Living Car Free - Bicycle Building In The UK Online Article

http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/1003/building-bikes-1003.cfm (http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/1003/building-bikes-1003.cfm)

"......Yet here we are in 2010 and that clunking relic of the Victorian age is not only still around it's enjoying a renaissance. Even more surprisingly, when so much manufacturing has been outsourced, significant numbers of bicycles are still being manufactured in Britain.

In the teeth of a severe economic downturn, the global bike industry enjoyed an impressive year in 2009, following a spectacular 2008. Retailers in recession-hit Britain have told of record sales, and shortages of their most popular models. 'Europe,' one London cycle shop owner commented, 'is running out of bikes...."

Unfortunately, a lot of the new riders in the US believe that the discount store bikes (all made overseas AFAIK) are the way to go. The bike sellers here have really missed the boat on selling to this new market of everyday cyclists. They should be pushing hybrids that are much better quality than the xmart bikes, and selling them like hotcakes for $200 to $400. Then at some point we could start making bikes here again.

[QUOTE=folder fanatic;10457248
"......Yet here we are in 2010 and that clunking relic of the Victorian age is not only still around it's enjoying a renaissance. Even more surprisingly, when so much manufacturing has been outsourced, significant numbers of bicycles are still being manufactured in Britain.

In the teeth of a severe economic downturn, the global bike industry enjoyed an impressive year in 2009, following a spectacular 2008. Retailers in recession-hit Britain have told of record sales, and shortages of their most popular models. 'Europe,' one London cycle shop owner commented, 'is running out of bikes...."[/QUOTE]

Good article, Thank you.

The British bicycle industry is booming in large part due to their subsidization of new bicycles through their "Cycle to Work" program. It is a brilliant program similar to our "Cash for Clunkers" but theirs is creating an economic boom while our was instituted to keep GM afloat and did nothing for Chrysler.

Cycle to Work made bicycles from Pashley and Brompton affordable to the masses. However, the writer did not know the underlying reason why the UK continues to have a prosperous bicycle industry and that's due to their protectionist policies on imports after the fall of Sturmey Archer and Raleigh. Scores of Brompton clones were physically crushed as cheap foreign importers from China set to bankrupt the largest UK bicycle manufacturer. The British smartly instituted a very rigid policy against anyone attempting to bankrupt the Brompton corporation with high import restrictions and tariffs. They made sure the outrage that happened with Sturmey Archer was never going to be repeated again.

Quite frankly, I don't find anything wrong in protectionism. This is required to protect jobs and we did the same for Harley Davidson back in the 80's or they would have gone belly up. Unfortunately, we are not doing this which is why we lost tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing!

This past recession saw all the majors like Cannondale shift manufacturing to China because they can no longer pay U.S. salaries anymore when you have foreign importers slashing prices in large part due to their low wage workers. As a result of not protecting our industries like they do in the UK, there will be no bicycle "Boom" in this nation with regards manufacturing. We lost 30% of our total manufacturing base in the past 10 years and more to come in the future.



>>>>>>>
Cannondale - made in the USA… not for long
Dorel Industries’ Recreational/Leisure segment has launched a multi-faceted Worldwide Centers of Excellence program, where Bedford, Pennsylvania’s manufacturing will slowly be shifted to Taiwan by 2010,

http://bicykel.com/?p=1542