On 16 Jul 2003 08:44:55 -0700,
[email protected] (larry english) may have said:
>i hear it said that some high percentage of bikes made overseas, are made by only a few factories.
>
>is there any way to find out who makes, for instance, the fuji road bikes sold in america?
If Fuji (or whoever) multisources, they may not be able to precisely answer the question without a
serial number or physical inspection of the frame for idenifying marks. Even if there's only one
possible answer for a specific bike model, though, this information is usually not considered a
matter to be disclosed without need, for a variety of reasons. The people putting their name on the
bike and selling the product are responsible for ensuring that it's right, after all, and it's up to
them to pick a good manufacturer for their item if they aren't going to make it themselves. And even
if you were to track down the exact plant in which a frame was made, that might tell you very
little. There are several plants in Korea, for instance, which produce customer-designed and
customer-specified goods of a wide variety of natures, from fishing reels to forklifts, in the same
facility. A few yards from a tightly-controlled line making a quality product, a competitor's goods
may be rolling off a different line with completely different specs and tolerances. Who made it is
not always an indicator of how good (or bad) it is.
If you want an eye-opener about product surprises, read the Consumer Product Safety Commission's
webpage about bike recalls. There are both some names you'll immediately recognize, and some that
will be unfamiliar...and some of the recalls are eye-openers.
>would it matter?
IMO, quality matters first and value matters second when you're talking about something that has as
much potential for a failure to cause harm as is present in bikes. That said, I am of the opinion
that for the *average* rider (non-competitive, mostly street, not overloaded or acrobatic),
virtually all of the bikes on the market are safe enough. Once in a while, though, there are some
ugly exceptions, and I will note that cheap full-suspension bikes sold at Wal-Mart and Target are
prominently visible in the CPSC listings. I assume that no one is surprised by this; what's perhaps
more surprising is how few listings there are in that category, really.
---
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Yes, I have a killfile. If I don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy.
