elekola

Hi, I have a small bike shop in the Czech Republic and I've been accumulating orders for custom bike building.

Unfortunately my suppliers don't have the frames in stock and don't plan to stock them. I'm looking for wholesalers all over Europe, but no one has frames in large quantities for sale at reasonable prices, as my customers often want bikes in the 700-1000USD price range, so I'm looking for frames at a good price.

I estimate that I am able to make 30-50 custom bikes a year, but there are no frames, so I have to cut off orders.

So where to find frames for regular mountain, trekking and city bikes cheaply in Europe?
I would be very grateful for your insights.

Thank you so much for your advice and especially your time and willingness to help

Barry2 

Welcome to Bike Forums.

I believe most here think in US Dollars. Your 15-25k may not translate well. If you do mean $25,000 then most any frame will build up below that.

Please specify a currency

All the best

Barry

icemilkcoffee 

Where to find frames cheaply? The same place where you find everything cheaply - Aliexpress

SoCaled 

Don't know if it is viable but I was just looking at this, someone listed this as the builder of a nice looking bike they were selling.
https://www.maxway-cycles.com/
https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespe...es-taiwan.html

alcjphil

30 - 50 bikes per year of various types does not translate to what anyone could refer to as large quantities. How many mountain bikes, how many trekking bikes, how many city bikes? If evenly split, you would only be talking about 10- 16 frames of each type. Hardly "large quantities"

shelbyfv

Agree. Check out Black Mtn Cycles. Read in the blog about his experiences buying frames. Not for the faint of heart or low budget. OP's plan won't be viable due to low price and volume.

veganbikes

If your customers want $700-1000 (USD) bikes then you need to find a company like Specialized, Cube, Giant, Felt, Marin...any big manufacturer and buy complete bikes through them. You cannot make a good custom bike for that low of a price without losing money yourself. A custom bike is likely to cost a customer 2k for the lower end and up for something decent. A prebuilt bike from a manufacturer like 80% of bike shops in the world sell is going to be more practical.

Buying at such low volume is not going to get you anywhere going custom and if you were truly building custom bikes you would likely also be a fitter and have some relationships with local frame builders and each one would be ordered per customer not in bulk. There are a lot of frame builders who do partner with shops to get their customers the best experience but it sounds like you just need entry level bikes and some lower end stuff from an established bike company.

ridelikeaturtle

I feel like if you did some emailing and were willing to travel to Italy, with several dozen - that is, 50 to 200 - different shops - you might find enough bikes that you could build up to fill a few containers to ship to yourself. If you're looking for a nice range of good steel vintage bikes at a reasonable per-frame cost, that's what I'd do.

Maelochs

Check out the Chinese carbon-fiber market. I know Workswell used to hound me about buying multiple frames at a discount .... I assume a lot of those companies might be willing to make deals .... but if you want the finished bikes to be around $1000US, you need to find really cheap steel or aluminum frames on the Internet .... lots of companies used to make them but with the rise in the cost of components i don't think many people are building personal bikes in their garages any more... I typed "Aluminum biked frames for sale in small quantities and got some hits.

Sy Reene

Mentioned was that you want to build custom bikes -- so you're looking for however many custom frames to be built? Or what do you mean by custom bikes?

Yan 

Message these guys in Shanghai. They can put you in touch with a factory in Guangzhou that can supply you. I think they closed a few years ago, but maybe the owner can still help you with the contact.
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?...selected=about

Also try these guys in Beijing.
https://www.serk.cc/

Both are English speaking. I have experience with them both from back when I lived in China.

squirtdad

my read is that OP wants to do custom component builds on standard frames.

squirtdad

Most bike companies.... trek, specialized etc don't include selling bare, lower end frames as part of the business model.
Pretty much the only frames they sell bare are high end

Frkl

A while ago (c. 2010), I think Hartje in DE would sell frames to shops who wanted a house brand. Not sure if they still do this or what the conditions are https://www.hartje.de/

Also in DE, there are shops that sell remainders, but you obviously don't get the selection you might need. just as an example: https://www.radversender.de/fahrradteile/rahmen_s3

And don't ignore ebay for finding remainders either, this seller has a bunch of remainder decalthon frames https://www.ebay.de/str/fahrradmarkt...at=78093581013

unterhausen

I'm sure there are industry shows in Europe where you can find suppliers. Eurobike is the big one, but it's in july. The Taipai international cycle show is in March. I'm not sure of others, but that's the most efficient way of finding vendors.

CrimsonEclipse

Wow great answer!
You corrected his semantics but didn't address his problem!

A true BF hero!

veganbikes

Wow you got involved again in something with which you know not and didn't even have a response at all to the question but complained about someone else who did.

alcjphil had a great answer because it gets to the heart of things. Small quantities are not large quantities even the 30-50 range isn't that large and are not something that a wholesale distributor is interested in. If I ran a wholesale business and someone called saying I want to buy a couple things I would say sorry I deal in large quantities.

Not every answer has to be some pandering B.S. sometimes you have to be realistic about things. Plus a lot of people come here and are vague and so you need to be honest instead of just telling someone a mirror image of what they wrote.'

Parrots are awesome creatures but when asking a question I don't want to hear the same words back at me. Especially not on an online forum. It is a place of discussion and yes sometimes in a discussion you will need to bring someone to the truth.

Again though getting back to the topic like I said previously the OP would want to go with a bike company that already exists and makes pre-built bikes and they will get a much better bike for those low prices though with any low volume order you won't get much of a deal and will generally get last pick of a lot of stuff.

zandoval 

Better at Alibaba for quantities.

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search...xt=bike+frames