Buying a frame

crescent

As the title says, I'm looking to buy a frame to build a new bike. I have done this before - I purchased a Ribble frame about five years ago and built it into a rather nice bike. However, the choice of frames from Ribble and others seems to be much reduced now - there seems to be a trend towards selling complete bikes rather than frame only deals. Does anyone know of any suppliers who still sell a wide selection of road frames. I know Planet X, Ribble, Dolan etc still do it to a certain extent with their own brand but how about if you wanted to buy a Specialized (not S-works), Cannondale, BMC frame on its own for instance?
Thanks for any advice.

arlowood

Crescent wrote:

As the title says, I'm looking to buy a frame to build a new bike. I have done this before - I purchased a Ribble frame about five years ago and built it into a rather nice bike. However, the choice of frames from Ribble and others seems to be much reduced now - there seems to be a trend towards selling complete bikes rather than frame only deals. Does anyone know of any suppliers who still sell a wide selection of road frames. I know Planet X, Ribble, Dolan etc still do it to a certain extent with their own brand but how about if you wanted to buy a Specialized (not S-works), Cannondale, BMC frame on its own for instance?
Thanks for any advice.

Have a look at the Paul Milnes website. They offer a wide range of framesets in steel, Ti and carbon. Have purchased from them twice in the past and can't fault them.

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/road-frames-160-c.asp

For example they have a couple of Ridley Fenix ex team Lotto Belisol frames. You could ride a frame ridden by Jurgen Roelandts if you fancy it

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/ridley- ... 4069-p.asp

EDIT:- Sorry just noticed that the Jurgen Roelandts frame is out of stock. There is a Large frame available ridden by Marcel Sieberg

Matthewfalle

Everyone sells frames. Just go to the website and press the "frame and forks" button.

sloppyschleckonds

Matthewfalle wrote:

Everyone sells frames. Just go to the website and press the "frame and forks" button.

or Framesets

crescent

Thanks for the suggestion, Arlowood.

As far as searching online goes, I have tried the forks, frames and frameset links, but my point, which I perhaps didn't explain particularly well, is that the choice is very limited. If you look beyond the likes of Ribble/PX/Dolan and try to find a more mainstream manufacturer then the odd frame that does pop up tends to be at the extreme ends of the size scale (XS, XXL etc). If, for example, I wanted to buy a Specialised Tarmac frame then it seems to be impossible to do. You can buy an entire Tarmac for less than £1500 but to buy the frame you would need to pay upwards of £2000 to get the S-Works version. I know it is a different spec and I'm sure there is a valid marketing reason for this but ultimately I just wanted to know if the bog standard Specialized (or BMC, or Trek etc etc) frames that make up their 'entry' level bikes were available to buy on their own.

cougie

Ring your dealer.

Matthewfalle

One google search for specialized tarmac frame and forks bought up this place:

http://www.bikescene.co.uk/SPECIALIZEDC ... ES-92.html

Small, medium, large all available.

Am I missing something?

Matthewfalle

Buy this and put some phat carbons, tan walls and all black finishing kit on it.

It'll be freakin' stunning (but not as nice as Dirk).

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/paul-mi ... 3919-p.asp

cld531c

Matthewfalle wrote:

Buy this and put some phat carbons, tan walls and all black finishing kit on it.

It'll be freakin' stunning (but not as nice as Dirk).

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/paul-mi ... 3919-p.asp

Any pics of Dirk? They all seemed to disappear from the thread and i was excited to see him!

trivial_poursuivant

I know plenty of bike shops that sell framesets. One of my Local shops, Westbrook cycles in Stokesley do some very nice Colnago and Cipollini.

To be frank, you are not going to get many middle to low end frames only as it is not cost effective and not many people looking at building up a bike want to do so on a bike which is probably more cost effective to buy complete in the first place.

Matthewfalle

cld531c wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

Buy this and put some phat carbons, tan walls and all black finishing kit on it.

It'll be freakin' stunning (but not as nice as Dirk).

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/paul-mi ... 3919-p.asp

Any pics of Dirk? They all seemed to disappear from the thread and i was excited to see him!

They disappeared when photobox closed down all their free user accounts - I have pictures somewhere on the PC so it's not too hard to track them down but I just need to find another picture hosting thing that was as simple to use as photobox - any ideas?

cld531c

Matthewfalle wrote:

cld531c wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

Buy this and put some phat carbons, tan walls and all black finishing kit on it.

It'll be freakin' stunning (but not as nice as Dirk).

http://www.paulmilnescycles.com/paul-mi ... 3919-p.asp

Any pics of Dirk? They all seemed to disappear from the thread and i was excited to see him!

They disappeared when photobox closed down all their free user accounts - I have pictures somewhere on the PC so it's not too hard to track them down but I just need to find another picture hosting thing that was as simple to use as photobox - any ideas?

Im useless at that sort of thing but managed it on Flikr, you need to use the BBCode and select the 1024 option.

Matthewfalle

Will have a look in a bit - grazie!

Rode him in the turrrrrrrbo trrrrrrainer the other day and I realized I need to raise the brifters up so will do that soon - also realized how rubbish the expensive bar tape I put on him is so that will be changed at the same time. I may even clean him - shock horror!

I'll reopen the old thread so you'll see him in Vintage Bikes or whatever its called.

sloppyschleckonds

Matthewfalle wrote:

Am I missing something?

LMGTFY

keef66

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

I know plenty of bike shops that sell framesets. One of my Local shops, Westbrook cycles in Stokesley do some very nice Colnago and Cipollini.

Dat's where I bought my CR1-SL frameset from, as did many others. Top service! And when I knocked the thing over with a wheelie bin and suddenly needed a new mech hanger
The theory was that Scott were shifting the outgoing mechanical only models to make way for the Solace and Di2 compatible frames. Seemed to be loads of them. All I know is I got a bargain.

I'm not exactly sure what the OP is looking for??

keef66

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Matthewfalle wrote:

Am I missing something?

LMGTFY

You could Google that to find out what it means

trivial_poursuivant

keef66 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

I know plenty of bike shops that sell framesets. One of my Local shops, Westbrook cycles in Stokesley do some very nice Colnago and Cipollini.

Dat's where I bought my CR1-SL frameset from, as did many others. Top service! And when I knocked the thing over with a wheelie bin and suddenly needed a new mech hanger
The theory was that Scott were shifting the outgoing mechanical only models to make way for the Solace and Di2 compatible frames. Seemed to be loads of them. All I know is I got a bargain.

I'm not exactly sure what the OP is looking for??

Got my Scott Plasma frameset there. Top quality shop. Think these places need to be plauded more, so many sales are shifting online. Protect your LBS

cld531c

Matthewfalle wrote:

Will have a look in a bit - grazie!

Rode him in the turrrrrrrbo trrrrrrainer the other day and I realized I need to raise the brifters up so will do that soon - also realized how rubbish the expensive bar tape I put on him is so that will be changed at the same time. I may even clean him - shock horror!

I'll reopen the old thread so you'll see him in Vintage Bikes or whatever its called.

Great - dont raise them too high - dont want him looking like one of those silly modern bikes ;-)

crescent

Thank you for the suggestions. All my searches seemed to come up with eBay sales. I stand corrected on all counts.