So, I've decided that another major factor in my next bike purchase will be the country of origin. I've chosen, in this instance, to pick on China. My problem with China isn't an issue of workmanship, as I believe that with proper over-sight, perfectly good products come from China. My issue isn't currency-value based either, as I'm trying to avoid the finger pointing that is going on at the moment. What it boils down to with me, is that China doesn't honor trade-secrets, copy-rights, patents, etc., and for that reason, I want to minimize my contributions to their GDP as much as possible... vote with my feet, as they say.
All that said,
Does anyone know of any online resources that break down where bicycles and components are made for a given company?
I can't think of many nations that have real strict IP laws that also produce bikes (besides the US).
As far as I've seen, most bike frames are actually produced in other Asian countries, all of which likely have a similar track record for the above mentioned issues.
Places where labor is cheap seem to go hand-in-hand with dudes selling DVDs out of a suitcase on the sidewalk.
Check this out. May help with some of that.
That's a side reason I prowl Craigslist and Ebay for old stuff. Nothing more satisfying than buying parts that were manufactured by Italian Socialists 40 years ago.
Looking at the map linked above, seeing Cannondale's current status is just so sad.
Is there a component that isn't made overseas?
You could probably build up a bike with Chris King and Paul's components, and get pretty darn close to a full made in the U.S. of A. bicycle. Is there a U.S. tire factory? I guess you could also cheat a bit and use some Euro tires....
Add straitline, thomson, cane creek and industry nine to the mix and you're even closer to a complete made in the USA bike.
Dirt Rag has been doing a great ongoing section lately of companies that make components and/or frames in north america.
Wait for it... quick, someone complain about how expensive made in the USA parts are.
People being unwilling to pay for quality is, in my estimation the main component of the vicious cycle that has ruined out manufacturing sector and led to the crash of our now service base economy.
White Industries makes some pretty good titanium hubs, cranks, etc. right here in the USA.
It's all relative... my company (ok, mostly owned by a Japanese company) makes stuff in the USA (well, also Korea, Japan, and Italy, because we don't have the capacity in the US anymore to handle all the business), for sale to China (and a few others, but my work is all on a product for China).
Don't get me wrong, I try to buy US/local for everything as much as possible, but come pay day, about 1/3 of the dollars in my pocket are converted Chinese yuan. Just weird.
White Industries makes some great stuff, I've had a number of their hubsets and freeheels over the years, but neither their cranks nor hub bodies are made from titanium.
No bike tires from the US, but plenty of companies makes tires in Europe or Japan, but they won't be $15 a piece. Pretty sure India and Vietnam are making tons of bike tires these days.
Velocity is moving rim production from Australia to Florida, which I find pretty amazing. Weinnman used to make rims here too, but I think they never reopened in the US after a big factory fire years ago. Still going strong in Asia.
Wheelsmith spokes are made here, as are most DT spokes for the US market.
Thanks for all the responses, especially wojty's sweet map link!
I've tried to stay away from quality issues for this, simply because in some cases I think there is an argument in favor of cheap crap, although it's also a sad reflection of our throw away economy/mentality. Most people just look at the upfront cost and go with what is cheapest without ever considering long term wear/tear/rebuild-ability. A great example is the rotor for an automotive disc brake. The part is a simple piece of forged metal with no mechanical pieces... I don't think it gets much simpler than that. Yet, you will find that the cheap ones sale for around $25 retail and the more expensive ones for $50. Up front, the cheap look like they cost less, but they are also more prone to warp (especially if you machine them thinner). The more expensive initial purchase has way more longevity and can be machined down and reused several times due to higher quality steel and better casting technique. In that case, both products are made in China and it really just comes down to the specs of the manufacturer and how much oversight takes place, which is hard to compare in the short run since all of that info is hush-hush, but in the long run you see what sort of consumer reviews a product gets. Of course, those reviews could become null and void in a heartbeat with a change in the next lot of production. So, from a quality perspective, I tend to just look at what manufacturers stand behind their products (Trek's lifetime guarantee on frames to original owner for instance).
Cannondale is a sad case. It's not that they couldn't compete as a US company. They just made some bad business decisions and went bankrupt.
I don't understand why all production has gone over seas except for really high-end frames like the Waterford's and Co-motion's. Focus, for example still makes their aluminum frames in Germany and are apparently capable of remaining competitive, even in the US market. Of course, that could be due to subsidies of some sort.
Anyways, the real point is that I like to know what economy I'm supporting. I really hate buying anything from China/Taiwan when I stop to consider how our own major exports are much more easily pirated than a bicycle. I'm also bitter, because I've had two Apple computers turn into Lemon computers in the last five years, one of them specifically due to a failure in ethical business practice on the part of Chinese companies.
Are there any resources that list where each parts manufacturer receives their raw materials? I'd like to know where the metals in my frame are coming from. Is it Canada? China? Some Chinese firm from Africa?
@ headloss to me it seems like your ethical business practice issues with some manufactures and quality control go hand in hand. I wish this thread was around when I purchased my bike, between myself and mrs. marvelous we have three Trek bikes thinking they were American made top quality but I just did some research and see all three are made in Taiwan. I honestly don't know what is a good company vs a bad one, I have no problem paying for top quality but my bikes were not exactly priced cheap. I think you make a very interesting point.
I am OK buying a bike from a local dealer, local salesman, and getting as much stuff as I can locally. I cannot control where the good and affordable bikes come from, just where the profit from selling them goes.
IMO "quality" is a red herring - certainly not everything made in China or wherever is crap, it just cost less than a comparable quality part made in the US because the foreign companies can get away with exploiting their workforce. If "Made in the USA" stuff is higher quality, it's a consequence of that; at the high end of the market the labor cost isn't as significant overall.
taiwan also has some of the best manufacturing and welding you will ever see in the industry. also damn near every carbon fiber frame in the world comes out of china.
Well now im confused?
if you're not confused, you're not trying!
Now a good looking weld is not always a good weld but the welds on USA made Cannondales just do not compare to those on the Dorel made frames.
"because the foreign companies can get away with exploiting their workforce"
The difference in cost of production is often marginal, I can't speak for bikes, but I read an article in the WSJ once that quoted a sock manufacturer as saying it was only a couple pennys difference in price to make a sock here vs. there because most of the production was automated regardless of the country of origin. While I readily buy into the free trade is better for everyone argument, I also recognize that the end-consumer sees very little of the gain after all the middle-men.
I definitely don't think that everything manufactured in China/Taiwan is junk but I really do wish that we had more say in the final "package" (value added in economic terms). Also, while I do believe that China *can* make a quality product, that isn't the reason that manufacturers go there. Besides, odds are that most of the welds are done by machines and not people anyways. Still, I stand by my initial reasoning for not wanting to support their economy, I simply don' think that our own exports get a fair shake and I'd rather do business (as much as possible) with countries that honor international law... if that means choosing one bicycle manufacturer over another (everything else equal), I will.
@ChemicalDave, I'm not sure if that was a serious question?
For the most part, supply chains are trade secrets unless you know someone in the know. The best you can do is to look at large scale trading data and see who is importing from where but that wouldn't really tell you anything about an individual manufacturer unless they make that info public. I've actually been looking for similar data in trying to determine where the different bicycle manufacturers source their chromoly but I haven't had much luck, and that is just trying to determine if Columbia is as good as Reynolds and how they compare to a given "house" brand. No luck. 
It probably doesn't really matter though.
@mr marvelous, I wouldn't sweat it too much since just about all bikes are coming from over there. Interesting side note, I have noticed that some bike shops purposely remove the little "made in China" sticker, which I also think is unethical (and probably illegal). Just consider yourself lucky that there haven't been any problems with the Portland. There have been a ton of issues with Gary Fisher 29ers made around 2008, where the seat tube breaks at the weld. I think that most across the board problems are design flaws and not manufacturing flaws, anyways.
@cburch, I was under the opposite impression, that the carbon fiber frames are where the money is and that most of the production is still in the US. I guess I just jumped to that conclusion, thinking that if Trek still made their CF frames here, the rest probably do as well. I'll take your word for it.
Not sure what your source is for the quality of welds, but again, I'll take your word for it as I imagine that most of it is done by machine these days and the same machines would be used for foreign production as domestic.
Nope taiwan produces some of the most high end hand welded mtb frames out there. Taiwan != mainland china. Lots of highly trained and well paid welders there. Carbon is mostly produced in mainland china because of the lax environmental regulations and because carbon layup is such a laborious task. trek and I think enve are about the only people doing carbon in the us. Others have prototyping here but the main production is done in china.
hand-welding is an art...
any idea which companies share facilities in Taiwan?
-I would bet that most every bike everyone here is riding is handmade no matter what the country of origin.
-Taiwan has the best manufacturing facilities in the world. Bar none.
-Most of the bike companies of the world "share" facilities in that their frames are made by Giant, Kinesis, Maxway, etc... hardly any of them 100% own their own production facilities overseas.
...There are a whole lot of assumptions floating around in this thread...
all of my assumptions are based on known facts involving different industries... they may, or may not apply to the building of bicycles which is why I'm asking for input. 
I like to know as much as possible about the products that I buy, be it computers, bicycles, cameras, cars, or what have you. Again, thanks all for input!
This may not make any difference to anyone but usually around 50-75% of the retail price you pay on any American product goes to the American company (retailer) that sells it. There are a few exceptions to this but generally in the ballpark. I have been in corporate retail a long time and it is really competitive industry. I don't bike margins but I would guess more the same. Most shops make more off service and acc. but I have not yet seen a shop that only services bikes without selling then, could be out there though.
Here's where my next "serious" bike is coming from;
http://www.merciancycles.co.uk/
And when the dollar was better they were a screaming deal.
...and if you added some decals to make it into "'mercian cycles, FUCK YEA!" nobody would ever guess it was made in the UK.
50-75% sounded pretty high to me, searching turned up this which claims 36-48% for bike shops. Still, it is a significant amount (and still higher than I would have thought) and a pretty strong argument for buying locally.
Regarding Velocity, this is interesting, and looking at it from the other side, I'm guessing the blokes in Brisbane are a bit disappointed to see a manufacturing facility close down. I suspect the factory there wasn't like what one might find in mainland China.....
The rear wheel that I recently bought had a 36% markup at QBP, I found it a few dollars cheaper from some retailers and as high as 43% mark up. I don't mind shelling out the extra money to account for overhead of having the part in stock, so long as the LBS cuts me a break when I keep buying from them.
This discussion got my wheels turning and I spent a couple hours reading business articles and journals last night. I was surprised to see that Taiwanese bicycle manufacturing really is held in high regard. Taiwan, it turns out, is faced with a lot of competition from China where labor is cheaper and Taiwan itself has become more of a high-end $1000+ bicycle manufacturer. I still have my qualms about buying Taiwanese made products, but it is clearly a better alternative to the Chinese ones. The Taiwanese pride themselves on a quality product, and I get the impression that their bikes are nothing to be ashamed of.
I was getting parts at "cost" for a while when I was in grad school. Connections at a local bike shop. Prices for bikes and parts were a little more than half whatever the MSRP was. Markup on some higher end parts (like a Rohloff) was much less. I ended up buying one off ebay cheaper than the shop's "cost". Maybe a shop makes $10 on your $20 brake lever, but they're probably not making $1000 on your $2000 bike.
Exactly dwillen.
The markup on bikes isn't near as much as people would like to think. Tubes, tires, chains, helmets, clothing, small parts... that's where the money is. The margin tends to go drastically down as the parts go higher end.
Because of shipping, assembly, storage, service after the sale, and general overhead costs, most bike sales make little to no money for dealers.
Interesting, this,
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/111109/china-economy-manufacturing-guangdong
I'm not as confused now, only slightly instead of completely.
@Mr.Marv, you just need to watch a few propaganda videos and all will be clear. Try here and here
Also, some great reading for the nerdy academic types
or this short read from Forbes
@ edmonds59
Similarly, this and this
I am no longer confused now my brain is over-saturated with information.
