Climate change, disease, war: the global economy is in crisis. This is particularly true for the bike industry. Deliveries are being cancelled, prices are rising. The Manufacturers dream of bikes "Made in Europe" - with short distances, fairly produced and with less environmental impact. We don't want to wait any longer! At the BIKE PROJECT: RIDE GREEN we had already managed to build a mountain bike with maximum sustainability. Now we are starting the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE!
The idea of a bike made only from European parts is nothing new. But BIKE is the first major mountain bike magazine to dare to experiment. In a five-part series, we visit the producers, let experts have their say and create a wide-ranging discourse on bike manufacturing in Europe. It's about advantages and disadvantages, challenges, limits and trends.
The rules of the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE
- All assemblies in the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE must be manufactured in a member state of the European Union become: Frame, drive, chassis, wheels, tyres, brakes, cockpit, seat zone. This means that these parts must be assembled from individual components in the EU. It is desirable that the small parts also come from Europe, but this is not an exclusion criterion.
- In the EU, legally regulated standards guarantee a minimum level of environmental protection and fair working conditions. Although well-known companies in the UK, for example to geographical Europe, but not to the EU. They are not authorised for the project.
- The production location is also crucialnot the headquarters of the company. For example, DT Swiss is based in Switzerland, a non-EU country, but wheels are manufactured in Oborniki (Poland), among other places. The manufacturers involved should give us an insight into their production and be as transparent as possible with regard to the origin of small parts and raw materials.
- In addition, all components of the finished bike must be available on the open market. Special customised products, as in the BIKE PROJECT: RIDE GREEN, are therefore not permitted.
Made in Europe as a seal of quality during the crisis
The production of bikes and parts is a global process these days. Frames welded in Taiwan from Australian aluminium ore are married to wheels laminated in Canada from Japanese carbon. In Cambodia, American tyres are made from Malaysian rubber, and the assembly hall built by Chinese investors is powered by Russian energy. Everything is then transported to Europe in a Korean container on an Israeli ship carrying Saudi oil.
The damage to the environment is obvious. It is also clear that this system is extremely error-prone. Right now, crises are causing individual links in the production chain to falter. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the rising demand for bikes has been met with extremely high freight costs and supply bottlenecks. The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is putting a strain on international trade relations. Customers are frustrated by the ever-decreasing planning security: The dream bike is not available and prices are reaching record highs.
Geographically close production to European customers has therefore regained importance for the bike industry. More and more companies are manufacturing individual products in Europe. Some are publicising local production with major PR campaigns. "Made in Europe" is being elevated to a new seal of quality. Others have been producing in Europe for a long time. But it takes a long time to set up new production facilities. Skilled labour is hard to find. It is still too early to speak of a major rethink or even a turning point in the bike industry. The EU movement is only just beginning, and we would like to accompany the process at BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE.
EU production as a medium-term alternative
Although industry giants such as Cannondale, KTM, Santa Cruz and Cube assemble many millions of bikes in European assembly plants, the vast majority of frames and components are produced overseas. It is precisely in the Far East that the know-how for economically viable mass production of aluminium and carbon parts is concentrated. Nowadays, bikes are globalised puzzles.
We wanted to find out how vulnerable the supply chains actually are and whether "Made in EU" will play a greater role in the future from Frank Greifzu, Product Manager at Cube, know.
BIKE: Cube assembles bikes in Bavaria but, like almost all manufacturers, is dependent on global supply chains. Where is there a particular problem and why?
Frank Greifzu: That's true, although we now have to add to that: In addition to our main site in Waldershof in the Upper Palatinate, we have set up another production facility just 30 kilometres away in the Czech Republic. This is gradually taking over production figures that previously came from Asian assembly sites. "Assembled in Europe" is therefore gaining in importance. Short transport routes, labour costs in euros - all clear advantages. Unfortunately, the problems in the supply chains are manifold. For example, we have been hit particularly hard by hubs from Malaysian production, which have torn huge holes in the supply chain due to local lockdown measures regarding delivery times and quantities. This has resulted in additional externally rented storage locations that are filled to the rafters with rims that cannot be processed. Customers who are waiting for their eagerly awaited wheel then unfortunately have to communicate several later delivery dates.
In this context, are you considering sourcing more parts from Europe? What advantages would that bring?
There are definitely considerations. Some of the suppliers we work with had already relocated production sites from Asia to Europe before the Covid phase. Portugal, Poland, Romania... A large number of components already come from there. The advantages are obvious: no currency fluctuations, no additional customs costs, short and more reliable transport routes. The last issue in particular has become more important as a result of the current conflict. For example, we had to switch goods from rail freight back to sea containers, which caused delays of several weeks.
One could assume that the production of bike parts geographically close to European customers is becoming increasingly relevant. How do you see this playing out in the future?
The topic will definitely become more important. But it won't happen overnight, you have to be realistic. For many components from Asia that we are currently desperately waiting for, there will probably only be a European alternative in the medium term.
BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE as a feasibility study
Depending on how you count it, a fully is made up of a good 30 individual components. These in turn consist of around 2000 individual milled parts, pipes, seals and much more. The individual parts are manufactured from various raw materials in a globalised process. Bike manufacturers themselves cannot even fully trace these production chains. Building a mountain bike is a complex endeavour and everything has to fit together in the end. Although many bike part manufacturers are based in the EU, it is not always easy to find out whether their products are manufactured there. On www.bike-magazin.de we regularly provide an overview of bike parts produced in the EU.
Once you have found out which parts really come from the EU, the question of combinability arises. Even professional screwdrivers will be baffled by the variety of standards. If everything has to come from the EU, the project becomes really challenging. At the beginning of the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE, the question therefore arises: How far do we want to go? When researching parts manufacturers from the EU, a number of bottlenecks quickly become apparent. The drivetrain in particular is a bottleneck of the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE. One example: With Rotor (Spain) and Ingrid (Italy), there are only two derailleur gears that are produced in Europe. The Rotor cassette requires a special freewheel and makes the choice of wheels more difficult. Ingrid has so far relied on shift levers from Shimano or Sram and would therefore only be a compromise solution on the project bike. The Pinion gearboxes are manufactured in Germany, but require special grips and a special frame. The European puzzle has begun!
100 per cent EU: How far do we want to go?
A bike made entirely from European raw materials is currently not possible with series parts. The aluminium raw material bauxite, like the ore for steel production, comes mainly from Asia, Australia, Africa and Latin America. The raw materials are extracted from the earth under questionable social and ecological conditions. A large amount of energy is needed to produce aluminium from bauxite. Chinese and Russian companies in particular therefore produce aluminium in Scandinavia at low energy costs.
The raw material is also mined in Europe, for example in Greece. However, the European quantities are around 100 times smaller compared to the largest producers, Australia and China, and are hardly relevant for the production of bicycle parts. The carbon fibres required for carbon parts are produced industrially. Only a few companies, mainly in Asia, have mastered the challenging production of large quantities. Further processing into prepreg and the lamination of bicycle parts also largely takes place in Asia.
However, coming as close as possible to the 100% EU bike is only one goal of the project. It is even more important to spark a discussion - with you as readers, with the bike manufacturers and with us as editors. The BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE is both an experiment and an explanatory piece. If a screw, valve core or spring is fitted to the finished bike that does not originate from the EU, this does not mean that the project has failed. It means that there is some catching up to do.
Excursus: How the mountain bike came to Asia
How did it come about that the majority of bike production today is based in the Far East? In fact, the production of mountain bike frames and parts was an important topic early on in history. You could even say that the popularity of the sport of biking is closely linked to countries such as Japan and Taiwan.
In the early 1970s, young savages from the Californian hippie movement raced through the countryside on old American cruisers. At the end of the 1970s, some of them, including Tom Ritchey and Joe Breeze, began to weld their own frames. These were better suited to the demands of the new sport and were assembled using a hodgepodge of customised racing bike and touring parts. Finding suitable parts was probably an even more complex puzzle than our BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE. Although there was a significant road racing scene in Europe at the time, nobody on the continent was thinking about mountain biking.
Gary Fisher (later Trek) in particular knew how to market himself well and soon there was huge interest in off-road bikes. Production was time-consuming and prices were high. New production capacities had to be found to meet demand. Mike Sinyard (Specialized) was in contact with Japan early on as an importer of bike parts. In the 1980s, he and Fisher had the first frames manufactured there in large quantities and at lower prices. Others followed suit. This collaboration between American pioneers and Japanese businessmen resulted in, among other things, the very first mountain bike groupset: Shimano's XT series. Japan's economy grew so quickly in the following years that only a short time later the production of bike parts there became too expensive for the US companies and they looked for new production facilities in Taiwan in the early 1990s. Even today, the majority of mountain bike manufacturers still have their parts and frames produced there.
And today? Could the rapid growth in demand for bicycles trigger another upheaval in the bike industry? A turnaround back to local production? Complete independence of the European bike industry from international suppliers is neither realistic nor is it currently a goal of the industry. But one thing is certain: the BIKE PROJECT: EUROPE is right on trend.
Jan Timmermann
Editor
