Over the last week there has been a lot of chatter about China, imports, profit margins, marketing and Rapha. And while everyone has their opinions to the moral rights/wrongs of building “stuff” at a low cost factory in a country with environmental/human rights violations that would make Nike cringe, some things became very clear to me.
I care about the origin of my stuff.
I understand that some will disagree, some aren’t interested. That’s fine.
My name is Bruce Gordon, and I have a passion for building things.
I have been involved the bicycle business since 1971. I became part owner of Eisentraut Bicycles, Inc., in 1974, and started Bruce Gordon Cycles in 1976 (Wow– almost 36 years ago). And like any industry, there have been some changes.
For those not familiar with the bikes of the 1970’s, have a look at an entry level bike: 
Or find a 1972 Bicycling Magazine and see what the general opinion of your average bike was from that era. Bicycle technology, even in the entry level category is far superior today. Along those lines, we have made a lot of progress.
When I started building frames in 1974 we were competing with England, France, and Italy. Those were countries that we sought to emulate and soon we had far eclipsed the quality level of our competition.
Advertising was amateurish, and marketing was almost nil – a big bike company might have a B&W ½ page ad in the rags of the day and sponsor a pro team in races we couldn’t watch on American TV. As time has passed, marketing – the story behind the product, not the product itself – became the focus. Cycling today is image conscious – with large marketing budgets the bike business began looking for more economical (“cheaper”) methods of production (labor costs). Bikes first came from Japan, then Taiwan, now China (which makes just about everything).
I am not saying that quality doesn’t exist overseas – but almost all the innovations I have seen in 40 years have come from small 1 to 10 person shops that were passionate about bikes and had the drive to innovate over the status quo. Many of which were (or still are) in the US.
Think about these modern innovations that we take for granted:
- Phil Wood – first modern commercial sealed bearing parts (hubs, bottom brackets). Also an early disc brake design.
- Giro Helmets – Jim Gentes, first of the current style helmet makers (as in 1 piece polystyrene molded helmets).
- Bruce Gordon Cycles – First adjustable fit Tubular 4130 Chromemoly touring Racks.
- Salsa Cycles (Not Salsa since Quality Bike Products bought them) made it acceptable to have TIG welded Frames and Stems (vs lugged or brazed).
- Paul Turner, Rockshox – First Shock Forks for Mountain Bikes.
- A group of independent builders (Mostly in Northern California) that invented the Mountain Bike. People argue who was first, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion – the sport was born in CA.
- The first derailleurs came from Frenchman Paul de Vivie in 1905, and while Simplex introduced the first cable operated parallelogram derailleurs, it was a little Japanese company named Suntour that invented the slant-parallelogram design we still use today.
So American’s didn’t invent it all. But the inventions and evolutions originated from small companies with big visions. Point being – If we were to wait for the Taiwanese or Chinese to invent the Mountain Bike – WE WOULD STILL BE WAITING!!
Supporting the Culture of Innovation
If we don’t support the small, creative companies in this country (or Europe for that matter) they will cease to exist. This not only includes frame builders, but clothing, accessories (HandleBra anyone?), drive train and the visionaries that are still creating their newest ideas.
As a business, I’m not afraid of competition, nor are any of the people I know who actually make their own shit. However we cannot compete with $.50 cent an hour labor, poor environmental regulations and continue to make bikes at our current level of quality.
I’m not saying that people who work for the big companies that offshore are not passionate about bikes. But, if I were buying a bike, to me the person who I would want to be passionate about the product would be the person who makes it. They ride, spend time refining their ideal of what a bicycle is. A craft builder doesn’t build for the masses – they build for the people that can identify with the builder’s vision of what the bicycle *could be* – not conforming to a preset idea of what the bicycle *should be*. I don’t think that someone in a Chinese factory making a $1.00/hour is passionate about bikes like I am, or all the members of SOPWAMTOS for that matter.
And I am not alone. Each week more people want to know about SOPWAMTOS. They are excited to be able to finally have access to these small manufacturers that love bikes and building precision parts or intricate accessories. Most of these items cannot be scaled into the millions of units and resold through the bike industries current dealer/reseller network at an acceptable profit margin using US labor. Or at least that’s what companies like Rapha (with their pro-China campaign) want you to believe. We are putting together a group of manufacturers that are ready to prove that theory wrong.
We are not in this business to become millionaires. We are here because we love bikes and love to build our own shit. We support each other, but in a time of economic turmoil and uncertainty, one thing is clear – votes with your dollars matters more now than ever. We believe we are doing the right thing for our generation and the generation after us. The next chapter of this story belongs to you, the consumer. What story do you want to tell?
I often wonder what would happen to the industry if it was no longer able to import bikes, but rather had to rely on local makers. The same formula could hold true for all crafts: from hand made bike frames to fashion to cheese.
One thing is clear to me, if we consummers don,t support our local industry (don,t matter if it is small or great) we go straight to the abyss because as you well say we cannot fight against people who work 1$ an hour. Is that for I will always prefer to buy Campagnolo -for example- better than Shimano even if I have to pay more. Acting this way I feed our country industries.
And furthermore, this is worth a watch.
Can I be a SOPWOMTOS member?
I have the t-shirt and all the stickers!
For reals, eh – Steve.
Sure Steve – If you don’t qualify – no one does!!
Welcome.
Bruce Gordon
Self-Appointed Benevolent Co-Dictator for Life
I ‘stand’ with Steve and Bruce. I’ll join. Jake
i’ll tell ya what: that Fuji still looks pretty good to me. And not overly entry-level, either. Good post, Bruce, and right on the money.
You’re right – that ride is a little too nice for ‘Entry’. So I fixed it.
Bruce,
By no means am I suggesting that we argue factory made vs. handmade and craft. However, just so we’re clear Rapha is not ‘pro China’, we’re just not anti-China. We’re pro- the best quality partners we can find to make the our best. KTC has a clear track-record for making best-of-class technical garments. We have also featured our production partner in the UK (http://www.rapha.cc/burfields-and-co) in the past, and will shortly showcase our makers in Europe.
Rapha is global company with customers around the globe so I find it difficult to ‘defend’ Rapha vs. local industry. However, I will always defend that our intention and our purpose for being is to make the best products we can for cyclists. Delivering the most thoughtful, best designed and developed apparel and accessories is what we set-out to do. We look for the best partners around the globe to help us make these products.
Regards,
Slate
Hi Slate – thanks for dropping by. First off, I want to make sure you understand that this is not a ‘Rapha bashing’ post. There have been plenty of those elsewhere in the last week (and I do find your retraction/reissuing of your Made In China page interesting – shows you listen) and that’s just not how we roll. In fact, I must commend you on the quality of your marketing campaigns – you display a well developed cultural understanding of the relationship between a cyclist and his/her bike.
The ‘quality’ of global manufacturering goes beyond the final product. A stigma (and fact) about China is their lack of environmental standards (in both origin of materials as well as production), worker protection standards, political manipulation of their currency plays into the ‘value’ of products that originate from their workers. It’s hard to fathom a premium product would originate from a sub premium source. That said, I’m always excited to be shown where I’m wrong – if KTC is above this and sets work standards that are comparable to Western standards, by all means, show us. I’d be more than happy to discuss this with you, but I feel it’s outside the realm of this single blog post, but I am available.
Thanks for this write up! My companies main goal is to bring the manufacturing back to the U.S. We are f-bom products and make bike frames that rock on any outsourced piece of shit! http://Www.f-bomproducts.com check it!
Kick ass Shad. Love the attitude. Let us know how it goes.
I have to confess that I ride a Carbon Fibre frame from a major US based bike company; I do this through choice in that it provides me with what I want. There are however many ‘other’ large bike companies that appear to give far less back to the cycling fraternity.
A couple of things – firstly things have changed considerably from the good old days; the use of composites, alloys, wind tunnels, even electronics, are changing bikes forever. I agree, the Fuji above is a work of art; but can these be brought out at a price point that continues to encourage people into cycling.
Second, the cycling industry, as yet, has not been taken over by the real scourges of the sporting industries – the Nike’s, the Adidas, etc – who own practically everything.
Third, cycling has a finite(ish) community; that means the industry seems to be engaging in somewhat cosmetic changes to product lines to ensure they still can shift product.
Fourth, are you buying the real product? Check Ebay for the wide range of alleged ‘genuine’ equipment
Last, the local bike shop; where I live there is an increasing number of ‘megastores’ selling the same cliched brands and killing the niche bike shops. As a community they are more of a threat to the small, indepedent and innovative manufacturers
Hi Ian – the standard bike shop model, unfortunately, is dying. The business landscape has changed and few bike shops have the necessary tools to cope with these changes on their already thin margins. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done, the challenge is just greater.
What we are trying to do is strike a balance between between being manufacturers of high quality products, employ members of our community and make our products accessible to consumers at a price point inline with the market – and that’s damn hard. There’s a lot of dirty stuff that goes on in the bike business today. We’re doing our part to make sure that the public is aware as an informed and educated public is the small shop and manufacturer’s best ally.
Lets be real here. If your “shit” was worthy of mass production you too would outsource to Taiwan in a heartbeat. Why wouldn’t you find the lowest cost with the best quality to share your wonderful product? Apple did. The innovation and design excellence from companies like Specialized, SRAM and even Apple are here in the U.S. but the precision and high quality manufacturing is simply better and cheaper overseas. Yes there is cheap labor overseas and it was taken advantage of with horrible labor practices but times have changed and technology has changed. It’s very likely that most of these products are rarely even touched by a human before delivery which is a good thing. You eliminate error…human error. I would argue a company like SRAM from Chicago is just as passionate about riding bikes and giving back to not only the cycling community but the world in general than you. Given these economic hard times for everyone I’m telling you it’s simply not good enough to just be passionate about making shit, it has to be a quality product with great customer service no matter how big or small your company is in this world. Consumers work very hard to earn their dollars and whether you like it or not you’re going to have to fight for their dollars with intelligent marketing, social media(which you’re doing) and again a great product with the best customer service. If you have this you’ll do great.
I disagree. Without getting too deep into supply chain and manufacturing, riddle me this:
What do Chris King, Thomson, Velocity (soon), White Industries and Cane Creek (to a certain extent) have in common? They are high volume part manufacturers that make their products stateside. And some, that have gone overseas are bringing production back. Why? Exactly the reasons you state for going elsewhere – the precision and quality – you can not have that level of control overseas. Apple is not an example I want to get into (Foxconn makes their stuff by the way – hardly a role model citizen) and complex electronics assembly is not relevant to bike parts.
Your’re right, the quality matters. And that’s why the members of SOPWAMTOS do what they do. If they could find the quality they desired in the first place, I highly doubt any of them would have started the businesses they did. Innovation and entrepreneurship is deep in the fabric of the American Way, and if they didn’t see a better way, then there is no reason to just be a copy cat. Unless you can do it deeply discounted (which brings us back to low quality imports…)
I guess I’m not really understanding these blanket statements of ‘low quality imports’ or ‘passion for outsourcing shit’ when companies like Specialized, Bontrager, SRAM, and Ritchey are bringing back high quality amazing products from overseas. Outsourcing is not always a bad thing in this global economy and I’m sorry but it’s here to stay. Made in the U.S.A. or the American Way doesn’t matter any more to the educated consumer. The educated consumer will do their due diligence and take into consideration the ethical practices of a company, the quality of the product, the customer service, the cost all before where it is actually made. Outsourced or not your brand is simply the emotion that a customer feels when thinking about your product.
I’m sure I’ve seen some of your trikes before. Do you have any involvement with the Ride2Recovery organization?
I’d like to jump in here if I may. This has been a surprisingly good discussion without a lot of bomb throwing. That’s always a good start.
Some things you’ll just have to buy as ‘Made in China’. The aforementioned iPhone and such come to mind. There is not and never was a comparable source here in the states. Bikes, accessories, and the like are a different story. I had a talk with the famous (infamous?) Bruce Gordon the other day to order some shi, er, stuff. Racks, bottle holders, panniers. All top quality, and all more expensive than overseas.
But what about longevity? I know for sure that these products that will be arriving when they are finished are going to be top notch, best of the best. Other products may have good construction and design too. So why buy domestic?
As an example, Bruce is building me racks, three of them. He wanted to know my foot size, for Christ sake, to be sure that I will have enough clearance. Tubus can’t do that for me. Great rack, I hear, but less attention to detail. Bruce’s rack is about $80.00 more than what I can get a Tubus Cargo for. Not a small difference. But over the life of the product it is nothing. $80.00 over 20 years of riding, hell, I’ll have to pay a mind boggling $4/yr extra to have his stuff hanging on my bike. No matter where I go I can bet the farm on the fact that Bruce’s products will not fail. For that peace of mind, I’ll need to pay $4 a year. That’s why my son gets the third rack. Peace of mind for his dad that HE won’t have a problem either. I love my kid, and he’s worth 1.1 CENTS A DAY to be sure he’s not stranded somewhere.
In this day of ‘how do I get the highest quarterly earnings’, people tend to forget the long term. In the end, a little more now means no worries later. And it supports someone here who then spends that money on someone else that’s local. That person maybe buys something that I make. I get to keep the job. Not a bad arrangement.
You touch in some good points Brian. One of the issues that quality bike component manufacturers run up against is obsolescence or replacement. A custom bike (from any builder) is built to last a theoretical lifetime. They don’t wear out & therefore have no reason for replacement. And the racks that Bruce builds will do that – last forever. Electronics (like the iPhone I’m typing on) have a planned obsolescence.
That’s a boon for manufacturers of consumables (bikes or other stuff) – it will wear out (quickly most times) and have to be replaced. But like you said, the value of quality stuff lies in the longevity (total lifecycle value).
Nicely written essay. Can’t find anything to argue with. My biggest complaint is why all these products made in low-wage (and if the wages are not low, can they explain why they make their stuff there?) locations have such high price tags? Rapha’s a perfect example. I’ll paint with a broad brush here but it seems to me about greed as much as anything….make the stuff as cheaply as possible, then spend marketing $$ to convince the consumer it’s really high-quality stuff with a passion and history behind it to justify obscene markups. It’s come to the point where cycling is heading to a “designer” phase. Slap DKNY or PINARELLO on a Asian-made item and folks will pay a premium price for it despite the fact they can buy the exact same thing produced in the same factory (but without the brand-name) for pennies on the dollar. Our bike tour company could qualify as SOPWAMTOS as we (unlike plenty of our competitors) research, design and personally produce each and every one of our guided tours. This is despite the fact we get offers constantly from subcontractors in Italy offering to do all this for us so we presumably) can just concentrate on marketing and promotion. If we were ONLY interested in becoming rich, we might do just that. But “passion BEFORE profit” is our mantra and I assume it’s yours as well. The big brands are certainly “passion FOR profit” with varying interests in the rest of it. Keep up the good work!
Really xenophobic web blog you got there, Mr. Gordon. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Hi Bruce,
You knocked it out of the park on this one. I just found this post this morning and it is what I was trying to say in a recent post on my website. Recently, I noticed that Kona was making a “Japanese tribute” bike, which is great -whatever. So I wrote Kona and said, why can’t you be the first big company to make a bike that is a tribute to American builders and craftspeople? They could subcontract with a few builders, or just one and offer a product that has more depth and value than just another consumeable good. The automated response that I got sounded just like some of the responses here on your post. Words like “global economy” and “world market” were used and the line of finding the best quality manufacturing for the least amount of money to offer the most affordable product was used.
I think what folks don’t understand is that we cannot survive economically as a country if we get rid of all our manufacturing jobs. There are not enough white collar or retail jobs to go around. Everyone of us knows someone who has been laid off or is underemployed. That hits hard at home. American jobs mean so much right now. It’s almost the equivalent of winning the lottery when someone gets a job these days. We have so much potential as a nation. I think we just need to get back on track.
Thanks again for doing what you do.
Chris
I’ve said this to people for years. I would rather spend my hard earned cash on a frame that was built here by the builder who’s name adorns the downtube.
http://www.sopwamtos.com/blog/ramblings/why-we-do-what-we-do/
It is great to hear someone speak out about this. I feel like so many larger companies are swaying public opinion towards it being just fine to buy anything they want regardless of where it is made. We don’t even think about the dollars as a driving force for why we build bikes. We think of the rider. Of course we need the dollars to continue what we do. We really enjoy our craft. I love the fact that our customers know who built their frame and in return we know who is going to ride what we build. We are a 3 person frame company. Standard Byke Company.
And a bloody good one at that rick !!!!!!!
“So I wrote Kona and said, why can’t you be the first big company to make a bike that is a tribute to American builders and craftspeople?”
The Kona ‘Hot’ bikes were all built by Chris Dekerf one year…
If people want to pay for them, I’m sure Kona would love to get some home-grown bikes out there. Unfortunately, many consumers want ‘cheap but good’ which is what Taiwan can offer. There are fewer of us around who would rather have something built by a single framebuilder who can be identified and called up on the phone. Personally, I wouldn’t want a carbon bike made by a small builder (I’d rather have someone in Taiwan, who makes a lot of them do it for me), and I believe the bigger companies can usually make a great full suspension bike too.
For road, touring, ‘cross though, I’m happy to put down my hard-earned cash for something. Classic designs, made in a classic style are what the small builders seem to excel at. That and crazy one-offs (like Vertigo bikes)… Framebuilding is a bespoke business and, similar to suits, there will always be a reason for buying from a bespoke tailor compared to off the shelf. It’s whether the customers want to spend the money on that difference – which I hope they always will.
Good post, I’ve bookmarked ya on Digg under “Passion for Making Shit vs. Passion for Outsourcing Shit | SOPWAMTOS – Society of People Who Actually Make Their Own Shit”. So hopefully our friends can give you a visit. Keep up the good stuff.