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. 14
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- Page 40 and 41: RECOMMENDED HERE AT SINGLETRACK TOW
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- Page 46 and 47: WORDS CHARLIE THE BIKEMONGER ROOM 1
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- Page 62 and 63: VERDICT In a marketing landscape th
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