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Company visit to Magura
It's off to a good start. Christian Büchle, Magura's Head of Development for bike brakes, is sitting at the conference table in the rather restrained 1960s-style company headquarters in Bad Urach. And what he says sounds like we're at the wrong address for the BIKE Project Europe:
"There is no such thing as a purely European brake, at least not in large-scale production..." Boom, that's it. Missed the point? Fortunately, the sentence continues. "... but to my knowledge, the MT7 is the most European of them all. No brake contains as much Europe right up to the second level of the supply chain as an MT7."
And that's exactly why we're here. The second level of the supply chain for a bike is the suppliers of the suppliers. At the top is the bike brand or the customer in the shop, then comes Magura as a first-tier supplier - and that's where it gets interesting for our project. Because at Magura, a large proportion of the ingredients are made in-house in the company's own plastic injection moulding plant, and people and machines assemble the parts in the neighbouring town of Hengen. That's the second level.
Magura is a classic German medium-sized company with specialised high-end products, clean industrial buildings, around 680 employees and a name that refers to the founder: Gustav Magenwirth, Urach. The fact that the current managing scion of the founding family is not called Fabian Magenwirth, but Fabian Auch, is simply due to the family tree. The company founder had no son, so the surname was lost on the married daughters. "Magura is socially embedded in the region. We are now the fourth generation to produce here and would like to continue to do so in the fifth, sixth and seventh generation," says Auch, the founder's great-grandson. And he adds: "Sustainability and reshoring, i.e. the relocation of production, are also issues that concern us. It's good to be able to access a large part of the supply chain. It's all about short transport routes and the predictability of delivery commitments."
An issue that played into Magura's hands during the corona-related turbulence: the industry leader Shimano had a major problem in the brake sector, with many customers switching to Magura. It is undisputed that a Magura brake also contains a certain amount of Taiwanese content. But the heart of the brand undoubtedly beats in the triangle between Bad Urach, Hengen and Hülben. In Hülben, you can watch it in action without getting in the way of too many people.
Brakes from Germany: high automation is the key
A factory hall with few windows in the centre of town. Inside: 50 plastic injection moulding machines. Above them, on a gallery: a tangle of hoses, intertwined like half a dozen octopuses in a rugby match. The granules of over 130 types of plastic buzz through the hoses, eventually becoming almost everything a brake is made of. Seals, wiper rings, pistons, levers, grips - Magura can produce around a thousand different plastic parts here. Most of these are puzzle pieces for bicycle or motorbike brakes.
The fact that production in the expensive Swabian region is competitive is due to the high level of automation and the sophisticated process. Plastics, such as the carbon fibre-reinforced Carbotecture, can replace metal. And the parts that clatter out of the complex machines into collecting containers are "tool-ready", meaning that they come out of the mould and are finished. Shiny surfaces, clear logos, no burrs. Metal would have to be deburred, milled, polished and coated. The plastic parts from Hülben are simply finished.
And then the "Yes, but..." comes into play. This "Yes, but ..." is called Taichung and is the centre of the Taiwanese bike industry. Parts are constantly travelling between Taichung and Bad Urach. On both sides, the recipient is Magura. Magura Asia has 150 employees and is close to the major bike manufacturers. What goes into the bikes in the bicycle factories there is mainly assembled there - also from German ingredients. On the way back, brake discs and forged brake callipers travel to Swabia.
It is the logic of a globalised industry that Magura Managing Director Michael Funk explains in the meeting room in Urach:
"We are in global competition. If a competitor manufactures in a low-wage country, we have to face up to that. But we can produce everything that is mainly done by machines here."
In assembly, things look different in some cases. Nevertheless, the plastic parts for the brakes, which are assembled in Taiwan, are also injection moulded in Hülben.
"We will certainly not hand over the engineering, the plastics expertise and the tools. The core expertise will remain in Germany - if only to maintain production in this country," says Funk.
Our MT7 is spared the sea journey anyway. The brakes for Europe are assembled by Magura employees in Hengen, very close to the company headquarters - so our MT7 brakes for the BIKE Project Europe are also assembled there. The final assembly step is carried out by a well-rehearsed trio. 45 brakes per hour, i.e. 360 in an eight-hour shift, is the target. Inserting pistons, connecting cables, cutting to length. An automatic machine fills the system with hydraulic oil and checks for leaks. Then the finished MT7 dangles briefly in the uniform white light of the hall. With a little imagination, the yellow rings of the brake callipers look like robotic eyes awaiting use on the Europa bike.
Company history: 130 years of Magura
Gustav Magenwirth, Bad Urach. The company founder created the company name from the name and location in 1893. Magenwirth was a versatile technical inventor with various patents for engines, pumps and valves. Magura entered the two-wheeler sector in 1923 with a "straight pull control lever" for motorbikes. Magura has been supplying BMW motorbike brakes ever since. Although no Magenwirth runs the company today, it is still family-owned: the founder had only daughters who gave up their names when they married. After all, their names are immortalised in the earlier brake models Luise, Julie and Martha.
The fact that in 1957, in addition to metalworking, Magura entered the field of plastics technology The company's entry into the market is the basis for today's Made in Germany production. The factory is not located in Bad Urach, but in nearby Hülben. However, Magura did not take the decisive step from motorbike to mountain bike until 1987 with the invention and production of the first hydraulic brake for bicycles. The legendary HS-22 rim brake soon shone in Raceline neon yellow on the bikes of early heroes such as John Tomac. The founder himself only appears by name in the downhill disc brake Gustav M again - a miniaturised motorbike brake. It was instrumental in the triumph of the disc brake on mountain bikes.
The brake from Magura for the BIKE Project Europe
Our European bike is more interested in descents than climbs. The appropriate European brake system is Magura's most powerful four-piston caliper, the MT7.
1 The performance
Four pistons for a hallelujah: The most powerful brake in the Magura range also impressed in the BIKE test: Most recently in issue 5/21, the testers attested to its strong braking performance, low fading and good modulation. Magura uses mineral oil as the hydraulic medium. This is considered less toxic than standard DOT brake fluids.
Construction: Four-piston hydraulic brake Weight: 255 grams/each Price: approx. 230 euros/each (without brake disc)
2 The brake handles
The Carbotecture SL brake levers and grips are Magura's particular pride and joy, as almost all of the individual parts are produced in the company's own factory in Hülben. The plastic reinforced with short carbon fibres has been used since 2010. It is said to allow a lighter construction than aluminium. The plastic master cylinder piston that slides in the grip is manufactured in Germany or Taiwan, as are the steel bolts of the grip, and the seals are European. MT7 buyers can choose between three lever shapes with different adjustment options, for example for the pressure point.
3 The brake calliper
Germany above, Taiwan below: It makes no sense to build a brake calliper from thermoplastic, which melts away in the heat. In the MT7, it is also made of aluminium and is forged in one piece. Due to the numerous additional processing steps, this is too expensive for global competition in Germany. The aluminium parts therefore come from Taiwan, where Magura has a second factory. The slave pistons are produced there or in Germany. The brake caliper of the MT7 on our EU project bike was assembled in Hengen on the Alb, but this is also partly done in Taiwan.
4 The rest
The international co-operation between Germany and Taiwan also extends to the other components of an MT7. Both the hydraulic oil and the brake lines are made in Germany, while Magura sources the brake discs, which are manufactured to its own specifications, from Taiwan. For the brake pads (as with the discs and brake levers, there are several variants to choose from), the suppliers are based in the Far East or Europe. Even though the production of these components is outsourced, development and quality control remain in the hands of Magura Germany.
One company, many subject areas
For Magura, as part of the Magenwirth Technologies Group, bicycle brakes are just one of several business areas. In addition to Magura as a manufacturer of plastic parts, bicycle and motorbike technology, the electronics company Bebro is also part of the group, which employs over 1200 people worldwide. Magura generates around two thirds of the turnover of over 200 million euros. Purchasing, development and sales of bicycle and motorbike components take place at the headquarters in Bad Urach. 170 employees produce brake components at Magura Kunststofftechnik in Hülben on the Swabian Alb. Assembly and dispatch are based in nearby Hengen with 130 employees. In the bicycle sector, Magura is also a service partner for Bosch pedelec drives. A subsidiary in Taichung/Taiwan with 150 employees assembles the brakes for local brands close to the Asian bicycle factories. The US branch in Olney, Illinois, mainly manages overseas sales - in addition to bicycle parts, it also sells parts for snow blowers and Harley-Davidson motorbikes.
