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Bicycle manufacturing in China

Thermo1

Stainless
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Location
Falls Church, VA
The following is excerped from an article that appeared on the front page of the Saturday/Sunday edition of the Wall Street Journal.

"A Legend's Bumpy Ride"
This is about the state-owned company that made the "Flying Pigeon" bicycle.

In its heyday, the Flying Pigeon bicycle "was so prized that workers forked over a month's salary just to join a waiting list."...
"These days, Fyling Pigeon is struggling to stay aloft. The government is promoting cars and building highways. And Flying Pigeon has been almost destroyed by homegrown Chines entrepreneurs who respond quickly to trends and slash labor and production costs...."

"While many U.S. company feel squeezed by faster, cheaper Chinese rival, Flying Pigeon shows how a similar battle is playing out here in China. Relentless cost-cutting, coupled with fierce competition for domestic and foreign orders has created a hothouse environment where only the nimblist companies survive..."

"Flying Pigeon was one of the original state enterprises set up after the Communist revolution in 1949....

During its heyday in the late 1980s Flying Pigeon produce about 4 million bikes a year and employed over 10,000 workers."

"... in 1993 bicyles were still king of the road. In that year, China produced 41 million bikes, and just 223,000 cars. Flying Pigeon and two other state firms--Phoenix and Forever controlled the market."

The domestic market for recreational and racing bikes took off, and customers wanted them in a variety of colors, with fashions in frames and accessories changing monthly. "...Flying Pigeon resisted change, and kept churning out black roadsters based on a 1930s Japanese design. It failed to modernize its old, iflexible production lines."

The rest of the article details how entrepeneurs began making bikes, and propering. Eventually Flying Pigeon had to lay off almost all its workers. Workers laid off by Flying Pigeon were frequently hired by the new bike makers.

One of the managers of Flying Pigeon did a partial buyout of the firm, essentially buying little more than the trademark. Competition is so stiff that the new Flying Pigeon is considering outsourcing production to Indonesia and Sudan. In China they use contract laborers. The employees of the companies do not have medical insurance or retirement benefits.

The profit situation is interesting. The free market bike builders say they earn 3% on a mountain bike that wholesales for $35, that is $1 per bike in profit. The US importer earns a profit of about $8, and the retailer earns a profit of at least $17.

So even the Chinese are not getting rich making bikes.

The whole article was in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. It may be available on their website, which is available by subscription only.

Thermo1
 
I have heard that some Chinese cities have outlawed bicycles, but people ride them anyway. I believe it is an image thing; bicycles look so poverty. I don't see how a nation where the average wage is $1100 a year can afford too many autos.

I had Carlise tires on my bike for 30 years, made in USA, Probably Pennsyvania. They were good and smooth until they dry rotted and one split open. The other one was still together, but I could see it was cracking also.

Some neighbors said they would get me some. (Found out that 27 inch is obsolete) I said, don't get Chinese ones. They got Chinese one. They ran smooth for one month, then got a lump in them. Now I go down the road, bumpy, bumpy, like the title of this article. The Carlise stayed smooth to the day they died.

Last summer I bought another 10 speed, paid $4 for it. Fairly nice bike. Used bicycles are a good bargain now. People should consider stocking up on them, the adult ones, if they have a building to put them in. If the oil gets cut off or gasoline goes to some really unreal price, bicycles might come back in fashion real quick.

Most kids around here are riding those Japanese four wheelers. And a lot of those kids are fat. I like to ride a bicycle, but I am alone around here. Except in towns, I never see kids on bicycles.

I put my Smith & Wesson 9mm in my left back pocket with the handle sticking out while I go cycling. You would be amazed at the calming effect that has upon automobile drivers as they pass me. They are so much more polite when I have that as opposed to when I don't.
 
Another thing, since this is a metal working forum, there is a manufacturer, I think in Tenneesee, who makes titanium frames for bicycles. Isn't that neat? I would like to have one.
 
Art-Deco,

I think you are referring to Litespeed in Chattanooga, TN--makers of high-end and custom Titanium bike frames for the serious (or seriously rich
) biker...

"Titanium is incredibly difficult to machine, shape and weld, and no company has had more opportunity to master the nuances of the material. Litespeed's success as a company has had the added benefit of allowing them to build the most sophisticated Ti manufacturing facility in the world. Not only is every Litespeed Ti frame handbuilt in their Tennessee factory, but that's also where they CNC machine the discrete parts required to make a frame - the dropouts, the bottom bracket shells, the cable guides, etc. Litespeed forms, shapes, and bends every tube in-house. They design and manufacture all of their tooling, dies, and fixtures. They even design and build almost all of the equipment necessary to make the tubesets themselves." (writeup from Competitive Cyclist)

Stephanie
StillMadeinUSA.com
 
There are a number of bicycle frame makers in the USA that make frames out of all manner of materials. How rich do you feel? Order a custom frame from Seven Cycles. They got their start building high end Ti road & MTB frames. I believe they were founded by some former employees of Merlin Frames. Merlin was later bought by Litespeed.

Anvil, who posts on this board has his own line of custom frames, Anvil Bicycle Frames . He'll do one in Ti if you like.

In the states there are quite a variety of road, MTB, cross, etc, framemakers.

My MTB, a Santa Cruz Superlight, was made In Santa Cruz, CA. I think some of their bikes may now be made offshore, not 100% certain. :confused:

My road bike, made in Canada, is a Cervelo R3, Eh.
 
Our daughter's mountain bicycle needed tires and tubes about a year ago. I refuse to enter any Wally World, and wanted to deal with "real" salespeople who might know something about bicycles. I was in Albany, NY on business, so looked in the Yellow Pages and found the nearest bicycle shop. I found this really nice independent bicycle shop called "The Downtube" in Albany, NY. The Downtube has apparently been in this oldtime neighborhood for some years and does a good trade in selling bicycles as well as building special competition bikes and doing repairs. This was before the latest gas price hike. Even so, I had to wait a few minutes for a salesperson since they were doing a fair business, even on a weekday morning. I have not been back to "the Downtube" since then, but I imagine they must be doing a thriving trade these days.

The atmosphere of the Downtube- a store with wood board floors, front door opened to let int he spring air, rows of bicycles, and the smell of rubber tires and oil, all brought back memories of the neighborhood bicycle shop that existed when I was a kid. I wish the Downtube the best of luck.

I wanted tires with a tread good on hard-surfaced roads as well as gravel and loose dirt. The salesman was knowledgable, and handed me two tires and tubes. I was surprised to see the name "Schrader" surrounded with all sorts of notations in every imaginable language on the boxes with the tubes. I remember when "Charles Schrader's Sons" were in Brooklyn, NY, and I remembered when they were absorbed by Scoville Industries and moved down to the Southern US. I looked at the box and discovered that Schrader had been absorbed by some foreign firm, and, not unexpectedly, the tubes were made in China. I think the tires were Cheng Shin, and were Chinese as well. So far, so good on my daughter's bicycle.

Our son's first bike was a Huffy, made in the the USA. Huffy since shifted production to China, I think. As our son grew up, he got to riding mountain bikes. He saved up his money and bought a "Mongoose" bicycle a couple of years ago. He wanted a bicycle with front & rear suspension for riding off road. The Mongoose was Made In China (no surprise there). He rode the Mongoose reasonably, taking it on deer runs near our house. In fairly short order, the mounting plates for the rear wheel and part of the swing-arm seemed to fold up on him. He dragged the Mongoose home. I got things straightened out, and got the "derailleur" (or however you spell it) for the shifting of the chain back to working. It was "Shimano" on the derailleur unit, but "Made in China". Our son got on the Mongoose and didn;t go too far before the swing arm folded up for good. We contacted Dick's Sporting Goods where he bought the Mongoose and it took some doing for them to make good on the warranty. They gave him another bicycle. I tried to contact "Mongoose" to let them know what kind of POS they were selling. This led me on a trail of businesses in the US that are probably little more than shell corporations or offices manned by voice mail. Never did get anywhere. Meanwhile, the new Mongoose he got does seem to be holding together better than the first one. I taught him to "ping the spokes" to check for loosening after riding in the woods, and to check the wheels for "true". I checked the wheel bearings for free play not long after he had the second Mongoose bike. The wheel bearings were loose as could be. We took things apart and I was surprised at how the Chinese found ways to cut corners on the simple open type of bicycle bearings. I had to make a couple of special wrenches to dismantle and adjust the bearing cones. We got things cleaned up, and I had my son repack the bearings with good grease, then showed him how to set the preload. I told him the next time he folds up a swingarm, we will straighten it ourselves and beef it up. I will teach him some more old time shop skills, like how to braze.

It got me to thinking of how, 40 odd years ago, we thought the "English Racer" with "Sturmey-Archer 3 speed gearing" was the hot ticket as opposed to some balloon tired Schwinn with a single speed rear hub. Back then, you got a neat leather tool pouch with a set of wrenches to maintain the bike. We carried the old "Camel" tube patch kits. I recall that I found the remains of two such "English racers" in the garbage outside a 6 story apartment building when I was a kid. I was about 12 at the time. I took the two thrown out bikes and made one and rode it for a few years. I even made a kind of rack with a light plywood box out over the rear wheel ( even as a kid I wanted a pickup truck). I used to go on errands with that bike and pick up stuff for my folks with it.

There was nothing unusual about my riding a bicycle to the grocer or to the plumbing supply to get stuff for my folks in those days. Back in the 60's in Brooklyn, every drug store and neighborhood grocer or butcher had a bicycle or pedal trike and offered "free delivery". Some of my classmates, even in grade school, worked after school for storekeepers doing deliveries. Maybe in the cities, this sort of thing is still done. With the gas prices and parking both being in short supply, it would make sense.

In the 1960's, we kids, even those of us who were "un mechanical" used to at least know how to put a chain back on, adjust a seat height (you needed wrenches back then) or fix a flat. Nowadays, I see bicycles including new style mountain bikes thrown out that are all intact. Prosperity and a throw-away society, I guess.

About two years ago,I was in Baltimore, Maryland for a short engineering course. As I drove thru the streets, I saw this neat looking old stone masonry factory with a smokestack. It was closed and looked to be abandoned. I got cloer and saw the name on it: "Sieberling Rubber Company". When I was a young person, Sieberling made tires for all sorts of things, from bicycles to automobiles. I remember the ads for Sieberling bike tires in "Boy's Life" and seeing billboard ads as well. I do not know when Sieberling Rubber closed down, but it was an interesting looking old plant. I think even the Sieberling name is dead.

I know specialized competition bicycles are made in the the USA as well as England. However, I don't guess any production bicycles, let alone the tires for them, are "Made in USA" or "Made in England" anymore.

Joe Michaels
 
Shimano used to be Japanese. Dunlop makes bicycle tires in France. They are about $60 each last I looked. I inherited my brothers three speed with the STrumry ARcher hub. IT is still here.

I wanted to get a folding bike. I looked at these guys: http://www.montaguebikes.com/
but their web doesn't say where they are made.
 
Funny how the tire industry is shifting around the globe. I buy Metzeler tires for my BMW motorcycle, and have been buying them for the past 25 years. Metzeler tires used to be made in Germany. The last few years, the same Metzeler tires are coming out of Brazil. Same price as for the German-made Metzeler tire. I always replace inner tubes when I replace motorcycle tires. Some years I get Michelin inner tubes (France) or Continental inner tubes (Germany). OTOH, my Harley has Dunlop motorcycle tires on it. Made in USA. Interesting that a Dunlop bicycle tire, made in France is 60 bucks. I think the tire for the Hog is the better deal at that rate. I'll gladly pay around 100 bucks or so for a good motorcycle tire, knowing it didn;t come from China. On a motorcycle, I just don;t feel comfortable with tires made in China or some similar place.
 
Cannondale has been in finacial issue for while. I don't know their offshore status. I know Trek has moved a lot of there mid and lower range stuff offshore. I'll bet some of the higher end frames too.

In addition to the two I mentioned above, I also have a 3rd bike. A Trek Steel frame road bike from the mid 90's, made in USA. It has that great steel ride quality, and the fit to my shorter stature is perfect.

Trek owns Gary Fisher, Klein, Bontrager, and I'm sure a few others I can't recall.

I have a friend, who between he and his wife own about 30 bikes, all high end models. Road, MTB, road tandem, MTB tandem, cyclocross... They hang around the house on the walls... like art. They ride them all!

Mark
 
Most if not all of Trek's line is made overseas these days. Cannondale is still primarily US based as far as I know, but they are having financial difficulties as morse said. Threk is still US-family-owned.
Schwinn is now owned by Pacific Cycles, who imports bikes from Asia. That's why Wal-Mart sells Schwinns and Roadmasters, which were probably once the two biggest names in American bicycles. Schwinn was based in Chicago and The Cleveland Welding Company (makers of Roadmaster, Hiawatha, Western Flyer, Ward's Hawthorne, and others) was based in Cleveland.
I've been wondering lately how high gas will have to go before Americans will start riding again...
Andy
 
I was somewhat surprized that the Specialized bike was made in china. Its been a great bike however, I have rode it nearly everyday for 3years. The bike seems to be of much higher quality than the machines at the Harbor Freight store.
The best thing about riding a bike other than saving on gas, is after standing on my feet all day in the shop the bike ride home seems to make my sore bones feel better.
 
Cannondale bikes are made at a factory in Bedford, PA.

Sadly, in many areas biking is not a safe alternative to vehicles because of rude, aggressive drivers, exhaust fumes, and lack of bike lanes.
 
Trek makes all their higher end Carbon bikes in Wisconsin, as well as many welded aluminum and steel bikes. Just can't compete at lower price points, but hundreds of U.S. workers show up every day at the two factories in Waterloo and Whitewater Wisconsin.
Brett
 
I might try putting a motor on a bike.
http://www.bikemotor.com/

How high will gasoline get before people ride bicycles? That is a good question. My Dad said he was going to quit buying gas when it got to 85 cents/gal. He hasn't quit yet.

When people can't afford to buy anything at walmart, I would say. They have an addiction to that place.

Gasoline in the USA is still cheap compared to Europe and most other places.
 
Cannondale's financial woes are primarily due to its attempted entry into motosports(off road motorcycles and ATVs). They burned a lot of money in R&D to try to compete with the large Japaneses companies. The Motocross division folded, threatening the entire company. Their assets were sold to another US motocross company whose name escapes me.

Shimano is still Japanese, but they do offshore their cheaper components.

US bicycle manufacturing is a niche market, it is mostly framebuilding. Some component manufactures in the US are Phil Wood, Chris King, Paul Components. I'm sure I left a few out. These are all high end components. Chris King is very interesting, you should check out their website. They are striving for a very environmentally friendly manufacturing process. Chips are recycled, cutting fluids are scavenged from the chips, and they are compressed into "pucks".
 








 
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