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HIA Velo gives first look into their new Arkansas carbon bike factory

Written by Tyler Benedict October 25, 2016

Allied Cycle Works Alfa premium carbon fiber road bike made by HIA Velo in the USA

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While we’re busy lining up a proper tour for this fall, HIA Velo sent over this video as a taste of things to come. If you read our Guru factory tour parts one and two a couple years ago, some of it will look familiar. And we’re very, very excited to see what else they’ll be bringing to the table. It starts off a little slow, but gets going and mentioned something we found very interesting: When you can send your bike in for warranty or repair to the same people that actually made it, that brings a whole new level to customer service. Of course, we all hope we’ll never have to send our bikes in, but should you need to, that’s a unique selling point in a day of overseas production that’s all but anonymous. Check out our initial story on HIA Velo to see what’s up down in Arkansas.

Tyler Benedict

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Tyler Benedict is the Founder of Bikerumor.com. He has been writing about the latest bikes, components, and cycling technology for almost two decades. Prior to that, Tyler launched and built multiple sports nutrition brands and consumer goods companies, mostly as an excuse to travel to killer riding locations throughout North America.

Based in North Carolina, Tyler loves family adventure travel and is always on the lookout for the next shiny new part to make his bikes faster and lighter.

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brettrobinson

7 years ago

awww yissss…

Brian Spence

7 years ago

Reply to brettrobinson

Yeeeeaaah booooy.

therealgreenplease

7 years ago

It’s nice to see stuff being made in the U.S. but I was under the impression they had figured out a way to automate or drastically lower the cost of part of the production process? No? Is that another company I’m thinking of?

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Tyler Benedict

7 years ago

Reply to therealgreenplease

You might be thinking of the Lemond Composites tour we just posted, they’re looking at revamping carbon mass production in a big way:
https://bikerumor.com/2016/10/14/future-factory-tour-lemond-composites-set-to-revolutionize-carbon-bike-production-and-the-world/

strange

7 years ago

Using that bondo-like material to create seamless tube junctions seems sort of like a cop out, compared to actually laying the carbon down into those shapes. Unless it’s heavily structural (and not just slightly), it seems like nothing more than added weight to push an aesthetic.

rauce

7 years ago

Reply to strange

It actually serves a purpose. If you don’t create those smooth junctions somehow on a tube to tube frame the fibers will be bent at an extreme angle and the strength of the frame will be compromised. By adding that extra space you can use less carbon to make a stronger joint.

Jerome Roy

7 years ago

Reply to strange

the foam used is very light and it allows the junction between tubes to have the shape to better handle stress, it also supports the fiber outer layer like marrow in bones…

cannonair

7 years ago

Reply to strange

Welcome to the world of custom carbon fiber. You can’t create a mold for every little millimeter tube change, so you use what’s referred to a tube to tube design. This isn’t just any regular bondo, it’s ridiculously light and much stronger and creates easily sub 800 gram frames. This is what Argonaut, Parlee, Sarto and the rest of the custom carbon guys use. Many consider the ride much more dialed than monocoque as you can dial every tube for stiffness and style of riding.

Inspector Gadget

7 years ago

Reply to cannonair

Argonaut and Parlee do not use any filler at the joints. Argonaut uses molded assemblies that bond together away from the joints. Parlee compresses and cures their “lugs” over the tubes with no filler (on the custom frames).

Jeff

7 years ago

As he rolls out of the garage with two Audi’s in it….

Anonymous Coward

7 years ago

Ah yes, “Made in the USA”. I used to want an Intense frame really bad. Three cracked aluminum Intense frames later, I said BYE BYE INTENSE!

The factories in Asia pump these things out on a massive scale. The guy that lays the carbon does thousands of bikes and all he does is lay carbon. The guy making the mold parts does thousands of molds and that’s all he does. The expertise over seas with carbon is a lot greater. Granted their quality control is probably lacking and lets a lot of things slide. But they inspect thousands of frames instead of hundreds.

Made in the USA just means a higher price but that doesn’t mean anything regarding quality these days. If it was always made in the USA and is still made in the USA, then I would trust the quality.

joe

7 years ago

Agreed. Essentially copying a typical mitered-welded-tube aluminum frame construction and not utilizing carbon to it’s fullest by creating strong, smooth, large-envelope joins between tubes. Sure it’s using carbon for carbon’s property of light weight, but it’s not going the extra step and making use of carbon’s full capabilities. Still cool that they’re doing it in the states, but it seems that the only real way they are able (maybe?) to make that happen is with a high end price to the consumer, not necessarily by making the process efficient enough to justify the higher labour wages present on this side of the Pacific.

Eric

7 years ago

Reply to joe

They appear to be offering custom geometry. They wouldn’t machine a mold for each customer.

Inspector Gadget

7 years ago

I believe they purchased all the equipment from Guru. It would make sense that they would start out building with a similar process.

https://bikerumor.com/2013/12/11/factory-tour-guru-cycles-part-2-building-a-carbon-bicycle-frame/

mudrock

7 years ago

Aren’t these the guys that bought Guru’s old tooling and expertise? Guru made pretty good bikes. Looks like a mitered tube-to-tube construction with a bondo reinforcement and another carbon overlay at the joints. I thought Gurus were monocoque.

silverlining

7 years ago

I just went to their website to look at geometry and got this instead:

“Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.”

Awesome.

Biscuit

7 years ago

It’s not bondo and that same technique is used to make pretty much every tube to tube carbon frame out there. You need those fillets to do the lay-up of the carbon. Lots of carbon in many directions goes on after this.

Georg

7 years ago

Nothing says precision like a heavily tumbling holesaw.
But I really like the concept. Although the flip side of “everyone does the same because there are only 5 big manufacturers” is that the playing field is pretty level but also at a very high standard. If one company develops a new technology with a frame manufacturer, the other bike companies will soon be able to use the same technique. That is not so nice for the inventors but good for the industry as a whole.

flx

7 years ago

Standing next to a carbon tube getting cut without any form of protection (around the 3:16 mark). Isn’t the emplyer responsible to provide proper face masks etc?

Ol'shel'

7 years ago

Reply to flx

That’s what I came here to comment on. Unfortunately, a lot of laborers don’t take health risks seriously, and some employers aren’t conscientious enough to mandate precautions.