I'm looking, perhaps, to have bikes with frames from other continents. I'm sort of waiting out the inflation of Australia before I start looking there, as I have a source, but was wondering if anyone knows of brands that were made on the African continent?

Europe, Asia, and the US are pretty simply done.
I know what I want from South America
(and yes, I know some instruction lists North and South America together)
I doubt if Antarctica has a thriving market.

It would be cool, though, to see what's out there.

Robbie my friend has imported frames from Africa and they are made from bamboo. He picked one up a few years ago on a trip to Africa with Lon Haldeman and a well known builder. They look really nice and seem to ride well. His shop is Wheel Werks in Crystal Lake IL. They have a web site but I don't have it with me. A Google search will find them. Bob Olson is the owners name. Roger

There are plenty from India, but a local sale may be scarce.

Raleigh had a Roadster factory in Nigeria through the 1980s, perhaps some Raleigh mountain bike frames were made there. South Africa perhaps had some internal bicycle production. African spec roadsters were singlespeed rod braked machines with 26 x 1 3/4 571-54 tires, perhaps some with a coaster brake.

I'm not sure about the rest of South America, but Colombia and Brazil make bicycles of all kinds, a bunch of well made, but not terribly impressive road bikes during the 50s-80s, and mountain bikes from the 80s onwards. The early mountain bikes were made with lugs, switching over to TIG welding sometime afterwards. The older Brazilian bikes were built with 650b rims, and such bikes can be found on the online cataloge of Brazillian Walmart. The Stingray fad of the 70s penetrated deeply into South America, and many retain fond memories of their their Monak 'Monaretas'. I'm not sure if the Monark mentioned is the same Sweedish company, or some Brazillian or Colombian relative.

***

Observations on bikes in Colombia:

The regular bikes are all kind of generic, tending towards the "Walmart BSO built with the care of a proper bicycle shop" in quality. The mountain bikes are mostly all rigid machines, somtimes with front shocks (no full suspension here). Disk brakes are making inroads, and 29ners are a rumor only spoken about between expats. Steel skirted fenders can be found in the largest cities, and amended with mudflaps richly merit the name mudguards.

The high end mountain bikes are like any high end mountain bikes in the world, perhaps with full suspension, sometimes hard tail, made out of aluminium or carbon fiber, always with front shock suspension, and ridden with knobby tires on asphalt and the occasional gravel road by middle aged men of means in full team kit.

Road bikes are a very interesting mix of vintage steel frames, all aluminium rigs, and carbon fiber machines. On the vintage side, Pinarelli, Cinelli, and Colagno have enough name recognition to have knockoff decals made to decorate more humble road frames, Campagnolo parts can be seen among these frames. The run of the mill road bike is a full Aluminium rig equipped with Shimano parts, and occasionally other parts claiming to be Shimano. The carbon fiber racers are as any carbon fiber racers around the world, ridden by sometimes genuine racers and mostly by middle aged men of means, dressed in full team kit.

Roadsters are built as always in some corner of the country, some of them retail with Aluminium rims, but never chaincases. They are inevitably equipped with Eastman rod brake parts which are made out of chromed cheese and fenders that need generous applications of epoxy to keep from rattling. I have seen on occasion roadsters heavily modified into a poor man's 29ner, equipped with disk brakes, shimano mountain groups and aluminium bits all around. In flatter regions they abound, rim suppliers recall orders for twelve thousand bike's worth of rims for single clients during seasons of high demand.

The enthusiastic youth pour their money into BMX bikes, a BMX connoseur would be pleasantly surprised at the sophistication and development displayed even in the smaller cities and towns. I don't know too much about BMX, but should the fixie fad eventually penetrate here, there is a ready market for all the anodized accesorizing. Riding brakeless is startlingly common, the BMX rider can be distinguished by the worn out soles of his shoes. Disk brakes are frequently found on BMX bikes, sometimes hooked up to an actual brake, sometimes the rotors are there for looks.

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This being said, the most fascinating bicycles I've seen in Colombia are the work bikes. Analogous to the English, Dutch, and Chinese exemplars, the work bikes leave an indeleable mark on a visitor's impression of the presence of bicycles in Colombia.

Trade bikes, in the style of the English baker bike, or Schwinn cycle truck are also made with 15"X15" frame mounted tubular racks front and back. Some older examples are brazed with triple crown forks and 1 1/4" and larger tubing with lugs to match. Some more recent examples are TIG welded with a welded Raleigh style fork crowns. These are used as last mile delivery vehicles for hardware and construction material stores.

Three wheelers, in the style of the ice cream bike abound in urban areas, used for selling freshly pressed juices or fried snacks. It seems as if no one has gotten around to making a long dutch style version nor the two wheel bakfiets, although creativity has created motorized chimeras using half of a motorcycle, employing a second chain to drive the juice-making equipment. Both of these types of trade bicycles use coaster brakes, three wheelers using twin spoon brakes as a parking brake.

A third kind of trade bike is the chinese style tricycle. I've seen them used mostly in the flattest cities as both rickshaws and as last mile delivery vehicles for packaged snack distributers. They're singlespeed machines that use a derailleur as a chain tensioner, which helps as they're fitted with a triple crank; braking is accomplised by using motorcycle drum brakes in the rear, acutated by means of rods connected to a massive lever. The handlebars are curious mix of bar end extensions that from afar look like steel antlers.

Cottered cranks still persist here, used mostly on the lowest end mountain and BMX bikes as well as traditional roadsters and work bikes. Coaster brakes are the almost exclusive realm of work bikes, rarely showing up in roadsters, and non existing on the other kinds of bikes.

I'd look for a Francois du Toit bike. I've seen several that looked very nice, and there are a few in the US.

This great website has some great photos of South African cyclists and their bikes, with quite a few local brands: https://www.bicycleportraits.co.za/

Thank you. A very interesting idea and fresh discussion, which we need on this forum.

IIRC, the Lejeune marque is now licensed to a South African frame builder. I have seen some SA Lejeunes on the net from time to time.

Thanks, folks.

I know what I want from South America, and it's Colombian, and I just missed one, but it's worth waiting for another.

I thought maybe South Africa would have a frame maker, for road bikes, as they generally have 2-3 riders in the Tour and the Classiques, and in order to have riders at that level, there has to be riding at all levels, and that generally means someone is making bikes. If LeJuene is being made in South Africa, I may just have to see about one of those. I'm almost certain Nigeria or Kenya may have a frame maker, but I'm not sure of the market there for roadies, and that's kind of what I want.

I'm trying to stick to steel. I've got good contacts in Australia, but the prices are so high, he may have to steal it just so I can afford shipping.

Was just about to weigh in with du Toit. Ravelin makes tandems, if you want to get a little more exotic. And Salvo is an RSA mtb brand.

The ultimate would be to ship a set of tubes to the maintenance department at McMurdo Sound and have them braze you up a bike so you truly do have all 7 continents represented.

Raytheon may be up for that . I think they may be the subcontractor down there

Any brand in particular for the Colombian bike? I know that there are a few framebuilders concentrated in Medellin, some in Cali, and some in Bogota, as well as a few of the old roadbike manufacturers, however despite living there on and off for two years, I have yet to catalogue particular brands. There's one called "Standard" seen in old roadbikes, and I've seen a workbike made by "Cicloby", "GW" is an aftermarket outfit that makes or imports a lot of parts, maybe including frames, somewhat like a Colombian version of Nashbar.

Canopus.