Welcome to the 21st Century. At best, design work is done in the West, manufacturing in the East. In fact, most of the frames are built in the same factories by the same companies.
So when you see wildly different prices for what seem like similar bikes, just know that you're paying for marketing and brand.

yes and I believe even if you look at Trek bikes there is a label that says "Some parts made in U.S.A" or something like that?? I might be wrong but for some reason the last time I looked I was certain it had a disclaimer like only sections of it were made in America. I have a Felt B16, but I wish there was a way I could have kept my Trek. I miss it.

[quote=renefjr]I know this isn't a cycling forum but many of us love cycling and bikes. [/quote]

It's not? I guess I'll just go back to weightweenies.com. (Kidding, I know what you meant.) The bikes you mentioned are all compression-molded plastic! Call them "carbon" all you want, but they're not coal. They're carbon fiber-reinforced plastic. You cannot weld or hand-make [u]any*[/u] "carbon" bike. The frame fabricating process is very expensive. engineering to make plastics durable, the mold for several sizes, the machines - to reduce cost they have huge production runs. As good as they are (my point is not that they are crappy frames), they are layered into a mold, pressurized and heated, then spit out on an assembly floor in Asia. Not matter how much bike fabricators try to conjur up images of old Italian craftsmen, hand-tooling your frame while they overlook a Sicilian valley, listening to Pucinni and sipping espressos - they're not.

[size=10]Except Crumpton in Austin. They'll hand mold a frame for you. Or you can buy a new Skoda.[/size]

Where's my bike made?
http://allanti.com/articles/where-was-my-bike-made-pg328.htm

.

not only that but two of the biggest bike manufacturers giant and merida are taiwanese companies (i.e., designed and manufactured in taiwan). i think we have to get used to the fact that, being made in asia doesn't equate to being poorly made; nor does hand built necessarily mean fast. like it or not, asia is on the up.

[quote=renefjr]However, I don't think that "asia" should be used but rather "chinese". Japanese cars are thought to be one of the best in engineering, but there aren't that many Chinese automakers with that rep. As an aside, I am asian.
[/quote]

i thought of that. i wasn't sure how to group china and taiwan together in a non-arbitrary way. even things made in china can be good quality (iphones for example) - its just that china is very good at making things designed to last a short time if that is the objective. incidentally, are there any good japanese bike manufacturers?

You're bumming me out Sooner! Next you're going to tell me that the food I just ate wasn't actually raised on a pastoral setting my a kindly, hard-working family of American farmers.

I heard this rumor that the low cost, "short term" approach to production is a function of our "consumer driven societal needs." (not sure how to say that). For example I have a 30 year old dishwasher that just broke down and when I went to replace it, the clerk said don't be surprised if this one doesn't last 10 years. I have even heard that some of NAs used cars get shipped to other countries...like New Zealand. I have no idea if that is true or not.

[quote=TriSooner]
Call them "carbon" all you want, but they're not coal. They're carbon fiber-reinforced plastic. [/quote]

I guess then that we shouldn't call a few other common frame materials "aluminum" or "titanium", because those elements on their own are pretty useless as frame materials. Let's call them "titanium reinforced aluminum/vanadium", or "aluminum reinforced copper/magnesium/zinc" instead :)

But you're right, it isn't coal. There's a much higher percentage of carbon in those fibers than there is in most coal.

[quote]You cannot weld or hand-make [u]any*[/u] "carbon" bike. [/quote]

Actually, you can. There are plenty of handmade carbon bikes on the market (I can think of about a dozen custom builders right off the top of my head), and lots of people are making their own in their garages. I personally know 3 people that have built their own carbon frames at home: 2 molded, and one tube-to-tube. And while I haven't built a frame (yet!), I have molded several carbon items, just using a vacuum bag, hand-carved foam molds, and carbon cloth and epoxy purchased from Aircraft Spruce. Its not really any harder than working with fiberglass. Anyone who has ever built a surfboard or boat could build a carbon frame. Of course, the average home builder isn't going to get their frame as light as, or get the same weight-to-strength ratio of, say, Trek's OCLV, but then, the average home welder who wants to try making a steel frame probably isn't going to make anything on a par with Antonio Mondonico's work, either...

It's the new world order.
Want a windsurfer? Almost all are made at the Cobra factory in Thailand.
How 'bout an inexpensive guitar? EPiphone, Ibanez, Gretsch and many others made in the Samick factory in China.
That cool CI Biscuit surfboard? Made in China by Resin8 along with South point, NSP and many many other labels.
It's a combination of economy of scale, labor and materials cost, environmental factors (Cobra and Resin8 don't have to deal with the EPA) and of course profit margin.

Yes, you can get things hand-made, but be prepared to seek out Yoda and pay for it.
-RH

[quote=TriSooner][quote=renefjr]I know this isn't a cycling forum but many of us love cycling and bikes. [/quote]

It's not? I guess I'll just go back to weightweenies.com. (Kidding, I know what you meant.) The bikes you mentioned are all compression-molded plastic! Call them "carbon" all you want, but they're not coal. They're carbon fiber-reinforced plastic. You cannot weld or hand-make [u]any*[/u] "carbon" bike. The frame fabricating process is very expensive. engineering to make plastics durable, the mold for several sizes, the machines - to reduce cost they have huge production runs. As good as they are (my point is not that they are crappy frames), they are layered into a mold, pressurized and heated, then spit out on an assembly floor in Asia. Not matter how much bike fabricators try to conjur up images of old Italian craftsmen, hand-tooling your frame while they overlook a Sicilian valley, listening to Pucinni and sipping espressos - they're not.

[size=10]Except Crumpton in Austin. They'll hand mold a frame for you. Or you can buy a new Skoda.[/size]

Where's my bike made?
http://allanti.com/articles/where-was-my-bike-made-pg328.htm

[/quote]
GREAT ARTICLE!

As long as the production of the bikes are keeping the prices low while maintaining acceptable quality, I don't care where it's made. I always hear the complant that we're loosing jobs overseas. Well that wouldn't happen if we would be willing to do the labor for less. Less jobs hurt hundreds of people. Lower prices help THOUSANDS of people. This falls right into the wheelhouse of Ricardo's Comparative Advantage principle (and actually Competitive Advantage with lower labor cost).

Sorry. I haven't got to rant about economics in a while.

[quote=Amphibious Triton]As long as the production of the bikes are keeping the prices low while maintaining acceptable quality, I don't care where it's made. I always hear the complant that we're loosing jobs overseas. Well that wouldn't happen if we would be willing to do the labor for less.[/quote]

Unfortunately, its pretty tough to convince people doing skilled labor that they should be paid sub-poverty wages. And even that wouldn't make the US competitive, as far as the bike industry is concerned, because it isn't just lower labor costs that have driven production over to Asia. There's lower environmental standards, and the majority of raw material suppliers and component manufacturers are over there. Even if labor costs were competitive, it would still be cheaper to produce a bike overseas...

If all of these bikes are made in the same place, what are the odds of getting a straight from production model? We should all be contacting Martec or Giant for cheap frames that you would be paying 3x as much from a shop. Who here speaks Chinese?

[quote=CreamedCorn]If all of these bikes are made in the same place, what are the odds of getting a straight from production model? We should all be contacting Martec or Giant for cheap frames that you would be paying 3x as much from a shop. Who here speaks Chinese?[/quote]

Well, it is possible, but you probably can't get the bike you want. You can find plenty of frames being sold direct from China on ebay, but these are generally "open-mold" designs, which are generic frames sold to anyone who wants to put their logo on them (and many of them, especially the tri/TT bikes, appear to have been designed by people who don't really understand bike geometry). Proprietary designs aren't going to be available direct, at least not legally. Factories will occasionally "let" a few frames out without the brand name on them, but the companies that designed the frames, and own the rights to them, will usually come down pretty hard on the factory if they do that. So if you come across a blank P4 or DA being sold direct, its most likely either "stolen", or a counterfeit...

[quote=TriSooner]

No matter how much bike fabricators try to conjur up images of old Italian craftsmen, hand-tooling your frame while they overlook a Sicilian valley, listening to Pucinni and sipping espressos - they're not.

[/quote]

So much for that Bianchi I was looking at....and I'd finally come to terms with the green. geesh!