I have recently investigated the possibility of acquiring a recumbent bicycle in Taiwan.  My search lead me to TW Bents here in Taiwan.  I have made an appointment to visit their factory and photograph it for interested persons to see here on the website.  Given my personal background and the nature of what I do at Asian Castings, this kind of reporting is typical.

TW-Bents / RB Performer 卜赫馬

Installment 1: April 14, 2004: Below
Installment 2: May 13, 2004: Click on Link 

TW-Bents is located in Ta-Chia city, in Taichung County Taiwan.  "Chung" is the old way of spelling the Chinese word for "central" or "middle."   Taichung is in the middle of Taiwan's populous west coast.  Most of the world's bicycle technology and production comes from this small area of Taiwan - incredible!  Taichung is home to many industrial companies and one can find virtually any industrial service or process here; indeed there are many die casting and machine shops in this area.

My wife Jenny and I were met at the Ta-Chia train station by Mr. Kevin Kao 高世河 of TW-Bents.  He took us in his personal car to the office where we met Mr. George Chen 陳三富.  After we had an interesting discussion about the business climate in Asia, and some specifics about doing business in China, we then went outside to check out some of the recumbent bike models they make.

Please note that all photos are thumbnails

	My wife had never seen a recumbent bicycle before and she was very interested in seeing what its like to ride one.  Here we see Mr. Kao on the left (in the blue shirt) and Mr. Chen to the right giving her the basic run-down with respect to the features.
	With a little assistance from Mr. Chen, Jenny is off and running on her first recumbent ride!
	After riding the Tsunami for a few minutes, Mr. Chen thought that he should further explain some qualities of the recumbent and techniques for riding them. It was at this point that Jenny realized with whom she had been talking!  She kept saying how familiar his face looked.... Mr. Chen is a national figure here in Taiwan, having been interviewed on national television at least 7 times.  Jenny has seen him many times and told me how he is regarded as one of the most well-respected and interesting design engineers in the country.  Of course Mr. Chen said nothing about his extensive background or fame.  To us, he's just a cool guy who is crazy about recumbent bikes.
	The famous recumbent design engineer makes it all look easy!  Mr. Kao told me that Mr. Chen "has no time for riding.  If he could, he would ride recumbent bikes all the time."  Mr. Chen told me that he has designs for a tadpole recumbent and also a long wheelbase delta trike, but that he has had no time to pursue either one of them.  Both he and Mr. Kao hope that they can introduce these designs by next year. We also discussed a possible aluminum die cast pan for a tadpole - both gentlemen thought it was interesting, but would require further study.
	Jenny tries out an Above Seat Steering model.
	The technical term for this is "recumbent grin."
	Here I am, personally demonstrating the physical differences between: A: A design engineer who primarily designs recumbent bicycles (shown on the right). B: A design engineer who has just completed a new design for an outdoor grill (here, shown trying to sit his fat ass on a recumbent bicycle, while not making "A" laugh).
	Within 5 seconds of this shot being taken, the bicycle was on its left side, and I was on the ground, beside it.  My right pant leg got caught on the front tower and I couldn't get my foot down, the bike went off-center and, well you know the rest! I did however, manage to garner some style points for landing in a still seated position. Note to readers of a.r.b.r:  This minor accident in no way impedes my ability to aim and shoot.  I am, after all from New Hampshire. Mr. Chen just ignored (correctly so) my questions about survival probabilities of collisions with moose.  He was more concerned with my surviving a 10 meter ride. The area for riding wasn't very large but I did have fun riding the Tsunami - its a great bike.
	Undaunted by the fact that I had just unceremoniously dumped his Tsunami on the ground, Mr. Kao produced this cool PB-970.
	Jenny found the full suspension bike to be very appealing.
	Within 30 seconds my genius-wife was ready to take off!  She came back all excited about how the suspension really smoothed out all the bumps in the road.  I think she likes this bike!
	I took a few component close up shots.
	Front end.
	High quality shock.
	She just wouldn't give this bike back!
	Since Jenny really took an interest in the technical aspects of the recumbent, Mr. Chen decided to show her the PB-777 Lowracer.
	Mr. Chen didn't have one put together, so he just brought out the frame minus the boom.  Mr. Chen is here telling Jenny that the guy in the website picture averaged 67KPH on tour of Taiwan!  Jenny had no idea that any kind of bicycle could achieve such speed.
	Inside the office, they showed me a model for the Japanese market - with a 16" front wheel.  Smaller sized people require a smaller overall bike in order to reach the ground when seated.
	Inside the prototyping shop, I found a partially assembled PB-960S.  While I sat on the frame, Mr. Kao checked out how far the shock compressed and said that since they insist upon using this high quality and expensive shock, it could handle even such great weight as mine. Thanks for that information Mr. Kao! I really like the PB-960S and that might be the one I end up purchasing.  I'm not done looking though!
	Only in Taiwan - Jenny sitting on a high tech recumbent bike, with the season's first rice crop in the background.  This shot typifies Taiwan in many ways - the old and the new co-existing and combining to form something wonderful. This wraps up the first segment of my story on TW-Bents.  Mr. Chen personally invited me to visit the production facility but we did not have enough time to go there on this visit.  I will return in approximately 2 weeks and will give a detailed report.
	I can't leave without saying thank you to both Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen for a great visit.  Not only was it very interesting to see the different recumbent models and talk engineering, it was great to just meet such nice people.  Both Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen speak excellent English and it was a pleasure using both languages. Mr. Kao took us to lunch where we all got bowls of traditional Taiwanese-style beef lo-mein.  Notice the hand-cut noodles in this picture.  In Asia, lo-mein is a soup, not a dry dish, and the dark rich broth is slightly spiced with the taste of cloves and exotic herbs. Hungry?

Installment 2: May 13, 2004 

Mr. Kao met my wife Jenny and I at the same train station as before. He took us to the office where we were greeted by Mr. Chen.  These gentlemen kindly allowed me to bring up customer comments and issues, for an hour and a half.  After that, we were treated to an excellent lunch at the local Noble Family Steak House.  We then went to the Production facility in Miaoli.

Please note that all photos are thumbnails

	Before I begin the story about the Production facility, I need to explain how things work in Taiwan.  When someone wants to build  a  factory here, they usually find other people with the same interest and form a consortium.  The resources and expertise from several parties make for a strong alliance which pretty much guarantees success.  TW-Bents is part of such a consortium.  It means that TW-Bents doesn't solely "own" the factory per se, but they are part of the consortium which does, and have control over how their products are made in this facility, which also makes the products for the other members.  I found a very strong, competent team of individuals which made up an excellent company. Sub-contracting and partnering is a way of life here.
	The name of the company is Chuan Well and they produce at least 8 different (from what I saw) bicycle models  (including the TW-Bents brand) and their own brand name diamond frame, seen here.  Chuan Well also contract manufactures for some of the world's largest companies and I was asked not to mention them.  The companies do not want the public to know that their bicycles are being manufactured in Taiwan.  I don't understand this, but I honored their request to not photograph those companies' products or mention their names.  One of the contracted bikes they make is a semi-recumbent for one of the local Taiwanese companies. TW-Bents is one of the few companies in the world which makes its own frames.  Nearly all others hire companies like Chuan Well to supply them with frames.  It makes a lot of sense to contract with a company like Chuan Well, when you consider how much actual engineering and production experience they have among the consortium members!
	One of the things that I love about Taiwan is that you never know what you're going to find when you visit a factory.  Here we see Jenny standing on a new exercise device while the product owner, Sabrina stands behind and explains its use to her.  The factory puppy is checking things out too.  Chuan Well manufactures products for Sabrina and she just happened to be there when we arrived. Chuan Well is located in Maoli county, and is in the general area of Taichung, where nearly all of the world's high technology bicycle products are produced.
	Mr. Chen took me around the facility personally.  It was a great pleasure to have him explain the operations of the facility, being the designer. The first thing I saw was a huge stack of frames!  Now we're talking!  Nothing like a pile of recumbent bicycle frames to put things into perspective.  Very few people get to see this! These frames are bundled into groups of 4 pieces each, and are on their way to the paint shop.  Although it looks bad, I assure you that these frames were deposited here with great care!
	Here we see a welder in the process of creating a steel frame. They purchase the tubes in stock lengths, and then cut and machine them as required (like the rest of the world does). Uninitiated observers might be concerned about the rust seen on the tubes.  Rest assured, there isn't a steel fabrication shop anywhere on earth which doesn't have this problem.  The steel is chemically de-oxidized prior to painting.  The surface rust is simply a nuisance.
	Mr. Chen held this tube for me so I could photograph the weld quality. In 1999, I spent 3 months as a consultant for Cybex International at their Medway Massachusetts facility.  My assignment was to work  with their welding department to develop a formal process documentation set, which included production procedures, and criteria for inspection and acceptance.   I can tell you from personal experience, this is damn good welding. Mr. Kao's educational background includes metallurgical studies, and this is evidence of a company with their technical act together.  I saw both MIG and TIG welding rigs in use.
	On the other side of the wall, the welders were building aluminum frames.
	This simple shop produces some very high quality TIG welding products.   Notice the ventilation system at each workstation.  This should help to dispel some of the "sweatshop" heresy which is often bantered about when talking about Asian production.  These welders are as good as any I have seen, anywhere.
	Frames are welded into sub-assemblies and then later welded or bolted into larger assembles.
	Detail of some TIG welding on an aluminum frame. World-class welding.
	Consistent welds like the ones seen here, are evidence of a very stable process and a dependable product.
	Unfortunately, on the day of my visit they were not machining anything.  There was one carbon-fiber assembly chucked into the tooling used to make the "fishmouth" cut in the end of the tube. TW-Bents builds in batch mode, according to customer demand. Some days they are cutting and machining tubing, other days they are not.
	The only other machining operation they had setup was the boring machine used for machining the precision inside dimensions on the tubes.  This machine was set up for boring the seat tube. Special Considerations I'm going to assume that the readers of this article probably don't know that much about making something like a bicycle frame, and so I'll explain a few things. Anytime you weld metal, you heat the surfaces to the point where they melt (surface melting is actually part of the definition of welding).  Heating a piece of metal hot enough for the surface to melt causes some movement of the molecular structure (to say the least!).  If you try to weld 2 tubes together at a specific angle, the order in which you apply the weld, and the way you have them held together during the welding process matters a great deal (so do variables like time, machine settings, etc. - hence the need for formal procedures).  Welding "pulls" the metal parts in different directions depending upon how you apply the weld.  Often you'll hear welders talk about "pulling it back in" which means that the final weld usually will pull the metal pieces being joined, back together into the desired alignment, after the previous welding operations have taken place and knocked them out of whack.  The order, and areas in which the welds are applied is a consideration that manufacturing engineers have to take into consideration when devising welding tooling and procedures. There is no way that a welded bicycle frame is straight enough to ride as-welded without being adjusted!  Wheel alignment in a bike frame is critical, so each and every frame gets checked, adjusted, rechecked, readjusted and finally double-checked by someone else down the line.
	How does one straighten a bike frame?  Simple - use one of these! The large metal lever you see on the right lower corner in this overview shot is one of several tools used to for leverage to adjust the frame.           Here's how it works:
	Since we're talking about parallel and perpendicularity alignment, you need points of reference.  Here is one such point.  The seat tube fits onto a  pin arrangement (seen at the foreground right in the overview shot).
	The BB tube fits over a pin in the fixture and is clamped down.  The black plunger is seen on the left in the overview shot.  The frame is held tight on the fixture by hydraulic pressure.  Its not going to move! In this shot, the plunger is down, holding the frame against the stop on the alignment fixture.
	To check the alignment, a tool is set into the top and bottom side of the head tube, and the alignment process can begin.  The pins must match up with the slots seen at the outside edges of this photograph. Using the metal levers shown previously, the frame is adjusted until alignment is achieved. On the left side, you can clearly see how the pin is centered in the slot of the fixture.  The same centering occurs on the opposite side, but not as clearly seen.  This frame is in alignment.
	Straightening the rear triangle of the frame has its own set of tools and procedures.  You can see the gloved worker placing a tool into the rear dropouts.  In the foreground, you see that there is a tool which is placed into 2 bosses on the frames.  The rear droput slots must line up with themselves, but the relationship between that alignment plane and the rest of the frame is critical.  The other tools are used to establish the correct frame of reference for these planes. The frame components that I saw required very little straightening.  This means that the manufacturing engineer who set up the welding procedures and tooling is an expert!
	In this shot, we see Mr. Chen personally demonstrating a double-checking tool used by the next person in the assembly process.  As each sub-assembly is selected off the finished rack for the next operation, it is double-checked by the assembly person. This tool checks the rear triangle alignment using the axle plane as reference.
	Mr. Chen then surprised me by asking if I would like to see their carbon-fiber assembly area.   As if he had to ask! Here, we see Master Chen himself, holding a carbon-fiber frame built by Chuan Well. Mr. Chen told me while holding this frame that almost no one knows that he began his bicycle design career by making diamond frame bikes.  Well, I certainly did not know that!   He said that he had more than 15 years experience in design and manufacture of diamond frames before he ever began designing recumbents. Its only a guess, but I think that Chuan Well is pretty happy to have him there!
	Carbon-fiber frames are bonded together with high-tech adhesives and cannot be straightened like metal frames!  These fixtures hold the frame components together until the adhesive sets.
	Once set, the frame components are checked for alignment using a 1:1 CAD drawing as a template and gauge blocks.
	At this point in time, we don't have the technology to make a frame entirely out of carbon-fiber.  You still have to have machined housings for components such as cranks, bearings, etc.  These are the polished aluminum components used in conjunction with carbon-fiber tubing to make a carbon-fiber frame.
	A closeup of the interface area between the aluminum and the carbon-fiber tube (yet to be inserted) shows the very smooth surface, especially along the weld.  The idea is to make the aluminum components visually match the appearance of the carbon-fiber look, and visible welds do not fit with the visual image criteria. Once the frame receives it finish paint, this aluminum will blend right in with the carbon-fiber.
	Carbon-fiber technology is by no means new at Chuan Well. I saw a high-tech carbon-fiber MTB bike made by them which you could pick up with a single finger - not just the frame, the whole bike!
	Later, in the office, Mr. Chen showed me the large printer used to make the 1:1 drawings seen in the carbon-fiber assembly department.  Mr. Chen wanted me to know that he personally does his own CAD drawings - he does not use a CAD drafter!  There are many new designs which are finished, but either not yet in production or not very well known.   Titanium alloy frame recumbent with a carbon-fiber fork Larger model recumbent, braced for larger framed riders  Tadpole trike! Mr. Chen says that he makes only 5 titanium frames per year, and its the only frame not made by them.  To Mr. Chen, titanium is the ultimate frame material for a recumbent bicycle.  Its pricey, but you can get one if you gotta have it!  The large frame is ready for testing and should be available soon.  The tadpole is not scheduled at this time.
	There were examples of some carbon-fiber components and some other items which I was asked not to photograph.  Given the fact that these people let me walk about their facility at will, snapping photographs and making a nuisance out of myself, that wasn't bad! After I took this photograph, I put my Nikon back in its case and talked with Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen for about 10 minutes before we headed back home.  My wife and I had a truly enjoyable experience, and we both learned a lot.

Conclusion

I've been in the manufacturing game a long time, and I know a thing or two about how it works and also about the people who are good at it.  TW-Bents and their associated partners are extremely good at what they do.  The 2 principals, Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen spent an hour and a half of their valuable time answering questions and listening to customer suggestions that I got from emails, USENET and SIGs off the internet.  This tells me something about what kind of guys they are - they are the kind who care about what their customers think about their products and will work to improve them.  The other thing that impresses the hell out of me is that, in the Great Scheme of Things,  TW-Bents isn't that big of a company - and yet, their manufacturing processes are as good as anything I've seen.  My consulting background has been mostly for companies in the US$80M to $US200M range and TW-Bents' smaller facility can compete with any of those, any day of the week.  In my viewpoint however, being smaller means being able to respond to customer needs a lot easier than larger companies - and the fact is, Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen love what they do and are personally involved in the production process.  Another point which should be mentioned is that on several occasions I brought up an idea, or a suggestion given to me for a new design, which Mr. Chen said was already on the drawing board.  This in another indication of the forward-thinking nature of the company.  No wonder Mr. Chen is very highly regarded as one of the recumbent.bicycle.gods of the world.  Yet, his humility is legendary.

Readers of this article will no doubt figure out by now that I am a very straight-forward person.  I do not play politics, word games, or worry about imagery.  I've always tried to do what's right for my customers and let my "track record" speak for itself.  I prefer to be direct and open about my viewpoints.  I will also tell you things which others might not.  The last point I want to make about TW-Bents is - this company is run by 2 extremely honest men.  In this world where bad has become good, and good people are made to feel bad about holding onto concepts such as honesty and integrity, its refreshing to meet such men as Mr. Kao and Mr. Chen.  Not even once did they push a sale on me - in fact, the only thing that was said about my purchasing a bike from them was, which model they suggested and why.  They don't know it yet, but they've sold two, not just one! 

Michael J. Klein

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 All photographs taken by Michael J. Klein, with a Nikon Coolpix 5700, exceptions noted.

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