Orange Hate

poah

Kowalski675 wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

Nice colour.

Agreed (shame about the brown shock though, lol),

I know, fox air shocks suck ass

Kowalski675

POAH wrote:

Kowalski675 wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

Nice colour.

Agreed (shame about the brown shock though, lol),

I know, fox air shocks suck ass

It looks like something that's come out of an ass, lol.

adamfo

Some car companies charge more for solid black paint because it's notorious for showing up imperfections. Conversely a matte or anodized finish hides minor imperfections. So....



What's going on with that down tube. Surely that weld should be finished off in such a way that it's seamless on a bike with a £3600 RRP ! (click on image then + for a bigger photo)

lawman

The welds are notoriously messy on Oranges, just one of the reasons people moan about how expensive they when they look like they were welded by a three year old...

Kowalski675

adamfo wrote:

Some car companies charge more for solid black paint

It's not the 1980s anymore, lol.

Conversely a matte or anodized finish hides minor imperfections.

Quite the opposite. Matt paint finishes show every tiny scratch or blemish like a sore thumb, scratch if you look at them sideways, and you obviously can't polish out minor scratches like you can with a gloss finish. They're an absolute 'mare.

Kowalski675

adamfo wrote:

What's going on with that down tube. Surely that weld should be finished off in such a way that it's seamless on a bike with a £3600 RRP ! (click on image then + for a bigger photo)

At least that's underneath. Who did that weld down the side of the swingarm? David Blunkett?

Angus Young

My mate does better welding than that... and he's a chef.

kammybear

I'd love to have a top of the range british bike like an Orange...but fuck me, the frames look like something from a Halfords Special. They should be making billions with the sort of prices and brand loyalty they have.

I have to admit, they do have a sense of occasion when some rich middle aged dude turns up with one. I think that's their target audience?

They're like the TVR of the MTB world?

lawman

You'll always hear them before you see them... And the sense of occasion is usually laughing at the middle age tool who can't ride properly falling off his expensive but staggeringly poorly built and ugly bike... Now that's funny

The best thing is the owners who claim not to affected by marketing hype, who needs all this fancy pants FSVPDW-quad-pivot suspension blah blah blah, when actually they're falling for Oranges very own marketing of buying british and getting ripped off simply to have a sticker that says it was welded together by a blind man...

Angus Young

lawman wrote:

And the sense of occasion is usually laughing at the middle age tool...

Don't you just love people who think they're never going to grow old...

Kowalski675

Angus Young wrote:

lawman wrote:

And the sense of occasion is usually laughing at the middle age tool...

Don't you just love people who think they're never going to grow old...

As it says at the bottom of the number plates on all my bikes:

"Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional"...

Northwind

adamfo wrote:

What's going on with that down tube. Surely that weld should be finished off in such a way that it's seamless on a bike with a £3600 RRP !

Wellllll... What's important in a weld is that it's strong, and for all Oranges aren't as bombproof as folks choose to believe, they don't normally fail at the welds. Certainly not at that weld. It's possible to do a double-pass or smoothed weld, or just file it and fill it but most of those approaches tend to make a less strong join- basically means distracting yourself from the number one job, so it's harder to hit all the targets. If you look at most of the Stranges, they're far tidier- welded by the top boy instead of the production line feller/s

Course, that doesn't mean they definitely couldn't do it and be strong enough. maybe a better option would be to stick with visible welds and just have them not look like snot, or at the very least try and get them in a bloomin straight line.

(that stuff's more or less fact... Opinion piece? I think the reason they have massive messy welds is to fill/hide panel gaps personally.)

adamfo wrote:

I wonder if Orange even have the ability to design on CAD ?

Design, aye. But it seems like their FEA is poor (or at least, this is my assumption based on the number of prototypes they have to break before they get to a production bike that's even adequately reliable)

adamfo

FEA ? Halifax is still steam powered

rockmonkeysc

FEA assumes perfect materials conditions. It doesn't take in to consideration the properties changes from working the metal and welding it.
Also, how do you know other manufacturers don't get through loads of prototypes? They might just be a bit more secretive about it than Orange.

Angus Young

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Also, how do you know other manufacturers don't get through loads of prototypes? They might just be a bit more secretive about it than Orange.

I would imagine everyone of them gets through a truck load of prototypes. If they didn't I'd want to know why.

The Rookie

Northwind wrote:

Course, that doesn't mean they definitely couldn't do it and be strong enough. maybe a better option would be to stick with visible welds and just have them not look like snot, or at the very least try and get them in a bloomin straight line.

THIS - what I don't get is why they stick with manual welding everywhere, a robot weld would be cheaper and neater and more consistent (strength wise).

Angus Young

The Rookie wrote:

THIS - what I don't get is why they stick with manual welding everywhere, a robot weld would be cheaper and neater and more consistent (strength wise).

Perhaps they see 'hand built' as a USP.

The Rookie

Hand built by Roberts indeed! I agreethey probably do.....

adamfo

It's not that uncommon to see Stevie Wonder welds on far eastern sourced frames. It's often disguised a bit because it's in places like bottom brackets and not flat box sections



The Crouch End branch of Evans in London have a 2013 Zesty on display. It has pigeon shite weld on the top tube/seat tube junction. Very noticeable, it would drive me mad if it was mine

pesky_jones

Its funny - when I used to ride my Orange patriot, my local trails are at the back of a cricket field where me and my mates like to play football /drink/ be antisocial and when I used to finish riding I'd stop by if anyone was there.

Anyway, the point is, they all really liked the welding on the patriot and thought it was cool. It seems mtbers don't like the welding because...

Angus Young

Pesky Jones wrote:

Anyway, the point is, they all really liked the welding on the patriot and thought it was cool. It seems mtbers don't like the welding because...

Maybe it's like an untrimmed woman! Some guys like it but most would prefer a well trimmed lady garden...

pesky_jones

Angus Young wrote:

Pesky Jones wrote:

Anyway, the point is, they all really liked the welding on the patriot and thought it was cool. It seems mtbers don't like the welding because...

Maybe it's like an untrimmed woman! Some guys like it but most would prefer a well trimmed lady garden...

Ah maybe that's it, Orange owners don't f*ck their bikes so don't care about what the welding looks like

cooldad

Good point

adamfo

...

rockmonkeysc

The state of the welding is exaggerated a bit because it's long straight joints rather than the usual curved tube joints.
I expect they also look a lot better before painting. Some of the welding I see at work looks really neat until it's painted, gloss paint really highlights every lump.

futuresbright

As far as i am aware Orange dont weld the frames inhouse, they are done by a separate company in Halifax.

Maybe the quality control man should have taken a trip the to specsavers when the frames arrive to be painted

Kowalski675

Angus Young wrote:

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Also, how do you know other manufacturers don't get through loads of prototypes? They might just be a bit more secretive about it than Orange.

I would imagine everyone of them gets through a truck load of prototypes. If they didn't I'd want to know why.

Aye, that's kind of the point of prototypes...

Northwind

Angus Young wrote:

I would imagine everyone of them gets through a truck load of prototypes. If they didn't I'd want to know why.

You would imagine wrong, these days. Especially smaller companies like Orange. Prototypes are mostly geometry/ride tests. The point of a prototype is to test your work, not to throw ideas around and just see what happens- if you make 10 and 10 break, yes it's just as well you made prototypes but it's showing up bad design.

steben

Its threads like this that put me right off forums! Yes I have an orange 5 , bought it new in 2006 ride it every week with minimal maintenance , been to the alps twice and its never let me down. Easy to maintain , great to ride and the welds look like they were done by a welder not a machine, because they were done by hand. So most of you bladders either need to get off your high horses or £20 specials and get a life !! Ride and let ride I say ....

Northwind

steben wrote:

Easy to maintain , great to ride and the welds look like they were done by a welder not a machine, because they were done by hand. k:

Ehhh. I think you might be surprised by how few bikes aren't welded by hand. Merida has robot construction for very popular lines but even they make only a minority of their designs that way.