I decided to start this thread to try and collate all things Orbit in one place. I've had a few chats with Doug at Orbit over the past couple of weeks and he is interested in putting together a bit of a history of the brand and finding out what people know, seeing any old catalogues they might have etc. Doug has been at Orbit since 2002 and took over the company in 2007.

I will be pointing him in the direction of this thread so feel free to post up anything you might know, catalogue scans, bike photo's etc.

I have posted links below to any relevant threads I could find including was8v's recent thread which includes scans of a catalogue from around 1991 courtesy of Stu.

I will add my own to the thread in due course.

So without further ado..........show us your Orbits!

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... highlight=

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ight=orbit

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... ight=orbit

Liking the orbits. I almost bought a new one a little while back but ended up buying a 97 Hei Hei frame instead.

Coincidently just flicking through an MBI from 1991......got an Orbit 531 Frontier tested......will get the pages scanned in tomorrow

Excellent!

Orbit review

Strange one this...

Orbit have been through so many changes in ownership [let alone places of build - ie. not Sheffield as they like to claim] that the suggestion of any kind of linear / continuous history could almost be suggested as a fabrication...

Seems a little like creating a history in order to underline the traditions of an established framebuilder in order to sell frames to 'informed' punters...

There's a vague suggestion through their website that they have been hand building frames in Sheffield for over 30 years, which is [simply put] untrue...


BB

^^^

But aside from that [and it was not aimed to be derogatory] it sounds like a fun project, and it's always good to have comprehensive histories of frame builders...

Good luck with it!

I think they were originally Sheffield based, then the Midlands in the '90s, and now Sheffield again.

I think they buy in their frames now from Poland or the Czech Republic.

I seem to recall someone like Fort make them.

Says Dudley in the article I scanned in. That was 91

Brilliant - cheers Ant

Is there another page to it though...?

That's an interesting comment, as I have been looking on the bay for Orbit bikes.

A couple of weeks ago there was a nice Orbit road bike with a very unusual paint finish. The seller was miles away and it was pickup only, so I passed. Currently there is a Ribble road bilke with what appears to be an identical finish and I am assuming it was made by the same builder. That's a bit of a reach I know, but it's a very unusual finish.

I know this was pretty common with road bikes, all sorts of well known names actually didn't make their own frames, so there's no reason to think the same was not true (to a lesser degree) with mtb's.

Yep, the same as with a certain celebrated 'Bristol' MTB frame builder who actually had most of their frames built in Coventry and driven down to them in the dead of night...

And the other outfit 'from' Leeds..


BB

two wheels good..

Yip there is ........uploaded.