<b>Welcome to Intense Cycles, located in Temecula, California. Just from looking at the showroom, it's clear Intense is quite proud of their deep heritage in downhill racing.</b>
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<b>The Intense machine shop in its entirety. Intense founder, Jeff Steber, in the audio.</b>
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<b>The entrance into the welding area. Intense still develops, prototypes and produces all their aluminum frames here, in-house, in SoCal.</b>
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<b>A full-sized Uzzi schematic in Steber's proto area. The small room houses countless prototype bikes, some of which we were asked not to photograph. Intense is a never-resting brand, that's for sure.</b>
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<b>Jeff Steber in his prototyping space. How many iconic Intense frames do you reckon have been conceived in this one little room?</b>
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<b>The raw rack. Uncut billet waiting to be machined into various links, dropouts and other parts.</b>
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<b>Haas CNC machines were spread out around the factory. We counted about ten various machines in the shop ranging from lathes and pallet machines, to vertical mills. Quite the impressive operation.</b>
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<b>Why Haas? Steber said the reliability of the machines plus the fact that they're US-made in Oxnard, California. If something does go wrong, replacement parts are available right away.</b>
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<b>The complexity of what's housed in those giant beige boxes had us peeking in every window possible for a glimpse of what's going on inside.</b>
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<b>Before and after.</b>
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<b>A nearly finished Uzzi link.</b>
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<b>Alloy scrap waiting to be recycled. Intense made sure to let us know that they take pride in the fact that the scrap aluminum they produce is not wasted.</b>
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<b>A batch of head tubes, fresh from the lathe.</b>
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<b>After the CNC machines do their job, it's time for the welders to do theirs.</b>
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<b>Each piece of the new frame is placed in a welding jig for the initial assembly. Each frame and each size of that particular frame all have their own jig.</b>
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<b>Stackin' dimes.</b>
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<b>68-degrees seemed like a stretch inside the machine shop, perhaps this thermometer's seen better days.</b>
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<b>Once the frames are welded, they go to heat treatment. The annealing stage relaxes the frame, which allows for a small window of time to straighten the frame (pictured), before it goes back in the oven for the final tempering.</b>
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<b>Pretty maids all in a row.</b>
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<b>Reaming and facing a head tube.</b>
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<b>The final assembly area. Intense has recently switched from primarily providing frame-only options to now focusing on complete builds. With the quality of a lot of components these days, we can see why Intense is taking this approach.</b>
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<b>The small parts area. Small bins hold various parts, be it colorful ano pivot caps, links, axles or derailleur hangers. Pretty much every small part for all Intense frames are right here.</b>
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<b>What's your best guess?</b>
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<b>The final touches. Every alloy bike Intense produces is still made in-house, in the USA. For more information about Intense and their bikes, head over to www.intensecycles.com</b>
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Intro Graphic
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Description
We dropped by the Intense Cycles HQ and factory to get a behind-the-scenes look at their facilities, where every new Intense frame begins. We also spoke with founder and CEO, Jeff Steber, about the past, present and future of Intense, as well as the production process of their iconic bikes.
Photos by Fred Robinson
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