Originally Posted by
wthensler
I have a Trek Domane 6.2, a Giant Defy 0, and a Bianchi Infinito CV. Only the Giant frame says ‘made in Taiwan’. The Domane says ‘designed in Wisconsin’. I don’t know about the Bianchi....
"designed in".... just means they want to trick the customer and don't declare it was actually made in a low wage country. you also should look at what year the bikes wehre made. there was a large shift towards production in china, or Asia, in the past years.
Originally Posted by
chadtrent
This is true. But there can be a big difference in manufacturing quality between the big Chinese brands like Merida and Giant and these smaller companies that just do open mold frames.
I agree, brand matters for QC, design etc. Especially for carbon where layering is so important for the function the design part is important.
But OP implied the country (or the people within it) have an influence on quality. I haven't seen scientific evidence showing how a Chinese person would be less capable than an american person. I think much of the "china made" discussion is more based on xenophobia and fear of being inferior than anything else.
I could turn the china fear around and claim nowadays bicycles are much better than ever (better MTB geometry, material, weight...). so someone could say when bicycles were made int he US they were worse because of that. But that isn't the case, it is all in the engineering, manufacturing processes and QC. and that can be done with any people, regardless of nationality.