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Trek made by Giant? Aren't Trek USA made bikes? If so, am I better off with Giant?

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Trek made by Giant? Aren't Trek USA made bikes? If so, am I better off with Giant?

Old 09-25-21, 03:09 PM
  #26  
kahn
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Originally Posted by mtbikerjohn

made in the land of cheese curds 42 years ago...
Trek? If remember - handbuilt in Wisconsin. Until it was pickup truck run over in WA.
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Old 09-25-21, 03:18 PM
  #27  
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"The People" did not get to vote. If you have to pay to vote, it is not a fair election, which is why poll taxes are illegal.
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Old 09-25-21, 03:55 PM
  #28  
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Isn't the question whether Taiwan frames are better than China? Or Giant better than Merida?

scott s.
.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:01 PM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by kahn
Trek? If remember - handbuilt in Wisconsin. Until it was pickup truck run over in WA.
IIRC, Trek was in Waterloo, WI. My ‘80s 660 was built there.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:02 PM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by Maelochs
"The People" did not get to vote. If you have to pay to vote, it is not a fair election, which is why poll taxes are illegal.
So not just underhanded corporate shenanigans, but election fraud, too! This conspiracy has dimenions I didn't anticipate.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:18 PM
  #31  
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The most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities are in Taiwan and run by a Taiwanese company. All the top PC motherboard companies are Taiwanese and they've expanded out to all sorts of peripherals. I see no reason why they can't make a frame for a bicycle.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:35 PM
  #32  
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My Madone 5.0 frame was made in USA. Rear drive side dropout broke. Sent back under warranty. Trek found a crack in the top tube up near the head. So it could not be fixed. Replaced under warranty. I chose toward a Domane over and Elmonda rim brake frame. Both made in Taiwan. No other choice. Sad. I have all the Madone parts and Aeoles 5 rim brake wheels. May get a US steel frame for a second bike. Or some EBay frame.




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Old 09-25-21, 05:52 PM
  #33  
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Don't forget that the majority of Shimano and Sram components are made in China, Malaysia and Taiwan....and your $ 400 Rapha bibs are also made in some Chinese sweat shop.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:58 PM
  #34  
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Yes
yes
and yes.

They might be contract manufactured by Giant but they are uniquely responsible for their design elements like IsoZone,
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Old 09-25-21, 06:05 PM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by biker128pedal
My Madone 5.0 frame was made in USA. Rear drive side dropout broke. Sent back under warranty. Trek found a crack in the top tube up near the head. So it could not be fixed. Replaced under warranty. I chose toward a Domane over and Elmonda rim brake frame. Both made in Taiwan. No other choice. Sad. I have all the Madone parts and Aeoles 5 rim brake wheels. May get a US steel frame for a second bike. Or some EBay frame.



Trek Madone 5.0 disc? What year? 5-series Madone frames have been manufactured in 'Asia' since at least as far back as 2014.
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Old 09-25-21, 06:38 PM
  #36  
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Ninety-five percent of everything electronic---pretty much anything with a printed circuit board or any component on the board--is made in the special industrial region of Shenzhen, China. A lot of the parts and frames made by Taiwan or Japanese companies are made in China also. There are a lot of skilled workers in China, and a lot of manufacturing jobs don't take huge skill---it's not like these parts are hand-machined. Turn on the CNC machine, enter the program, press "Run."

Yeah, there is a lot of complete crap is made in China, and a lot of bad fakes and knock-offs .... and also a lot of good fakes, and a lot of reverse-engineered stuff rebranded under Chinese trademarks, and a lot of stuff we think comes from Taiwan. Taiwan is really densely populated, and property prices are astronomical .... and factory space and labor across the Taiwan Strait is very affordable..

"Buy USA" is about helping local economies, not higher quality. Mass production is mass production, unskilled or semi-skilled labor is the same everywhere .....
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Old 09-25-21, 09:02 PM
  #37  
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Originally Posted by Wildwood
No, don't give your money to offshore builders.
Buy USA made frames.
There are scores of USA frame builders.

Components are Asian made mostly, but Campagnolo still makes most of their products in Italy . . . . . . (images clipped for brevity) . . . . .

Bikes come from many places, one just has to take off their Trek, Specialized, Giant blinders. The World of bikes can be your oyster.
I love the look of the pictured bikes . . . You're a tall feller!
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Old 09-26-21, 07:03 AM
  #38  
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Carbon frame manufacture is very labour intensive and requires a very specific skill set. That skill set has been largely developed in Taiwan over the past few decades. So I don't have a problem buying frames made there. Giant in particular have all the tech and labour skills required to do it very well.
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Old 09-26-21, 07:11 AM
  #39  
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I agree 100% with your post.
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Old 09-26-21, 07:23 AM
  #40  
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My GURU Sidero was built in Montreal, eh?


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Old 09-26-21, 07:46 AM
  #41  
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Originally Posted by 777funk
I was always under the impression that Trek was a USA made bike but this morning I read that Giant makes Trek (or maybe some Treks).

If so for the money, should I just buy Giant to begin with?

Can a Taiwan made bike be decent?
What type of bike are you shopping for?
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Old 09-26-21, 09:39 AM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by kahn
Trek? If remember - handbuilt in Wisconsin. Until it was pickup truck run over in WA.
Yes,its an odd early 710. Serial # says 1979 but it has a stick on head badge and no seat tube decals..
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Old 09-26-21, 09:41 AM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by shelbyfv
What type of bike are you shopping for?
My son was looking for cheap used decent quality.
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Old 09-26-21, 12:28 PM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by 777funk
My son was looking for cheap used decent quality.
Well cheap and decent quality means you should be looking at used Giant bikes really. But it's hard to be specific with so little information.
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Old 09-26-21, 01:21 PM
  #45  
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Unless you buy a BigBox Bike, you are getting decent quality with just about any bike manufacturer.

The science of bike design and production is a mature industry, and with the levels of automation which are now commonplace, building a bike at least as good as was the general standard thirty or fifty years ago is a lot easier. Welding robots are more reliable than humans, CNC machining doesn't turn out bad parts on Hangover Monday, and QC is more important because with electronic communication, if a manufacturer screws over a customer, everyone will know before long.

Unless it were made entirely in North Korea, I wouldn't worry.

Springfield Armories, a venerable and well-respected gun manufacturer, released its XD line several years back---guns manufactured in Serbia or Croatia or somewhere. The guns are great, and sell well, and they are made well --- because people from any country are still modern human beings with the same size brains, the same number of fingers, all that. It's not like The American Worker is magically more skilled, more attentive, more able ..... and the Chinese worker is not an idiot. Some US workers are idiots, and some workers form anywhere ... and some are good, some careful, some ignorant, some talented. And a company can set up a modern factory in Any country, hire workers with the required skill and intellect, and turn out good products anywhere.

Ask Shimano, most of whose production is done in communist China and Malaysia.

Get a bike if you want a bike. Stick with better-known brands ... or do online research. A lot of posters here have bikes from nearly unknown brands---limited run, or custom .... really high quality. Just avoid big-box-store bikes, and you will be fine.
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Old 09-26-21, 04:02 PM
  #46  
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Originally Posted by PeteHski
Carbon frame manufacture is very labour intensive and requires a very specific skill set. That skill set has been largely developed in Taiwan over the past few decades. So I don't have a problem buying frames made there. Giant in particular have all the tech and labour skills required to do it very well.
GIANT manufactures (weaves) the CF from spools to the required strengths and flexibility whereas most frame builders purchase the CF cloth from another source.
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Old 09-26-21, 06:23 PM
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Originally Posted by 777funk
My son was looking for cheap used decent quality.
So this is all resolved and he got the Giant. https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...nt-atx980.html
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Old 09-27-21, 02:14 AM
  #48  
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Originally Posted by shelbyfv
So this is all resolved and he got the Giant. https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...nt-atx980.html
Yes! I pushed for the Trek (simply because it was a nice old USA made bike and already on site), but he wanted something new.
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Old 09-27-21, 03:35 AM
  #49  
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Originally Posted by 777funk
Yes! I pushed for the Trek (simply because it was a nice old USA made bike and already on site), but he wanted something new.
That Giant isn't new.
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Old 09-27-21, 06:00 AM
  #50  
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You can go on Youtube and see "Trek Factory Tour" videos, of their facility in Wisconsin. I'm not sure if that fancy new place was built before or after they moved production to Asia, but it appears to be just a prototyping lab and design studio now.

Perhaps not unrelated: I almost bought a very old Trek bike I saw in a resale shop a couple years ago. Probably from the late-70s I think? It was made in Japan.
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