noughties when we made barely more than a few tens of thousands – a catastrophic decline in less than 30 years! Sure there are now plenty of bike assemblers who boast ‘made in England’ when the reality is that they are not. Assembly of a kit of parts around a foreign-built frame is easy and is not the same. It’s been my mission to try to do my little bit to bring back some sort of bicycle frame manufacturing to the UK. Sadly as a country it’s not possible for us to compete at the mass-produced end, but we can certainly compete at the higher end of things. It’s what the UK has done in other industries. Our own frame building adventure started in 2008 when I first said to my youngest son Joe, who back then had zero knowledge of welding or frame building, ‘you are going to be a frame builder son.’ Today, Enigma is in a very good place. We have amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience over the years and we produce frames of the very finest quality. Every process is carried out in our Hailsham, Sussex facility giving us total control from start to finish.
What area of the market do you target? Enigma is very much at the higher end of the market for the more discerning rider. Nonetheless, I believe that we offer excellent value for money when our products are compared to those of our competitors. Even though we have doubled our in-house frame building capacity over the last couple of years, we are still unable to produce as many frames as we can sell, therefore we are a hybrid business in as much as we still import some of our frames marketed as our ‘Core’ range. However even our imported frames are quality checked in Hailsham, with reaming, chasing, facing and finishing all done here in Sussex. It means that we can offer unparalleled quality plus a certain level of customisation even on our imported frame range.
What makes your products unique – How can Enigma benefit dealers?
It seems that almost every brand now has a titanium bike
or bikes in their range, the marketplace is very crowded. But Enigma continues to thrive and as I mentioned earlier, we offer something different and unique. The value of ‘Made in England’ should not be underestimated as it strikes a chord with many consumers these days, just as I always believed it would. In addition, customisation is possible on all our products, even our imported frames, and despite our high-end offering we deliver value for money across the board. For us it’s very much quality over quantity. Our product range works particularly well for dealers specializing in bikefitting and custom builds. Enigma titanium frames sit very well alongside the ubiquitous carbon fibre frame brands that are too numerous to mention and are aimed at a different customer. We have a limited number of dealers, which is perfect for us and for the dealers we work with. The feedback is always positive and our dealers like what we do and buy into it.
What are your plans for 2024 and beyond? To increase our capacity for UK built titanium frames. Sadly it’s a slow organic process as skilled operatives who are able to work to the consistently high level we require are just not available ‘off-the shelf,’ meaning our staff have to be schooled from within.
Sustainability is very important to me personally and also
to Enigma. Titanium itself is an easy material to recycle and we are endeavoring to make our bikes and frames in the greenest possible way. A couple of months ago we had a full solar energy system installed and now on a sunny day we are producing more electricity than we can use, sending the excess to the grid. We have installed electric car-charging points for customers. Air travel by our staff has been reduced to almost zero, as with modern communications we believe it’s just not necessary to jet off to all corners of the world for meetings. We recycle as much packaging as we can and we buy recyclable packing materials, plus we have introduced other measures to reduce the carbon footprint of our business. Our new ‘Eikon’ model is very special and has been developed in collaboration with Reynolds Technology. The frame itself is made here in Hailsham in the most sustainable way possible, with almost all component parts sourced within the UK. It’s a great example of what is possible.
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