DOES IT REALLY MATTER...?

CINELLI ...OR IS IT?

In my last post I touched on the fact that a recent common thread on a lot of cycling forums and blogs has been around the subject of 'Do you really know where your bike was made?' 
It would seem that a lot of people have expressed surprise that the bike or frame that they have  purchased might not have been manufactured in the country that they thought it had....
Surprised that they had purchased a name. 
Surprised that the bike frame they thought had been made in say Italy or USA was in fact made somewhere in Asia. 


Really? 
Did they really not have an idea that was the case? 
I mean why should the bike industry be any different to any other industry. 
In the book 'It's all about the Bike' by Robert Penn he went to the Cinelli Factory in Italy to choose the handlebars for the bike he was building....He picked his bars, but acknowledged the fact that although they were designed and then tested at Cinelli's Italian factory, they were actually made in Asia 
Does this make them any less Cinelli....I don't believe so..


Take cameras....where are so many of those made these days? 
There was a time that every Leica was made in Germany....nowadays a lot of cameras and lenses carry the Leica name but were certainly not manufactured there. 


Then there are cars.
The last time I bought a car I purchased a Peugeot....a French manufacturer with a long history....Citroen and Toyota both make very similar models and the reality is that all three are made in the same factory and that factory is in Romania...real badge engineering I call it. 


But my point here is that if you read enough photographic and motoring magazines you would have been aware of this.... 
So are people really surprised that their bike frame was not made in the USA, Italy or the UK but in say China and not only that, but in the same factory that a number of other makes are made as well?....


My last post was about the fix I get from reading cycling magazines and how my choice of bikes has been based to some extent on the reviews I read prior to my purchase......You only have to read these reviews to get a pretty good idea where your frame and components originated from..... 


But...and here is my main point...Does it really matter? 
If you have a bike that rides like a dream...does everything that you expected it to and looks pretty darn good to boot, does it really matter if the frame comes out of a factory in Asia where a number of other makes of bike frame are produced as well. 


Now I am not talking here about the political and business ramifications of production. What I am talking about here is riding a bike. 
I am a cyclist....I have a passion for riding bikes.....Yes I love the history of cycling and bike production, but we are where we are and it is 2012. 
I think that it is far to easy to get caught up in 'hardware' discussions such as Shimano, Sram or Campagnolo and the coffee and cake stop wouldn't be complete without these rider discussions, but when all is said and done the real point to cycling is riding your bike.... Wherever it comes from...


There is an awful lot of brand snobbery around cycling and a lot of that can be fun, but in my opinion in the great scheme of things it really doesn't matter. What does matter is getting on whatever bike you have wherever it comes from and riding it.......I mean, if you don't ride your bike you can't call yourself a cyclist and riding your bike is what really matters......

Dan O over at Yo Eddy!! wrote a good post on this subject recently with some good links. If you didn't see it pop over and have a look now...........
http://yoeddy.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-made-your-bike.html