Least Likely MTB Manufacturing Nation

[one-eyed_jim]

Aw c'mon man, the cultures not at fault its just the economic and political situation in the world.

I don't agree entirely. The bicycle industry, and manufacturing in general, was in steep decline when the mountain bike boom arrived. That left the door open for US brands and Far Eastern manufacture in a market that had previously been dominated by domestic manufacture. The lower cost of foreign labour had a big part to play, but there were strong cultural factors at work as well.

Englands not an unlikely place for mtb, lack of mountains aside, numerous makes are English.

Numerous polka-dot jerseys have been won by Belgians! That doesn't make Belgium a likely breeding ground for Kings-of-the-Mountains.

True, if you put aside the lack of pre-existing cycling culture, decline in manufacturing, and absence of mountains, England starts to look like a perfectly natural place to build mountain bikes...

But do you think that point of view might be just a teeny bit (for want of a better word) anglocentric?

What England did have was an affluent market hungry for aspirational leisure goods, and a struggling domestic manufacturing base desperate to hang on to a dwindling piece of the pie.

Back to the point,

I wasn't aware we'd deviated from it.

who do you not expect bikes from

The Greeks. Israel. Papua New Guinea.

and were you pleasantly surprised or not ?

I've never seen a Greek/Israeli/Papuan mountain bike.

I am interested in what looks (to an outsider) like the absence of cycling culture from Greece. It seems notable among the nations of southern Europe in having no well-known component manufacturer (even Spain had Zeus) and I don't recall any notable road champions from Greece. Unsuitable terrain? Agrarian economy? Cultural antipathy?

I wonder if Andy R could comment.

 

[Easy_Rider]

Anything over 1,000ft is a mountain officially.

Are you refering to England as just London and the southern corridor and negating the North of England completley??

Lack of wild countryside??,
Have you ever been to the Peak district, Yorkshire etc??

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Anything over 1,000ft is a mountain officially.

If that's so, the definition proves my point. Cleeve Hill a mountain? You couldn't make it up!

Hills and moors I'll grant. Mountains? Not really.

Are you refering to England as just London and the southern corridor and negating the North of England completley??

I'm talking about the country of England, as distinct from Great Britain.

Lack of wild countryside??,
Have you ever been to the Peak district, Yorkshire etc??

Yeah, and that's why I allowed "a few notable exceptions". But they are the exceptions, and they don't really look all that wild to anyone who's travelled much.

 

[Easy_Rider]

I don't get what you are trying to say, just because a peak doesn't have an ultimate height does not mean it cannot be a steep rocky terrain, sure it may not go on for as long...

anyway, here is a picture of the Cheshire plains to amuse you :roll:

 

[one-eyed_jim]

I don't get what you are trying to say, just because a peak doesn't have an ultimate height does not mean it cannot be a steep rocky terrain, sure it may not go on for as long...

I'll sum it up. Considered globally, in terms of terrain (altitude and wildness, and area relative to population) and economy, England looks, on the face of it, like a pretty unlikely place to be manufacturing mountain bikes. That it had a mountain bike boom at all is as much a cultural accident as anything, and that people on a UK-based forum may think otherwise is just anglocentricity. That's my argument in a nutshell.

That's not to say that there aren't still-more-unlikely mtb manufacturing-nations.

anyway, here is a picture of the Cheshire plains to amuse you :roll:

Sweet! Anyone for pancakes?

 

[PIGEON]

The English also buy more convertibles than any other European country, while the climate really isn't as good as some other parts of Europe. I guess the English just deny certain geographic aspects and just get a mountainbike and a convertible regardless of a lack of mountains and sun

 

[velomaniac]

As the creator of this thread I should point out I'm scottish but that this thread was not intended as a way of getting at England which is a place I rather like. The fact that some responders have it in for aspects of English mtb'ing or dispute its topographical nature is way beyond the original point :roll:

I will now try and rephrase my question:

What makes of mountain (mountains are not obligatory) bike originate in nations not normally associated with bike manufacture and does anyone have any experience of them

 

[one-eyed_jim]

As a contributor to this thread, and an English-born UK passport-holder with two English-born parents, I'd like to speak up in favour of people, be they the thread's creator or no, reading carefully what other people write, not attributing to them points of view they haven't expressed, and not attempting needlessly to limit the scope of the discussion to some narrow subtopic of their own choosing.

 

[velomaniac]

GET KNOTTED !!!!!!!!! :evil:

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Make me!