vze23c3q

Looking for a winter project so I'm considering a Workswell frame with Ultegra or better components.

#1 thing I want is more tire clearance as I've had at least 4 flats where FOD gets jammed into the sidewall at the brakes. Primary interest is fast (relative to me!) road rides.

Considering:

WCB-C-112 - Has the tire clearance but additional expense with disk, probably go mechanical
WCB-R-092 - Nice looking road frame (but not in production yet), 700*25 max (not enough?), probably go Di2

Since I can't test ride or evaluate in person, what advice would you offer?

Thanks!

Maelochs

Don't stop at one.

gsa103

Go disc if you want tire clearance.

Maelochs

I just built an 066 and wish I had the cash for a couple more. I was really happy with the company and the frame.

Check the geometry very carefully, and if you go disc (re: another thread here) get ti in writing that the disc mounts are faced and finished.

vze23c3q

I have the geometry of my current bike, the 112 and the 092 side by side (I'm 5'8", all 54s) The cross is a little bit bigger and the 092 a little smaller. Seems the 092 will be 'quicker' all around but the cross more versatile. For those that have ridden a cross on the road, how much did you feel you were you giving up compared to a true road bike? I imagine tire choice is probably more significant than the frame?

American Euchre

Support America, bro.

vze23c3q

It's a global market bro...doesn't really matter what brand I buy, ultimately a percentage will end up overseas. Who in America can provide a $500 frame? The groupset will be 4 times the expense, what's your suggestion there? (Don't bother answering, it was a rhetorical question.)

And I'll add I work for a global investment firm that generates significant inflows from overseas investments that pay my US salary, so I don't mind kicking 0.01% back to help their economy.

gsa103

There's an interesting question. What's the cheapest American made frame?

I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find an American made frameset for <$2k... maybe I'm wrong.

American Euchre

Here's a list. No doubt they'll cost more than workswellenoughisuppose.

American Made Bikes: From Trikes to High-Performance, Our Ultimate Source List - USA Love List

American Euchre

At least buy from a brand that actually invests in R&D instead of a counterfeit joint like workswell, even if the frames are manufactured overseas. I've soured on giant too: basically stole all of the R&D from schwinn. Very naive on schwinn's part to be sure, but shifty on giant's part.

rpenmanparker 

Nothing counterfeit about Workswell. Maybe they knock other brands off, but they do it up front and under their name. The don't claim to be what they are not.

Why you would want to pay too much and get too little is beyond me. Markets are efficient. Companies' failures will be punished as their successes will be rewarded. If American-based manufacturers want a share of the market, they will have to learn how to obtain it, and not just from Americans, from everyone on the planet. There has never been any sense to the "buy only American" credo. It just leads to mediocrity, poor value, laziness, and bankruptcy. On the other hand the entire resurgence of the American auto industry was due to emulation of improvements pioneered overseas. In the area of quality management, no one has stolen more technology than the American auto companies.

The more sensible credo is "reward value". If Americans want a share of that business, they must go out and earn it. Only after that will "buy American" make sense.

As regards R&D, it has no value to those who don't need it to do their particular business. And therefore it represents no value to their customers. "Necessity is the mother of invention" has no clearer application than here. If you need R&D to fulfill your business model, you should pay for it. If you don't, you shouldn't.

Maelochs

It's a tough topic. To some extent overseas firms can outperform U.S. firms by offering lower wages and no benefits to people whose standard of living is so far below what is considered acceptable in America that it would literally be criminal to pay so little.

One of the big differences in the U.AS> Auto business was adopting Japanese management techniques ... another was bypassing unions, which is another tough topic.

On another other hand, many U.S. firms which could have been profitable here in the U.S. have moved or out-sourced to become even more profitable---if those businesses had stayed American, they themselves would have been supporting Americans, but the CEOs wouldn't have been able to make 3000x what the rest of the staff was earning, so ...

And as for "Buy American .. ." fifty percent of our oil comes from foreign countries, so every light, every computer, every electric device anyone uses, including the machinery of production ... they guy who welds his own frames in a small shop in Wisconsin ids funding Saudi Arabia, which teaches Wahabism, and extremist anti-American interpretation of Islam, in its schools. By buying American, am I thus not supporting terrorism?

None of this is really serious ... it is all really convoluted.

By the way ... almost all bicycle components are produced in Communist China, under license from various firms. Shimano? Strip most of it off your bike immediately. Tires? do the research, and then stop using them.

If people Really want to support the U.S. economy, try doing stuff like lobbying for better laws protecting workers. Some unions certainly got out of hand (power can corrupt) but the only reason there ever were unions was because of the powerful, corrupt factory owners who treated workers like slaves. We hit a sweet spot where people who did good work could live good lives ... then the pendulum tipped back in favor of the top few percent, and workers have been losing steadily for decades.

Another consideration, though ...

While small craft shops producing small volumes of frames charge Way too much for me to ever consider their products ... The Gigantic companies who produce frames under the aegis of American companies (Giant, Trek, Specialized) are also getting their frames from Communist China.

Unless I pay huge dollars for a handcrafted frame, and usually get on a years-long waiting list ... then most likely most of my dollars fro any frame I buy are still going to some company in Communist China. And a lot of my dollars would also be supporting marketing and advertising people --- whom I frankly do Not want to support, because I find their practices abhorrible. I hate spednding money on the klind of dishonet and/or deliberaterly misleading, or simply fact-free garbage that the whole Madison-Avenue mindset purveys ...

I am sure Research and Development is expensive ... but not That expensive, because that is just a bunch of engineers earning a wage. Ad campaigns on the other hand, consists of huge numbers of photographers, copywriters, execs and planners of all kinds ... plus huge expenditures for media space, in magazines, online, billboards, on TV, wherever those ads are displayed or published.

A company like Workswell can design new frames using existing knowledge and technology. if people want the latest cutting-edge frame built using some manufacturing techniques we haven't heard of yet ... then they pay an R&D premium. But a lot of the premium is actually a marketing premium, because those "cutting-edge" techniques might just be a fancy way of saying "Yeah, we pay attention to the alignment of clot layers int he mold like everyone else does."

And even so ... Buy American? If I get a bike made of CroMo or hand-welded aluminum, right here in the USA... say, isn't Tange a Japanese company. Whoa, my "Made in America" Cannondale has a Japanese fork? Now what?

"Buy American" is great, I guess .... best way to do it might be to hire some Americans to research what products are actually "made in America."

It's complicated ... and really has nothing to do with bicycles.

By the way ... if Giant stole all it know from Schwinn, how did it get learnt o manufacture CF frames? Hmmm.......

OneIsAllYouNeed

Those bikes both have fairly middle-of-the-road geometry. I'd recommend the 'cross bike. The two bikes will handle pretty similarly with the same tires, but the 'cross bike has much more potential. Pick the size whose stack and reach are closest to your favorite road bike.

I've ridden about as many road miles on cyclocross frames as road frames. There's no difference when used with the same wheels/tires. Well, there's no difference if the BB drop and fit are about the same. Lots of 'cross frames have high bottom brackets which some people can feel while descending.

My fleet of bikes includes 2 made-to-order/made-in-America, 1 off-the-shelf/made-in-America , 2 designed-in-America/made-in-Taiwan, and 4 designed/made in Asia (including 1 Workswell). The fit and finish is marginally better on the ones with some American involvement, but they also cost a whole lot more. I think every one of the bikes we own was a good value.

American Euchre

True, they do sell under their own name but their frame designs are still an embarrassing ripoff of specialized designs. The chinese frame sellers all do that.

The americans didn't "steal" quality management ideas from the japanese it was the other way around. Read up, bro:

https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Deming-Ame.../dp/B003VIX1AY

American Euchre

Fair points. Many Asian countries have in fact improved upon designs invented in the U.S.

Fly2High

I do not think they are ripoffs. I believe they are what is called open mold. No one owns the mold design and anyone can use it like open source code. Just because your favorite bike company decides to use them and put a proprietary layup to make it their own doesn't make what they sell a ripoff.

rpenmanparker 

Don't tell me about quality management. Been there, done that. For a long, long time. So the godfathers of quality were Americans. No one in America even acknowledged them or the discipline existed until Japan made it their own. Why do you think Deming ended up in Japan? Because no one in the US would even talk to him. When Americans were first introduced to it, they laughed it off as absurd. Then when its ass was really and truly whupped, America brought it back home with all the improvements and fine tuning that Japan had applied to it.

And please stop calling me bro. I'm not your bro. What, are you 16?

vze23c3q

Thank you for your reply, I am leaning towards the cross for the reasons you stated. So now it will be N+1(M+1) with M being wheelsets to take advantage of that potential!

Thanks again for responding to my query.

HazeT

I would also add the Hongfu FM073 & FM073F.
The F version has flat mount disc mounts and thru axle, I believe the previous version has quick release and post mount.

sanmi

I've been eying the WCB-R-085 for the geometry and claimed 28mm tire clearance. I also don't really want disc brakes. Haven't seen any ride reports yet, though.

BillyD

Simmer down gentlemen. Everybody is entitled to voice an opinion.

And no name calling, please.

American Euchre

Godfathers? No. Inventors? Yes. Give credit where credit's due. Deming invented the system, the Japanese adopted it.

The Chinese are full on industrial thieves. They've stolen every last good idea they've ever had. ENDLESS copyright violations. No human being with even an ounce of empathy and integrity can legitimately defend their disgusting criminal and unethical behavior.

SHBR

That ship sailed a long time ago.

Lots of older technology has been given away, because there is still a large market here for obsolete western technology.

China has become the preferred location for multinational R&D.

Maelochs

Y'all are ridiculous. You get all worked up over Chinese stealing software and bicycle designs? They steal organs,about 100,00 per year, from people arrested for their spiritual persuasions.

Murdering people to supply their transplant industry strikes meas being just a tad more serious than producing an unbranded endurance-geometry carbon-fiber bike frame. Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) DAFOH

BillyD

Yeah this thread is dead.