British Steel

[sinnerman]

Can i just congratulate WADSY...., for a great win for this months BOTM,
with a gorgeous and now rare quality English bike, and on the weekend of our Queens Jubilee too....

RULE BRITANNIA.

 

[NeilM]

It was the natural choice.

Well done Wadsy!

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Heres my custom built British frame.
I've just had it powder coated & done a resto on it. Its a 1 off Thorn frame built from Colombus Foco tubing. It was a prototype mtb that ended up becoming the Raven Enduro Rohloff equipped mtb's. Fillet Brazed to a very high standard with straight bladed forks. I'm just a seatpost shim & some new handlebars away from finishing it.

 

[mynchiboy]

I remembered that I had forgotten to add something here...here's one for now

 

[NeilM]

Heres my custom built British frame.
I've just had it powder coated & done a resto on it. Its a 1 off Thorn frame built from Colombus Foco tubing. It was a prototype mtb that ended up becoming the Raven Enduro Rohloff equipped mtb's. Fillet Brazed to a very high standard with straight bladed forks. I'm just a seatpost shim & some new handlebars away from finishing it.

NICE!

That looks scarily like my current build, you are obviously a man of great taste

Where are Thorn frames made?

I know SJS are in Bridgwater (just down the road from me), are the frames made locally?

 

[wadsy]

Can i just congratulate WADSY...., for a great win for this months BOTM,
with a gorgeous and now rare quality English bike, and on the weekend of our Queens Jubilee too....

RULE BRITANNIA.

Thanks very much Carl

Nice one

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Heres my custom built British frame.
I've just had it powder coated & done a resto on it. Its a 1 off Thorn frame built from Colombus Foco tubing. It was a prototype mtb that ended up becoming the Raven Enduro Rohloff equipped mtb's. Fillet Brazed to a very high standard with straight bladed forks. I'm just a seatpost shim & some new handlebars away from finishing it.

NICE!

That looks scarily like my current build, you are obviously a man of great taste

Where are Thorn frames made?

I know SJS are in Bridgwater (just down the road from me), are the frames made locally?

Hi Neil. I gather their frame shop has been wrapped-up now. The current stuff is all Taiwanese produced as it is just so much more cost effective & they are happy with the quality from what I can gather. A real shame but obviously turning out a profit is paramount.

 

[NeilM]

I gather their frame shop has been wrapped-up now. The current stuff is all Taiwanese produced as it is just so much more cost effective

That is a shame, doesn't seem to have brought the prices down much though!

Look forward to seeing your Thorn out and about sometime.

 

[sinnerman]

Some links to British Steel bikes and builds.

Zinn z753

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... =zinn+z753

Overburys

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... =overburys

Orange Clockwork Club

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

Chas Roberts D.O.G.S. B.O.L.O.X

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

Dave Lloyd Reynolds 753 Chaos Theory

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

Dave Yate Diablo and Orange Prestige

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

Chas Roberts White Spider Ultralight

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

Tushingham

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ght=orange

A Tribute to a National Hero----Jason McRoy--

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=212784

 

[sinnerman]

Some additional info on the relevance of Roberts Cycles.

Bitd, One of our English Mountain bike Magazines had got wind of an American magazine getting involved with a Bicycle company.
To help with the Design of what they considered to be the Ultimate Mountain bike, and the Ultimate solution to many problems we were facing at the time as off road mountain bikers........

These Problems were of course, Chainsuck, Mud clearance, and Chainstay length.

The Bike design that was causing the stir was of course the Now legendary...................................................."Yeti Ultimate"...

Not a Nation that ever wants to get left behind, our Uk Magazine Quickly looked to the Best regarded frame builder we had at this time.....

Chas Roberts was the man they called.....and after much conversation and coercion, it was agreed That Roberts would build the Uk a race winning Elevated chainstay Mountain bike.

I say Coercion, because i feel that Roberts felt the elevated chainstay design was fundamentally flawed in many ways, and i think he felt as a frame builder there were other ways to face the chainsuck/mudclearance/chainstay length issues without having to resort to using this design. And potentially trade one set of problems for another.....ie The weight penalites steel estays had. The Yeti was and is No lightweight.

But with the market as it was... Chas Roberts set about Building us a lightweight E-Stay off road Racer. This Bike was aptly named the "STRATOS".
( A beautifully Fillet Brazed mix of top of the Range tubes from Columbus and Reynolds, carefully mixed to reduce the overall weight penalty inherent of the early steel Estay design)

Call it a Combintation of market pressure, fashion or magazine coercion, call it what you will......but to my mind this bike along with the Yeti of course, Spawned a succsession of E-stays in the fourthcoming years, from other Uk framebuilders from Lloyd to Yates, and even further down the line, from Saracen and other Uk manufacturers......Even Halfords had Saracen building E-stays in the end, which sold by the bucket load, branded Carrera.



Suffice to say, Chas Roberts original thoughts on the design were borne out, and subsequently only 12 were ever built.

I only Know of Four left in existants.....and i would like to thank Mr kawasaki for furnishing me with some fantastic pictures of His own "Roberts Stratos" being Raced at the 2009 mountain mayhem race event.

(one of only four known to have survived...and to my mind a very Important Bike for us here in the Uk, clearly demonstrating we too were taking the development of the mountain bike seriously.)