The network of bicycle manufacturers has become extensive in Germany. The number of handmade forges has decreased, but demand seems greater than ever. At Alutech in Ascheffel, we hear that the welding needles are glowing from morning to night. At Pinion near Stuttgart, production of the new, clever gearbox is running at full speed. Anyone who calls frame construction artist Florian Wiesmann will only hear a tape announcement with the current waiting times. They are told that they will have to be patient for a year.
The desire for luxury seems even more pronounced in the accessories segment.
But what actually drives hobby bikers to invest absurd sums of money just to save a few grams of weight with a handmade lightweight part? Who buys parts that are so expensive that they could be weighed in gold? Rational attempts to explain this are ultimately not enough.
The answer is simple. The purchase of luxury parts as the culmination of simmering bike passion. A major sensual event. On a par with a sauna, possibly even with petting. Sizzling object eroticism that has its origins in absolute devotion to the hobby. The tantalisingly curved carbon. The boldly coloured aluminium. The refined curve of the milling. Shapes and colours as pulse accelerators. These are not parts that you need to ride. It's the parts that get you going. You could also say: love eats avarice.
When you visit manufacturers, you get the impression that a mountain bike is a single problem area. With fetishistic devotion, they fight against gram-boils and visual blemishes as if they were disgusting clots of pus. Seat clamps, quick releases, even the smallest screws - everything can apparently be optimised.
Using the example of the five high-end companies Nicolai, AX Lightness, Bike Ahead Composites, Tune and Brake Force One, he explains why bikers decide against the mainstream. One reason: these manufacturers still offer genuine "Made in Germany" in 2013.
The PDF of the entire report from BIKE 4/2013 can also be downloaded free of charge from the download area at the end of this article.
Nicolai machine construction
The handbag drives and is easy to steer round bends. A cute little world sensation. Karlheinz Nicolai (43), known as "Kalle", smiles with satisfaction. "The thing works with quick-release fasteners, like a weapon. Click, click - handlebars, wheels, saddle out! And then you can sit on the bag and set off."
It's Thursday, a gloomy winter's day. The north wind pushes clumps of cold, wet clouds over the horseshoe-shaped farmstead in Lübbrechtsen, from inside which a deafening noise pulsates. The screeching of drills. The smacking of compressed air. The nailing of compressors. Kalle is standing in the "brain", as the cramped attic with the non-production departments of his mountain bike forge is known internally. People from the logistics, service, marketing and development departments are scurrying around or staring at monitors. There is an odour of burnt metal in the air. 1500 bike frames are produced at NicolaiGermany's best-known custom forge, built year after year, hand-welded, hand-assembled.
"The project with the pocket bike was more of a private pleasure," says Kalle as he clicks through a photo gallery on his computer. The deputy head of design at Renault recently called him. It was about the uncool image of folding bikes and how this could be changed. And of course the Renault man was just right for Nicolai. It's Kalle's job to make other people's fantasies tangible. Eighteen years ago, he welded a bike for the American Leigh Donovan in his parents' double garage, with which the client promptly became world champion. He invented the dirt bike and the frame with a gear box. But nothing sums up the efficiency of his craft business quite like the racing handbag. "We make everything ride," says Kalle, looking a little proud.
Anyone who comes to a manufacturer like Nicolai is usually highly desperate. Over the last few decades, the production of bikes and accessories has shifted almost entirely to the Far East. To gigantic, profit-hungry high-performance factories that tirelessly churn out uniform mass-produced goods. Thousands of copies in the designs of the season. The quality is good, sometimes even excellent. But one thing is ruled out by the very concept of mass production: Uniqueness. The product is not built for the buyer, but for the average buyer. A small difference. For discerning bikers, this is often the decisive factor.
It's like fashion or buying a kitchen. If you hate compromises, order from a customised manufacturer. "With us, the customer is involved to a considerable extent in the creation of their leisure object," says Kalle, formulating one of his famous phrases as he strides with spring in his step from the "brain" to the former barn.
The old building is crammed full of machines. Milling machines grind shrilly through metal. People with earplugs are working intently with calipers. Bright white flashes of light flash from the welding booth. 350 different individual parts for 30 different frame models are being manufactured in the hall. A CNC milling machine grinds away at an aluminium block for half an hour until a single deflection lever is finished. Over there, in the neighbouring building, is the paint shop. If necessary, any customer request, no matter how special, can be fulfilled. A service you have to look for these days.
"In Germany, we are now the last to work like this," says Kalle. Has he ever thought about having production done abroad? Kalle's blood pressure rises rapidly for a moment. Far East production? What a nasty, monstrous thought! "You can wear five necklaces and look stupid. But you can also put on one real chain and look cool. We build people the bike that makes them one hundred per cent happy." No, he remains what he is, of course. Kalle, the dream manufacturer from Lübbrechtsen.
AX-Lightness
Creußen in Upper Franconia, an angular functional building on the edge of the local industrial estate. Axel Schnura (37) has casually plopped himself down on the visitor's couch in his office. The display cases contain carbon fibre parts. Bicycle saddles. Aero helmets. Formula 1 spoilers. On the wall is a framed photo of Schnura and Sebastian Vettel. The two often work together.
Schnura's company is called AX-LightnessIt specialises in ultra-light, highly exclusive carbon parts. For example, a hand-modelled 65 gram stem costs 739 euros, which is pretty much the same as the current price of gold. The 300 euro saddle, on the other hand, almost seems like a bargain.
That's why Schnura's co-operation partner Crown Saddle is happy to spice it up a little. With nappa leather and 24-carat real gold. The price list for this starts at 1850 euros. The current bestseller is the in-house rim. Unit price: 800 euros. These things are so delicate and weightless that you wonder what you are actually paying for. For the touch of carbon that you hold in your hands? Or for the air around it?
"The parts are selling like hotcakes," says Schnura happily, giving a tour of the impressively large production area. People with surgical caps work in glazed, laboratory-like areas. They laminate, file and bake. But they can barely keep up with the orders. Cranks, saddles, handlebars, rims. Each part now reaches four-digit production figures every year. When World Cup star Christoph Sauser recently enquired about a few free parts, Schnura had to turn him down. "We're already at the limit of our capacity." It's like a tidal wave washing over Schnura.
At the end of the nineties, he laminated a saddle on a whim. In the cellar of his parents' house in Ursulapoppenricht. "A huge mess," Schnura recalls. The thing was as beautiful as a briquette, but lighter than any other saddle. When Jan Ullrich, who was still highly celebrated at the time, ordered one for his Tour de France bike and a photo of it appeared on the internet, Schnura's telephone line almost collapsed.
They were not professionals. They were mainly amateur cyclists who were prepared to invest high three-figure sums in a few grams of weight saving. Schnura has given it a lot of thought. "It's the joy of biking," says Schnura, immediately scratching any hint of a rational search for causes from the subject, as if with an iron sponge: "People enjoy building the parts on their bikes. It's like putting on something nice. It's a purely emotional story." The answer is probably really that simple.
Tune
Buggingen, a charming little village in the Upper Black Forest. Uli Fahl (60) is in a great mood. He has just come back from the gym. Now he is sitting in the office of his bicycle customisation company Tune between discreetly neglected potted plants and philosophises about his favourite subject: the aesthetics of locomotion.
"Appearance is very important," Fahl shoots off an initial arrow of thought and lets his gaze wander through the room, which is so incredibly cluttered that it resembles an obstacle course. It's not just about sport, Fahl continues in a gentle voice. It's about joy. It's about the joy of owning a light piece, a rare one, or simply a colourful one. It's about the joy of something special.
Which sounds a bit like a watercolour artist's vernissage speech. But that's the truth. For most bikers, a tuning part is more decoration than a tool. Technical maximalism that makes the owner feel good, but rarely big victories. "People want to treat themselves," says Fahl, who can hardly quench the thirst of his global clientele for high-end parts. Since moving into the new company building, the workforce has grown from eight to 30 employees. Fahl recently bought a carbon company in order to be less dependent on suppliers. Soon the company will have to expand again.
For the former chemical engineer, who started out at the end of the 1980s with a self-made quick release, the "Made in Germany" concept is firmly tied to his heart. "I'm an inventor, not a businessman. If I were a businessman, I would have my products made in China." Fahl smiles. Then he strides barefoot through the sprinkled green foliage in his office towards the assembly line. As long as the parts scales show anything at all, he has work to do.
Bike Ahead Composites
The shiny surfaces of the handmade parts almost always reflect the passion of their creators. Christian Gemperlein (32) from Würzburg has always had a soft spot for fine accessories. When he was looking for a topic for his dissertation at the end of his degree in plastics technology, he came up with the idea of building his dream wheels.
"Development, design, FEM calculation and construction of a CFRP composite wheel for mountain bikes," he called the topic. In German: the construction of a ratchet-sharp wheel. Calculate, build, bike. That was the plan. But the glimmer of hope quickly faded. The dissertation was a success. Now there is no more time for cycling. "If you want to build wheels, you don't need to start in the basement," Gemperlein shrugs his shoulders humbly and gives a tour of his company Bike Ahead Composites. A 500 square metre hall with offices, workshop, laminating department and a carbon baking oven the size of a car garage.
"Oh, that turned out beautifully," Gemperlein leans over a freshly baked wheel that has just slipped out of the mould. Gemperlein freezes for minutes like a standstill artist, his eyes scanning every square millimetre of the matt, shimmering carbon surface. "I'm already a perfectionist. There's no other option than to produce it myself," he finally says into the silence. Whether the concept works out financially remains to be seen. 16 hours of manual labour have to be paid for each wheel. The set costs 2800 euros. It is not a purchase. It is a purchase. But Gemperlein is confident: "There are many people who like to buy beautiful parts."
Brake Force One
Although the majority of companies are turning their backs on Germany as a production location for cost reasons, there are always ambitious new start-ups. Boris Latsch's tuning company B.O.R., for example, or the carbon manufacturer Mcfk from Leipzig. But none of them have caused as much media hype as the brake forge Brake Force One.
It's a story that you wouldn't actually think possible in times like these. The story goes like this: a thirteen-year-old invents a brake booster while on holiday at the beach. He builds the part in his father's workshop. Years later, the producer of the "Käpt'n Blaubär" TV series is standing in the workshop and hears about the brake booster. He then put all his savings into founding a brake company, converted his family home into a production facility and today, together with the then thirteen-year-old and seven employees, builds 50 brakes a day, which are sold all over the world. An amazing story.
"The first year pushed us to our personal and professional limits," moans Frank Stollenmeier (56), the Käpt'n Blue Bear producer. "But any other job would have been hell," jokes Jakob Lauhoff (19), the thirteen-year-old at the time. The two of them laugh so hard their cheeks glow. Let them fill the freight containers in the Far East on a piecework basis. Let them cover the world with monotony. They'd rather be the morning dew on the steppe.
