I can find is October 1985. And were "made in Japan", and so don’t qualify as British. British made versions were eventualy mass produced at a later date?


Which was the first mass-produced Mountain Bike imported into Britain?
I am not sure about this but the Freewheel, mail order catalogue, included far east made Ridgeback bikes from 1883 onwards. The first that I personally saw were Ritchey Montares in late Late1983, though many other models had arrived by mid 84.

sparrowlegs78

Northwind wrote:

Though Merlin frames are designed and built by Kinesis aren't they?

On One frames have a nice sticker on 'em, "Designed in Yorkshire, made in Taiwan", which sums it up quite well- britain still has great designers but it doesn't make much sense to actually make the frames here, since the far eastern companies are cheaper, and every bit as good. But then again the manufacturers who really like to go for the "made in the uk" thing know that people will pay extra for that. Where it was made isn't really all that important, it's the design that counts IMO.

Northwind, Yup the frames are built by Kinesis..they have a UK branch haven't they?
They are assembled in Chorley
Cazxx

blakef111

oooh
pashley are handbuilt in stratford upon avon my mates doing his work experiance there

rackgaki

ill second curtis they look top class

turpinr

so thats orange(some) and curtis then !!

turpinr

sparrowlegs78 wrote:

Northwind wrote:

Though Merlin frames are designed and built by Kinesis aren't they?

.Where it was made isn't really all that important, it's the design that counts IMO


its important to people who work in the manufacturing industry though.
bet your not an office worker are you ????

sparrowlegs78

Pardon?.

turpinr

do you know what manufacturing is ??

sparrowlegs78

Nope, I'm blonde and i live in a cave on craggy island ;lol;
Caz xxxx

rwalworth

Curtis have one frame build in taiwan now to pretty much keep the company afloat

clodhoppa74

tried asking the peoples at mbr, mbuk etc? they might be able to help you if you give them a ring, they'll have the pr people's numbers if nowt else. and if you ever want any graphics doing for said promo vid..

Northwind

turpinr wrote:

its important to people who work in the manufacturing industry though.
bet your not an office worker are you ????

It would be important to people who work in the bike manufacturing industry, if we had one :roll: . But say On One decided tomorrow to get the frames made in the UK... Too bad, nobody here can do it in volume.

What we do have, is some of the best bike designers in the world. And far eastern manufacturers make it possible for these designers to produce their own frames- without efficient, high quality foreign bike building there'd be no Cotic or On One, among others. British skill and far eastern construction is a great combo.

grantway

Reckless go to Orange.co.uk and go onto contact.

They will help you from there

cee

plus there must be loads of boutique/shed built bikes too...

millyard racing obviously, but i-cycles in innerleithen have built a couple of steel DH frames...last I spoke to them they were trying to get an alloy one together.

forcutty

Northwind wrote:

It would be important to people who work in the bike manufacturing industry, if we had one :roll: . But say On One decided tomorrow to get the frames made in the UK... Too bad, nobody here can do it in volume.

What we do have, is some of the best bike designers in the world. And far eastern manufacturers make it possible for these designers to produce their own frames- without efficient, high quality foreign bike building there'd be no Cotic or On One, among others. British skill and far eastern construction is a great combo.

You say it i'll machine it!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.rgprecisionltd.co.uk/

We've made parts China/Taiwan even America laugh at!!!!
Britain ain't dead yet, only the hardcore remain. :shock:

Northwind

Yeah, but the question isn't can you make anything they can- it's can you knock out a thousand frames at a reasonable price and in a short timescale? It's that middle ground which we don't have, really. Boutique and one-off builders are pretty much outside of the regular industry.

turpinr

Northwind wrote:

turpinr wrote:

its important to people who work in the manufacturing industry though.
bet your not an office worker are you ????

What we do have, is some of the best bike designers in the world. And far eastern manufacturers make it possible for these designers to produce their own frames- without efficient, high quality foreign bike building there'd be no Cotic or On One, among others. British skill and far eastern construction is a great combo.

you left out the word "cheap" there.
if we were on a level playing field with the far east on wages ,it would be different
ie paying THEM the same wages as our skilled workers.

Northwind

Not really- as I've pointed out several times, we don't have a mass production bike industry sat around ready to crank out thousands of frames on request as they do. It'd be nice to think that it's all about price but it's really not- it's price, quality and availability of expertise and facilities. If you wanted to produce a lot of bike frames in this country you'd have to start from scratch, and you can't just produce a factory full of skilled bike builders overnight. Even orange only employ 15 people, I think it's true that they're our biggest builder but they can't make all of their own frames in-house.

robertpb

Hi Graham,

That was a good first post on this site. But then I would expect nothing less from you.

Ah the Dawes Ranger, you can still probably remember my big stack on one of those, took my elbow down to the bone.

Is someone still going to organise a summer ride as we discussed on the last Wendover Reunion with Geoff.

turpinr

Northwind wrote:

Not really- as I've pointed out several times, we don't have a mass production bike industry sat around ready to crank out thousands of frames on request as they do. It'd be nice to think that it's all about price but it's really not- it's price, quality and availability of expertise and facilities. If you wanted to produce a lot of bike frames in this country you'd have to start from scratch, and you can't just produce a factory full of skilled bike builders overnight. Even orange only employ 15 people, I think it's true that they're our biggest builder but they can't make all of their own frames in-house.

we don't really have a mass production "ANY " industry thanks to our skilled work being done cheaper elsewhere !!yes i was aware that you can't just start from scratch and i never mentioned a british bike industry,just manufactioning in general !!