On Oct 5, 1:41 pm, Seth Vidal <skvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > How about the manufacturer of any of the Grand Bois non-tire parts?
- Grand Bois tires are made by Panaracer in Japan. Their stems, handlebars and racks come from Nitto, also in Japan. - Grand Bois rims and cassette hubs are made in Taiwan. - Compass Bicycles' new cranks also will be made in Taiwan. Both countries have excellent labor standards. There are two reasons bike parts are made in foreign countries: Expertise and cost. Forging a bicycle crank requires specialized tooling to broach the square taper. I don't know of any North American forging house that has this tooling. Even TA has their cranks forged in Taiwan. Cost is a different issue. In the mainstream market, every penny counts, and labor-intensive production is moved to whomever offers the lowest bid. In Taiwan, this often means sub-sub-contracting to China. When our engineer visited all prospective companies in Taiwan who wanted to make our cranks, he found that many were little more than an office, who then would sub-contract the job to mainland China. Of course, the label still would say "Made in Taiwan." This type of outsourcing to the cheapest bidder not only has implications for labor standards, but also quality. It is not uncommon to substitute a cheaper alloy. As a result, you find chainrings that are labeled as 7075 aluminum, but wear so quickly that there is little doubt that they are 6000-series. That way, the company could underbid all the other companies who had to factor in the higher cost of the raw material... and they got the bid. When you work with reputable companies, you don't have to worry too much about these issues, but of course, the higher quality comes at a higher cost. Jan Heine Compass Bicycles Ltd. http://www.compasscycle.com Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
