Hi Luke,

I’m a bicycle industry professional from China, specializing in design and engineering. In fact, I was involved in the development of the first-generation LTWOO GR and ERX series.

I’d love to share some factory insights that I think your audience would find fascinating. There’s a common misconception about carbon fiber manufacturing: it’s almost impossible to fully automate. Carbon fiber remains a handmade product, whether it's crafted in Europe or China. While European brands love to emphasize the "handcrafted" label, the reality is that Chinese-made carbon fiber products are also entirely handmade.

They are meticulously laid up, layer by layer, by incredibly precise female workers. Personally, I prefer to call them female engineers rather than workers, because carbon layup is a highly skilled, incredibly difficult craft. I once tried to lay up a frame myself, and honestly, I failed miserably.

These engineers can only produce a few frames a day. For high-end, top-tier products, a skilled engineer might only finish 3 to 4 frames a day; even for standard frames, the limit is about 5 to 6. It takes a factory 1 to 2 years to train a skilled carbon layup engineer. This craftsmanship is actually the main reason for quality discrepancies between different factories—it determines the final details and refinement of the product.

These female engineers earn around 8k-9k RMB per month (approx. $1,500 USD). It’s a decent living here considering the purchasing power—for context, a bottle of Coca-Cola in China only costs about 3 RMB. They also usually work in comfortable, air-conditioned clean rooms. On the other hand, workers in the molding and curing workshops have much more grueling physical labor, but they also earn more, usually around $2,000 USD a month.

Now, let's talk about the carbon fiber frames themselves. In most cases, the actual layup schedules are designed by the factories' internal engineers, regardless of whether the brand is Trek or Santa Cruz. These factory engineers possess a massive amount of experience. Almost every ultra-lightweight or high-stiffness bike you can think of actually comes from their hands.

For instance, Trek's carbon layup schedules are largely handled by XDS (Xidesheng). An engineer there told me that Trek usually provides a target weight range and requires them to maximize the strength threshold within that window. Take the Trek Supercaliber, for example: the engineer mentioned it was an incredibly tricky project due to its complex suspension system. In the end, it passed testing with very slim margins of structural redundancy. XDS also handles engineering for other iconic models like the Trek Madone and Orbea Oiz.

That being said, while China’s manufacturing capability is arguably the strongest in the world, we still lag slightly behind European and American companies when it comes to core product philosophies, industrial design, and groundbreaking R&D. I believe this is due to a shortage of specialized talent and a lack of historical data.

I consider myself one of the capable designers here, focusing on industrial design and innovative R&D. To be completely honest, next year I’ll be sharing a few brand-new products that I’ve worked on for my clients—including but not limited to MTB, Gravel, and Road bikes. Stay tuned!😋

Western Industry: "We've been outsourcing our manufacturing to China for the last four decades!"
Also Western Industry: "If you want quality products you cannot rely on Chinese manufacturing!"

I live in Shanghai for a few years and got to tour a number of the factories making frames and components for the big brands. Biggest shock? How much they cost to produce. We are so ripped off in Europe.

Maybe we can organise a tour of an Italian factory like we discussed…? Keep in touch Luke!

China for the win. Been buying all of my bike parts from over there once I found out how people upcharge bike parts just because of branding. China has really up'ed their game. People still think they are selling plastic toys from the 2000s.

This is the content we’ve all been waiting for. Everyone in the cycling industry knows Xiamen is the silicone valley of carbon fiber, but actually seeing the inside of FiberTek is incredible. It completely demystifies the "cheap Chinese carbon" myth when you realize it’s the exact same hands making the £5,000 framesets. Insane access, Luke! 🇨🇳🚴‍♂

The funny thing is that the sentiment is changing quite a bit; 'Made in China' stands for quality in phones and already in cars. So it won't be long before 'Made in China' is used as a unique selling proposition.

Takes me back. I worked for a UK factory that made carbon parts out of prepreg for aerospace and motor racing back in 1990. Closed long ago. Process looks very similar. I did a short stint on the shop floor. Hardest work I have ever done. It’s a really tricky job and I was just making seat backs for aircraft which are nowhere near as intricate as cycle frames. Many of the workers were female: a major complaint was that they had to have short finger nails to avoid tearing into the material. Have also seen wind turbine blades produced out of carbon too: the factory and moulds have to be very long!

Easy to see why western brands outsourced this. Try getting workers who want to do this type of work at the sort of wage rates that the brands want to pay. Add the high cost of energy in Europe and the business case is easy. Manufacturing is also not much of a differentiator. Bit like high end watches: pretty much every one uses similar mass produced movements and the manufacturing cost is tiny. But it’s all about “brand” and mystique, LOL. Not saying I like the brands strategy but it is what it is.

- Which company you are working for?
- A major one.

Just opened a bike magazine and THIS frame is staring back at me...and it was far more expensive than my carbon frames from China 😂

It is not really about the "made in" wording, but about custom law and tarifs. If you import a not finished product into EU, you often don't need to pay full custom tarifs. Finished bike frames have a tarif of 4,7% and additional anti dumping duty of 48,5% and additional 20% EU-import tax. Now comes the trick: If the frame is not finished, means if it is not painted, the importer may have the option of an exemption for the anti dumping duty. Also importers who only import less than 300 frames a month can get an exemption. But in all cases it needs to be sold in the end as a full bike. Just a frameset will always get the anti dumping duty on top. Thats why from some manufacturers you can get a complete bike with low tier components for the same price as a frameset.

I don’t think you’re entirely right at 4:15 - prepreg was placed against the steel tooling, not on top of wobbly bladders. Then before the 2 halves were joined the bladder went in the middle

Absolutely they can claim the bikes are made in Italy, that's exactly why the frames are painted there.

I've known this for years after working in the clothing industry. We'd visit factories where they were making North Face, Mountain Hardwear, Marmot, etc, and the way it worked is the factory (not the brand) would create samples every year based on their own designs, that highlight the quality and skill of that factory and it's level of tech, machinery and experience. Brands then come to take a look at those designs and will pick several, which they will then 'tweak' to make their own. Changing a panel here, a zipper there, adjusting the size curve, etc. then picking colours and fabrics, which the factory then uses to create first run samples, which then get tweaked etc.

The fundamental design has nothing to do with the brand. Sure the brand does a lot of work, Q&A and user testing, but they don't touch the manufacturing. I have an Arcteryx Jacket that I got for $28 at the factory. Same jacket retails for >$600 here.

Ever since I made this realization. I have not bought almost anything from NA brands. I'll use Aliexpress or alibaba, or just contact the factories direct through taobao or whatsapp.

I got a build I'm doing, got frame from factory, got wheels from factory, slapped SRAM Red 2012 on it and here we are under 6kg for like 1200 Canadian. And this is crazy quality.

Remember we have this capability in the UK to make f1 cars and aeroplane parts, we just dont have low enough wages to make bike frames.

Aren't the forms/mandrels also helpful to reduce the time a mould is occupied? It used to be that the layout (of some parts of a frame) was done directly in the mould. But that meant that a mould was occupied during the entire layout process plus the curing time. And to expand production capacity of a given frame part, you needed more costly moulds. Now, with EPS mandrels you can have multiple people do the layout for multiple pieces of the same frame part, and you only need a limited moulds to "just" cure all these pieces.

My friend has a van rysel, the fancy road bike one (not the new aero one). It says "made in france" on the frame. Obviously, it's not, they painted it there. Pinarello does the same. In fact, the trend towards custom paint jobs (Factor, Pinarello) is in part to charge more, and in part to further the claim, accounting wise, that the frames are not made in china, which they 100% are.

3T Exploros

Very cool. I don't doubt the quality, but hopefully this manufacturer also makes sure the workers ears, eyes and lungs stay safe.