Spent some time in a Giant bicycle factory in Shanghai a few years ago. 6000 bicycles a day, 1500 of which were carbon frames. The ladies welding the aluminium frames together were super skilled and a joy to watch at work.
I thought this video was going to be super boring but I ended-up watching to the end as it was pretty darn interesting to see how some of the components we take for granted are made.
Manufacturers in Taiwan should also get tremendous applause and credit for making parts for vintage bicycles of latter half of the 20th century. If you're asking your local bike shop for Sturmey Archer parts, 26 x 1 3/8" tires, spokes, BB bearings and cups etc. They'll most likely be able to find them from Taiwan. The fun of restoration gets many a good bike back out on the road.
LONG time GCN fan & also a U.S. attorney specializing in international trade. (First Asian factory I "visited" making bike stuff.) EXCELLENT video blending my hobby with work. Kudos guys on showing the world the behind the scenes!
Brilliant Brilliant content! This is what the cycling community have been after. This episode is a nice fit after the previous episode talking about the bike industry, with the costs for the latest bikes being out of reach for many people. I'd like to know if Ollie managed to do any cycling while overseas? Would be rude not too. Well done GCN this has been a great watch, throughly enjoyed. Makes me want to take a trip to Taiwan myself.
For my mechanical engineering final project I visited Medici bike frames........it was a very great insight to practical manufacturing for those who had never seen it
Sourced pedals from Wellgo for an OEM brand in 1998; great company and glad to see they’re still around. Was also surprised on my 1st visit to see multiple OEM brands supported by single contract manufacturers.
One of the benefits of blasting before the finishing stage is that it provides a more even finish. Anodising on an unblasted item can often have a mottled effect to it. (Used to work as a sandblaster in an anodising plant..)
Thanks for that video! From childhood till now I love those affordable yet well built products both Velo and Wellgo manufacture. Wanted to see how it’s done and you’ve delivered from Taiwan exactly what I wanted, guys!
Fascinating! No wonder China wants to get it's hands on Taiwan! It's like the whole country is one massive manufacturing workshop! Wellgo pedals are great. All my flat MTB pedals are and have been Wellgo. They've never let me down, they last ages, took a huge bashing and I've never had to service them! Exactly what you want from a product. Thanks GCN & Oli great film, more like this please! 👍
China's desire of Taiwan are primarily cultural and secondarily due to how maritime control is distributed via maritime law and the geopolitical implications of the S.China Sea and particularly with Japanese trade routing. Taiwan punches up economically but its a blip compared to China. And Taiwan's most important production isn't something China could take through conquest anyways as its dependent upon European inputs (and there's contingencies to demolish chip fab factories in the event of an invasion)
"Wellgo pedals are great." I wouldn't say that. I bought some B102 pedals a few years ago and the bearings might as well have been adjusted by a monkey; way too tight and they'd barely spin. I had to adjust them myself but guess what? There was no keyed washer in there, nor even a groove in the spindles to accommodate one, which makes it next to impossible to perfectly adjust them. If you're not familiar with how loose bearing pedals are supposed to be made, read Sheldon Brown's article about it. The keyed washer is assumed to be there because it's a necessity, due to the cone and jam nut being stacked on top of each other down in a hole where it's impossible to get two wrenches on them at the same time. The keyed washer prevents the cone from tightening while you tighten the jam nut against it with a socket. After a few hours of dicking around with them I got them pretty close to perfect so that they spin great, but the jam nuts still aren't tightened against the cone as much as they should be, which means they'll probably get out of adjustment in short order. Fortunately I don't ride the bike they are on very often. I bought my first pair of Wellgo pedals in 1997 and those at least spun smoothly and freely as is, but those aren't perfect either, because there's always been a little bit of play in the bearings, which means the cones should have been tightened slightly more at the factory. There's a precise point when adjusting bearings that there's no play yet they still spin smoothly and freely, and Wellgo apparently can't find it.
“I can’t say which manufacturers they produce for” No one would ask you to do that, it would take FAR too long. It would be much easier to list the three companies who they don’t work with. 😂
A huge thanks to all actors who permitted to see the serious work, i hope that video will confirm how serious are Taiwan and other Asia's productors ^^ Sorry for my english he's not perfect! Thanks GCN Tech :-) (personnal quote, i like the passion of your presentator!)
Great video! Super interesting. Thank you GCN and Ollie. It’s amazing to see has been developed over time in that region and it has become the main reason the whole industry is dependent on their factories. Even nowadays when labor costs are no longer competitive.
I love these behind the scenes videos, thanks Ollie. Maybe not as glamorous as a trip to Taiwan, but how about West Brom'.... where Brooks saddles are made. Less high tech, but really high quality, hand made British craftsmanship. Some of the machines still in use, date back nearly a hundred years. Having had the privilege of taking a school group round, it is fascinating for a bike geek, and I find my modified B17 is super comfy.
Hi Ollie, Thanks for exploring some of the bike component manufacturing in Taiwan. If you can hire a translator and talk with more everyday people in the bike industry, and just people at the night market or the fish market, that would be fun. Food in Taiwan is a lot better than in a lot of the rest of the world : )
spent 3 months in Yangmigshan ,,outside of Taipei great little cycling hub,, bike shops on every corner,. Ollie you must ride in Yangmingshan.. National Park\.. ask the local bike club or rapha shop folk about Buddhas Hand ride.. up the mountain,..down to the sea .. as many times as you have fingers.. final run a spalsh in the sea., head into Taipei for a good curry.. my friend Danny's place Spice Shop..in Taipei.. Have fun in TW. the hot springs in Yangmingshan too are delightful after a long ride..
Wellgo makes the OEM pedals for a fair few BMX brands. GT, Mongoose, I believe SE. I'm more familiar with the older brands than the "newer" ones, although my daughter and I both ride/ race current model BMX bikes. I'm an old head at heart, so I always look at the old brands when their new models come out. But I recognized quite a few of those pedal bodies. As a matter of fact, the multi color one was an Odyssey brand pedal. They are a separate "parts" brand.
"Wellgo makes the OEM pedals for a fair few BMX brands. GT, Mongoose, I believe SE." Maybe some, but not all. The stock pedals on my 1984 Mongoose Californian were SR P-468. SR is a Japanese company that designs and manufactures its own stuff in Japan, or at least they did back then. The stock stem was also SR (MS-422), made in Japan. The frame and fork were made in Taiwan though; 1984 being the first year that all of Mongoose's frames/forks were made in Taiwan. They started making some of them there in 1983, and before that they were all made in California.
@MaximRecoil I was referring to the plastic pedals more than anything, and on the latter 80s BMX bikes, mainly. I'm pretty sure that Wellgo made the plastic pedals for GT, Dyno, from the 80 to currently. The SE bikes currently, and the Mongoose bikes , from the 90s Wal- Goose era to currently. I am also fairly well versed in the old school/ mid school bikes, so well met! Although I mat have oversimplified my original answer. I only vaguely remember an SR plastic pedal, to the point I'm doubtful there was one. And if there was, I wonder if they actually made it in-house? I seem to vaguely remeber a friend of mine having an 86 DiamondBack with white SR pedals on it, but the could also have been painted metal. At 50, my mind does that occasionally... I still have the 3 I originally owned in the mid/ late 80s, as well as the 4 others I bought from my friends when they would rather have money for a car. And another 14 besides those in my collection currently. And only 1 road bike and 2 mountain bikes🤣 Shimano was emerging then (Shimano pedals are still highly sought after, and command a premium). SR/ Sakae was certainty a heavy hitter in OEM equipment brands for Mongoose, as well as a few others. My Californian has the 468s on it, and a set of s f e Supers that I bought that bike with, that look exactly like the SRs. I have an NOS set of SR MP-470s in the box. I always liked the MKS Grafite-Xs, too. Back then, I was lucky to have the bikes I scrounged and saved for 2nd and 3rd hand, I never had the MKS pedals. I had the Wellgo knockoffs🤣 But, I still have them, so they couldn't be so bad(?) Few of the guys in the bike groups give me hell about it, but it's fun. Anyway, at that time (80s through the 90s, Wellgo would have been on the lower end models of the bike brands that I mentioned, and also a lot of the department store bikes. Still are, honestly. But it's nice to see some of the old brands are still in business. Take care!
@@ghowell13 "At 50, my mind does that occasionally..." We're about the same age then. I'll be 50 in several months (class of '93). "Shimano was emerging then (Shimano pedals are still highly sought after, and command a premium)." Yeah; there are a few pairs of NOS first-generation Shimano DX pedals on eBay right now and the asking prices range from $1,043 to $1,850, which is utterly absurd. I ordered a new pair of MKS BM-7 pedals for my Mongoose. They reissued them in 2012 and are still making them. They even improved them slightly over the originals by using an aluminum dust cap instead of a plastic one. They are still made in Japan and they still have a great finish. The amazing thing is the price; around $30, which is what cheap Wellgo "bear trap" pedals sell for, which are knockoffs of the much nicer original bear trap pedals: Suntour XC (which were designed by Suntour and manufactured by MKS). MKS has been the best pedal manufacturer for decades in my opinion. I have two pairs of Wellgos and I'm not impressed with the way they adjusted the bearings on either of them. The ones I bought in 1997 at least spun smoothly and freely, but they had slight play in them. The cones should have been tightened a hair more before they locked it in place with the jam nut. The ones I bought a few years ago might as well have been adjusted by a monkey. The cones were way too tight; they would barely spin. When I opened them up to fix them I discovered that not only was there no keyed washer between the jam nut and the cone, but there wasn't even a groove in the spindle to accommodate one. That makes it next to impossible to adjust the bearings perfectly, because without a keyed washer, there's no good way to tighten the jam nut without also tightening the cone (since they are down in a hole you can't get a wrench/socket on both of them at the same time). After about an hour of frig-farting around with them I got them close enough, by jamming a screwdriver in there to mostly keep the cone from tightening as I tightened the jam nut. They aren't perfect though, and the jam nut isn't as tight against the cone as it should be.
@MaximRecoil hate to hear the poor quality on those mid school Wellgos. But that's nice to know about the MKS pedals, I'll look into them. I could use a set for an 83 GT race bike I have that I still race occasionally. I had a set of Odyssey triple traps on it, and about the 2nd or 3rd race out, I bashed the left pedal in and did everything but send myself through the infield. Thankfully, I didn't wreck the 3 piece Sugino cranks I had just gotten a new square taper Shimano Dura Ace BB for, lol. MKS is still making the Graphite-X, or were. They can be found if you like those. That DX pedal price is insanity. Although, though the bike groups on Facebook, They were still 5-700 dollars for really good/ excellent condition ones. I only have one set of them, and I need to strip the awful gold anno (what's left of it, anyway) off, and give them a light polish. Those centercaps are the devil to find, too, although apparently someone in Australia is 3D printing them. If you're on Facebook, check out Old School BMX Life. There's also a Mid and New School Life pages. Based in the UK, but good groups. Can find parts much cheaper than eBay or BMX Museum dot com.
That OEM talk made me wonder, how many tiers deep can you go with bikes. Example, Corratec bikes with ZZYZX wheels, which have Formula hubs, which have NBK (of that I am not exactly sure) bearings. Then, aerospace guys will go nuts from Ollie calling steel alloy and alu metal😉
I suspect it confuses many, but steel is an alloy, but aluminium isn’t. Many people think alloy means aluminium, but it’s simply a metal made of more than one material, steel being an alloy of iron and carbon (also other elements such as chromium and molybdenum) pure aluminium is an element, but it’s usually an alloy of aluminium, silicon and other metals, hence aluminium alloy.
@@PhilOsGarage it is confusing indeed, to think that general absolute truths are applicable to narrow professional areas... Those are just colloquialisms. As aluminium alloys became frequent in aviation while pure aluminium was never used, engineers omited the "aluminium" part.
@@PhilOsGaragealuminium is an alloy in most applications. A quick google says that aluminium 6061 is common in bikes, which is an alloy with silicon and magnesium.
I'm old enough to remember when Taiwan started its inroads into cycling (BMX). The best bike stuff was British, American or Japanese back in the 80's and it was pricey e.g. Shimano, Dia-Compe, Sugino, Kashimax, IRC etc. Then suddenly we had decent copies made by Victor Pedal, Viscount, Cheng Shin (now Maxxis) etc.. and then came Giant. Victor possibly produced the first Shimano DX pedal copy. Viscount made great copies of Kashimax saddles. And even well into the 2000's Giant had a copy of the Hope C2 disc brake.. but by then Giant and others were also innovating and investing massively.
I made comment similar to yours. I didn't say it, but I kinda cringed when Ollie mentioned the bit about children's bikes.😂 I still ride a child's bike, or what people think of as one. I still ride BMX, race occasionally, and have loads of my 80s freestyle bikes and parts. I remember the "Asian invasion " as well. It brought the cycling sport down out of the stratospheric cost. It's a shame it's back there again, with little relief.
How could you forget our buddies in Vicenza in your list of sources of the best? When I started riding, Tullio Campagnolo was still alive, and if you raced, chances are you were on parts made by his company. At the time, DuraAce looked like a slightly prettier version of 600, and Shimano was far from the dominant player in high end cycling it is today. Of course the best derailleurs then came from SunTour not Campagnolo.
@@ghowell13 plenty of grownups still enjoying BMX's even just for nostalgia and fun.. we must be brothers from another mother.. your playlist.. wiki wiki wiki wiki now check this out! Just remembered I bought a layback UK made Renthal seatpost for £5 in 1983 so there were some goodies that were cheapish..
@@christopheroliver148 not so much forgetting.. but I was reminiscing from a BMX standpoint.. Italians werent really making BMX stuff.. back then roadbikes werent my thing (still arent!)..
Great video, I could see this being a whole series! Let's get other big Taiwan component OEMs like TH (Tien Hsin), Joy Industrial, SR Suntour, etc, on here too!
well years ago , auto parts made in Asia didnt have the hardning process down , being poor prouducts , today they got it mostley down . taiwan has done a great job on there tools for mechanics ,ive tried and tested .cheers
12:10 - Where did you get the wild notion that no one's heard of Wellgo? They've been around for ages. I bought a new pair of Wellgo "bear trap" type BMX pedals (LU-393) in 1997, which I still have, and they'd already been around for a long time back then too (since at least the early 1980s). I don't know how anyone who's into bicycles could not have heard of them. If you're in the market for pedals you're almost certainly going to come across some Wellgo ones during your search.
Fascinating and sad at the same time. The concentration of manufacturing of a given component (as pedal or saddle in this video) in very few factories is what make supply chain so efficient, but also so fragile. I would much prefer resilient supply chains over hyper-efficient ones...for all the things we learned during the pandemic.
Really enjoyed this video. How about visits to hub manufacturers? I'm actually very curious to know who makes all the coaster brake hubs which are all the same design inside. Who owns the patent on that design? I can't find any answers from Google.
Very interesting. Not as nice working conditions as in Europe! There were times in the early 90s when all the parts of the bike came with the names of the OEM on it. My first real MTB had Wellgo pedals and a Velo saddle. I‘m sure my current saddle also came out of this factory since Prologo is a branch of Velo.
There's Lots of cycling brands that don't actually produce anything themselves . Generally designing a brand logo is about it , some may do r&d but often the products are allready done and theyll order with there logo in there box or packaging choice etc .
The middle section of the rails the lady had in the plastic trough at 6:00 approximately are cambered slightly when pressed and de - cambered in another press when fitted to take up nose and two rear sockets slack . Only modest pressure is used . This is how Selle Italia do it .
Great mini documentary. Also goes to show how industrious they are in Taiwan - no wonder China want's to sweep them under their 'umbrella' - and makes you start wondering what we can do here in the UK. Seems the only thing we are really good at is making trouble to be honest.
The Taiwanese are very hardworking and innovative in their work, being colonized by the Japanese previously also developed a better work ethic UK won't be ideal for manufacturing from cost, labour laws and tax (now that they have exited the EU)
Very interesting behind-the-scenes look, thanks! Though in truth it does suck some of the magic out. The sad reality is (most of) our bikes and gear are NOT being handcrafted in a tiny mountain village by Italian elves -- we just get charged Italian elf prices, and hypnotized by marketing to justify them. So basically, the majority of the bike industry, relative to the typical GCN viewer, is all a front. Shame. That's admittedly a pessimistic view and there are the realities of industrial scaling and economics, but it begs the question: how much domestic artisan manufacturing is left these days? "Made in USA / Italy / France / Germany ..." used to stand for something, but does the current state of bike technology and economic pressure mean that's gone forever? Does it even matter? I'd like to see more content on this topic. Thanks again GCN for the videos!
Quality wise, I think it does not really matter. In terms of worker‘s rights and work conditions it matters a lot. May some of it come back? Probably, because of what was learned in the supply chain crisis.
I’ve got two pairs of shoes, one from a bigger western brand, and one from china. Despite the western brand being 4x the price (though not high end) initial impressions show very little difference in quality. I suspect most of the price difference is branding
6:26 The rail datums are Ultra Violet through screen , printed / etched and not lazer as the marks are shallow and easily scraped off with setup changes on - bicycle . Black rails are never lazer printed as the enamel would crystallise and roughen .
Very interesting. I’ll bet supply chain options for bike components are much more limited than we think. It’s a huge investment to create these production lines, which is a big barrier to entry for competitors.
It's just much cheaper to have someone else make it. If you make your own you have to invest in all those machines, logistics, raw materials, parts and expertise workers to just make your tiny part of the market share, and idle machines are losing money. Consumers benefit greatly too from lower cost (maybe)
@@zurielsssSome small producers do make these products using newer equipment than shown in the video but intentionally remain niche market . The big problem in Taiwan is that they often use equipment which is old , outdated or worn and makers won't re - invest every 10 years or so in the latest more accurate equipment .
I find it really insulting that at this point we are still acting like it’s a big secret that most bike “manufacturers” are really just marketing companies that don’t make anything. It would be refreshing if we could just stop pretending and just embrace the actual manufacturing going on.
@@robertmcfadyen9156 Back when I worked in a shop the only thing Trek made I house was the high end OCLV frames. When I built bikes my boss would make me take the made in China labels off the frames. I haven’t worked in a shop in a long time or kept up with where they make stuff anymore. I do own 2 treks but because I like the bikes and the warranty.
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Love watching the manufacturing process…thanks to Velo and Wellgo for opening their doors to GCN
Spent some time in a Giant bicycle factory in Shanghai a few years ago. 6000 bicycles a day, 1500 of which were carbon frames. The ladies welding the aluminium frames together were super skilled and a joy to watch at work.
Shame they dont make bikes in the West really.
I thought frame welding became automated about 1988 .
@@davidlewis4399they could, but you’d have to be happy to pay twice as much for the bike
@@davidlewis4399 No one wants to pay the price of such frames.
@@davidlewis4399 why is that a shame, actually?
I thought this video was going to be super boring but I ended-up watching to the end as it was pretty darn interesting to see how some of the components we take for granted are made.
Thanks Ollie for a couple of fascinating factory tours. Glad you were able to make the most of your time in Taiwan.
So glad to see Wellgo getting some time in the sun. They make great pedals. Love them.
Manufacturers in Taiwan should also get tremendous applause and credit for making parts for vintage bicycles of latter half of the 20th century. If you're asking your local bike shop for Sturmey Archer parts, 26 x 1 3/8" tires, spokes, BB bearings and cups etc. They'll most likely be able to find them from Taiwan. The fun of restoration gets many a good bike back out on the road.
LONG time GCN fan & also a U.S. attorney specializing in international trade. (First Asian factory I "visited" making bike stuff.) EXCELLENT video blending my hobby with work. Kudos guys on showing the world the behind the scenes!
Brilliant Brilliant content! This is what the cycling community have been after. This episode is a nice fit after the previous episode talking about the bike industry, with the costs for the latest bikes being out of reach for many people. I'd like to know if Ollie managed to do any cycling while overseas? Would be rude not too. Well done GCN this has been a great watch, throughly enjoyed. Makes me want to take a trip to Taiwan myself.
Did you miss the video where he did the Taiwan KOM challenge?
@@ehuremovic526 clearly I did. Thanks for giving me the heads up. Will check it out. Thank you.
The modern bike industry just doesn't exist without Taiwan. It's absolutely crazy.
The old bike industry didn't exist without Warwickshire. What happened?
costs happened.@@jameslee-pevenhull5087
Tons of Taiwanese themselves cycle as well
Taiwan has been a major force in the bike industry since at least the early 1980s.
For my mechanical engineering final project I visited Medici bike frames........it was a very great insight to practical manufacturing for those who had never seen it
Sourced pedals from Wellgo for an OEM brand in 1998; great company and glad to see they’re still around. Was also surprised on my 1st visit to see multiple OEM brands supported by single contract manufacturers.
With the number of bicycles with their pedals , production must be 12 - 16 times higher than described .
Sorry Wellgo ... I often keep or give those away since I go with a Shimano or crank brothers one
@@mlee6050 And you know all Shimano and Crank Brothers are not made by Wellgo how?
@@trek520rider2 I was just on about the ones that actually got wellgo written on it
Velo saddles and Wellgo pedals have been on my bikes for years.
One of the most interesting and informative videos I've seen in a long time.
Very cool to see the Wellgo factory. I'll happily buy Made in Taiwan bike parts.
8:57 it says GIANT on the wall.. at least one customer you forgot to blurr 😀
Oops 😝
OMG. The closely guarded secret that Giant bikes are manufactured in Taiwan is now out there.
One of the benefits of blasting before the finishing stage is that it provides a more even finish. Anodising on an unblasted item can often have a mottled effect to it. (Used to work as a sandblaster in an anodising plant..)
More please. I love seeing the business of cycling.
What a fascinating watch! This video is an eye-opener to the industry, not just a product. Thank you GCN!
Thanks for that video! From childhood till now I love those affordable yet well built products both Velo and Wellgo manufacture. Wanted to see how it’s done and you’ve delivered from Taiwan exactly what I wanted, guys!
Fantastic film, love seeing Robots and the machines that make our kit, thanks Ollie and GCN.
Thanks for the tour 👍🏻👍🏻
A Pinnacle mountain bike I bought over a decade ago had a Velo saddle on it and it's still the most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden.
Fascinating as always. Thanks Oli & GCN.
Fascinating! No wonder China wants to get it's hands on Taiwan! It's like the whole country is one massive manufacturing workshop! Wellgo pedals are great. All my flat MTB pedals are and have been Wellgo. They've never let me down, they last ages, took a huge bashing and I've never had to service them! Exactly what you want from a product. Thanks GCN & Oli great film, more like this please! 👍
China's desire of Taiwan are primarily cultural and secondarily due to how maritime control is distributed via maritime law and the geopolitical implications of the S.China Sea and particularly with Japanese trade routing. Taiwan punches up economically but its a blip compared to China. And Taiwan's most important production isn't something China could take through conquest anyways as its dependent upon European inputs (and there's contingencies to demolish chip fab factories in the event of an invasion)
"Wellgo pedals are great."
I wouldn't say that. I bought some B102 pedals a few years ago and the bearings might as well have been adjusted by a monkey; way too tight and they'd barely spin. I had to adjust them myself but guess what? There was no keyed washer in there, nor even a groove in the spindles to accommodate one, which makes it next to impossible to perfectly adjust them.
If you're not familiar with how loose bearing pedals are supposed to be made, read Sheldon Brown's article about it. The keyed washer is assumed to be there because it's a necessity, due to the cone and jam nut being stacked on top of each other down in a hole where it's impossible to get two wrenches on them at the same time. The keyed washer prevents the cone from tightening while you tighten the jam nut against it with a socket.
After a few hours of dicking around with them I got them pretty close to perfect so that they spin great, but the jam nuts still aren't tightened against the cone as much as they should be, which means they'll probably get out of adjustment in short order. Fortunately I don't ride the bike they are on very often.
I bought my first pair of Wellgo pedals in 1997 and those at least spun smoothly and freely as is, but those aren't perfect either, because there's always been a little bit of play in the bearings, which means the cones should have been tightened slightly more at the factory. There's a precise point when adjusting bearings that there's no play yet they still spin smoothly and freely, and Wellgo apparently can't find it.
Have used Wello MTB flats for several years. Great value and durable.
“I can’t say which manufacturers they produce for”
No one would ask you to do that, it would take FAR too long. It would be much easier to list the three companies who they don’t work with. 😂
A huge thanks to all actors who permitted to see the serious work, i hope that video will confirm how serious are Taiwan and other Asia's productors ^^ Sorry for my english he's not perfect! Thanks GCN Tech :-) (personnal quote, i like the passion of your presentator!)
I live in Taiwan...get to the mountains... Some of the best in the world for cycling
"Let's go, 'group of cyclists'!" is a good one, that made me chuckle! 😅
😉
As a bike loving mechanical engineer this is just the best video content I can hope for
Fascinating Ollie, many thanks for this insight.
At 67 years old, Im happy to say all my joints, ie hips knees, are all OEM.
I’m 45, and mine aren’t 😂
Well done! We need more of these manufacturing videos! So cool and interesting to watch
Next stop: mid-tier group-set factories (Malasia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam)?
Great video. Thanks, Ollie!
Great video! Super interesting. Thank you GCN and Ollie. It’s amazing to see has been developed over time in that region and it has become the main reason the whole industry is dependent on their factories. Even nowadays when labor costs are no longer competitive.
Thanks Dr O and crew...interesting process . Love the robotics !
I love these behind the scenes videos, thanks Ollie. Maybe not as glamorous as a trip to Taiwan, but how about West Brom'.... where Brooks saddles are made. Less high tech, but really high quality, hand made British craftsmanship. Some of the machines still in use, date back nearly a hundred years. Having had the privilege of taking a school group round, it is fascinating for a bike geek, and I find my modified B17 is super comfy.
How its Made and Brooks' own channels have done this already
Hi Ollie, Thanks for exploring some of the bike component manufacturing in Taiwan. If you can hire a translator and talk with more everyday people in the bike industry, and just people at the night market or the fish market, that would be fun. Food in Taiwan is a lot better than in a lot of the rest of the world : )
spent 3 months in Yangmigshan ,,outside of Taipei great little cycling hub,,
bike shops on every corner,. Ollie you must ride in Yangmingshan.. National Park\.. ask the local bike club or rapha shop folk about Buddhas Hand ride.. up the mountain,..down to the sea .. as many times as you have fingers.. final run a spalsh in the sea., head into Taipei for a good curry.. my friend Danny's place Spice Shop..in Taipei.. Have fun in TW. the hot springs in Yangmingshan too are delightful after a long ride..
The „Brian Cox“ of the next generation! Good job.
Please more videos like this one Olie! Wow, great stuff!
few months ago I bought a pair of wellgo C237 pedals, very well made, light and good looking pedals
A massive THANK YOU to all the Chinese and Taiwanese workers for working hard to bring us quality bike parts at a reasonable cost.
Wonderful video, well done Dr. B! ❤️✌🏾
That's quite interesting! Very cool!
My first "SPD's" were Nashbar Wellgos, still have a pair.
I suspect the entry level shimano ones are well go, too.
Nashbar branded Wellgo pedals I bought in the 90's were my first clipless pedals... Those were the days.
Wellgo makes the OEM pedals for a fair few BMX brands.
GT, Mongoose, I believe SE. I'm more familiar with the older brands than the "newer" ones, although my daughter and I both ride/ race current model BMX bikes.
I'm an old head at heart, so I always look at the old brands when their new models come out.
But I recognized quite a few of those pedal bodies. As a matter of fact, the multi color one was an Odyssey brand pedal. They are a separate "parts" brand.
"Wellgo makes the OEM pedals for a fair few BMX brands.
GT, Mongoose, I believe SE."
Maybe some, but not all. The stock pedals on my 1984 Mongoose Californian were SR P-468. SR is a Japanese company that designs and manufactures its own stuff in Japan, or at least they did back then. The stock stem was also SR (MS-422), made in Japan. The frame and fork were made in Taiwan though; 1984 being the first year that all of Mongoose's frames/forks were made in Taiwan. They started making some of them there in 1983, and before that they were all made in California.
@MaximRecoil I was referring to the plastic pedals more than anything, and on the latter 80s BMX bikes, mainly. I'm pretty sure that Wellgo made the plastic pedals for GT, Dyno, from the 80 to currently. The SE bikes currently, and the Mongoose bikes , from the 90s Wal- Goose era to currently.
I am also fairly well versed in the old school/ mid school bikes, so well met! Although I mat have oversimplified my original answer.
I only vaguely remember an SR plastic pedal, to the point I'm doubtful there was one. And if there was, I wonder if they actually made it in-house? I seem to vaguely remeber a friend of mine having an 86 DiamondBack with white SR pedals on it, but the could also have been painted metal. At 50, my mind does that occasionally...
I still have the 3 I originally owned in the mid/ late 80s, as well as the 4 others I bought from my friends when they would rather have money for a car. And another 14 besides those in my collection currently. And only 1 road bike and 2 mountain bikes🤣
Shimano was emerging then (Shimano pedals are still highly sought after, and command a premium). SR/ Sakae was certainty a heavy hitter in OEM equipment brands for Mongoose, as well as a few others. My Californian has the 468s on it, and a set of s f e Supers that I bought that bike with, that look exactly like the SRs. I have an NOS set of SR MP-470s in the box. I always liked the MKS Grafite-Xs, too. Back then, I was lucky to have the bikes I scrounged and saved for 2nd and 3rd hand, I never had the MKS pedals.
I had the Wellgo knockoffs🤣 But, I still have them, so they couldn't be so bad(?) Few of the guys in the bike groups give me hell about it, but it's fun.
Anyway, at that time (80s through the 90s, Wellgo would have been on the lower end models of the bike brands that I mentioned, and also a lot of the department store bikes. Still are, honestly. But it's nice to see some of the old brands are still in business.
Take care!
@@ghowell13 "At 50, my mind does that occasionally..."
We're about the same age then. I'll be 50 in several months (class of '93).
"Shimano was emerging then (Shimano pedals are still highly sought after, and command a premium)."
Yeah; there are a few pairs of NOS first-generation Shimano DX pedals on eBay right now and the asking prices range from $1,043 to $1,850, which is utterly absurd.
I ordered a new pair of MKS BM-7 pedals for my Mongoose. They reissued them in 2012 and are still making them. They even improved them slightly over the originals by using an aluminum dust cap instead of a plastic one. They are still made in Japan and they still have a great finish. The amazing thing is the price; around $30, which is what cheap Wellgo "bear trap" pedals sell for, which are knockoffs of the much nicer original bear trap pedals: Suntour XC (which were designed by Suntour and manufactured by MKS).
MKS has been the best pedal manufacturer for decades in my opinion.
I have two pairs of Wellgos and I'm not impressed with the way they adjusted the bearings on either of them. The ones I bought in 1997 at least spun smoothly and freely, but they had slight play in them. The cones should have been tightened a hair more before they locked it in place with the jam nut.
The ones I bought a few years ago might as well have been adjusted by a monkey. The cones were way too tight; they would barely spin. When I opened them up to fix them I discovered that not only was there no keyed washer between the jam nut and the cone, but there wasn't even a groove in the spindle to accommodate one. That makes it next to impossible to adjust the bearings perfectly, because without a keyed washer, there's no good way to tighten the jam nut without also tightening the cone (since they are down in a hole you can't get a wrench/socket on both of them at the same time).
After about an hour of frig-farting around with them I got them close enough, by jamming a screwdriver in there to mostly keep the cone from tightening as I tightened the jam nut. They aren't perfect though, and the jam nut isn't as tight against the cone as it should be.
@MaximRecoil hate to hear the poor quality on those mid school Wellgos. But that's nice to know about the MKS pedals, I'll look into them. I could use a set for an 83 GT race bike I have that I still race occasionally. I had a set of Odyssey triple traps on it, and about the 2nd or 3rd race out, I bashed the left pedal in and did everything but send myself through the infield. Thankfully, I didn't wreck the 3 piece Sugino cranks I had just gotten a new square taper Shimano Dura Ace BB for, lol.
MKS is still making the Graphite-X, or were. They can be found if you like those.
That DX pedal price is insanity. Although, though the bike groups on Facebook, They were still 5-700 dollars for really good/ excellent condition ones. I only have one set of them, and I need to strip the awful gold anno (what's left of it, anyway) off, and give them a light polish. Those centercaps are the devil to find, too, although apparently someone in Australia is 3D printing them. If you're on Facebook, check out Old School BMX Life. There's also a Mid and New School Life pages. Based in the UK, but good groups. Can find parts much cheaper than eBay or BMX Museum dot com.
Good video, I use wellgo pedals. Very good too.🔥🔥🔥😃👍
What brands can we spot? I'll start.
7:11 prologo
Taiwan is number 1 in the bike components manufacturing industry. Hands down!
Minute 3:34 that's definitely a Bontrager Aeolus RSL saddle
I love this stuff, more please😊
as a industrial designer that was very interesting .
Brilliant and very interesting. Thank you @gcn
Very interesting, thanks.
Awesome video,I think my knock off Spezialized Power saddle is made by Velo.Super comfortable by the way.
Great video, more of this please, what about the Brooks factory 👍
Ultra cool. What a tour
That OEM talk made me wonder, how many tiers deep can you go with bikes. Example, Corratec bikes with ZZYZX wheels, which have Formula hubs, which have NBK (of that I am not exactly sure) bearings.
Then, aerospace guys will go nuts from Ollie calling steel alloy and alu metal😉
I suspect it confuses many, but steel is an alloy, but aluminium isn’t. Many people think alloy means aluminium, but it’s simply a metal made of more than one material, steel being an alloy of iron and carbon (also other elements such as chromium and molybdenum) pure aluminium is an element, but it’s usually an alloy of aluminium, silicon and other metals, hence aluminium alloy.
@@PhilOsGarage it is confusing indeed, to think that general absolute truths are applicable to narrow professional areas...
Those are just colloquialisms. As aluminium alloys became frequent in aviation while pure aluminium was never used, engineers omited the "aluminium" part.
@@PhilOsGaragealuminium is an alloy in most applications. A quick google says that aluminium 6061 is common in bikes, which is an alloy with silicon and magnesium.
I'm old enough to remember when Taiwan started its inroads into cycling (BMX). The best bike stuff was British, American or Japanese back in the 80's and it was pricey e.g. Shimano, Dia-Compe, Sugino, Kashimax, IRC etc. Then suddenly we had decent copies made by Victor Pedal, Viscount, Cheng Shin (now Maxxis) etc.. and then came Giant. Victor possibly produced the first Shimano DX pedal copy. Viscount made great copies of Kashimax saddles. And even well into the 2000's Giant had a copy of the Hope C2 disc brake.. but by then Giant and others were also innovating and investing massively.
I made comment similar to yours. I didn't say it, but I kinda cringed when Ollie mentioned the bit about children's bikes.😂
I still ride a child's bike, or what people think of as one. I still ride BMX, race occasionally, and have loads of my 80s freestyle bikes and parts.
I remember the "Asian invasion " as well. It brought the cycling sport down out of the stratospheric cost. It's a shame it's back there again, with little relief.
How could you forget our buddies in Vicenza in your list of sources of the best? When I started riding, Tullio Campagnolo was still alive, and if you raced, chances are you were on parts made by his company. At the time, DuraAce looked like a slightly prettier version of 600, and Shimano was far from the dominant player in high end cycling it is today. Of course the best derailleurs then came from SunTour not Campagnolo.
@@ghowell13 plenty of grownups still enjoying BMX's even just for nostalgia and fun.. we must be brothers from another mother.. your playlist.. wiki wiki wiki wiki now check this out! Just remembered I bought a layback UK made Renthal seatpost for £5 in 1983 so there were some goodies that were cheapish..
@@christopheroliver148 not so much forgetting.. but I was reminiscing from a BMX standpoint.. Italians werent really making BMX stuff.. back then roadbikes werent my thing (still arent!)..
@@chaosflower4892 belei e it or not, Campagnolo made a few BMX parts. Bianchi was making whole BMX bikes.
Great video, I could see this being a whole series! Let's get other big Taiwan component OEMs like TH (Tien Hsin), Joy Industrial, SR Suntour, etc, on here too!
Fascinating!
Very good! Very cool!
Really, really interesting Video! More of that would be very welcome
Very interesting video👌.
As a heavy rider, I for one am grateful they test their seats at 125kg 😅
"Let's go... 'group of cyclists' " You simply can't love Ollie!
Super cool.
I have wellgo pedals and they are awesome
The MG 1 pedals often have bearing failures , therefore need to replace those bearings however . Axial strikes damage them sometimes .
well years ago , auto parts made in Asia didnt have the hardning process down , being poor prouducts , today they got it mostley down . taiwan has done a great job on there tools for mechanics ,ive tried and tested .cheers
Many years ago. For probably the last 40 years that hasn’t necessarily been true.
12:10 - Where did you get the wild notion that no one's heard of Wellgo? They've been around for ages. I bought a new pair of Wellgo "bear trap" type BMX pedals (LU-393) in 1997, which I still have, and they'd already been around for a long time back then too (since at least the early 1980s). I don't know how anyone who's into bicycles could not have heard of them. If you're in the market for pedals you're almost certainly going to come across some Wellgo ones during your search.
Top quality infomercial 👌
welldone, 8:56 Giant label on the wall....
“Aren’t machines brilliant”. “Bearings and lasers too… brilliant” 😂
12:10 Uh, Ollie, speak for yourself. EVERYBODY in the comment section has heard of Wellgo!
Can you tour the Shimano and Sram factories???
Fascinating and sad at the same time. The concentration of manufacturing of a given component (as pedal or saddle in this video) in very few factories is what make supply chain so efficient, but also so fragile. I would much prefer resilient supply chains over hyper-efficient ones...for all the things we learned during the pandemic.
Really enjoyed this video. How about visits to hub manufacturers? I'm actually very curious to know who makes all the coaster brake hubs which are all the same design inside. Who owns the patent on that design? I can't find any answers from Google.
Taiwan is such an interesting country. I think I need to go there once at least.
Bring your road bike. Trust me.
@@Membrillo81 yh a friend of mine who was born there said you can cycle around the whole island.
Excellent vid👌
Very interesting. Not as nice working conditions as in Europe! There were times in the early 90s when all the parts of the bike came with the names of the OEM on it. My first real MTB had Wellgo pedals and a Velo saddle. I‘m sure my current saddle also came out of this factory since Prologo is a branch of Velo.
There's Lots of cycling brands that don't actually produce anything themselves . Generally designing a brand logo is about it , some may do r&d but often the products are allready done and theyll order with there logo in there box or packaging choice etc .
I wanted to see how they attach the frame to the saddle! You have to go back Ollie! ;-)
The middle section of the rails the lady had in the plastic trough at 6:00 approximately are cambered slightly when pressed and de - cambered in another press when fitted to take up nose and two rear sockets slack . Only modest pressure is used . This is how Selle Italia do it .
Taiwan quality standards are probably that high because they are not calculating g with 10m/s² 😉
Also Formula and Novatec make most of the oem hubs on the market. Thats how ut works
Not Shimano or DT ones though .
TAIWAN ROCKS
Awesome video
Interesante manufacturas de un proceso nuy impresiónante
A few years back we had a Ford Escape and a Mazda…..it wasn’t ‘exactly’ the same, it was a Tribute!
Great mini documentary. Also goes to show how industrious they are in Taiwan - no wonder China want's to sweep them under their 'umbrella' - and makes you start wondering what we can do here in the UK. Seems the only thing we are really good at is making trouble to be honest.
The Taiwanese are very hardworking and innovative in their work, being colonized by the Japanese previously also developed a better work ethic
UK won't be ideal for manufacturing from cost, labour laws and tax (now that they have exited the EU)
Very interesting behind-the-scenes look, thanks! Though in truth it does suck some of the magic out. The sad reality is (most of) our bikes and gear are NOT being handcrafted in a tiny mountain village by Italian elves -- we just get charged Italian elf prices, and hypnotized by marketing to justify them. So basically, the majority of the bike industry, relative to the typical GCN viewer, is all a front. Shame.
That's admittedly a pessimistic view and there are the realities of industrial scaling and economics, but it begs the question: how much domestic artisan manufacturing is left these days? "Made in USA / Italy / France / Germany ..." used to stand for something, but does the current state of bike technology and economic pressure mean that's gone forever? Does it even matter? I'd like to see more content on this topic. Thanks again GCN for the videos!
Quality wise, I think it does not really matter. In terms of worker‘s rights and work conditions it matters a lot. May some of it come back? Probably, because of what was learned in the supply chain crisis.
I’ve got two pairs of shoes, one from a bigger western brand, and one from china. Despite the western brand being 4x the price (though not high end) initial impressions show very little difference in quality. I suspect most of the price difference is branding
i think prologo saddle made by them?
Nice subtle name drops Olie
6:26 The rail datums are Ultra Violet through screen , printed / etched and not lazer as the marks are shallow and easily scraped off with setup changes on - bicycle . Black rails are never lazer printed as the enamel would crystallise and roughen .
I didn't know that.
It's mad the amount of bike places around Taichung.
Very interesting. I’ll bet supply chain options for bike components are much more limited than we think. It’s a huge investment to create these production lines, which is a big barrier to entry for competitors.
It's just much cheaper to have someone else make it. If you make your own you have to invest in all those machines, logistics, raw materials, parts and expertise workers to just make your tiny part of the market share, and idle machines are losing money. Consumers benefit greatly too from lower cost (maybe)
@@zurielsssSome small producers do make these products using newer equipment than shown in the video but intentionally remain niche market . The big problem in Taiwan is that they often use equipment which is old , outdated or worn and makers won't re - invest every 10 years or so in the latest more accurate equipment .
With all that investment I have to wonder how much help these manufacturers got from their government.
Are Selle Italia Saddles produced there?
Possibly, they can have most of the process made in TW and market it as "made in Italy" when it's only packaging it into colorful boxes
Mine has “made in italy” on it, but I suspect the parts are not.
i can confirm they are not!
Love to the epic human cordination to make riding a bicycle possible today
I find it really insulting that at this point we are still acting like it’s a big secret that most bike “manufacturers” are really just marketing companies that don’t make anything. It would be refreshing if we could just stop pretending and just embrace the actual manufacturing going on.
Trek makes very little product . Many of their bicycles are made by XDS in Vietnam as of April 2021 .
@@robertmcfadyen9156 Back when I worked in a shop the only thing Trek made I house was the high end OCLV frames. When I built bikes my boss would make me take the made in China labels off the frames. I haven’t worked in a shop in a long time or kept up with where they make stuff anymore. I do own 2 treks but because I like the bikes and the warranty.