Buy British ?

Monty Dog

I think Sturmey Archer are owned by SunRace, manufactured in the far east.
Middleburn Engineering still exist, but may sub-contract some manufacture, but like USE are a pretty small outfit.
Cyfac & Time still make frames in France - Looks are made in Tunisia I believe and finished in France.
There's still a lot of frame builders in Italy - but apart from Viner, top-end Colnagos and a few others most comes from the far east.

rolf_f

Monty Dog wrote:

Cyfac & Time still make frames in France - Looks are made in Tunisia I believe and finished in France.

Some Looks are made in Tunisia and some in France I believe. This isn't the usual outsourcing though. The Tunisian factory is owned and run by Look and makes only Look frames. I was happy enough with that as a non-Far Eastern sourcing.

Quite a lot of the Viners are now Far Eastern as well.

As for my Ribble. 'Italian' frame made in Taiwan - presumably painted there too (must be some justification for the 'Carbon Fiber' reference cos that ain't British) but bespoke assembly in UK. 'Handcrafted in Italy' it says on the frame........

JesseD

buy the bits, build it yourself, it'll be british then.

PX and Boardman get their frames made in China or the like and all parts are either Japanese, Italian or American, they are then assembled in the UK, personally I would buy a frame, source my own parts and build myself, you will get the spec you want at a cheaper price than if you bought a complete bike.

swagman

Conti tyres - made in India.

rolf_f

swagman wrote:

Conti tyres - made in India.

Yep - the Germans outsource as well. Possibly not sure what that has to do with a thread about British companies!

bigpikle

as already said, find a UK framebuilder if thats what you are interested in, but lets face it, the raw materials and probably just about everything you will need to finish the bike will come from an overseas factory. About the only bit of British otherwise will be the finance you need to pay for your new toy...

Hoopdriver

That's laying it on a bit thick. The frame is the heart of any bike and having a British frame builder - Enigma springs to mind - build your frame, makes it a British built bike in my book. Components come and go, the frame is the frame.

Pontificating over where the raw materials originally came from is just a bit flaky - say the steel is Columbus from an Italian steel mill, where did the iron ore come from? Or the energy used to convert it to steel? You could go on and on, and if you did you might even find that you circle back - that the ore was mined in mines owned by one of the huge London-based mining conglomerates, like RTZ, and the energy came fro BP. Are we back to being British again? Or do we now chase up the shareholders and find where they reside?

kmcd21

Hoopdriver

That's an intriguing thought ! Most probably very accurate.

I still didn't get to the bottom of what I could buy.. The bike for me is probably a 2010 sale stock in the new year !

Buckled_Rims

As far as I know, the majority of Reynolds steel is still made in the UK. I think it's only the special ones like 953 that are made outside.

As the Reynolds website says..."In a market place that has experienced dramatic change, we are proud that our products are still expertly manufactured in the UK continuing over a century's worth of flexibility and passionate customer commitment."

http://reynoldstechnology.biz/our_company_people.php

Hoopdriver

Interesting, that Reynolds blurb. Now I'm just waiting for some bonehead from the carbon vs steel debate to read that, see the 'century of flexibility' part and declare it a perfect argument for the stiffness of carbon!

RDW

Monty Dog wrote:

Sabbath titanium - choose one of 2 factories in Taiwan/ China likewise Burls and I'm not sure Enigma's ti offerings aren't of Eastern origin either.

Burls Ti frames are made rather further west (in Russia). Steel frames are made locally. Both are available as custom jobs, so obviously the design is happening in the UK.

http://www.burls.co.uk/faqs.php

At least some Enigma Ti (and all steel) frames are now made in the UK, and according to an interview in July 2009:

'Our aim within two years is to build in-house all the frames that we sell. For now we will continue to work with our Taiwanese manufacturer who produce a first-class product. They will make selected titanium models while we will build the higher-end ti frames plus all the custom and all the steel frames ourselves here in our Sussex workshop.'

http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/rides-feat ... /4248.html

Chip \'oyler

Rolf F wrote:

Monty Dog wrote:

Cyfac & Time still make frames in France - Looks are made in Tunisia I believe and finished in France.

Some Looks are made in Tunisia and some in France I believe. This isn't the usual outsourcing though. The Tunisian factory is owned and run by Look and makes only Look frames. I was happy enough with that as a non-Far Eastern sourcing.

Quite a lot of the Viners are now Far Eastern as well.

As for my Ribble. 'Italian' frame made in Taiwan - presumably painted there too (must be some justification for the 'Carbon Fiber' reference cos that ain't British) but bespoke assembly in UK. 'Handcrafted in Italy' it says on the frame........

Are they? Which ones?

arnie-77

I had a look to see if anyone build carbon frames in the UK, best I found were these guys who do carbon chainrings which I thought were pretty radical - they have built road frames in the past by the looks of it, no idea on costs though (or if they are any good) - certainly British though

http://www.fibre-lyte.co.uk/

swagman

Rolf F wrote:

swagman wrote:

Conti tyres - made in India.

Yep - the Germans outsource as well. Possibly not sure what that has to do with a thread about British companies!

I guess even Germany known for its engineering excellance has had to use cheap foreign labour to compete with other brands.
I just find it laughable that people think British manufactoring can compete with far east labour rates. Weve not had much investment here and as for supporting ones own manufacturing base , we all want it at its cheapest.
Ask yourself how much you think a Chinese worker earns an hour working on bike frames? Any one out there with the answer as i guess around 20p a hour!

sfichele

Wilsons in Sheffield make bespoke lightweight steel frames

rolf_f

Chip \'oyler wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Quite a lot of the Viners are now Far Eastern as well.

Are they? Which ones?

It would help if I could find my catalogue as you can tell some of them from that! IRRC Gladius, X-Plus, Dedalus, Magnifica are from Taiwan - I think it is Perfecta up that is generally Italian (of the Carbon bikes) - the Italian Flag on the top or seat tube says 'Made in Italy' below it or next to it if it is - not if it isn't. At least they are honest about it unlike Deda and Ribble Some of the rear triangle assemblies of the higher bikes might be imported as well.

Incidentally, I think some of the Viner frames are from Deda and all those would be Taiwanese.