Singletrack

Wailing welding solos on the wah-wah pedals.
‘When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer.’
Factories have many different brands that they work for and
Hua Chin works for some US bike brands as well as Saracen.
Also taking up a huge part of production when we were there
was an order for China’s version of the MoBike – a dockless
bike sharing system for China, with simple bikes and a solarpowered,
app-based booking scheme. So in between highend
suspension bikes, the factory was also making tens of
thousands of sturdy alloy town bikes. This was evident when
the principal of the team of welders was interrupted from
making rear triangles to show us how the new main pivot
and the head tube would be welded in production. The fact
that he could turn from making chainstays on one bike to
laying down a perfect bead on a head tube on the next was
impressive.
The speed and finesse of the welders was remarkable.
They work in a small team, with the tasks split between them.
The first welder might do the left hand of the head tube and
BB shell, the next will do the right side and half the seat tube
junction and so on. This is designed to keep the heat from
distorting the frame and to allow each welder to comfortably
work on similar jobs to keep quality consistent and speed
high.
After a visual inspection of every frame, the welded
frames then move to alignment, where things like symmetry,
braze-on positions and component fit are checked. A lot of
the early pre-production runs we saw are to make sure that
tools can be made to speed the production process up. A
hydraulically activated jig that keeps all the tubes precisely in
place may take a week for the production manager to build,
but if it saves 20 minutes of preparation for every single
frame of hundreds, it works out in the end. Leonard, the QC
manager, showed Simon how the rear swingarm would be
aligned in three planes – not just to make sure that the shock
was compressed correctly, but that the brake bosses were on
plane and the rear wheel kept aligned through the stroke.
Just as we got to the mezzanine floor to shoot the factory
from a height, the workers disappeared. It seems that far from
being worked hard day and night, the staff breaks are generous
and pretty plentiful. There’s a mid-morning, and a midafternoon
break and an entire hour and a half at lunchtime.
We only just managed to gather the welders for a brief photo
as the shift finished and before they took off for their lunch
break.
Our lunch, meanwhile, was some noodles in the meeting
room while Simon and Ryan discussed fine details for the
coming frame production. Not everything can be designed on
the computer and sometimes real-world samples are needed
(whether welded up or 3D printed) in order to see how well
cables and components play together. Another thing that is
hard to predict is how well a finish will take and whether it’ll
match the colour-matching components.
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