East Coast Frame Builders

[MMcG]

Someday it would be cool to be able to afford a custom frame (I may be in my mid 70s by then, but hopefully I'll still be riding! ;D) and ideally it would be cool to work with a New England-based frame builder.

I know about Seven, and Ted Wojick and IF, and a few others, but am I missing some really great New England based frame builders? I take it Sinister Bikes are fairly new to the scene and are specializing in bomber freeride frames. Who else is out there building frames in New England that I should be aware of in case I hit the lottery or something like that?

If so, can you let me know and if you have a link to a web site that would be cool too!

[CouchingTiger]

The bike industry has done a lot of self-pruning, what with the big down turn in mountain bike sales that has occured recently. Merlin was a mainstay here until a couple years back when they were purchased by Litespeed. Additionally, Rhygin was pumping out high end hardtails (including some stainless steel rigs) for a number of years but has since hit the wayside. Spooky was another NorthEast (NY/CT) based company that made bikes for a few years. I think just about everyone I know has at least one broken/cracked Spooky story (myself included) ;) There was a company called Dogma who ran outta Boston for like a couple days, making aluminum hardtails back in the mid '90's.

In terms of those still around the numbers are indeed smaller. Evil/E13 bikes is another NE based company that is still making MTBs. Their niche is like Bill's (Sinister), burly DS/FR-HT's. Sinister is getting a foothold in the HT market. Seven is a mainstay icon for the best money can buy. Ted Wojcik has been making frames for years up in southern NH. Other than those, there really aren't many/any full production houses. Sure, there are some folks that will make one-off's like Hot Tubes out in Worcester (I think), or Peter Mooney or Peter White.

The problem is simple, too many bikes, not enough bikers. It's hard to burrow out a name in this market. High end bike prices are way low these days as are the sales. That spells disaster for manufacturing.

-Couch