my understanding is that the new Trek road bikes will be OCLV, but will not be based on the Madone or the 5200 model. So it's a new process for making the carbon bikes, but the same old carbon. the new bikes sound like they will be really light!!!

I think that your rumor is a mix of stories. Trek is (did) move their standard OCLV production overseas and only makes the SL and SSL on these shores. Trek has them selves in a bit of a corner now on the carbon bike market, though they have the money to invest in something new; the market and their typical customer base would get lost in the shuffle (mass market not high end road). Trek has spend to many marketing dollars blasting anything that isnt OCLV it would be an uphill battle to move away from it...unless they have some new shit from the Skunkworks teams in aviation.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

That would explain the $700 dollar off sale on madone style oclv bikes

I understand that Trek are losing their shirts on OCLV, now that overseas carbon is high quality and cheap (remember Tom's article?). Thus the lower end carbon will be abroad, as mentioend above, and the quality race frames will be made here in US, as they are now. Essentially, they have harly changed the lowere end carbon for decades, everyone else has caught up.

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http://theworldthroumyeyes.tumblr.com/

no OCLV has gone overseas. products which have gone offshore do not get made by the OCLV process.

the list of OCLV bikes which continue to be made here goes beyond the Madone SL and SSL to include the Equinox TTX, Elite XC 9.7/9.8/9.9, Fuel EX 9.5, Top Fuel, and so on.

Carl

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Carl Matson

Why are you listening to Tom? He's just trying to sell bikes. Does he even sell any bikes that are made in the USA? I'm sure he does, it's a rhetorical question. The point I'm making is he is trying to sell carbon frames made over seas, so what do you expect him to write.

Personally, I will never buy a bike from a bike company which didn't make said bike.

One of the main things that I consider when I buy a bike is the reputation of the brand. If they make their own bikes, then I perceive more value in the fact that they are in full charge of making their frames, and taking pride in each an every bike they make.

Sure a lot of these frames made in the Far East are very good, but some are not. Do you really know who are making these frames? For instance, who makes Cervelos, we all know Cervelo doesn't, they only supply the design. Didn't the R3 have a recall last year? Now was this due to a design flaw or the fact that the contract to build these bikes went to the lowest bidder.

I'll never understand why someone buys a bike from a bike company when the only thing said bike company does is install the decals, and sometimes they don't even do that.

At that point in time the bike company is no longer a bike company, but a marketing company.

My stable of bikes

Serotta CSi
Serotta CXII
Strong Cross
Gunnar Rockhound
Cannondale Scalpel

Each and everyone hand made by the bike company who's decals are on the frame.

Does anybody really believe that as much care and pride goes into building a Cervelo, made by whomever in the Far East, as compared to a Trek OCLV, Serotta, Strong, Independent Fabrications, Guru, Moots, Aegis, Zipp and the list goes on and on?

For instance, who makes Cervelos, we all know Cervelo doesn't, they only supply the design. Didn't the R3 have a recall last year? Now was this due to a design flaw or the fact that the contract to build these bikes went to the lowest bidder.[/reply]
No, actually, the R3 didn't, the R2.5 did. It is certainly true that finding a good manufacturer is of the utmost importance when you subcontract manufacturing, and that is something that we did not do perfectly with the R2.5. Suffice to say we did not make the same mistake with the subsequent frames. As for "lowest bidder", that which you call a "fact" is just 100% nonsense. There is only one manufacturer that we were able to qualify to build the R3, and it certainly doesn't come cheap. I am sure there are manufacturers who shop around a design for the lowest bidder, which certainly could be done with a fairly generic design, but I don't think we have ever had two companies quote on the same design. We choose the manufacturer based on our technical needs. And so seem most others, as it is no coincidence that virtually every big US bike company approached our manufacturer to produce for them after they saw the latest Cervelo models, including several of the companies that seem to be your favorite. Not to mention that many companies with proud "Made in USA" banners already produce a ton of frames in China and Taiwan.

You also seem to want to throw Cervelo in with companies that don't do anything other than putting a decal on and marketing a product (I know you skillfully write about "a bike company" in some spots but only use Cervelo as an example). We have more people in product development in Toronto than almost any other bike company has in North America (and the companies that have more are many times our size), all our designs are exclusive, we do everything from start to finish including lay-up design, everything except the actual manufacturing. That's a big difference with just getting a bunch of frames and slapping a label on.

As to "do you know who makes these frames", you never know. It could be John Doe who is going through a divorce, Jane Doe who didn't sleep well, you never know. That's what design for manufacturing and QC is for.

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Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle

James,

I Your view of manufacturer's vs marketing is oversimplified to say the least. When building a light carbon bike, the money is in the materials and the development, not so much in manufacturing. It is true, that the best carbon composite manufacturers are in the far east, which is the case caused by a variety of reasons over the past 20 years. However, the difference in a "good" carbon frame and a "bad" carbon frame is in the design of the frame (molds) and materials used. Most of the manufacturers in Asia (Gigantex, Martec, ADK, and many others) are top notch and will do a bang up job creating a frame out of your design, with a few exceptions, which Gerard already pointed out.

So, as you said, that leaves the bike companies as simply marketing and label companies. That is not the case, as the cost of development for a new carbon frame is exceptionally high. Molds are very expensive. The use of carbon over Al, Ti, and Steel create orders of magnitude more options to choose from as a designer. The variables manipulated are almost limitless, which makes development that much more difficult. The manufacturing process is also far more complicated, which makes it difficult to do yourself (high upstart cost). The bicycle companies are R&D facilities, which then brand their products. There are companies, who are strictly labels or just no name, that sell carbon frames for cheap. They can be found on ebay and random internet sites. There is nothing wrong with these frames, they just dont have the R&D going into their manufacture, so they are either less stiff or weigh more for a given stiffness, dont have quite the same ride, etc. They are basically made from slightly cheaper materials and a more forgiving manufacturing mold process. The quality control and testing is probably not as involved, but they are a good, viable product.

Finally, a point to make you think: Who makes what is very relative. The Made in the USA carbon brands are often made from carbon from Japanese companies (Toray is a top supplier), so a carbon USA Trek is foreign raw material. A custom made in the USA Al frame from Columbus or Deda tubing is not USA material. The US company is simply a converter (cutting & welding) with a little frame geometry design. The real technology development work went into the proprietary alloys and manufacturing processes to produce them.

great points....but one nitpick/clarification: we do buy a lot of domestically produced carbon prepreg from Hexcel too.


Carl

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Carl Matson

Carl, thanks for the response. You are right, I should have said: "A made in the USA carbon Trek could be made out of foreign raw material."

You certainly don't need for me to defend Cervelo, you've done that well above. I would like to agree that the difference in using a cookie cutter frame out of the TBS book, and making your own is something often overlooked by the masses. For those that think making a bike in asia is akin to marketing only clearly has blinders on.

Who made the forks for those fine riding Serottas? What about the material, the stems?

I'm glad Cervelo is there to show the buying public what is possible with sub-contract manufacturing.


Congrats on the cx success, too!


-SD

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era