Ibis Exie Is Made In-House – Is This A New Movement For Bike Companies?

This week, Ibis Cycles has launched the Ibis Exie (‘X C’ – geddit?) cross country race bike. It’s a 120/100mm carbon fibre race bike that saves weight …

By chipps

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Ibis Exie Is Made In-House – Is This A New Movement For Bike Companies?

Let’s hope there is that surge of interest and that UK manufacturers can make it work.
🤞

Great to see Ibis going XC and also interesting to hear about the localised production. You can bet your bottom dollar, or quid, that if this takes off other US manufacturers may choose to produce selected models back in the motherland. High end limited run specials? Isn’t the enabler to this the heated mould, or have I missed something?

Good stuff. I believe there is also a small fact that as bikes like these cost a small fortune, a bit more for locally (to the factory etc) will not really have too much impact on the buyer.

Combined with the control they will then have as a manufacturer, bringing it all in house is a great idea.

There’s no doubt that the Asian and Far Eastern factories can and do produce very high quality frames/bikes but, for a few dollars more bringing it in-house has to be a good thing, assuming QC and QA etc can and are being met.

The next problem will now be raw materials to build with. There is already a world shortage on most metals and plastics, so personally I don’t expect lead times to get any better until well in the latter half of 2022.

Bit confused about the name… it’s for cross country, ie XC, not XE. So why have they called it Exie instead of Excie or Excee or something.

PS. Still keep hoping for Ibis to bring out a Special Blend edition like they did years ago…. £2500 for a full build. Those were the days.

Bit confused about the name…

Say ‘Ibis Exie’ out loud.

You do be that 💋

Jeff Kendall Weed has done some good videos related to this, one about the factory (that was quite a while ago though so won’t include the Exie) and he’s just released one where he takes the Exie on a little road trip on his motorbike.

Definitely a sExie bike. Could be the replacement for my Ripley…
Nice to be able to power the production from the solar panels on the factory roof!

I doubt it. People aren’t necessarily willing to pay more for a worse product based on where it’s made. The Hope HB bikes, while they are presumably very good to ride, do look like a “have a go” project with their early 2000’s style 3k weave. They remind me of this from back in the day-

While I’d definitely consider something made in at least Europe for my next bike to get the impact of transport down and to try and make sure my bike’s ethically made, it it’s worse quality and not going to last as long then I’m less keen.

As a U.K. customer whether ibis  make the frame in Taiwan or the USA makes no difference to me it is still going to be shipped half way round the world . I get it for marketing purposes in the US. If companies can make it worth the manufacture locally then great but I wouldn’t pay a premium for it and it’s only locally made for 1 market which is nothing to a global business

As a U.K. customer whether ibis make the frame in Taiwan or the USA makes no difference to me it is still going to be shipped half way round the world . I get it for marketing purposes in the US. If companies can make it worth the manufacture locally then great but I wouldn’t pay a premium for it and it’s only locally made for 1 market which is nothing to a global business

I think it makes more of a difference in the R&D phase, IBIS are saying that, like Hope or Orange, they could design, build, and test something in a matter of hours or days, rather than weeks. When you consider that the costs start mounting as soon as you start the clock on R&D that can make a big difference to the products you make. If you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on your molds, you need that to start producing a return on that investment ASAP, so you’ve only go so many weeks to perfect the layup. So if you can do a few more iterations, then you get a lighter/sifter/better frame out of the process.

That’s why you seen even the big manufaturers release their new models, then mid way through it’s life release a new S-works, Black, Team edition, RDO, or whatever they call their specials that’s a few hundred gramms lighter. They’ve not deliberately held it back to force obsolescence, it’s just that the previous version was the best they could do before the production deadline, and with a couple of years of tweaking in the quiet weeks between other projects they’ve done better.

It’s not just low labour costs that makes Asian frames cheaper it’s economy of scale.

It’s no secret that the hundreds of brands that sell carbon frames have them all made in the same 10 or so factories. Anybody whose been on a tour of the Giant factory will tell you that you’re just as, if not even more likely, to see ‘other’ brands bikes being built as Giant branded ones.

If each brand starts making its frames in house how is that going to be competitive with the Asian factories that are making frames for everyone and therefore have enough demand to run the factory 7 days a week 24 hours a day if they want?

If Dorel, Specialized and Trek collectively built a factory in the US then you could see competitively priced frames built in the States.

Shame the kinked toptube makes it look broken. Hard pass from me!

The JKW video with bonus words and pictures

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-jeff-kendall-weed-goes-cross-country-with-an-xc-bike-strapped-to-his-motorcycle.html#cid3017390

It’s no secret that the hundreds of brands that sell carbon frames have them all made in the same 10 or so factories.

Total bollocks.

Are UK builders actually tooled up to/capable of making 1000’s of frames? My fear is that while making carbon frames locally appeals to us cost will go up, and quality will go down as we simply haven’t done much, and certainly not bulk. Black Diamond had problems with quality control when they moved some manufacturing back from China to the US for exactly this reason

Total bollocks

so how many then? I used to have insight into the outdoor industry and am aware that most tents are made in the same factory irrespective of brand as are wetsuits. Sure each line is setup to make them spec the customer requires but it’s the dance workers in the same factory

I find it really cute that you imagine the powerhouse and talent in Chinese tent/wetsuit manufacturing have never, in the last X years, had any staff think “hey we can set something up like this on our own and steal a load of clients”

My mum and dad had a friend who worked at a food canning factory near Goole in the early 70s and still believe all baked beans or tinned peas all come from the same factory.

This “all the same factory in china” is just western white man casual racism in action again. Though I’m not sure what that says about my mum and tinned peas.

The Chinese government fund and incentivise factory development with tax breaks and investment.

There are many factories.

I used to have insight into the outdoor industry

Which factories and which areas did you tour and inspect?
I spent many months of 2011 to 2016 travelling in mostly southern China, Thailand, and Taichung/Taipei.
Maybe we bumped into each other?

It’s no secret that the hundreds of brands that sell carbon frames have them all made in the same 10 or so factories.

Total bollocks.

How do you work that out? If you take the output of just Topkey, Quest, Merida and Giant that’s the carbon mtb frames for Cannondale, Trek, Giant, GT, Specialized, Canyon, Scott, Merida, Santa Cruz, and loads of others.

Now go to bike shops and trail centres and work out what percentage of mtb’s just those brands cover.

Yes there are loads of factories making frames but not all of them are going to get the business from the larger brands. Hence you can say that most of the frames people ride are produced by a few factories. In fact a lot of the smaller manufacturers in China are really subsidiaries of the larger manufacturers anyway.