NorthRoad Cycles

[Lozi]

Anybody had any experience with this brand? I had never heard of them but a friend pointed them out to me.

I have been looking at getting a Specialized Roubaix but now I’m contemplating a NorthRoad after looking at their site.

Something seems too good to be true about them though for a small volume frame builder in the UK you can get a carbon bike with Di2 and carbon wheels etc for quite a bit less money than the equivalent Specialized and I would expect it to be the other way round?

 

[bikingdad90]

If they don’t get enough orders the bike isn’t built by the factory. Doesn’t look very bespoke to me. More like a bulk frame with your own specifications bolted on.

 

[vickster]

Specialized are always expensive for the spec offered

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

A large percentage of the retail price of most consumer goods is inbuilt mark-up to be creamed off within the wholesale and retail distribution chains. The actual build cost of a bike is going to be under half it's final retail price, possibly significantly under. Some brands have managed to retain significant pricing power, especially the Italian racing bike ones. There is absolutely no rational justification for their premium pricing, beyond the fact that enough riders will pay that premium for the name on the downtube.
At the other end of the scale, a low-recognition brand who source directly from the factory and sell direct to the customer without any middleman, racing sponsorship costs etc, are able to offer their customers much more bang for their buck. What you may not get though, is such high residual values - but if you are buying a long-term keeper that doesn't matter. If you're a fickle consumer who chops and changes every couple of years a well-known brand with stronger residuals might lose you less money. It all depends.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

I had a quick look at their web site and saw An astonishingly quick frame, designed and hand made in the UK by experienced carbon fibre experts.

Carbon fibre isn't a material that I know a lot about, so I find it very easy to be intimidated or confused by it, it's exotic, it needs an expensive autoclave and its complicated to design the layup.

Yet for at least the last dozen years OOA (Out Of Autoclave) has been a valid method for making carbon fibre parts in the aerospace industry. You put your uncured part in a polythene bag, suck the air out and cook it in a relatively cheap oven.

The software to design carbon fibre products has drifted down to the commodity level and there are loads of people who have experience in making carbon fibre parts in the motor and aerospace industries.

It is also perfectly possible to make carbon fibre frames in pretty much the same way as steel frames, joined tubes, just glued together rather than welded. This means that there is no need to make a mould for the whole frame and different moulds in different sizes.

Clearly the tubes don't have to be "tube" shaped and you can add a cosmetic layer where ever you want to.

Have a look at https://www.reillycycleworks.com an ex F1 chap making 1 or 2 frames a week.

So it is not that unreasonable to expect a custom CF frame to cost something similar to frame made out of one of the more expensive metals, such as 953. Someone committed to small production runs could easily bring that price down quite a bit further.

Of course none of this means that the frame maker has sorted out the quirks of using carbon fibre to make frames, but McLaren Applied Tech got involved with Specialized in 2017 before becoming a part sponsor of a team.

This would seem to me to be an area that Bob Jackson is going to need to get involved in if they want a future beyond the small steel market. If they do go down this route by the end of 2021 bespoke custom carbon would be mainstream.

Or are they going to do an Argos, https://argoscycles.com/new-frames/reynolds/ £2,695 for a custom 525 frame or £2,995 for 853. Either they don't want any new business or are just milking the market.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

It is also perfectly possible to make carbon fibre frames in pretty much the same way as steel frames, joined tubes, just glued together rather than welded. This means that there is no need to make a mould for the whole frame and different moulds in different sizes.

This would seem to me to be an area that Bob Jackson is going to need to get involved in if they want a future beyond the small steel market. If they do go down this route by the end of 2021 bespoke custom carbon would be mainstream.

Early carbon fibre racing frames were exactly as you describe, basically glued lugged jobs which outwardly looked very similar to proper steel frames. They are the only type of carbon fibre bike I like, because they aren't inherently ugly unlike mouded ones. The shortcoming was always failure of the joints, just as it was when Raleigh dabbled with composite frame construction. They are not quite as light as moulded frames either, because a constant diameter cylindrical tube has to be engineered on the strong side, not varied as is a CAD frame with variable diameters and cross section shapes.

I'm not sure Bob Jacksons have much to gain from going down the carbon route; their core customers want steel. They have an excellent reputation product, which is very good value. What they are bad at is publicizing what they do, and selling their product direct to the discerning touring/commuting cyclist. With the advent of the www, I reckon highly targeted online advertising (so you might get BJ adverts popping up on forums such as this) could be quite successful in luring steel buyers away from some of the better known brands such as Genesis. BJ build great frames, the pity is the mainstream bike buyer has simply never heard of BJ and aren't aware of their products.

 

[PaulSB]

@SkipdiverJohn I don't always agree with your posts but feel you're spot on in this topic.

I've never heard of BJ before but do wonder if the company doesn't want to much publicity in order to maintain quality for their existing and established customer base? Less is more.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I've never heard of BJ before but do wonder if the company doesn't want to much publicity in order to maintain quality for their existing and established customer base? Less is more.

The problem is their customer base is small; basically the traditional CTC touring cyclist. Since a quality steel frame will last a lifetime if you don't crash it, people like BJ don't get much repeat business for new frames. It was the same with the quality 531 products built by Dawes and Raleigh. Once you could afford one and went out and bought it brand new, you didn't actually ever need to replace it like for like. My 531 road frames are all over 30 years old, and they'll see me out.
Anyone that wants to keep selling quality steel frames needs to target those riders who haven't already got one, and persuade them to say use a steel 525 bike to ride to work on rather than an alloy framed hybrid. How about a basic BJ Fixed/SS job? Decent lugged frame, durable mechanicals, competitive price, sell it direct via online ads to the tech-savvy urban commuters. No LBS/Wholesaler margin. Because the small outfits don't have the LBS retail channels like the big brands, they have to sell direct, which also helps them keep their pricing attractive. They will never have the economies of scale of the big boys but what they do have is the ability to cut out the middlemen and run a tight ship.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

This article https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1260/reynolds-men-of-steel has the phrases

... and remembers the days when 100,000 pieces of tubing were going through the factory each month
and
‘Nowadays our business is 90% export-oriented,’

If you divide 100,000 by 11 (tubes, forks/steerer and stays) this would be 9,000 frames per month at the peak, however this would include 501. So the total number would be a bit higher as many Raleighs and Holdworths were 501 main tubes only whereas Peugeot used to do a lot of 501 tubes forks and stays.

If I were to assume that 10% were 531 and 90% 501, a pure guess this would be 900 frames a month or 10,800 frames a year at 531's peak, assuming a population of 50 million people of all ages we get about 0.00216% of the population buying a new 531 frame per year.

This is 21.6 frames per year for a town with a population of 100,000 people, assuming that these frames lasted for around 10 years that would give you 216 people riding a 531 frame in that town. That doesn't sound too far off from experience.

Leeds has a population of around 8 times this and a catchment area (West Yorkshire) of about 18 times this, so that could suggest a demand for 173 frames a year from Leeds and 389 from the whole of West Yorkshire.

If you were to split the demand for 531 bikes 50/50 between racers (who are now on CF or aluminium) and non racers that might suggest a current demand for around 86/195 steel frames in the Leeds/Leads area per year.

Okay I have plucked these numbers out of the air and they surprised me by how small they are. It is reasonable to argue that older racers may now be wanting steel touring bikes, the population is now 60 million people and there has been a mini boom in cycling so the demand is slightly higher.

If these numbers are anywhere accurate no wonder there as so few builders around. :-)

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

If you divide 100,000 by 11 (tubes, forks/steerer and stays) this would be 9,000 frames per month at the peak, however this would include 501. So the total number would be a bit higher as many Raleighs and Holdworths were 501 main tubes only whereas Peugeot used to do a lot of 501 tubes forks and stays.

Dawes also used to use the graduated proportion of 531 trick as a marketing tool. Unusually, they also used to offer 531 forks only on some models that were otherwise hi-tensile. The cynic in me thinks they may have bought full 531 sets from Reynolds, then use the tubes on one frame, and the forks on another, thus building two bikes from one tubeset, and being able to claim both had 531 in them! That said, 531 forks I do believe give a tangible improvement to ride quality.
I have in my possession five steel frames embodying some proportion of 531, these are:-

531 Main Tubes (Raleigh donor 1988)
531 Main Tubes (Raleigh hybrid 1989)
531 Main Tubes (Dawes road sports c.1987)
531 Main Tubes & Forks (Raleigh tourer 1985)
531ST Throughout (Ian May tourer c.1987)

I don't know how representative mine are of the mix of 531 frames produced, but it shows the majority were probably less than the full tubeset.

P.S. Although Reynolds had the lion's share of the UK lightweight steel market, there were other materials available to builders, Columbus being the next most popular, plus Tange and Ishiwata etc,

 

[mythste]

Anybody had any experience with this brand? I had never heard of them but a friend pointed them out to me.

I have been looking at getting a Specialized Roubaix but now I’m contemplating a NorthRoad after looking at their site.

Something seems too good to be true about them though for a small volume frame builder in the UK you can get a carbon bike with Di2 and carbon wheels etc for quite a bit less money than the equivalent Specialized and I would expect it to be the other way round?

I can give you some first hand experience here - I personally know the owners and help them out occasionally so please take the following with that in mind!

Firstly, the Metis is UK designed and built carbon fibre. It is not lugged. The moulds were made and designed and it is laid up by hand by a lovely, yet frustratingly "at his own pace" chap in Leeds. It's a lovely machine.

The rest of the Carbon Fibre models are made in China. The design and brief is worked on between factory and business. Ian, the owner, is an Ex-Triathlete and has designed some wicked machines in his time, he knows his way around a wind tunnel and isn't afraid to get funky with designs. Having said that, NorthRoad of course don't have the R&D budget of Spesh or Trek so you probably won't find any hugely groundbreaking (read, unnecessary) design features that the big boys might throw out there. Yes, I'm looking at you zerts.

They're well thought through, delightful to ride bikes and come with a longer warranty than some of the direct to consumer brands. They won't blink if you want weird colours or design features and you can spec pretty much every component as you wish. I'm currently waiting for my Explorer.

If you have any questions please feel free to message me - if you want to order tell them Stephen sent you and they'll look after you!

 

[mythste]

If they don’t get enough orders the bike isn’t built by the factory. Doesn’t look very bespoke to me. More like a bulk frame with your own specifications bolted on.

That's only the case for the new steel adventurer model. But you are right, the carbon frames are not designed on a per customer basis.