Quality, british made stuff

alan_sherman

recetnly I've bought some good qulity stuff. but it has largely been German. Schmidt delux dunohub, B&M light, SKS mudguards.

I know of some good quility british engineered stuff but I'm surprised there isn't more. Maybe with £ to € exchange rate getting more favorable for the pound it will change.

So good quality british stuff that comes to mind is:
Goldtech hubs
Royce hubs and bottom brackets
Brooks saddles (if they are your thing)
Reynolds tubing (even moots send their Titanium tubes to reynolds here for butting)
And of course all the british steel and titanium frame builders.
We have a few niche carbon manufacturers (MDT, fibre lyte)

But what else is there? I'm surprised we have no rims, chainsets or spokes made here. Groupsets are understanably limited with the big 3 now. Sturmney archer are now owned by SRAM (I believe) but is anything actually made in the UK any more.

What else have I missed?

maddog 2

there is always Hope

brakes, rotors, hubs, seatposts, stems, lights and their pre-built MTB wheels - Hoops - are the best value wheelsets out there, full stop.

Middleburn - cranks, rings, various other crank stuff

Chip \'oyler

Lumicycle Lights.

USE seatposts, stems, aerobars etc

huuregeil

Carradice

(Yeah Ortliebs exude german efficiency, but Carradice for me every time for form and function!)

prawny

Plenty of frame builders. Bob Jackson, Brian Rourke, Mercian et al

Orange Mountain Bikes.

Shutt VR clothes

Monty Dog

Aren't Sturmey Archer owned by SunRace?

What many UK businesses failed to grasp is that many 'brands' are in fact marketing companies - sub-contracting manufacturer to lower their cost base and being able to adapt technologies accordingly. Unfortunately, there isn't an enterprise culture in the UK which embraces design and manufacture. The majority of these companies are just a handful of people working in a 'shed'.

tigerben

Exposure lights are designed & made in the UK.... very good they are too.

ynyswen24

Sturmey Archer now a chinese company (SRAM bought Sachs for the hub gears), Brooks are Italian owned (Selle Italia?) and are now more up to speed on marketing and general promotion as a result (though the prices have gone up as a result of being marketed as premium brand). Still made in Smethwick though.

But the Uk still has a fine selection of frame builders and all the component manufacturers named above. I saw one intelligent quote from J. Clarkson (credit where credits not usually due..), "it's not just that Britain doesn't make cars anymore, we don't make anything anymore". Pretty much true sadly but the companies that still do exist, like Hope or Royce are pretty flepping good.

rolf_f

alan sherman wrote:

recetnly I've bought some good qulity stuff. but it has largely been German. Schmidt delux dunohub, B&M light, SKS mudguards.

What else have I missed?

You missed buying Crud mudguards rather than SKS and Hope lights rather than B&M.

Hope also now make road wheels and hubs and MTB brakes - maybe they'll have a go at road brakes too (main problem with Hope is an over enthusiasm for anodising......)

I certainly intend to buy Carradice when I get pannier bags.

Shutt clothing is not only made in the UK (Yorkshire) but the fabric is made here as well. And it gets reviews as good as the likes of Rapha but far cheaper. And they are great folk to deal with. Shutt itself is a small company but it is contributing to the survival of more than one Yorkshire and Lancashire mill.

There's more than you think but you need to make an effort if you want to help the UK out of recession rather than contribute to its demise......

tigerben

Would also add Enigma bikes ...hoping to place my order next week.

themightyw

huuregeil wrote:

Carradice

(Yeah Ortliebs exude german efficiency, but Carradice for me every time for form and function!)

As someone who owns far too much American / Japanese gubbins on my 'road bike' but who is buildling up his tourer frame with as many pure British parts as possible it was wonderful to phone up Carradice this week to enquire about whether they had any Super C rear panniers in stock at the mo. The guy I spoke to told that he'd just watched a lady make a pair of them, and he'd stick them straight in the post.

They arrived today, and I'll use them for many, many years to come.

ShuttVR are newer, but seem to have a similar ethic.

It was great to take delivery of my Brooks saddle on Wednesday - while lifting it out of the box I'm pretty sure that a small squadron of Spitfires flew by, I could smell Winston's cigar smoke, and I was pretty tempted to stand up and salute.

Product development from all of the above is pretty shoddy though. Absolutely nowhere could I find somewhere that sells comfortable wooly slippers with road cleats, or handlebar pipe-holders.

downfader

Love Hope and love Exposure. Wasnt quite sure how British they were, thought the manufacture happened in the far east tbh. :?

Are Kinesis a UK company? I know Enigma and Hewitt frames are. Would be cool to build up a "Best of British" bike 8)

tigerben

Exposure lights are made in the UK I believe...

MattC59

Didn't I read that X-Lite are startig up again ?

As I understand it, there wasn't the time or focus to run the X-Lite and Muc-Off brands. Recently, the guy who set the company up died, so his family are concentrating on teh Muc-Off brand. I believe that Brant Richards has stepped in and bought the machining side of X-Lite.

I had some purple X-Lite bar ends back in about '91, they were great and the company service was great. Don't know where Brant is planning on manufacturing ?

giant_man

Rolf F wrote:

alan sherman wrote:

recetnly I've bought some good qulity stuff. but it has largely been German. Schmidt delux dunohub, B&M light, SKS mudguards.

What else have I missed?

You missed buying Crud mudguards rather than SKS and Hope lights rather than B&M.

Hope also now make road wheels and hubs and MTB brakes - maybe they'll have a go at road brakes too (main problem with Hope is an over enthusiasm for anodising......)

I certainly intend to buy Carradice when I get pannier bags.

Shutt clothing is not only made in the UK (Yorkshire) but the fabric is made here as well. And it gets reviews as good as the likes of Rapha but far cheaper. And they are great folk to deal with. Shutt itself is a small company but it is contributing to the survival of more than one Yorkshire and Lancashire mill.

There's more than you think but you need to make an effort if you want to help the UK out of recession rather than contribute to its demise......

Not always good. Don't get me started on their bespoke stuff. Lack of quality control results in shoddy manufacturing. Not going to go in detail on here. Shutt vr are largely a great little company.

rolf_f

giant mancp wrote:

Not always good. Don't get me started on their bespoke stuff. Lack of quality control results in shoddy manufacturing. Not going to go in detail on here. Shutt vr are largely a great little company.

If you want 100% perfection, all of the time, mass production is always better. You can expect quality control slips with lower production stuff, particularly in the early days. It is how the company handles such issues that makes the difference.

As to quality control failures - I haven't bought that much stuff but I've had regular failures with Endura and an expensive pair of Santini Bibs where all of the lock stitching didn't! If I have any problems with Shutt, I'll just cycle over and ask them to sort it out

giant_man

Rolf F wrote:

giant mancp wrote:

Not always good. Don't get me started on their bespoke stuff. Lack of quality control results in shoddy manufacturing. Not going to go in detail on here. Shutt vr are largely a great little company.

If you want 100% perfection, all of the time, mass production is always better. You can expect quality control slips with lower production stuff, particularly in the early days. It is how the company handles such issues that makes the difference.

As to quality control failures - I haven't bought that much stuff but I've had regular failures with Endura and an expensive pair of Santini Bibs where all of the lock stitching didn't! If I have any problems with Shutt, I'll just cycle over and ask them to sort it out

That's one way of putting it. But what would you care? It's not your purchase is it. Just because you've had good buying experiences doesn't mean it happens every time. And please don't try me with the 'early days' thing either. If a company starts off producing good quality stuff it gains a reputation. It's retaining that reputation which is the trick .....

rolf_f

giant mancp wrote:

That's one way of putting it. But what would you care? It's not your purchase is it. Just because you've had good buying experiences doesn't mean it happens every time. And please don't try me with the 'early days' thing either. If a company starts off producing good quality stuff it gains a reputation. It's retaining that reputation which is the trick .....

This explains a lot. I comment that small companies can have problems with sorting QC in the early days and it is how they handle it that determines the difference. You actually agree with my point yet do it by jumping down my throat.

Have you ever considered that a less antagonistic approach might yield better results?
You might also try listening to what people say (or actually reading their posts!). It really helps.......

mattbass789

I was thinking about doing a piece on something like this. A best of British if you will!

I speak on behalf of everyone at shutt, we're so proud to be thought of when people think about quality, british made gear. After all it's everything we aim for.

What about comtat.... I know they source frames, and parts from elsewhere. Sadly no british groupset manufacturers I know of. But they definatley look like quality stuff.

onthefells

bought an Exposure MaxxDD front light and its the dogs. Extremely bright, 4 modes icluding flashing, excellent quick release system, battery all in the unit so no wires and its rechargable...what more could you want?

admittedly not cheap but got it 'half price' thru our cycle to work scheme

JonEdwards

All Hope kit is made in Barnoldswick. (bar possibly the PCBs in the lights). They knocked me up some odd disc rotors overnight.

USE/EXposure stuff is all made somewhere on the S. Coast (Bournemouth or Worthing)

Orange full sus bikes are made from old filing cabinets in Halifax. (the hardtails are far east manufactured).

Endura clothing?