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The conclusion of this memoir points out the machine they made is not really up for industrial production capacity and they had issues with inside lubrication. They also didn't test with 6061 which is what Devinci currently use.
My guess by looking at current chainsaw, troy gen5 al and e-troy lite, that are the most recent made in Chicoutimi frame, is the seat tube with the rocker axle would be the main part that is hydro formed and the battery cradle for the e-troy. The rest look to be relatively simple tubes forms that local supplier should be able to make and CNC parts for the rear triangle connecting parts.
The last draw benches suitable for aluminum bicycle tubing in the United States were bought by Boeing from a facility in CT(in a building built specifically to handle all the aluminum profiles and bar stock for Cannondale)in 2015 and are now being used to make replacement parts for b52 toilets.
I worked with the New Haven chamber of commerce and an angel investor to re-start that facility to serve the remaining domestic 6061 frame builders for a few years, we even managed to draw a bunch of 7005 profiles for a few friends. The final aluminum Turners and Ellsworths, among other bikes used tubes from CT, built in a short lived facility in Vancouver, Washington
When the Sapa Profiles factory closed the bike line in Portland in 2012?, that was the end of vertical manufacturing in the domestic bike space, boeing bought those draw benches for pitot tubes.
Mandrel drawn cold worked and shaped tubing is superior in every way to hydroformed tubing… except for meeting the needs of industrial designers that need everything to look carbon fiber, or today’s primary use case, making a downtube designed to hold a battery.
The united states bike industry hasn’t been large enough to have anything forged domestically since Trek closed their aluminum line in Wisconsin circa 2003, which is the same year Easton stopped domestic production. We were able to get aluminum profiles out of Worth in Missippi for a while, in fact Worth had the only draw bench domestically that could handle start tubes larger than 55mm OD, so the original Kinesis, Oregon, built Iron Horse Sundays actually used a massive aggressively butted Worth downtube with a mixture of Sapa drawn tubing.
The draw benches that could make bike tubing were also useful for softball bats, ultimately it was softball moving toward carbon bats that forced the tube mills to sell off the machinery, both Worth and the CT facility had a skeleton crew of former workers that would come in for a few days every other month and build a few gaylords full of bats.
I could rant about domestic aluminum bicycle production FOREVER, but i gotta go make breakfast.
I had to google what a gaylord was after that. Now I know.
Cool info about domestic tubing as well.
SAPA was devastating for Turner and Knolly. I've heard the details from both Dave and Noel. Glad they were both able to recover.
Great info, thank you for sharing. This at least reassures me that I really did look under every rock in trying to source this.
Dedacai will draw you 6061 over in Italy if you order about 3000 pounds worth.
They don’t have any stock profiles that would work well for your bikes though, so you’d be on the hook for mandrels for each tube.
As i’m sure you know, a butting mandrel is spun up on a lathe to precise tolerances, and it’s usually paired with a forming die, so tooling for new mandrel butted cold formed tubes is also pretty dang expensive…
When Sapa was still around, and the facility in CT was still around, you basically had every mandrel and die the facility had ever used at your disposal, so from Specialized M2-M5, Cannondale CAAD 1-8, and every one else’s custom tubes were all available if you could find a use for them in your weldment.
By changing how you swage and mixing up forming dies you were able to design some absolutely amazing structures… 20+ years of American bicycle industry R+D, just recycled for scrap, the machinery lost forever to the military industrial complex.
While every 13 year old boy has a butt drawing bench, butting draw benches are rare. Shame.
these seem to be the fundamental flaws in the Make American Manufacturing Great Again echo chamber. The equipment isn’t here to do it. This is true not only with metal, but textiles too. 15 ish years ago I recall learning from a moderate sized fancy technical clothing company how they would love to do production stateside, but the equipment is all in Taiwan and China. Domestic manufacturing wasn’t even an option for them. Nor were the raw materials (including plants and animals) needed to make their fabrics. Nebraska and Kansas were too busy growing corn to convert into subsidies and ethanol for gasoline to grow useful materials.
It's not an accident that those key pieces of metal and textile equipment fled the U.S. and found their way to Taiwan and China, and while cost of labor in the U.S. is part of that, policy is the biggest part. China, Taiwan, and Vietnam have relentlessly pursued industrial policy and bicycle manufacturing for the last 40-70 years, and the United States has actively shipped those jobs overseas and across borders via WTO, IMF, NAFTA, TPP, and other policies. Meanwhile Germany and Japan still have some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world and outpunch their weight class in volume because of aggressive and deliberate policies to support those industries. Shoutout to South Korea, too.
For me, the fundamental flaw in the "Make American Manufacturing Great Again" echo chamber isn't that their idea is impossible, it's that the timetables are all wrong. If you want to do it, this sort of effort takes decades, not years. It's a 40-70 year sustained process. For instance, it probably took about 25-30 years to make all those aluminum tube drawing mandrels, but only a couple years to sell them off and shutter the factory.
not to get drawn into a political topic here but that's what a lot of people don't realize in regards to domestic US manufacturing. it's not like we have equipment mothballed all over like the warehouse from ark of the covenant. it got sold / destroyed and is just gone. it's not "restarting" manufacturing, it's rebuilding lines from the ground up - which in many cases is a process that takes years.
This NYT piece has some good background and details about milling textiles in the US: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/fashion/american-woolen-textiles-jac…;
"It feels like a long shot. The U.S. textile industry has been in secular decline for half a century, as apparel production moved to lower-cost countries like China and Vietnam. The domestic supply chain for wool is nearly extinct: Perhaps fewer than five woolen mills capable of spinning yarn, weaving fabrics and finishing fabrics are still operating. Mr. Long’s firm, American Woolen Company, is one of them."
Here is a cool podcast on the ‘made in America’ specialized tool problem.
Relevant to aspects of bikes and injection molding too.
https://www.searchengine.show/the-puzzle-of-the-all-american-bbq-scrubber/
People have tried to revive the American textle industry many times. Kitsbow was one example that was specific to our sport. Malden Mills does still produce domestically I believe, but it's created all kinds of challenges for them.
Honestly, the reshoring of American bicycle production probably deserves its own thread. My lens on the matter is pretty limited, but I did once break a CNC machine so I feel that makes me an internet expert (right?).
In all seriousness, these are huge capital allocation decisions that to Robot's point take many more years than one presedential term to pan out. Plus, those who really want the reshoring of all manufacturing (disenfranchised MAGA people, mostly) want this for labor reasons. They'll be sorely disappointed when they learn the new factories need 1/10 the labor inputs from those of the 70s and 80s. If anyone wants a fun read, go check out some articles on the "dark factories" in China.
How we play against the "new world order" is a fun topic of conversation, but I'm more interested in navigating it than I am trying to influence it (I won't). If I'm going to bet, I'm going to bet the bicycle supplly chain remains very international, with a lot of empahsis put on Taiwan and Vietnam. There will be outliers like Frameworks and Push, but the scale these brands hit will be a candle in the sun compared to what you see out of Asia. Time will tell just how right I am...
What's interesting about the labor angle of this is that we can't fill the open manufacturing jobs we've got now, let alone a bunch of new ones.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/business/factory-jobs-workers-trump.html
We would need to bring in skilled foreign labor to really get manufacturing going again (a 180 degree turn from current policies), or convince gen Z / alpha to aspire to manufacturing careers rather than other professions (I'm not holding my breath).
The reason for this is obvious though, factory floor workers have seen a declining wage premium over the last twenty years.
The blue collar jobs are more decentralized and less unionized that the "golden era" of US manufacturing. Simply put, the US does not have a competitive advantage in manufacturing, and it has a lower medium wage than other non college degree professions.
The Economist recently did a big article on it, but skilled trades, repair and maintenance workers (HVAC etc), emergency services, vehicle and equipment techs and ticketed operators and mining all have a higher wage premium and similar (~90%) non college degree rates.
Why go work in a factory when you get paid better everywhere else? It's the reason why their is a labour shortage.
Which leads to the obvious dilemma that US manufacturing is already expensive, but to solve the labor shortage you'd have to pay even more, making it even more expensive.
I don’t mean to sound like I'm being a dickish techno optimist (or techno pessimist) but I don’t buy the idea that labor costs or a younger generation's aversion to blue-collar work are the main (or any part of the) bottlenecks to reshoring manufacturing.
The next-gen factory won’t rely on human labor for much, especially in areas like metal, plastics, or semiconductor work. Maybe textiles are different, but in general, we're entering a fully automated era. This shift started in the '90s and is now going exponential.
The real constraints are going to be electricity costs and the specialized knowledge required to build and operate these advanced factories (which Asia crushes us at). That’s what will determine whether domestic manufacturing comes back in a meaningful way.
These new facilities will need maybe one-tenth the workforce, and the people they do need will be highly skilled, highly paid, and look nothing like the factory workers we picture today. Those types of jobs will be more akin to what you might see on a drilling rig and have the title "engineer" attached to them, alongside a very healthy 6 figure salary.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just deep in the AI/robotics world. But I really don’t think so.
I used to work in sawmills, they were/are large employers in many small towns across the US and Canada. Let's say in an older 2 line sawmill you would need 30 people to run a shift and you would run 2 shifts a day (just to run the machines, no management or trades). If you install a new sawmill now you can have 4 people processing the same amount of lumber. Will more industry bring more money to the US? Yes. Will it bring more jobs? Probably not as many as people are expecting.
I wouldn’t bet against this as the likely outcome.
But I’m even more pessimistic about a resurgence of US manufacturing should this turn out to be true.
As you said, Asia is crushing us at developing this tech. It’s going exponential, just not here. Unless there is significant investment (probably at the scale only the US gov could do) in reshoring and advancing this tech here, we will be left behind. Leaving aside the politics of the last administration, the CHIPS act was probably heading in the right direction.
I was watching a video on MSNBC a few weeks back that trade schools are seeing an uptick recently.. Mainly due to lower cost for school vs going to college and that you can start at a decent wage and have room to move upwards..
In the past year or so, companies like Snap (yes the app aka snapchat) have been hiring for semi-conductor employees in Arizona. Typical profile of the roles posted were looking for engineers with master/PhD level education and considerable experience in systems, process engineering and experimentation related to production tooling. Salary bands posted compete with Bay Area tech salaries.
I don't think your take is dickish at all.
My experiences are less varied than others but I will add this. About a year ago one of the largest importers of industrial grade forging equipment (Anyang) was sanctioned by the US government for selling to sanctioned businesses in Russia. They also manufacture industrial presses and closed die forging machines, they similarly manufacture some of the largest powerhammers world wide and have been doing it for over 50 years.
Now, none of that equipment is available in the US anymore. The people on the US side that imported them went out of business because neither administration would help them, meanwhile Anyang profits are up and other countries have an edge when it comes to forging machinery. There are no domestic manufacturers creating equivalent machines of the same size/scale. So not only is there not a US based manufacturer, anyone trying to acquire their forging equipment has to go through round-about ways to do so and it's simply not available to anyone that wants to operate a business that requires industrial forging equipment
I think with us manufacturing there are things we still do extraordinarily well on the mass market level and tons of people who find a way to be competitive in the boutique market. There are also large segments that in my lifetime have nearly entirely moved off shores. And even a few years ago you could walk into any discount or department store and find cheap us made socks, underwear, basic ts and the likes. Now it isn’t that easy.
If America is to restart it’s manufacturing I’d agree with the assessment that it took decades if not centuries to build and it took no time to sell off. And I honestly think tariffs on specific industries we’d like to reshore makes a lot of sense. Tariffs on Asian cars is a big reason Asian car makers have plants in America.
I also don’t see a labor issue besides a lot of industries that typically paid much less than industrial work now pay much more. I can offer people the same money to cook at a entry level position than the anodization plant .5 mile away. No toxic chemicals and carcinogens. Free food. Chance to get laid. Pretty easy which one to pick.
So either manufacturers need to pay more and accept smaller margins or they need to import the millions of workers who want those jobs stateside instead of elsewhere. And those workers can pay Americans to make them cheesesteaks instead of the other way around.
That last paragraph is great. I think a third option would be improve the 'pipeline' that produces the talent needed.
Realistically, there is no one size fits all solution, and surely no immediate fix to undo changes in policy, culture, economics, competition, etc over the last 30 years.
But, in terms of long run decision making, I would love to see policy that seeks to improve our economy by balancing the combination of short-term profitability, imported talent, and homegrown talent over time.
Even if we bring a large amount of manufacturing back to the States, I don't think that Americans are willing to change their spending habits. I assume most things that would transition from foreign to US made would see an increase in price, and at the end of the day I doubt your average American is will to pay more for the same product simply because it US made (assuming its the same quality). So either the corporations producing these products would either need to accept smaller margins (I assume they wont), the product will be of lesser quality, and/or the Americans producing these goods will be paid less than the average American is willing to work for.
I think for any of this to truly work long term is Americans needs to become more willing to pay for a higher quality product that will last longer/perform better/etc and probably less of these things.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist and this is obviously highly over simplified.
All of these are fascinating comments. Reading them, I can't help but think about all the clean energy people currently having the tax-credit rug pulled out from under them while the administration seems to be expecting significant and long-term capital investment based on some half-baked, very tenuous, and ever-changing tariffs.
I think the crux of issue is this though, why are manufacturing jobs more desirable than service jobs?
The current zeitgeist is that smashing steel is somehow better than shifting through spreadsheets.
When you do first year economics you get taught the valid accepted reasons for protectionism, and the ones that apply here are:
infant industry; protecting a new industry from external players who can crush it to prevent competition
national security; all your steel for howitzers being manufactured in Russia would be... bad.
dumping; foreign governments overproduce a product for domestic reasons then ship it offshore at below cost and destroy your local market
standards.
product standards; temu selling highly flammable winter jumpers is just unsafe and should be banned.
Now very few of these really apply to manufacturing in the US.
No other country complains that the US robs them off all the tech engineers and high end finance, its just competitive advantage. You can't have your cake and eat it too, the US traded low skilled manufacturing for high skilled service jobs that earn more money and have much better work conditions and now they buy their stuff from elsewhere.
Its almost like culturally they want to swap Google (Alphabet) for Salzgitter AG or ArcelorMittal (both are large steel producers), but I know which company i would prefer to have in my backyard.
This is the pendulum swinging back.. Over the past 30-40 years it's been all about go to college and be a doctor or lawyer... But, a truly strong economy needs both goods and services.. Sure, the doctor is important, but someone needs to build the house he wants to buy...
on the topic of doctors..... there is a shortage of them and it is projected to get worse.
Quoting this because it feels relevant.
My prediction: bicycle manufacturing won’t be meaningfully reshored in the U.S. Tariffs are short-lived, the incentives are weak, and we’re far behind on manufacturing tech. Plus, there's no real culture around large scale US manufacturing of things like bicycles.
Chris mentioned the CHIPS Act, which is a good example of what will move the needle. It shows how reshoring happens through massive, precise, focused investment. Right now, there are four areas with real (edit: some) bipartisan support:
Energy (mostly solved, at least with fossil fuels in the near term, electricity is very different)
High-end semiconductors (reduce reliance on Taiwan based TSMC's fab)
Pharma APIs (lesson from COVID)
Rare earths (critical for EVs, wind, defense, batteries, LEDs, etc.)
These are things the U.S. government can subsidize enough to actually bring manufacturing (or mining of) back onshore. Everything else? Not likely unless we unlock abundant, cheap electricity, which is what the coming robot economy will depend on.
And yes, I understand how complex TSMC’s fabs are. I'm not saying we’ll be making B100s or B200s anytime soon. But I wouldn’t be surprised if companies that don't start with the letter "N" start producing GPUs/TPUs domestically that get the job done, likely through the TSMC AZ plant.
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