-
• #27
Technically it should be wes willits of willits bikes fame that gets the thanks for the 29er thing...he was pioneering it way before fisher...only fisher had the backing of trek to allow him to 'discover' it for the mainstream. :)
As for Pace....right up until they switched to just forks they were great...then they ditched their best product, their frame...then bought out that hideous frame that was made in the far east that looked like 80% of the other alloy frames out there. :(
Hope on the other hand have gone from strength to strength in the last 20yrs.
Also middleburn if we're on a uk tip...for being one of the few independant machine shops to still be producing after the rise and then fall of the 90's.
-
• #28
Brooklyn Machine Work purely for being inventive when creating their bicycles, pretty much started off as a one-man team (I think) into creating product that other manufacturer end up using.
Nope, two man team...but i wouldn't want to bore people again with BMW talk. :)
-
• #29
Brooklyn Machine Work purely for being inventive when creating their bicycles, pretty much started off as a one-man team (I think) into creating product that other manufacturer end up using.
dave weagle is up there with being pretty inventive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DW-link
BMW has always been crazy. no doubt.
-
• #30
I like the Surly brand. Their ethos and their products work very nicly together. website is pretty cool too, the blog is always worth a read.
-
• #31
Technically it should be wes willits of willits bikes fame that gets the thanks for the 29er thing...he was pioneering it way before fisher...only fisher had the backing of trek to allow him to 'discover' it for the mainstream. :)
As for Pace....right up until they switched to just forks they were great...then they ditched their best product, their frame...then bought out that hideous frame that was made in the far east that looked like 80% of the other alloy frames out there. :(
Hope on the other hand have gone from strength to strength in the last 20yrs.
Also middleburn if we're on a uk tip...for being one of the few independant machine shops to still be producing after the rise and then fall of the 90's.
Shame about Pace. Like I said, I don't know what has been going on with them.
RE: the 29er thing I did not know that, had alway heard it was GF. the entire "invention" of 29er is a funny one anyway.Considering that a 29er is really just a bike with wide 700c wheels riding off road you could argue people had been doing that for years on touring bike and cross bike with over sized tyres. Wheel prob never reached 29" because of tyre availability but as big as you can get, prob made a 28" wheel. It's a bit like the fact that the yanks didn't invent off road, it's always existed in some guise or another.
-
• #32
Shame about Pace. Like I said, I don't know what has been going on with them.
RE: the 29er thing I did not know that, had alway heard it was GF. the entire "invention" of 29er is a funny one anyway.Considering that a 29er is really just a bike with wide 700c wheels riding off road you could argue people had been doing that for years on touring bike and cross bike with over sized tyres. Wheel prob never reached 29" because of tyre availability but as big as you can get, prob made a 28" wheel. It's a bit like the fact that the yanks didn't invent off road, it's always existed in some guise or another.
29ers were the original MTB...it was only years later that they started using 26" wheels when someone had the idea of cutting and rewelding a 700c mavic rim (charlie cunningham i think?) to allow them to use the smaller balloon tyres that were more accessible.
Wes willits had been keeping things going...along with bruce gordon who made the 'rock n roll'...basically a cross bike with the fattest tyres he could get.
Fisher realised what was going on wayyyy later.
But then he did the same thing with the MTB anyway...he gets a LOT of credit considering he didn't even make any for ages...he saw the fun the other guys were having and then payed another builder (Tom Ritchey i think) to make them so he could sell them in his shop...he then came up with the name 'Mountain bikes' and the rest as they say is history. :)But...it takes the fishers of this world to bring things to the mainstream...without him we wouldn't have anywhere near the selection of 29er stuff we do now...he did what wes willits couldn't basically.
-
• #33
Most of the brands that I used to love seem to have been bought out, gone bust or gone shit, that said:
That said, if Frank The Welder was a brand (and he is to an extent) then he should be there. His work with aluminium is awesome (Yeti, Spooky, FTW).
Next, controversially, I'm going to say Shimano. They've made some crap, but they've also given us XT (for the rest of my life, I will always feel that XT is worth riding), they gave us indexed shifting and offroad clipless pedals that worked. Talk shit about their market dominance all you want, their stuff works.
Also, Joe Murray and his various endeavours are worth noting. His influence on MTB geometry shouldn't be under estimated.
Finally, I'd say Rock Shox. I know that Scott thinks that Marzocchi Z1s are more important than Judys, but Rock Shox have been doing OK for almost 20 years, which is more than most suspension fork manufacturers.
Also, Royce for being amazing, Ringlé (RIP) for the looks, Fat Chance (RIP) for the fun.
-
• #34
I'm not knocking rockshox at all...they started the whole sus fork thing...but the bomber was the first smooth AND stiff fork and forced rockshox to step up their game. :)
-
• #35
Orange MTB's should also be mentioned...they made fantastic rigid bikes back in the day...and are still going with great success....i don't like any of their suspension frames personally...but fair play to them.
-
• #36
+1 for shimano. I love Campagnolo, but shimano can't be touched for function and range. Campag means nothing to MTBers.
The original Marzocchi Bomber Z1s were awesome nostalgic sigh
-
• #37
I'm just going to add a somewhat obvious one, just to get it out of the way:
Brooks
The have been surpassed on many levels (they are heavy, bad at rain, crude etc.) but they are more popular than ever. Although they milk their heritage for all it's worth, they are still the default choice for thousands and thousands of cyclists. No foreign manufacturing either. Great products that they deserve to charge a premium for.
-
• #38
Campag means nothing to MTBers.
How can you say that? Do you not remember their bullet shifters? :)
-
• #39
exactly.
-
• #40
Personally I'm not so down with Orange who, like Marin, never did anything for me back then. That said, I'll admit to being a total Kona fan boy. Personally I'd say that Rocky Mountain are better than Orange.
Thingy Lynskey has done some great stuff at several companies he's set up.
-
• #41
+1 for shimano. I love Campagnolo, but shimano can't be touched for function and range. Campag means nothing to MTBers.
I must say I quite like that about them. They do highish-midrange to top-end road stuff. That's what they do. That sort of singlemindedness is part of what makes a really good brand in my book - it's a larger scale version of Royce making only hubs and BBs or Storck only making super-whizzy ultralight bikes.
-
• #42
Personally I'm not so down with Orange who, like Marin, never did anything for me back then. That said, I'll admit to being a total Kona fan boy. Personally I'd say that Rocky Mountain are better than Orange.
But they deserve respect to still be going after all this time and still be uk made.
-
• #43
I'd say Campag used to be offer far more. They are increasingly retreating into the high-end of road racing (as opposed to road touring or any other road-based discipline). I agree that single-mindedness is often an admirable quality, but in the case of Campagnolo I fear they are ostracising many long-term die hard advocates of theirs.
-
• #44
But they deserve respect to still be going after all this time and still be uk made.
UK designed; as far as I'm aware Orange have never manufactured frames in the UK. I may be wrong (and if I am I apologise) but I thought that they imported from the Pacific Rim somewhere.
-
• #45
I'm just going to add a somewhat obvious one, just to get it out of the way:
Brooks
The have been surpassed on many levels (they are heavy, bad at rain, crude etc.) but they are more popular than ever. Although they milk their heritage for all it's worth, they are still the default choice for thousands and thousands of cyclists. No foreign manufacturing either. Great products that they deserve to charge a premium for.
Currently they are also massively supportive of grassroots events and the like (tweed run, EHBPC, probably more I am unaware of).
-
• #46
UK designed; as far as I'm aware Orange have never manufactured frames in the UK. I may be wrong (and if I am I apologise) but I thought that they imported from the Pacific Rim somewhere.
I always thought they were still made in Halifax and always have been.
-
• #47
Handbuilt in Halifax, England, these bikes are ALL English. Orange Mountain Bikes history begins with the Tushingham B52, which was one of the UK's first mountain bikes. It was created as a specialty product by Cumbria in the Lake District and as an offshoot from Tushingham Sails, a leading manufacturer of quality windsurfing sails. Later, Lester Noble, a partner in Tushingham Sails, fell in love with mountain biking and left Tushingham Sails. He partnerned with Steve Wade, a bike racer with an engineering background, and formed Orange Mountain Bikes.
-
• #48
It seems that at least some of them are built overseas
I have no idea at what point they become hand built, but I suspect that it may be all the hardtails are imported and the full suspension are built in Yorkshire.
USE always used to be fun. I loved their bar ends that bolted into the bars.
-
• #49
It's only recently they started to get the cheaper ones made in taiwan...the original hardtails were all uk made.
-
• #50
Royce. If I had more money I'd deal with them more.
Brooklyn Machine Work purely for being inventive when creating their bicycles, pretty much started off as a one-man team (I think) into creating product that other manufacturer end up using.