princebaal

After reading several newbie posts about what bikes to buy, I have noticed that many people say many frames are the same. My questions is: What companies actually make their own frames and what companies (especially big or popular ones) just stick a label on a generic frame made in China?

Chi

I know Giant makes frames for most (if not all) the x-mart bikes.

dexmax

that's why I make my own frames...

I think lots of companies have thier products made in Asia, or at least they have factories in Asia because labor is cheaper...

Bur I don't know the specifics.. So I better shut my mouth..

Chi

Raleigh, one of the oldest (if not THE oldest) US bike company, moved its manufacturing operations for its low end bikes to Asia recently. They may even be contracting with Giant, but who knows.

I think a safe bet is that if the sticker on the head tube saz "Made in China" or something like that, it's probably made by Giant.

Aggressor

I know my bike is hand made in New Zealand

don d.

Some examples of companies that "brand" products made for them:

Specialized, GT, Mongoose, Lemond, Schwinn(current), Masi(current), Mercier(current), Scattante.

Some examples of companies that manufacture their own products and may also have "branded" products made for them by other manufacturers:

Bianchi, Trek.

Some examples of companies that manufacture their own products:

Seven, Litespeed, Look, Tommassini.

This is not an all inclusive list by any means but is just meant to show a variety of different companies. Buying a branded product doesn't necessarily mean anything regarding the quality of the product. The quality control that the branding company demands is the factor that determines quality. Specialized, for example, has always had high quality products. But, to the best of my knowledge, they don't make anything. They market and distribute.

Chi

What about Cannondale?

princebaal

Yes, I have a Cannondale,,,that is why I felt confident about posting the question. Hand made in the USA, says right there on the tube. Whee!

Chi

My Trek was made by Easton, even though it's made here. Oh well, what difference does it make?

Farmer John

Couple of corrections for you here. Not flaming, just informative...

Raleigh IS one of the oldest surviving marquees in cycling, but has never been a US company. You can trace it's history back to Nottingham England and built it's reputation on good solid bikes starting at the turn of the century.

Here's a brief timeline of Raleigh history: https://retroraleighs.com/history.html

As far as Easton being the manufacturer of your trek, survey says.....EEEEMP....wrong answer. Easton is a tubing manufacturer, they supply a great deal of aluminum to the cycling industry and were the first company to really develop technology that allowed the material to not only be built with some compliance, but also be built economically (Easton Elite Pro-Gram 7005 series taperwall aluminum, developed in partnership with Yeti owner John Parker, '88-'89)

Since your bike is easton and not their generic Alpha tubeset, your frame was probably welded up in their factory in Wisconsin.

By the way, even Trek takes on branded work, as they did a run of Yetis over the last year or so...

Hunter

There are a few big frame manufacturers. The one listed Giant is one, there is also Kalloy, which by the way makes alot of components for many companies, Kinesis, and KHS.

FOG

Fit is the most important characteristic. It's too bad that a frame made by low cost labor to high standards won't fit as well as a frame with the same geometry and dimensions from a high labor cost company. Otherwise I would buy the less expensive frame made out of the same materials, with the same quality, geometry and dimensions, with the same or better components, but pay less money. I might even buy the frame from a mail order company, and fit the bike myself, rather than have the inexperienced staff at the nearest bike store (NBS) fit me to a bike I don't feel comfortable on.

princebaal

Cool, that was sarcastic!

Chi

Thanks for the info Farmer John but I think we could have shared the information without the hint of sarcasm.

multisport4life

There are a few lower end Bianchi bikes that are not made in Italy. I'm assuming these are 'branded' from another manufacturer, which I believe is in Asia. I noticed a "Made in somewhere else" label on one once, I think it was a Brava.

Gordon P

Oryx, Miele, Mikado, Bodyguard Fitness products, Rocky Mountain Bicycles, Quetzal recumbents, Balfa, Peugeot , CCM, and a few “mart” bikes are manufactured on licence or owned by Procycle, Canada.

Waldo

Couple corrections here-Litespeed does not manufacture all of their models in TN. Any aluminum model is made overseas. Also, Trek has a manufacturing agreement with Giant that includes some of their other brands, i.e., Fisher. Specialized has Merida manufacturing the vast majority of their bikes, as Merida is part-owner of Specialized now. Hodaka and Kinesis are just two other companies that manufacture bikes for other brands.
Farmer John, do you have any more info on the Yeti/Trek relationship? I've been trying to figure all that out but my guys at Yeti aren't very forthcoming and them specing Bontrager parts is an interesting addition.

Farmer John

Other than a couple of my bike shop buddies that carry Yeti telling me of receiving some of the bikes from Waterloo, unfortunately no.

rippo

hey all. this is my first post...but i won't bother you with the typical newbie "hi i'm new here/new to bicycling/new to the planet" stuff (all of which is true).

so when a manufacturer has a "columbus aluminum" logo next to their primo bike, it doesn't mean columbus welded the frame together...right? it just means columbus manufactured the tubes, and then the bike company assembled (or had someone else assemble) the frame.

so really, a bike manufacturer is just someone who knocked the tubes - built by someone else - into a frame-shaped object, then tacked on components built by someone else. am i getting this whole bike company thing down?

and yes i realize there are variations on a theme, for example shimano makes components and also makes (or has someone else make) frames, so they're doing a bit more in the whole bike manufacturing process.

so if i spend $2000 on an aluminum frame, what am i getting that i wouldn't get with a $500 aluminum frame? (yes i'm sure my cynicism toward expensive bikes is showing through, but i'm new...)

ockey53

Well, that's like saying what's the difference between a BMW 325i and a Toyota Corolla... they're both cars, right? Well, they have different structures. You see that a $2000 frame will have extravegent welding jobs and look smooth and sheek. Opposed to the $500 deal that will weld, but not to the specs of the $2000 one.

-Dan the Man-

Rev.Chuck

The big exspense in tubing is in how thin it is drawn, how it is butted, the alloy content. A thin drawn tube that is made with very short butts (This requires different tubes for different size frames and increased inventory also raises cost) that is made of a high strength alloy will cost more than straight guage high-ten.

rippo

ok that makes sense then. i guess aluminum is never straight aluminum, it's always an alloy of some sort. so the mixture is important, the way it's processed, and of course the way it's all stuck together.

when i hear about $4000 frames (never mind sticking components on it), i'm just astounded. it's not like there's gold filagree or diamond studded decorations on it. simply amazes me. but i appreciate the explanation.

FOG

If youa re worried about 60 seconds over the entire tour de france then every gram is important. If, like me, you weigh 270, then whether the frame weighs 2.5 pounds or 3.5 pounds is irrelevant. A modestly priced aluminum frame would seem to give the best performance/price ratio for club rider types. For tourers, repairablility becomes an issue, as well as weight, so for them steel is king. there are lots of other issues, too. To me, the bottom line is get good geometry and components. It will be a rare frame that won't be acceptable if it fits.

peloton

A good rule of thumb is that almost every road bike below $1000, and the majority of those below $1500 have frames made overseas, mostly in Asia. The Specialized A1 frames, for example, are made from pretty generic Alu, to Specialized's specfications by Merida.

The question, of course, is whether a frame welded by an American welder is necessarily better than a frame welded by an Asian welder paid a fraction of the salary in my experience, not necessarily. American-made frames tend to be made of better materials, but only because American manufacturers tend to keep their short-run production stateside, and American bike factories, which produce shorter runs of bikes and thus have less product to account for, typically have better QA. But I'm not convinced that an Asian welder, or even an Asian manufacturer, is necessarily inferior to his American counterpart.

In fact, it seems that, to suggest that he is, borders on racism.

Pat

Well, you are catching on. A bicycle manufacturer just takes tubing and builds a frame then goes out and buys components and hangs them on the frame and calls it a bicycle (which it is).

So what do you get in a $2000 frame that you don't get on a $500 frame?

Well, I am not that up on frames.

But in nearly everything there is a price/performance or quality curve.

In bikes, if you buy the cheapest new bike you can find, you will get something that is virtually unrideable. So the bike is cheap but in reality it is expensive because it is no good. When you spend more money, you used to get a really heavy bike that was hard as the dickens to get any speed out of but it was usable.

My point here is at the low end, increases in money spent give you a noticeably better bicycle. As you get into better and better bikes, the curve flattens out and spending a lot more money gives you only slightly more performance.

Right now, I understand you can buy a bike with a generic frame and Shimano 105 components for $1000. A bike with a "name brand" frame will cost a more but maybe give you a subtly different ride which might be important to a cyclist. Thing is that once you have gotten to 105, you have gotten most of the performance that you are going to get. Spending a whole lot more is not going to give you that much in return. For example, I believe that Dura Ace and 105 are similar but Dura Ace costs four times as much and weighs about 1.5 lbs less. The 1.5 lbs would be important on mountain stages in the Tour de France. But shoot, I can afford to lose 15 more lbs (had an injury). I guess if I lost that weight, kept it off, and kept in shape and was interested in getting all the performance possible (and I am not) then buying Dura Ace would make sense.