Since someone mentioned Night Rider... How about Light & Motion located in beautiful Monterey, California. peace.. :beer: E
Doesn't sound crazy at all. I can easily imagine a machine to weld up a whole bike in 5 seconds or less, which would make the US a perfect place to weld frames. Of course the machines would probably be made in Japan. #-o
One thing I'm always amazed at is the quality on hand welded stuff, and the absolute crap that some of the robot welding machines throw out. Bikes have such low margins, that the investment in the machinery to do it right (think Boeing) is insane. When your average cheapo plain gauge alloy frame costs a bike company $20 out of China, there's not much room for investment in machinery..... But there's always the car model to work on.....Bring your factory to the US, hire US labor, all to bypass the import duties...Your import complete MTB costs 14% to pay the man.
In house. Temecula. (They have a cool warehouse/shop...you can actually go for a tour if you check out the website and find the days/times).
Serfas has most of their stuff sourced overseas. When they have problems with overseas manufacturers, they try to source locally. I am working on a project with them for one of my customers where the Asian manufacturers couldn't deliver the right product.
maybe close I don't think we make bike tires at all in this country, but I could be wrong. There have been shifters and deraileurs made in the US, but I don't know if any are curently in production. Anyone know where enduro bearings are made. Bearings could be a deal braker. Also cables, housing, bars and hydro disc brakes could be a problem. Frame, fork, rear shock, cranks, BB, hubs, headset, stem, and post are definetely easy.
Hunter Cycles Add this to the list of CA bike companies. http://www.huntercycles.com/ Wow - very cool. Welcome to Hunter Cycles. We’re a custom bike shop in Watsonville, California. We make fillet brazed frames in the classic style. We build to order and can make anything you want, as long as what you want is made of steel and made for riding. MTBs, 29ers, cross bikes, road bikes, track bikes, forks and stems, and even unicycles are among the goods we produce.
Dodge, as with most of the "American" brand vehicles are either assembled in Mexico, or contain a majority of parts that are manufactured in Mexico. My dad has built most of the plants there for VW, Chrisler, Ford, General Motors, etc. I believe, Toyota builds (assembles) more cars and trucks in the US than most "American" companies. (please correct me if wrong). With the labor costs in the US, its difficult to remain competitive with everyone that has gone overseas, specially in manufacturing. Which is sad, but true. The only ones that really loose are you and me. We can choose to buy American made products, but we must pay a premium for it (not everyone minds, but not everyone can afford), otherwise we can settle for a (sometimes) substandard product. That's my $.02 8-[
I thought Hope moved to Montgomery, TX about a year ago. http://www.hopetechusa.com/page_mep_force_6.html
There are some companies who realize that sourcing locally when they need to is the only way, and can in the long term save them money. After all, you wait 6 months for overseas production, it ends up running late and then you airfreight it.....where as if you'd sourced locally to start with it would probably be on time and zero import duties and freight charges!!! We do a lot of the same stuff locally at Felt, for instance a lot of our prototype CNC is done in the US (even though we can actually make a lot of the stuff in house in Irvine) :beer:
Here's an interesting link about that: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...cars/what-is-an-american-car/0407best_glo.htm
True At one time my wife had a Ford Expedition (made in Canada) and I had a Toyota Tundra (made in the US). I used to work in the auto industry. It is nearly imposible to find out where all of the parts are made#-o
I was thinking more along the lines of regulations regarding pollutants, EPA has no jurisdiction overseas?
What about hydroforming? Is hyrdoforming even a word? I mean, making hydroformed tubes. Is that something the EPA hates?
Couple of my friends are importers and they both told me you must have people on the ground there to watch them like a hawk or they will make the most basic mistakes. There are tons of people there that can make the same thing but they don't know what it is for or how it suppose to be so what comes out is.....what comes out. Someone have to be there to make sure every little details are correct and double check to avoid costly mistakes. But my friends have lots of different items maybe a bike frame is easier to manage? :?: Either way when you out source local or overseas you have to watch them and have very good QA process or costly mistakes will plague you. Overseas is just a bit farther. On a different note either way we have ship all the toxic manufacturing and "recycling" overseas instead of cleaning it up. R&D of clean processes are too costly! Besides people in asia don't need lungs, trees, clean air and love cancer, lead, mercury, birth defects, bad environment.......