I'm not looking for bike companies, I'm looking for US and Canadian manufacturers that (hopefully) specialize in building top-notch suspension bike frames from people's CAD files (ie. SAPA). If they also happen to be bike companies that'll take on outside work, that's even better. I'm looking at local machine shops, etc., but would like to know what's out there.

I keep Googling, and coming up empty, so if anybody has a listing or resource that could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. I keep pulling a bunch of ideas together and am designing a suspension bike, but I need to do more research on the production end of things (milling, welding, etc) to see if it's even feasible to create your own bike. I know it'll be pricey, but will it be worth it??

TIA

Production bike companies (even small ones) will not want to tackle this kind of project. You'd want to find a well-equipped one-person operation (probably with CNC capability) and talk to them directly. Start looking through threads for lists of custom builders and email/call them. If they can't help you, they may know someone who can.

If you just want to build a bike for yourself, your best bet is to learn how to weld, get access to a machine shop, and do it yourself. If you want to do a bunch of them and sell them, you'll want to take the opposite approach - get together a pile of money and your CAD drawings, and prepare to consider doing it overseas, or handing over a big pile of cash up front to a US manufacturer to do a production run.

Honestly, CAD drawings are everywhere, and anyone can do a CAD drawing of a bike. There are no companies like the ones you want to find for a reason - such a company would quickly go out of business after building just a few ill-conceived projects made up by customers.

Most of the good designs I've seen in the world of bicycles have NOT come from pure engineers or out of a CAD program, they've come from lots of iterations of real-world testing and constant redesign by people who ride and love bikes.

I'll end this on a positive note: Do it yourself. If you've got the passion to do this design, you should see it through to the end and learn the skills you need to make it a reality. If you just want a suspension bike built by someone else, there are an awful lot to choose from already out there. Check out the FAQ for some framebuilding resources if you're interested.

-Walt

I'm not looking for bike companies, I'm looking for US and Canadian manufacturers that (hopefully) specialize in building top-notch suspension bike frames from people's CAD files (ie. SAPA). If they also happen to be bike companies that'll take on outside work, that's even better. I'm looking at local machine shops, etc., but would like to know what's out there.

I keep Googling, and coming up empty, so if anybody has a listing or resource that could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. I keep pulling a bunch of ideas together and am designing a suspension bike, but I need to do more research on the production end of things (milling, welding, etc) to see if it's even feasible to create your own bike. I know it'll be pricey, but will it be worth it??

TIA