Built Different, Chpt. 1: Different by Design

The other evening, I found myself watching a video that depicts an incredible composites manufacturing facility in China, operated by a company called XDS. Nobody had really heard of XDS until last year, yet this is just one of four factories they own; three in China, one in Cambodia, producing millions of bicycles per year across the four sites. Millions.

They produce their own prepreg carbon fibre, they have 128 CNC machines, they have in-house testing equipment, and they even have CT scanners to use on their carbon parts. It seems a truly remarkable facility, and it clearly does a fantastic job of providing entry-level bikes to the world; but watching it I couldn't help but think that there's something missing. Through this glorification of scale, there was so much left to be desired.

In their quest to manufacture millions of bicycles per year, they've streamlined the process so much that, even though the end product resembles in some ways a 'high-end' bike, it just can't be. It's true of all of these 'megafactories' in the Far East; the manufacturing process is set up primarily to produce inexpensive products at large volumes, and once you've made that decision, there's very little you can do to produce a marked difference from entry-level bike to range-topper. 

It's a truly admirable facility they have, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a tour myself, but it falls short of producing what the world should consider a premium product.

The best analogy I have is one that leans on the automotive world; Volkswagen produce nearly half a million Golfs every year, while an F1 team produces just two cars per year. A Golf is a fantastic car - it's comfortable, it's efficient, it's easily serviceable, and they even do a higher-spec sporty model, dubbed the 'R', but with the way VW have designed both the car and its production process, it's far closer to one end of the performance spectrum than the other.

Let's not even go to the extreme, F1 end of the spectrum. Let's take another British brand in McLaren, who produce just a couple of thousand cars every year across their entire range. That's less than 1% of the number of Golfs alone that VW produce. It's not just the price tag at the end of the process, it's everything that goes into a McLaren that leads to it demanding such a high value.

The point for me is that, as remarkable as this particular Chinese facility is, it serves as a great example of where the majority of bikes in the world come from. It shows that there are millions of really good bikes made every year, but no matter what the logos are when that bike rolls off the production line, or which rider the marketing team employs to ride it, the performance limits of each of these bikes are baked in from the start.

I'll make one small example. As I was watching this video, I noted that it takes just 40 minutes to cure the front triangle of the frame; at REAP, we cure our carbon parts over a 6-8 hour cycle.

There are a number of in-depth engineering explanations for this, which we will explain throughout this series; but the first, and perhaps biggest, is that it creates a stronger structure. By increasing the temperature of the cure cycle more slowly, we allow the temperature across the part to rise in a more uniform manner, meaning the molecular bonds within the resin are more uniform and the part cures as one, rather than a wave across the layers caused by a steep thermal gradient within the laminate.

A more uniform resin structure throughout the laminate means the part is ultimately stronger and provides better power transfer across the bike.

You can't expect a microwaveable meal to taste the same as a 28-day aged Aberdeen Angus steak, nor should you be surprised when a REAP, which takes upwards of five times longer to manufacture, outperforms all mass-manufactured framesets worldwide. It's not the size of the company that dictates end-user performance, it's their intent.

Formula 1 teams are set up with the sole purpose of producing the best two cars in the world every year. If they had to make them for the same price as a Golf, there is no doubt they'd be terrible race cars. It's no coincidence that the majority of F1 teams build their cars in the UK, because British engineering isn't geared up for volume, it's geared up to produce the best. Owning our manufacturing facility in the UK means we control the intent, and we control the output. We're not trying to make the most bikes in the world, we're trying to make the best.

You can't take shortcuts to the best.