When I lived in Taiwan a few years ago I had my bike and rode on the weekends. I called my friend Tom Jeng at Kinesis to see if any of his workers would want to ride with me. He told me none of the people that worked there rode! This is true in most factories in Taiwan, the only exception I saw was Giant, they have some good roadies. I rode in the most amazingly great roads and saw only these Giant riders. Riding in Asia is considered to be very strange, China being the main exception. In Japan most riding is done to get to the train station, very short distances. Japan does have some enthusiast, though.
Jim Merz Bainbridge Is.
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of The Maaslands Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 5:54 PM To: Classic Rendezvous Subject: I: [CR]Re: Brand Loyalty
Richard wrote:
> snipped:
> Herb Langston <langston@interaccess.com> writes:
> When did Motobecane stop being a Motobecane? In the early 1980s,
> when they were machine-made and mass-produced in Taiwan (using poor
> technology) and no longer hand-made by artisans who loved their work.
> That was the end of their era.
> Herb Langston
>
>
> not to switch gears here...
> but i think, (I THINK), that this assumption is the root of all
> the disagreement and differing opinions.
> there are folks with way more experience with this than me, but
> i firmly believe it is a misconception to state that the factory made
> bicycles that are the mainstays of the CR timeline, 'are (were)
hand-made
> by artisans who loved their work.'
> i wish that were the case. i wanted it to be the case when i was
choosing
> role models. but after 5 trips to italy and many years of trying to
keep
> my antennae up, i believe the opposite to be true. yes-there are
> exceptions. and even those who come/came to work out of necessity
> rather than passion build/built some excellant bicycles. by and large,
> all these bicycles are made in what would be better thought of as
> industrial rather than artisanal environments.
Richard is very much correct. Almost all teh builders that I know treat their production as simply their livelihood, not an art. Go to any of the industrial bicycle factories in Europe and/or North America and count the percentage of worker's that arrive by bike: they are but a small minority. Go to Asia and of those that don't live in the employee quarters, the large majority arrive by bike. Does this mean they are more passionate about bikes?
Steven Maasland Moorestown, NJ
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