Neil and Benedict (Production Director and Head Designer, respectively) flew to Italy this week to see the final frames being produced for the 2010 Condor Cycles range.
The factory hand builds road frames only for Condor Cycles in the UK mainly utilising steel from Dedacciai tubing to the bespoke requirements of Condor. Benedict provides an account of his first visit:
"As more and more marques take their manufacturing to the far east, slowly but surely, the bicycle manufacturing industry in Italy shrinks at a steady rate. For this reason it was not unusual to find signs of general fabrication -items of outdoor furniture and in one case MicroLite space-frames bumping up productivity. At the same time, it was mighty heartening to see the methods behind the manufacturing of steel, alloy and carbon frames when not on a mass-production scale. We were plied with Espresso and fed to the eyeballs -thanks to Lorenzo of Dedacciai."