International bike manufacturing has been making some headlines recently, and not in a positive way. On September 24th, US Customs announced that they will be detaining bikes manufactured by Giant Bikes that come from Taiwan over poor labor practices. In the following days, more information came to light highlighting that the main point of contention is that Giant was hiring people exclusively through a broker that would charge an ongoing fee to the workers. This would take away some of the autonomy of the workers, as they would be bound to the arranged agreement by the fees they were required to pay.
This is not a good look for Giant, especially because in the original Bicycle Retailer article, they denied any wrongdoing. However, despite the headline, this problem is not isolated to Giant Bikes. Giant is the largest manufacturer of bikes in the world, making bikes for a number of brands, including some big brands like Trek and Scott. In addition, the second biggest manufacturer in Taiwan, Merida, is also getting some heat for similar practices.
The coverage of this issue highlights a few things, but the biggest takeaway for me is that it is a stark reminder of how opaque the bike manufacturing industry is to outsiders, and to industry members alike. Unfortunately, like lots of things in the world we live in, cyclists largely do not care about where and how the bikes they ride are made.
For enthusiast bicycles, there are three main ways brands go about producing a bike. In simplistic terms: there are brands who make a bike in a small-scale workshop that they control; there are brands who contract factories (mostly in Taiwan) to make the frames for them; and finally, there are the bigger brands who own or control their own factories overseas. Generally, it is hard for consumers to know under which of these situations their bike is produced. Even many of the brands that market themselves as boutique operations get their frames produced by a large factory that makes frames for lots of other brands too. It seems like for the most part, people just choose to kind of overlook how their bikes are made.
Some brands are trying to change this and add more transparency to where and how their bikes are made. One of the coolest examples, in my opinion, is Devinci Bikes. The historically freeride brand is transitioning more and more of its manufacturing to Canada, where the brand is based. Devinci now has 10 models that they produce in their factory in Northern Quebec. What makes this example more notable is that they are not selling these bikes at high-end boutique price points but rather producing bikes that are competitive mass-market options.
It's great if an $8,000 custom titanium frame is produced with good and transparent working conditions, but it is much more impressive if a competitive price-point bike is held to the same standard.
Unfortunately, there are still limited options for new bikes where there is transparency throughout the manufacturing process. Even with examples where you know the journey from the raw tubes of aluminum or steel to the finished frame is done with good working conditions, there are normally lots of question marks about where the raw ore is mined, how it is refined into steel/aluminum, and where it is formed into the tubes that the frame builder uses. However, in this day and age, buying a used bike is easy and can be done online. In my opinion, buying second-hand is one of the most ethical ways to buy something because it already exists in the world, and you are just prolonging its lifespan.
Moving forward, hopefully this reporting on Giant bikes will prompt consumers to be more interested and thoughtful about how their bikes are produced. Ideally, this increase in interest will be enough to encourage bike brands to be more transparent about how and where their products are produced.