Steel frame making.

[petgel]

I guess everybody's situation is different and because of that they charge what they have to to make ends meet or what they think they are worth.

Our workshop is at our home. It was a conscious decision when we bought our house that I was likely to quit the day job and go self employed at some point, so with that in mind, we got a place with ample room for a workshop to be built, because my overheads are reasonably low, I choose to charge rates that are comparable with my outgoings. We try our best to take on all the work we can, we love doing repairs, restorations and alterations, there are plenty of great steel frames out there that with a little TLC can be perfect for peoples needs without having to commission a brand new build, it also helps keep bikes out of the skip! I have actually been informed that I charge less for some work than weekend hobbyists do, those subsidised by a day job during the week.

Obviously if you have much higher overheads, you need to charge more to break even or make profit, I mean with the cost of living these days, you'd be hard pushed to be able to rent a workshop and pay a mortgage without having to charge a hell of a lot per frame or selling a lot of them every month. Add in insurance (which is insanely expensive now), plus gas rental etc and that's a hell of a chunk to cover before making any profit to take a wage from.

I'm all for people doing stuff themselves, but when they have a full time job and are building and selling frames in their spare time at low prices, they are potentially taking work away from full time builders who are trying to pay mortgages and feed their families from their craft, this is something else that is bumping prices up.

I know all these websites are quoting £4k+ for a frames, but how many are they actually selling? Social media is a great smokescreen for making it look like you have a lot of work on, eeking out build pics of a frame over 4 or 5 weeks, I'm hearing plenty of stuff through the industry that builders are struggling, diversifying, offering frame building courses and secondary brands to try and generate additional income. That's a tough place to be for them.

What I'm trying to say (in a long-winded way!) is please don't lump us all in together. Some of us have worked really hard to not be considered "hipster tax" people. As trite as it sounds, we got into this in 2011 because we love bikes and wanted to work from home, together. That's it. We knew we would never make much money and we never tried to, we just wanted to make people's dream bikes and restore loved frames that had been thought of as forever out of commission. I'm fortunate that my wife has always been on the same wavelength and so, we've built a small but self-sufficient company that doesn't seek to keep up with what peers are charging. And yet we still have to counter assumptions about our pricing, or worse, justify why we are considerably less! How do we answer those questions without crapping on peers or undervaluing ourselves?

Interesting post and I wholeheartedly agree. I was also thinking of going down a more refurb route. There is an abundance of fantastic well made frames out there for less than a set of tubes, and no one really making a business model out of it. Those frames rely on individuals buying and refurbing but a lot don’t want the ag of doing it. They want a nicely made nice looking frame at reasonable cost. For a good refurb even you can easily drop £1000 at somewhere like Argos.

 

[mullinino]

Who, me? I wasn't lumping you in with anyone, sounds like you - unusually - are in it for the love of it, no-one can crap on that, and best of luck to you. I'd love to name names, but there are a lot of - in my opinion - chancers out there charging big bucks for little effort... I don't THINK it's jealousy on my part - I would have no probs paying four grand or more for a custom Ritchey or Brodie or the like - but I do think a lot of companies take advantage of people. That's Capitalism though, if I don't like it maybe I should check out flights to North Korea, set up a company there and starve to death.

 

[minor_LEGEND]

Apparently those that have started cycling in the carbon era are unaware that steel frames have ever even existed.

Sounds much like the general dumbing-down of the population we are typically seeing over last couple decades.

 

[sjcprojects]

Sounds much like the general dumbing-down of the population we are typically seeing over last couple decades.

The actual quote from the article is "If you get 50 and 60-year-old guys that were cycling in their youth, they'll know all about it. But people have come in a cycle [who have come into cycling? they need a sub-editor!] in the last 10 years or so, all they've ever known is carbon,"

I'm pretty sure most cyclists with anything more than a passing interest are aware that steel bikes existed, even if they don't know anything at all about them, and why should they, really? I'm slightly playing devil's advocate here, but not everyone is that interested in the history of whatever sport/hobby they take part in.

 

[novocaine]

I think that might be a very naive and possible poor journalistic statement. the modern era is so full of other peoples opinions on topics like this that I think it's hard to avoid seeing steel bikes on occasion. even GMBN and GCN drop a mention to it a regularly basis, often when talking about very high end or custom machines.

 

[Oldtat]

"weekend hobbyists......those subsidised by a day job during the week."

Isn't this how a lot of companies that we now consider 'proper' started out? And when they got bigger got more established and costs went up?

 

[August Bicycles]

"weekend hobbyists......those subsidised by a day job during the week."

Isn't this how a lot of companies that we now consider 'proper' started out? And when they got bigger got more established and costs went up?

It certainly is, though there are a lot of folks out there who love the security of a paycheck but are also fond of the additional pocket money a hobby can offer.

When you end up with premises, insurance, staff, and all the other overheads, sometimes the costs have to go up. As I mentioned in a previous post, everyone's circumstances differ, they do what they have to to make it work for them as a full time gig.

 

[August Bicycles]

Who, me? I wasn't lumping you in with anyone, sounds like you - unusually - are in it for the love of it, no-one can crap on that, and best of luck to you. I'd love to name names, but there are a lot of - in my opinion - chancers out there charging big bucks for little effort... I don't THINK it's jealousy on my part - I would have no probs paying four grand or more for a custom Ritchey or Brodie or the like - but I do think a lot of companies take advantage of people. That's Capitalism though, if I don't like it maybe I should check out flights to North Korea, set up a company there and starve to death.

Hey Sorry, I wasn't saying that you were lumping us in with the others, I went off on a bit of a rant in the reply!

 

[Tootyred]

trying to get things done, the phone constantly ringing consumes a lot of time

Amen brother!

You need to add the word "wasters" to the end of that quote. Dealing with dreamers is a nightmare....and there are plenty of them.

But more seriously, we had 5 guys and my entire day was taken up in the engineering works talking to customers and doing office stuff. Any business has stuff you have to do as well as your "job"....custom is just worse, because its custom, people want it to be special and have wildly different expectations.....so there is much to discuss, plan, discuss again, change their mind halfway through etc.etc.etc......

I still got paid, although I made nothing most of the time, but its all got to be factored into that frame cost.......so 2k is cheap as chips imho.

If you then add copious latte and a bottle of complementary branded beard oil.....well its going to be 4k.

 

[Frankenorange]

Amen brother!

You need to add the word "wasters" to the end of that quote. Dealing with dreamers is a nightmare....and there are plenty of them.

But more seriously, we had 5 guys and my entire day was taken up in the engineering works talking to customers and doing office stuff. Any business has stuff you have to do as well as your "job"....custom is just worse, because its custom, people want it to be special and have wildly different expectations.....so there is much to discuss, plan, discuss again, change their mind halfway through etc.etc.etc......

I still got paid, although I made nothing most of the time, but its all got to be factored into that frame cost.......so 2k is cheap as chips imho.

If you then add copious latte and a bottle of complementary branded beard oil.....well its going to be 4k.

Yeah...it's like social media constantly pinging and writing the replies consumes alot of time. More of a lifestyle choice, though, compared to a phone.