Few posts so far from cycling IQ but the best dissection I have ever read on the whole bike supply chain is this series of articles, a very good read if you are into the history of it all:
[url= http://cyclingiq.com/vertical-limit/ ]http://cyclingiq.com/vertical-limit/[/url]
I have a carbon Santa Cruz and a USA made Madone, and whilst I am sure that carbon Yetis or Specialized or Giants are perfectly well put together and would do everything I could ask of them and have years of flawless service and enjoyment, I will not switch brands as I put an awful lot of stock into the willingness of manufacturers to show exactly what they do and why, and constantly refine their design in the names of advancement and development. It doesn't take a lot of browsing to see exactly how much thought goes into every aspect of these frames (and destruction testing), and that's good enough for me 🙂
I got a Trek bike box from my local dealer for shipping a bike a year ago and it said made and tested by Giant, I remember being quite surprised at the time as all my mates with Treks are always spouting about made in the USA etc
Thanks brant, some great info there! Is it possible to name the factories or is that asking too much? I never realised that there would be so much secrecy surrounding this subject!
I have no idea where I picked this up, but frame builders aren't cheap labour in Taiwan at least. Given the volumes just imagine the experience they gain. Since we don't know the quality of the production processes involved or the skill of the labour it's impossible to say who produces the best product, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Taiwanese is better or no worse than some boutique brand made in the West. Therefore I don't care where it's made, but rather how it rides and whether there have been any reports of manufacturing defects or breakages due to poor design.
As a side note, the last S-Works HT frame I bought in roughly 2001 had a sticker on it that said something like handmade in the USA of imported parts. I believe such statements can be fairly misleading since they can equate to assembly or finishing, rather than manufacture origin. I'm trying to remember though if it said handmade, made, or assembled. It was the first year they added disc mounts, which was why I updated from the previous year's frame ano black version which just had a simple handmade in the USA sticker.
whilst I am sure that carbon Yetis or Specialized or Giants are perfectly well put together and would do everything I could ask of them and have years of flawless service and enjoyment, I will not switch brands as I put an awful lot of stock into the willingness of manufacturers to show exactly what they do and why, and constantly refine their design in the names of advancement and development
Are you honestly saying that Specialized don't "constantly refine their designs" because they make their bikes in Taiwan?! They used to make all their carbon bikes in the US. They shifted it to the East because quality was better!
I think people get far too hung up on this, the frame may come out of a factory with someone else's name on it, but that's not to say that an S-Works Epic is anything like an Anthem Advanced in any way! Spesh have their own employees with things being done to their own spec.
It's funny how divisive this topic is, people either seem to really care, or they really don't!
What I'd be interested to know is how much of the design comes from the bike company as opposed to what the frame manufacturer has developed, offers themselves, or is willing to make. Effectively, how much R&D is really being done to warrant the value added to premium product. You hear stories about frames being chosen from a catalogue, which is probably the kind of notion winding people up between paying branded and no name.
What a boutique frame builder can do with steel for example is dependent on available tube sets, or at least that's what used to be the case. A similar thing was going on with all those Ali with carbon stay road frames in the early 2000s. I remember reading about how a new carbon tube set from Reynolds would open up carbon frame manufacture. Finally I'm pretty sure Giant is acknowledged as the developer of fluid formed tubing.
Finally I'm pretty sure Giant is acknowledged as the developer of fluid formed tubing.
I saw a funny quote the other day about how a company had developed a new tube forming process. Which was news to me as some of our frames have been being made like that for over three years.
I can't do the hype. Hence DN6 and Maxwall.
What I'd be interested to know is how much of the design comes from the bike company as opposed to what the frame manufacturer has developed, offers themselves, or is willing to make. Effectively, how much R&D is really being done to warrant the value added to premium product. You hear stories about frames being chosen from a catalogue, which is probably the kind of notion winding people up between paying branded and no name.
Geometry, ride feel, construction and layup methods here.
I don't get into specific fibre orientation as there are engineers better than me at that, but we do test deflections and try to gauge ride feel.
Clunky and brant are pretty close. Trek still manufacture in Wisconsin and their entire engineering, testing, design etc are based at the same building as the carbon assembly, the 5 series and below are outsourced to two seperate Taiwanese companies. They manufacture our frames to our precise spec and precise oclv construction method. Obviously we have full time employees checking quality and continual testing of product to keep controls high. The alloy frames are made in Taiwan by mainly giant. Again these frames are not re-badged giants! We have tight control on designs and tube shapes- and we own a lot of the machines that produce our technology. We do not currently produce in Vietnam, Malaysia etc. we also do not use Merida- who make a stack of other brands frames with great quality.
Alloy prototypes and special one off pro riders frames can still be made in Wisconsin, but these are pretty expensive custom runs.
All treks are designed, and tested by trek- we don't buy 'off the shelf' designs from far eastern companies, which is obviously the cheapest way to produce a frame.
Great stuff trekcol. I was commenting generally rather than specifically questioning Trek, but fantastic to get a straight up answer.
Could the rest of the brands now state their position? Ta, thanks 🙂
All this is nothing new. Loads of bikes from different brands back in the early 90's came out of the same few Taiwanese factories. Seem to remember Orange using a company called A-Pro, as did others. Didn't mean they were all the same as some are suggesting.
