herbert- do you have a website set up for the wheels yet? ( checked rooworld, etc.. )

Thanks

The website has been up for awhile now, and here is the address.

http://www.real-design.com

I hope this helps.

Herbert

Pick up the new BIKE Magazine. there's a good article on the factories in Taiwan. I don't think you have much to worry about.

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TheBikeRacer.com

Thanks to Tom for pointing out that we are still made in Speedway Indiana. To answer garlicbreath's other question, we mnafacuture our hubs and parts in Speedway using only Alcoa aluminum which is drawn in Lafayette Indiana. All of our carbon materials/resins come from California/Utah. All parts of the wheel are manufactured and assembled in Speedway IN by hand, the foreign parts are spokes/nipples: Sapim CX Ray/Polyax from Belgium and bearings: WIB DIN P5 spec from Switzerland.

Our new crankset is also made in Speedway also from all US parts, the first and only all US made carbon crank since the original Zipp crank of 4 years ago. In fact, one of the carbon fabrics we are using in these parts is considered 'defense critical' and is not even an exportable raw material, so we feel that factors like that make for a good business reason to stay in the US for most parts.

However, we do make our handlebars and stems in Taiwan, with a factory working only for us and two other companies, and their quality and efficiency are very good. As Tom pointed out, the key is requiring stringent QC and testing data with every batch, and then independantly testing from what you receive to make sure all is well with each batch, as well as not working with a factory making parts for 50 other companies. I consider Taiwan to be the Switzerland of Asia, as mostly the high end components are left being manufactured there, as many manufacturers in Taiwan are now becoming brokers with factories in China. Taiwanese labor laws are strict and you never see child labor there, on the whole, the working conditions are quite good, and salaries are increasing rather rapidly in the past 5 years or so, which is driving most commodity type manufacturing into China or elsewhere. Also, the schooling there is pretty incredible, including cram school, kids are in school for 10 hours a day or so, it's just amazing to see the kids piling into the streets at 6:00PM as they get out of school and head home!

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

thanks to Zipp for chiming in- really interesting stuff, actually. also, I hope I didn't come across as implying that products from taiwan are sub-standard, on the contrary, I have heard just the opposite. I was simply interested in the behind-the-scenes truth of branding, manufacturiung, etc. good to see that Zipp has some pretty hign quality standards- I expected no less! ( I ride 404's)

thanks for the info!

"I know of one manufacturer who has been the bane of Asian manufacturers. He has not hesitated to destroy entire production runs due to minor variances from his specifications. For him, it is either absolutely correct, or it is junk. And he has forced the manufacturer to take back a lot of junk and replace it with frames made to spec. Exact spec. And they do their own testing too. "

Sorry to get back to this one, I was out of the office. Tom would you be able to name names here. I, but maybe we, would be very interested in knowing who takes this type of hands on approach to building. I'd be happy to purchase from someone with this kind of eye on product quality. If you can't name names, you can email me and I'd promise to keep it hush. barry@bookweb.org

thanks - barry

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