Where Was Your Bike Made?

When I first became a dedicated bicyclist, the European countries most associated with bike-making were England, France and Italy. 

(OK, some will argue that England isn't a European country.  But even post-Brexit, the links between the island and continent are unmistakable.)

That was in the 1970s.  In the US, a few custom builders constructed nice frames and Japan was challenging European hegemony (Does that sound like a phrase out of my Western Civ class?) in the lightweight bike arena.  But if you bought a European derailleur-equipped machine in a bike shop, it most likely came from one of the three countries I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Like so many other kinds of other manufacturing, bike (and component) production has moved away from those high-wage countries.  While some shifted to Asia, still other fabrication has moved to other European countries.

As a result, the European country that manufactures the most bikes (2.7 million) is now...Portugal.  To be fair, it was not without a bike industry or culture before trade barriers between it and other European Union countries were lifted. But its considerably lower wages attracted manufacturing from "legacy" bike companies and caused new bike companies to set up shop in the westernmost nation of the continent.

Interestingly, Italy, at 2.1 million, is the second-largest bike producer in the EU.  Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, at 1.5, 0.9 and 0.7 million, respectively, round out the top five bicycle-manufacturing countries in the EU. Together, they accounted for about seven out of every ten bicycles made in the EU.

France?  It's number 6, at half a million bikes.  And England, which is no longer part of the Union, produces about half as many.

Here is something inquiring minds want to know:  How is a bike defined as made in one country or another?  Traditionally, the "Made In" label meant that the bike's frame was brazed or welded*, finished and outfitted with components --which may have come from another country in that country. (As an example, from the late 1970s onward, many European and American bikes sported Japanese derailleurs, freewheels and cranksets.)  However, I've heard that some bikes have only had finishing work done in the country of origin its manufacturer claims.    

*--Frames were often made from imported materials, e.g., French Peugeots made from English Reynolds tubing.

An Egg-Strodinary Rider

Eggs have become really expensive lately.

How expensive?

The bike may not have  cost as much! 

A Culture War--Over A Bike Lane?

When people talk about "culture wars," they're usually referring to contentious debates about issues like LGBTQ, racial or gender equality, what should be taught in schools or what place, if any, religious expression has in public life.  

For some time, i have suspected that arguments about bike lanes have been devolving from discussions about sustainable living to battles delineated by generational, class and other kinds of divides.  A woman in Berkeley, California has recently said as much.

She was referring to a plan to re-design Hopkins Street, a thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants in an affluent part of the city, to accommodate a protected bike lane. In some ways, the debate echoes ones I hear in my hometown of New York, and hear about in other cities.  

Business owners fear that the loss of parking spaces in front of their stores, restaurants and other enterprises will hurt them.  And car-dependent people, who include the city's fast-growing population of senior citizens, worry that they will lose access to goods and services they need and enjoy.  On the other hand, cyclists, pedestrians and advocates for mass transportation argue that the very things that attract people to the city cannot be sustained without reducing the number of private automobiles on the city's streets.

A driver parks in front of a shop on Hopkins Street during a rally in support of a bike lane. Photo by Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside.

The discussion, according to Donna Didiemar, has been drifting away from one "about bike lanes" and instead is "turning into a culture war."  She and others are, in essence, saying that the debate is one over what kind of city Berkeley will become.  Bike lane proponents tend to be younger and, in the eyes of opponents, more "privileged," while opponents are seen as adherents to an old and unsustainable way of thinking.

It won't surprise you to know that I am, mostly, in the camp of bike lane builders and those who advocate for pedestrians and mass transit.  But opponents of the bike lane have made a couple of valid points.  One is that the lane won't necessarily make cycling safer.  That is true if the lane crosses in front of driveways, as too many bike lanes do.  Also,  cars may need to pull into the bike lane to get out of the way of emergency vehicles: something I've encountered while riding.  

One irony is that some of the entrepreneurs and residents of the street are artisans or people who were simply attracted by the very things that make an area a candidate for sustainability:  shops and other amenities close to residential buildings.  Another is that planners, including those who want to build the bike lane, still seem to be operating from a set of assumptions about what cycling and walking are and aren't.  That, I think, is a reason why a discussion about a vision for the city (and not simply a bike lane) may well be turning into a "culture war."