Orange Five 29

mattbarnes

I think the brand-faithful will buy them, but thats about it. Orange have been living off their name for the past few years but if you look at recent bike tests in the magazines they're up against some stiff competition with technology that Orange can't keep up with. While other brands have moved on in terms of frame materials, design and build processes, Orange have stuck with a frame which is starting to show its age - by sticking some big wheels on it isn't going to draw in a whole new customer base. You can't polish a turd, as they say...

Northwind

andy_welch wrote:

Well I've done it with a fair few road frames over the years, but I guess I wasn't aware that there was anybody who I could send my Trance frame to who would: strip it, inspect it for damage, spray it a nice colour, replace the bearings and stick new decals on. That's good news. Is there anybody that you'd recommend? I fancy giving that a go sometime.

Yes, because when you're doing all that, it's essential to have it done in the same place ? Argos will do everything bar the bearings- I suspect they'll do the bearings too if you pay them money but obviously it makes more sense to do it yourself.

andy_welch

Thanks. I'll give Argos a call. As long as they can respray it and fit new decals I dare say that I can find somebody else to change the bearings. I can knock new ones into the Five easy enough but having watched a few clips of folk changing all the bearings on a Trance I think I'd rather spend my time riding (which is part of the reason why the Trance has been in the shed over the winter). Obviously it's easier to stick it in a box and get it back all shiny and new, but at least I've got an option for the Trance now. Thanks.

As for the Five being an old design. That's what I thought when I bought the Trance. Six years of innovation by one of the biggest manufacturers in the business must make for a pretty dramatic improvement, I thought. I'm not prepared to give up on it yet, but I'm not at all sure that those six years have actually brought much in the way of improvements and I keep drifting back to the Five when I want to play.

supersonic

Trance is a bit of a different bike though, shorter travel trail bike, while the 5 is a slacker, AM bike built for bigger hits. Maybe that is why you prefer one, a Reign would be more of a match.

The Giants have got steadily lighter over the years, seen a pound hacked out of the trance frames! And of course uses a twin link suspension set up.

VWsurfbum

Normally i would not get involved, i get bored of the "5" thing and the "29er" thing but surely the "5" in question is the same bike as the Giro?

Because for what ever reason they block CHOP website on my work computer, can someone tell me what the difference is? and how much they are charging?

supersonic

The Gyro is a shorter travel, steeper bike.

The Five 29 is 3 grand.

andy_welch

They're both three grand Well close enough. Gyro is £3K in pro spec, which seems to be the most popular and Five29 is £3K in the limited edition first run. I think the Gyro was £2.7K when they did the same black/gold run. So I guess the Five29 Pro will be around £3.3K when it hits the shops in the summer.

Gyro is 110mm rear and 120mm front with 69.5 degree HA and Fox 32 forks.

Five29 is 140mm both ends, with a 66.5 degree HA and Fox 34 forks.

So, basically, the Five29 is a bigger bike and much more like a 29er version of the Five than the (more XC/trail oriented) Gyro.

The comment about the Five being more like a Reign than a Trance is interesting. You are right of course and it's also true that the Trance is much more suited to the general trail mincing that I do than either the Reign or the Five. But still the Five makes me smile

mrmonkfinger

Weird, how this brand causes so much upset on forums.

I mean a Cotic Rocket probably comes in around £3k * but doesn't get the hate the Five does. Despite, if I get this right, not being entirely hand-built in Britain by the most British Brits you can find, using nothing but (British) hammers and cups of Earl Grey tea.

* http://www.southdownshosting.co.uk/smtb ... et-review/

Northwind

mrmonkfinger wrote:

I mean a Cotic Rocket probably comes in around £3k

Cotic don't do full builds but for frame only, the Rocket is £100 cheaper if you match the shocks.

andy_welch

So that's the difference between getting the frame built in Taiwan and shipped over vs getting it built here then? £100 on a £1.5K frame ? I guess £100 is hardly trivial, but it also means that my taxes don't need to be wasted supporting an unemployed welder so it doesn't sound so bad

Actually, the whole argument about whether to buy British is one that I haven't made my mind up on really. Making things here should allow for faster development. Weld it on Friday, ride it on Saturday and modify it Monday. But Orange are hardly known for the speed at which they innovate

VWsurfbum

It is interesting then, 140mm travel 29er is a very tempting prospect, but as others have said there's a lot more advanced platforms for that money, but not many at 140mm travel.
Intense or Santacruz but try getting a decent spec for £3K
When i was looking before crimbo i was trying to get a decent spec intense carbine 29er and no joy under £4k !!!
http://www.moosecycles.com/m6b113s26p15 ... RS_GB/4961

lawman

mrmonkfinger wrote:

Weird, how this brand causes so much upset on forums.

I mean a Cotic Rocket probably comes in around £3k * but doesn't get the hate the Five does. Despite, if I get this right, not being entirely hand-built in Britain by the most British Brits you can find, using nothing but (British) hammers and cups of Earl Grey tea.

* http://www.southdownshosting.co.uk/smtb ... et-review/

The Cotic is still a niche brand as far as I'm concerned, you don't see many about... You go anywhere and the chances are you will see multiple 5's... The more common bike, from a larger manufacturer as has been pointed out costs more than the bike from a much smaller company. The Cotic is new, for a brand that has little experience with suspension bikes, the 5 has been effectively the same for the last decade, so why hasn't the price gone down as the so called trickle down effect taken place?

The thing about the american brands too is you have to remember they are made in the states, so have to be shipped to this country across the Atlantic, which I'm willing to bet costs a hell of a lot more sending a bike made in this country and shipped a matter of miles. I see no reason why Oranges cost what they do, there are ways they could easily be cheaper, yet they still charge what they do, despite the dated technology and design among other reasons.

Northwind

andy_welch wrote:

So that's the difference between getting the frame built in Taiwan and shipped over vs getting it built here then? £100 on a £1.5K frame ? I guess £100 is hardly trivial, but it also means that my taxes don't need to be wasted supporting an unemployed welder so it doesn't sound so bad

The Rocket's a more complex frame as well, and much smaller production runs.

But it's all a bit of a moot point, Five frames aren't bad value but the builds are worse. And not just bad value but sometimes just bad choices of parts.

You can't blame them tbh- they know people will still buy them so why not?

rockmonkeysc

The Five is an outdated design. Orange can't make a modern frame in their Yorkshire factory because of their antique machinery.
Their development times are rediculous, it took three or four years of their DH team racing various prototypes before they came up with a replacement for the 224 and they just ended up with a bike which rides like a slightly slacker version of the 224 and costs far too much.
I do quite like the Orange Blood though and they get that frame built in Taiwan!

peter413

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Their development times are rediculous, it took three or four years of their DH team racing various prototypes before they came up with a replacement for the 224 and they just ended up with a bike which rides like a slightly slacker version of the 224 and costs far too much.
I do quite like the Orange Blood though and they get that frame built in Taiwan!

3 or 4 years isn't really that long in my opinion, weren't Santa Cruz testing the carbon V10 out for 2 or 3 years before they brought it out to the public, same story with Intense and the M9 I think. Even if I've got my facts wrong I would still say it isn't too bad, just we knew about it more being in the UK and seeing the 225 etc at local races and things so were anticipating it more, I know a few people were getting excited about a linkage actuated Orange DH bike but that obviously didn't happen.

I too liked the look of the Blood but it appears not to be made anymore.

rockmonkeysc

It took Nukeproof a year to come up with the Scalp followed by a year racing development. Two years on sale and the completely new Pulse is available.
The Identiti Mogul only needed a year development for the second version was released.
Intense constantly update their frames, there was more than one version of the M6 before they released the M9.
Specialized & Giant tweak their DH race bikes every two years for constant development to keep them at the top.
Four years development to come up with a very similar frame to the old one is pretty poor.

Northwind

To be fair, Nukeproof's development includes quite a lot of tracing Transition frames

I guess an Orange fanboy would say that it's a testament to Orange design that they don't need to change them every 2 years whereas Nukeproofs don't stand the test of time I think the reality is they had a pretty rocky development path for the 322- big dead end with the 225 then reliability issues with the proto 322s. Could be they got into metalwork too quick, or their FEA was a bit lacking, or it could be they were just pushing the envelope with the design, you'd need a proper engineer to answer that one.

rolf_f

andy_welch wrote:

Actually, the whole argument about whether to buy British is one that I haven't made my mind up on really.

If you make stuff, when your currency devalues, the stuff you make becomes cheap to other countries so you export your way out of recession. If you don't make stuff, this doesn't happen.

Buying Orange bikes won't get us out of a recession but it won't actively get us into recession either! TBH, I don't really get the hate on here. It's a small company trying to make things and compete against countries with far lower wage costs. Of course they are going to be expensive but if people want to buy them, why not? It doesn't help when people over-hype the negatives either - eg saying 'over priced and under-specc'd' is disingenuous - it's the same thing made to look like two faults. The spec's wouldn't be inadequate if the bike was cheaper and if the spec's were higher the bike wouldn't be over-priced.

mrmonkfinger

RockmonkeySC wrote:

The Five is an outdated design. Orange can't make a modern frame in their Yorkshire factory because of their antique machinery.

I think as far as design goes, they're between a rock and a hard place. The single pivot swingarm is kind of a signature thing for them and they're obviously geared up to knock them out. Everyone else is knocking out linkage bikes of one type or another. I guess Orange have to balance up (a) do they need to, obviously their single pivot stuff is keeping them in Horlicks and Irn Brus (b) major dev effort & production line change to make a linkage back end (c) well they already did the dev effort with the Blood but they dropped it.

Maybe they need an alternate brand name for linkage actuated bikes. Something like "White" maybe...

andy_welch

I don't think we'll ever reach agreement on the Orange design. One man's innovation is another man's marketing BS.

Personally I tend to think that most of the time bike manufacturers make changes for the sake of it and it's more to do with making this year's model sound better than last year's model than any real innovation. As I mentioned earlier I've spent much of the last year doing back to back rides on an old single pivot Five and a new Maestro equipped Giant. We could spend all day discussing the theoretical pros and cons of each but in practice I find I'm quite happy with the SP. I might even go so far as to say I prefer it. I certainly prefer the fact that I can knock a couple of new bearings into the frame in a few minutes and don't see enough advantage in the Maestro system to warrant all the extra faff. To me, the longevity of the Five design is an advantage. It's easy to work on and I can get any part I need.

But that's just me. I feel the same way about my Brompton too. Plenty of people will tell me that's an out of date design and that there are better options on the market. But it does what I ask of it with no fuss, is easy to maintain and suits me just fine.

I'm quite happy that somebody else (with a different riding style) may hate the Five though. Luckily for them there are lots of other options on the market.

mrmonkfinger

andy_welch wrote:

I don't think we'll ever reach agreement on the Orange design. One man's innovation is another man's marketing BS.

Bikes are 99% fashion driven.
The placebo effect of shiny new toy is quite high.

To sell lots (mass market) you need new shapes & colours & buzzwords, because everybody wants the latest and greatest.

cooldad

Whan I have some spare cash I'm going to buy a 5 just to be able to annoy people.

VWsurfbum

cooldad wrote:

Whan I have some spare cash I'm going to buy a 5 just to be able to annoy people.

You dont need a 5 to annoy people, you do it so well already?

cooldad

VWsurfbum wrote:

cooldad wrote:

Whan I have some spare cash I'm going to buy a 5 just to be able to annoy people.

You dont need a 5 to annoy people, you do it so well already?

I strive for perfection.

rockmonkeysc

Nothing wrong with single pivot frames, I love the way single pivots ride (thats why I own one) but a single pivot doesn't have to be just a hinge and a spring, a couple linkages to give a rising rate makes a huge difference.
Orange decided to do something different this year and try a modern material and ended up with a carbon road bike! Where's the carbon P7 they should have made years ago?

supersonic

Plus, of course, the pivot location makes a big difference.

Northwind

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Orange decided to do something different this year and try a modern material and ended up with a carbon road bike! Where's the carbon P7 they should have made years ago?

Answer- when they decided to "make" a carbon road bike they only had to pick one out of a catalogue. A carbon P7 would need to be built to spec.

YIMan

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Tbh, I don't the the fascination with built in Britain.

Designed in Britain, yeah, that's pretty cool. But there is no point in keeping the manufacturing over here.

Other than jobs, economy and trade deficit concerns, you are absolutely right. :roll:

Northwind

Thing is... It's not just that Taiwan is cheaper, they're also extremely good at it. Orange use a nonstandard manufacturing method which isn't so easily duplicated (there's an argument that it's not as good, but it serves them as a USP and it does have some advantages) but for normal tube-bikes, it makes sense to go to the established factories.

I recall someone- either Cy from Cotic or Brant from On One probably, but one of the UK-designed-Taiwan-built guys anyway- commenting that they'd looked into UK manufacturing and it wasn't just expensive, it was downright impractical, nobody was interested in it in mainstream manufacturing and nobody was set up for it in bike manufacturing.

Ultimately UK manufacturing would mean (in the short term at least) paying significantly more, for less skilled work.

mrmonkfinger

RockmonkeySC wrote:

single pivot doesn't have to be just a hinge and a spring, a couple linkages to give a rising rate makes a huge difference.

True.

Or you can bung the front mount point of the shock through a glory hole in the down tube, and instantly arrive at the design for the 322. Which still looks kinda Orangey, but, with the new feature of having a rate curve that isn't tosh.