New company in Portugal aims to break dominance of Far Eastern manufacturers.

[DRM]

I wish them well. There's a lot of negativity on this subject. Taiwan may well be the first place one would think of to source quality carbon fibre bike frames and I acknowledge they have long experience in this field. However, we shouldn't just accept that will always be the case, and perhaps we should applaud this new venture.
This subject reminds me of European motorcycle manufacturers in the 1960s and 70s producing obsolete machines, the Japanese capitalised on this by producing cheaper , arguably better machines. Nowadays retro, heritage etc are buzzwords. There are many European motorcycle manufacturers now capitalising on this, and there are plenty of europhiles out there with deep pockets only too happy to buy a bicycle with provenance attached.

but thats the problem, there's no provenance, no heritage, your not buying into a known name, as per Triumph, Norton or Royal Enfield, or in the bicycle world, the well known Italian brands that go for top dollar, or are they hoping to build for known names ? otherwise it just makes no business sense at all

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good afternoon,

A new company in Portugal believes there will be an increased demand for carbon fibre bikes and frames and aims to meet that demand with a facility producing quality frames:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61082317

I think that they are too late, I am a late adopter of tech and tried a carbon fibre bike a few years ago,(https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/g...enith-pro-carbon-ultegra-di2-10-speed.235754/).

It's like "designer" gins, the time has passed, my next bike will be metal, for ME the tiny benefits of CF don't justify the cost, I get that I if pushed out another 200 watts then it would matter.

Equally I am deeply disappointed with the idea of buying an 853 frame which has unbranded forks and stays. In the past Reynolds used to produce stickers that said 531 tubes forks and stays or 531 tubes, now they try to hide what parts of the frame are the highlighted material.

Currently I am commuting on CF/Ultagra Di2 or Aluminium /Claris (until it got nicked) and the time differences are so small that they fades into was it; windier that day or I was more tired.

Bye

Ian

 

[Cycleops]

I'm sure you're absolutely correct @IanSmithCSE , the benefits of carbon are very small or even imagined but there are a group who will always want to 'ride what the pros ride'. So as long as the pros keep riding them.....

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I'm sure the impetus to get the plant started was due to constant badgering from @SkipdiverJohn , but then I could be wrong about that.

I absolutely deny ever trying to badger anyone, anywhere, to produce more carbon fibre bikes! There's too many of the damn CF things around as it is, and I'm surprised all the tree huggers aren't protesting about their disposable nature and difficulty recycling any of the ingredients.
On the face of it, a CF facility in Portugal might seem weird, but one legacy of the Chinavirus, as Pres Trump refers to it, will be a degree of de-globalisation resulting from the realisation that just-in-time production combined with long supply chains, can be really screwed up by disruptive events even if thousands of miles away.

 

[Smokin Joe]

On the face of it, a CF facility in Portugal might seem weird, but one legacy of the Chinavirus, as Pres Trump refers to it, will be a degree of de-globalisation resulting from the realisation that just-in-time production combined with long supply chains, can be really screwed up by disruptive events even if thousands of miles away.

And there are just so many scenarios where this just-in-time production can fall apart.

 

[bonzobanana]

As I say, no heritage, not desirable, adds up to no sales, they can't compete with the likes of Colnago, Pinarello or Bianchi when it comes to a purchase of an expensive frame

Pretty sure Pinarello and Bianchi are made in the far east and they might choose a European factory to put their brand on if the factory door price was competitive. I've seen Pinarello and Bianchi CF frames to be shown to be quite poor quality by Luescher Technik and other youtube channels when analysed for manufacturing quality. Voids etc. I could see them going to a European factory easily for marketing purposes. Bianchi have had a lot of frames made by Fuji-ta and Pinarello are Carbotec I believe from memory. The Carbotec frames sell in Asia for about 1/10th of what the Pinarello branded frames cost. Pinarello make 30,000 frames and bikes per year of which a significant but small percentage are used for professional race teams etc so maybe 29,000 sold at retail for the general public and there are about 200 million bikes manufactured per year in the world. So that's about 1 in every 7,000 bikes sold is a Pinarello. If I knew what market share Pinarello had of high end road bike sales then perhaps I could work out what percentage of such bikes are sold in comparison with cheaper bikes. I guess if you said they had 10% market share then such bikes would sell at 1 in every 700 bikes and maybe cheaper CF road bikes were 10x as popular they would be 1 in 70. Again though with steel bikes all all types taking up over 95% of the market across the world you only have less than 5% to be shared by all CF and aluminium bikes.

 

[chrisleuty]

Pretty sure Pinarello and Bianchi are made in the far east and they might choose a European factory to put their brand on if the factory door price was competitive.

Bianchi are going to make carbon frames in their own factory in Italy:
https://road.cc/content/news/bianchi-announces-plans-new-italian-factory-288553

 

[NorthernSky]

would be nice to see a European factory in the mix

 

[T4tomo]

but thats the problem, there's no provenance, no heritage, your not buying into a known name, as per Triumph, Norton or Royal Enfield, or in the bicycle world, the well known Italian brands that go for top dollar, or are they hoping to build for known names ? otherwise it just makes no business sense at all

Given the website doesn't even show so much as a hint of a bike, I suspect their aim may be to compete (on quality and reliability of supply chain) with the Taiwanese factories in subcontract frame production for established brands.

 

[DRM]

Given the website doesn't even show so much as a hint of a bike, I suspect their aim may be to compete (on quality and reliability of supply chain) with the Taiwanese factories in subcontract frame production for established brands.

That’s what I thought, but I can’t for the life of me see how they can compete with the likes of Giant

 

[bonzobanana]

Bianchi are going to make carbon frames in their own factory in Italy:
https://road.cc/content/news/bianchi-announces-plans-new-italian-factory-288553

I wonder if they will be fully made there or partially. A lot of the Taiwanese brands have their CF frames made to a raw state in other countries like mainland China, Cambodia, Vietnam etc and then finished and painted in Taiwan and still get a 'Made in Taiwan' sticker. Bianchi have sold pretty basic imported bikes in their home market and surrounding countries but for export to countries where the Italian heritage sells more expensive bikes they tend to only supply high end models. I just feel the real expertise currently is with Taiwan with regard quality of bikes and some of the best mainland China bikes are very impressive too for manufacturing quality of CF frames. It would surely take many years for that Bianchi factory to compete in quality. I mean they will have much higher labour rates to deal with too and many, many hours go into each frame. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual Chinese made CF Bianchi frames could be better made at least for the first few years of Italian production. I guess its all about brand marketing vs reality. It's not about making a quality bike its about making a perceived quality bike, many will see being made in Italy as a quality improvement but the reverse could be and I would say more likely to be true.