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. 16
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