I was in a Trek dealer recently and was told that Trek make Trek bikes in Taiwan, in a factory that is owned and run by Trek. They also claim to make the top end 6 and 7 series carbon frames in the USA. Whether they actually make them there, or assemble them there I’m not sure.

I go across the road to a Specialized dealer and in there I get told that Merida make Trek and Specialized frames in Taiwan.

Has anyone got any reliable information on this?

Thanks

No reliable information, but according to WikiPedia, Merida own 49% of Specialized, and make their bikes, while Kinesis make Treks

I thought Giant make Trek bikes, in their Uber factory in Taiwan?

I’ve got two Merida’s – they look very similar to both brands mentioned above…

Along with Giant, there aren’t many factories building frames (out of aluminium)

Merida’s will look a lot like Boardmans too 😉 .

Yup, got one of them too

There’s a pattern 🙂

Someone will point out how similar the new Hoy road bike is in a minute

is it important? modern business rarely are in the business of design and manufacture – normally one or the other.

Does it matter what name the factory comes out of?

2 identical carbon frames, one from de rosa one from ebay, first one has paint and customer back up, uk base for returns, UK consumer rights etc. 2nd one has no paint, risk of import tax & return to base warranty.

Manufacturing is only one piece of the puzzle.

Pretty sure it’s gaint they make more or less all the bikes in Taiwan especially the carbon frames

Ultimately it doesn’t matter – the factory is just building to a drawing/CAD Model/design/spec, issued by a design dept.

Trek Factory Tour, they do very much make all their top end OCLV frames there. Until a few years ago it was all OCLV frames, now it’s just the really expensive ones!

I thought their alu frames are made in a factory owned by Kinesis, not their OCLV ones though, forget who owns the factory (and there’s a distinction there) where they make the OCLV frames though.

But really… WGAS?

slightly OT but are Focus Bikes and Canyon the same company? both german and their websites are very similar

njee20 – Member
But really… WGAS?

I do.

Not broken a frame for ages.

If I can get the same thing, or very, very similar for a hell of a saving I would.

I sort of know about steel and ally:
I’ve read up about them, used them a lot and like to think I can tell the difference between an overhyped ‘best new thing ever’ and a decent bit of kit.
I know what I like.
I’m sure we all do.

With carbon, I’m clueless:
As I said, I know what I like when I ride it.

BUT:
I’d like to know how, where and why it’s made the way it is.

Steel frame designers fall over themselves to explain their designs: tube materials & profiles, along with the relevant relationships between the two – all laid out in loving detail, usually accompanied by a picture of a shed, the Dales, hairy people and mud.

Can I find this info regarding carbon?
No.
I have no idea about material choice an how it influences design.

Only two or three big manufacturers seem prepared to put any decent investment into their designs and the marketing thereof.

So until Orange, Ribble, Planet X etc come clean about the level of design input & control they excercise over the manufacturing process, we’re pretty much buying the cheaper stuff blind.

Not ideal, is it?

Certainly up until recently, Giant built a lot of Treks bikes. Dunno about now.

slightly OT but are Focus Bikes and Canyon the same company? both german and their websites are very similar

not to my knowledge (opposite sides of the country)

but there are other mfrs in Germany that do have seemingly identical frames to each other (Droessiger, Vortrieb, Cucuma, early model Transalp, and some others – Hibike perhaps?). Not just similar, but even down to borrowing the geometry graphic from Droessiger!

did wonder about some of the other brand names more common in UK

I’ve got two carbon Pronghorn hardtails (SS and geared, not two the same) Anyway, they are identical to the top-end Raleigh M-Trax. No idea who makes them, clearly not Pronghorn themselves as they haven’t broken yet…
My Yeti was made in Taiwan, don’t know which factory. So was my Marin, but that’s alloy.
Where are Scott bikes made? I beleive the company is Swiss but no idea where the factory is? I’ve got a top-end Plasma from about 2009 and haven’t a clue where that’s from.

who makes what

my Ti HT was made in Italy 😯
here’s the man that did it

So until Orange, Ribble, Planet X etc come clean about the level of design input & control they excercise over the manufacturing process, we’re pretty much buying the cheaper stuff blind.

So basically you want to know if a £300 Planet X frame is actually the same as a £4000 Madone 7 Series? I’ll give you one guess.

even if two frames are the same, off the same line from the same molds, two manufacturers can have differing idea of what is acceptable as far as QC goes.

Then there is the back up if it goes wrong, think of it like an insurance policy.

Not sure how accurate that is about Merida owning a big chunk of Spesh.
It was but thought Spesh have been buying back from Merida.

The cheaper specialized now come from the same factory as landrover use but the product is very different

njee.

I want to know exactly how & why the Planet X & Ribble frames differ from the Trek, Giant & Specialised.
Can you tell me?

I want to know exactly how & why the Planet X & Ribble frames differ from the Trek, Giant & Specialised.
Can you tell me?

The bigger the company, the more financial clout they have. This translates to having more control over the design, the QC, and the finished product.

Planet X and Ribble don’t have the same influence, which might not make any difference to you the consumer, but does have a difference when the actual product is considered.

I’ve got a ‘Made in Wisconsin’ Trek OCLV frame, I bought it in 1999 and it is still going strong despite a number of crashes. The frame has a lifetime warranty.

So until Orange, Ribble, Planet X etc come clean about the level of design input & control they excercise over the manufacturing process, we’re pretty much buying the cheaper stuff blind.

Orange:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlIYEdRFQu4&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

[quoteSo basically you want to know if a £300 Planet X frame is actually the same as a £4000 Madone 7 Series? I’ll give you one guess.[/quote]

I’ll bet ya fifty quid njee owns a trek… 😆

crikey – Member

The bigger the company, the more financial clout they have.
This translates to having more control over the design, the QC, and the finished product.

Planet X and Ribble don’t have the same influence, which might not make any difference to you the consumer, but does have a difference when the actual product is considered.

I’ve got a ‘Made in Wisconsin’ Trek OCLV frame, I bought it in 1999 and it is still going strong despite a number of crashes. The frame has a lifetime warranty.

So that’ll be ‘no, I can’t answer the question’ then? 😀

The big three obviously have more financial muscle – I want to know how this relates to actual, physical differences in the sourcing, design, manufacture & durability of the product.

I want to know exactly how & why the Planet X & Ribble frames differ from the Trek, Giant & Specialised.
Can you tell me?

the carbon and lay-up used in construction, research behind the design and the name on the bike.

the carbon and lay-up used in construction,

OK – so how do they differ, why do they differ & how does this affect the performance & durability of the product?

Well, if you’ll provide a number of the frames you would like to compare, I’ll chop them up and we can have a look….

The other test bed is Pro cycling, so we could look at how many Ribble frames or Planet X frames get used in the winning of races.

As I said, it may not make any difference to you, the consumer, but my experience of ‘high end’ frames is that they do what they say on the tin, and that is backed by a decent warranty.

I don’t think there is any magic involved in carbon frame construction, but it is important to get it right. P-X and Ribble get it right, Trek et al get it right too.

I’ll bet ya fifty quid njee owns a trek…

Whether he does or he doesn’t is largely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is he clearly understands what goes into a high end frame vs a budget one, and its not just a higher labour rate in the US than in China!

In fact, many of the most expensive frames on the market these days are made in Taiwan, “cheap foreign labour” has pretty much no impact on the cost of a product once you’re past the cheap and nasty end of the scale. It has far more to do with R&D and use of cutting edge materials and production processes, which the likes of Giant and Merida (and others) happen to be world class at!

So….who make Trek bikes?!?!? Does anybody actually know?

errrrr… no

trek make some treks

I feakin love this subject. It really appeals to me for some reason. That website in wobbem’s post is fascinating, it looks like Giant make at least some of Trek’s stuff…

And some are made in the US.

And yes, I own 2 US made ones. I don’t care where it comes from I must say. I buy a bike because I like it, not because of who’s name is on the factory it comes out of. I do really want a Madone 7 Series, and I’d still want one if they were made by Giant/Hasa/Kinesis, because it would still be a damn nice bike with millions spent on R&D.

Edit: evidence? well there’s all the wind tunnel stuff. P-X were very open their ‘aero’ road bike never saw one. All the kamm tail stuff is interesting too. The brake placement. What about the Domane as a concept? The McLaren Venge?

mboy – Member

Whether he does or he doesn’t is largely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is he clearly understands what goes into a high end frame vs a budget one, and its not just a higher labour rate in the US than in China!

Well if you or he would like to provide some details, I’m all ears. 😀
Facts, btw, not just ‘better materials, more R & D’.

The interesting thing is the way people regard bikes built in sheds as the pinnacle of bicycle design and engineering, and dismiss those built on a production line as somehow soulless and dull.

Give me dull and quality controlled stuff when I’m going downhill at 40 miles an hour every time……

Trek alloy and 3/4/5 series carbon bikes are made in Taiwan by the same factory as giant bikes (giant make bikes for almost everyone such as santacruz,colnago, scott etc.)
The difference in carbon at the low end is not that much in my opinion. A carbon Trek 3 series is probably similar to a planet x.
a 5 series trek madone or domane is very different. The lay up of the carbon will be different around the BB or head tube for example. The bearings may press straight into a net molded carbon headtube/BB shell (trek) rather than an alloy insert (planet x).
Having seen a fair bit of carbon frames in my time I can say for sure that Trek are one of the best. Better than giant or spesh? dunno but better than planet x and a host of other cheap frames yes.

I have seen carbon bikes from Orbea and Wilier that still have bits of bladder from the Mold stuffed into the frame. I have seen Look frames with bits of newspaper still inside the down tube – not exactly high quality. I have worked on IBIS bikes where the headtube had bits of unfinished carbon inside preventing a fork being fitted. I never saw this on a Trek.

Trek Madone 5 series and above frames have fancy KVF tube profiles that “produce an extra 25 watts of power” and make you faster if you choose to believe it.

The Trek 6 and 7 series road bikes (and session 9.9) are all made in the USA.

Hmmm. The more I read about it (another good article) the more it looks like the big manufacturers like Trek and Specialized like to sread their manufacturing across several factories, some in Taiwan and China but also more recently in Thailand and Vietnam, the idea being that this is the best way to use competition between the factories as a bargaining point to get the prices down

Ah, sorry klunky, you posted while I was still writing. Looks like you know your stuff!

The cheapest trek bikes i.e. £300 bikes etc. come from all over the place. I have seen the same bike with different “made in” stickers on it depending on how far through the season it is. Taiwan, China and Pakistan if memory serves correctly. I cant be 100% though as I’m less interested in £300 mountain bikes than £3000 carbon bikes 😀

The real cheap bikes from Raleigh etc. seem to come from Cambodia and Vietnam if you care.