Are they affordable? This may change my views. Lol.

The VO bottom brackets are around $45 last I checked, which is a decent price for a sealed BB. JIS square taper only.

Literally NOTHING I've ever bought made by Origin8 looks cheap, or like crap? I like my CX frame, it was just too small in the largestsize. Well, and the fork weighed 3 pounds by itself. I'm not sure what's going on with all the Origin8 Attacks?,,,,BD

Word. I'd rock lots of their stuff.

Okay so I got some photos. I only had a few minutes to quickly yank it out of the box and snap a few pics, so I apologize for how bad these pictures are! Most of the welds are actually fine, but that seat tube is just... really ugly. It's not as bad as it was for snarkypup with the Creme, but still, I never would have bought this if I had seen it in person first. I realized looking at it that there's even a gap on one side, where it looks like the welds didn't quite meet and the paint missed it too. Again, I apologize, it's really hard to tell in the photo because it looks like it's just a glare from the flash, but it's not.

But if you look at the rear wheel dropout, it looks fine. I'm certainly no expert in welding or metalwork, but it looks perfectly acceptable if I were just going by the dropout. That's what most of the welds look like. Overall, it's not a bad deal for a cheap city bike build, if they could just fix that seat tube weld. The box it came in was also not tall enough for the frame and the seat collar poked out, which explains the damage there.

I think I am still going to send this back. I was too hasty about this for some reason and made a mistake- if I had thought about this for more than a day, I think I would have realized this was not going to be what I wanted. Lesson learned.

Looks acceptable for the price. That's my opinion.

If it was just the issues of being unsatisfied then I can see paying to have it shipped back but it came damaged. You shouldn't have to pay for shipping when the frame got jacked up like that especially when not enough precaution (needed a bigger box) was taken.

BTW, you're located in California so it should be fairly easy for you to find a nice vintage mixte here!

Digging the brakes and stem. Brakes look like the love child of Campy skeleton brakes and Suntour roller cam brakes.

They're actually one of the lightest affordable brakes on the market right now. 220g a pair!

The welds on that frame are perfectly acceptable given its price.

Does anyone know how much the frame and forks weigh?

They weigh exactly one metric Origin8 Mixte Frame Unit. (in the MO8MFU system)

OK - Bad quality but probably worth the price - You are gaging the frame on what your personal standards would be if you had manufactured it - And considering your time, experience and skills it might be worth putting those old silver soildering skills to work and making your own frame - We'll call it the "Shopgirl Mixte" - I am sure it would be a beauty...

For the most part yeah, it's really not a bad deal and most of the frame looks fine. If just one or the other of any of these minor issues had occurred-ugly seat lug, sleeved seat tube, minor shipping damage- I would probably just take the frame and deal with it. Yeah, I'm being picky, but even if it is relatively cheap, it's a lot of money for me and definitely more than I want to spend on something that doesn't even make me happy.

Just to clarify-- you can usually find the Soma BV frame for closer to $400. I got my wife's 58cm BV frameset for $414 shipped. The long wheelbase was actually one of the selling points for her, because she wanted a stable ride and no TCO. It's a win on both counts (especially with 42mm 650B Hetres ).

The frame is about what I would expect for a $400-500 TIG welded frame. The dropouts are typical Tange forged, nothing special. The paint quality is quite good. The welds are clean enough for this price point but not the cleanest I've seen:

The pictures are out of focus but the frame looks fine to me. I wouldn't say it's much worse than my vintage Raleigh. The Raleigh may be lugged but it has the same price driven craftsmanship. I think Linus bikes have that same type of seat tube joint.

"Hand-hammered lugs" i.e. by a drunken hung-over lout's hands that don't give a squat what it looks like. Slap some paint on it and ship it!

I imagine by the end the Nottingham plant resembled a Detroit auto plant as far as labor/management issues were concerned.

Agreed... for practical purposes even ugly welds work just fine.

The tig welds on the O8 dropout are particularly hideous.

This was some rather utilitarian brazing/ repair we did last week as the bike is getting sent off to tour the world and developed a crack in the original dropouts.

Raw...



After a base coat...



The repair will probably outlast the bike...

southpaw - The Soma frame is very nicely done, if was not for the long wheelbase it would have been a keeper.

The lady likes her Peugeot even more... might have something to do with the love that was put into building it up for her.

One day, I will build her a custom bicycle... besides our tandem.

They make a nice coffe cup holder..

No doubt it weighs as much as that silly stem I have of theirs

Nice design although I wonder if it will hold a Venti

No, the Linus bikes have a much cleaner-looking seat tube joint. It's the same idea behind both, but that poor Origin8 mixte looks like a Linus reject.

Or a Trenta.

Well, the sales rep agreed to take it back. There was a little bit of shipping damage as well- the box was a little too small for the frame and it arrived with the seat tube poking out of the top.
Another funny thing about all this: when I was first talking to the rep back when I ordered it, he was telling me about the mixte he had just built for his wife, and he sent me a couple photos as inspiration for my project. What frame did he use? A vintage Univega...huh.