how much does it cost...

[JPJ]

That's a very interesting statement given that their sister company for mountain bikes, On One, do design their frames to their own specs and requirements and I believe Planet X do for their road bikes. Yes, some of the parts of the design have been leveraged from other manufacturers, De Kerf seats stay for example on their hardtail MTB's, and of course they're made in the Far East but they are to On One's spec. It may be that the tubespecs are also borrowed, but the combination of those parts to their design make a 'new' bike.

The comment about designing in house and building the prototype in house is a bit odd. What's the difference between having your frame maker in house, in a factory in a different town or in a different country if they still come back to be tested. The only difference here is the time it would take to turn around the prototype. The work with Lynskey for their titanium frames has shown how they are capable of collaborating to produce award winning framsets.

[Fatman2]

JPJ said:

That's a very interesting statement given that their sister company for mountain bikes, On One, do design their frames to their own specs and requirements and I believe Planet X do for their road bikes. Yes, some of the parts of the design have been leveraged from other manufacturers, De Kerf seats stay for example on their hardtail MTB's, and of course they're made in the Far East but they are to On One's spec. It may be that the tubespecs are also borrowed, but the combination of those parts to their design make a 'new' bike.

The comment about designing in house and building the prototype in house is a bit odd. What's the difference between having your frame maker in house, in a factory in a different town or in a different country if they still come back to be tested. The only difference here is the time it would take to turn around the prototype. The work with Lynskey for their titanium frames has shown how they are capable of collaborating to produce award winning framsets.

When I say 'tested' I don't mean 'go out and take the bike for a nice ride' but structurally test it on a slip table or similar to validate the structural ingegrity of the design before sign off. Buying in a generic frame drops you out of this loop - thus saving you a hell of a lot of development cost. As further proof of the generic nature of one of their frames (look familiar anyone?):

http://www.xpa-cycling.com/products_data.php?htm=1...

Sadly the word 'development' can mean many things and often gets misused. The great Ayrton Senna helped develop the NSX but only in the actual driving of the car. I very much doubt he had much of an input to designing/stressing the components that made the car drive in the way he wanted.

But anyway to quote Dave at Planet X directly:

Q "How much design input do you have with your frames. Are they designed in house and then made by your manufacturer or do you specify what you require and let your supplier design and manufacturer them for you or do you just buy something off the shelf? Or maybe something else I haven't thought of?"

A - Its a real combination of the above .

For titanium / alloy / steel - all our frames are custom built to our specs and designs by various manufacturers .

Dave then goes on to say:

"The next thing that happened was Richard Gu asked if we wanted to carry one of their off the peg road models - we said lets take a look at the geometry and check a few samples , whilst the frame (current model) had no design input from us it ticked a lot of boxes
- geometry was consistent with our tried n tested cinelli geometry (same top tube / seattube / similar headtube) which was what we were looking for
- It tested and rode well , and the team riders liked it (Irish national team , lovatt )
- it had a tube profile that we liked .

Which sort of brings us to where we are now .

We are still using Richard Gu and the stealth frame and bars , and the sl carbon road frame have just kept on selling ."

The rest of the thread can be found on bikeradar where he very openly (and very kindly) responds to a few close questions.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12...

Planet X's background is basicly in distribution and whilst they have a lot of product knowledge have had to sub out a lot of their work.

I'm not knocking them and they are making great strides into actual bike design for their newer models. However it's important to be clear exactly how their bikes have come about and why they represent such good value for money.

Hope this helps

Edited by Fatman2 on Monday 1st November 13:00

[anonymous-user]

Fatman2 said:

pablo said:

fatman2: only a few manufacturers can afford to design a bespoke carbon frame and put it through rigorus testing in a wind tunnel to prove their claims. its why a cervelo p4 frmae costs £4K and a planet x frame costs £1K.....what you will most likely find is that the carbon framed planet x is the same as many other frames out there, if you do the research regarding geometry that frame will crop up a number of times as a brand that you will have heard of and are possibly more likely to trust...... i still laugh when people assume that specialized, trek and giant et al build their bikes in some special factory using aerospace qualified welders in the far east and the rest of the brands are welded together by some communist on 4p per day....

I wasn't suggesting that manufacturers use wind tunnels at all on their bikes as most of them probably don't for their regular bikes (sportive and non TT race frames). My Bianchi certainly wasn't subjected to such tests otherwise the brochure would have waxed lyrical about it.

What they have done, however, was to design the frame in-house and (if my brochure is correct) structurally tested and validated the design before either making the carbon frame themselves or subcontracting it out to China. This is the difference and whilst I'm not suggesting that large mainstream manufacturers build their bikes in 'special' factories, understand the difference between doing the hard work yourself and merely buying in a generic frame that someone else has done the work on. This is akin to Daewoo rebadging and selling the old Mk2 Astra some years ago.

I'm not sure people think the way you're assuming but genuinely understand that Planet X frames are cheap because they i.e. Planet X, have not done the up front work to get the frame as it is today. They've just bought a set of frames that have been built to a print that was signed off by A-N-Other. The difference is significant as Planet X has had absolutely no input in how the frame performs. The fact they ride so well is just good fortune on their part.

i agree but i still dont think the likes of bianchi - nor anyone else for that matter - do much to their low to medium end bikes. they pretty much design themselves these days if its alu. i think planet x are getting much more invovled in the design stages now than people give them credit. they have a reputation to uphold and if you are correct, can not rely on lightning striking twice