Singletrack

Building Boris.
Our afternoon visit was to Long Trend Composites, the
company that makes Saracen’s carbon hardtails. But not
before we’d seen hundreds of China’s Boris-bikes lined up
ready for collection. The most impressive part was how the
finished bikes left the factory – through a hole in the top floor
wall and on a hooked conveyor belt down the outside of the
building. How else are you going to get hundreds of bikes to
leave the top floor?
Long Trend resembled a university science block, with
long, polished corridors, flanked by glass windows into
interesting-looking rooms. In these, workers were sanding
paint finishes, or unrolling carbon prepreg from $1,000 rolls
of the stuff ready to be CNC cut into precise forms. Other
windows looked into layup rooms where the many layers
that go into bottom bracket shells and top tubes were laid up
before being prepped with internal inflatable bladders that put
pressure on the carbon and squeeze out the excess plastic.
In another room were the ovens where the frames were
cured. The set-up was very impressive, but, as I would see
the next day, things could be a lot, lot bigger. We got to see
Saracen’s new Zenith carbon hardtail frame, among others, a
prototype painted and finished, being prepped for final clear
coat. We’d see this frame again at the end of our week, when
we got to the final assembly plant in Taiwan.
Composite Gear.
Composite Gear is one of China’s premier carbon factories
and Simon recalls the first time that he went to see the factory.
Or rather the foyer. CG can afford to pick and choose its
clients and Simon found that Saracen had to prove that it
wasn’t going to waste its time before they were let through
the door. Once the brand had shown that its designs and
quantities were ambitious enough, it then had access to the
not inconsiderable talents that Composite Gear could provide.
CG makes Saracen’s full suspension bikes, like the carbon
downhill Myst, the Kili Flyer and the new carbon Ariel.
It’s worth remembering that Taiwan and China have
been making carbon bike frames for a generation and that
companies in those countries have more experience than any
other country. Even the most traditional of Italian road brands
looks to China for its carbon construction. It’s not been a case
of getting a lower price for years; it’s about getting the most
skilled designers and workers possible to do the job.
While the American or British bike designers can present
a 3D model of the tube shapes and suspension action, it’s
still going to be down to the factory to work out the carbon
construction: the complicated layup of layers of carbon
material and the manner in which those pressured layers of
carbon transfer the huge forces that travel through a modern
suspension job.
All hands on deck, preparing the sticky carbon sheets ready to be cut for each frame.
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