🎥 How are recumbents manufactured?

Ever wondered how the recumbent cycles are produced? Let’s have a look into the factories. How are the recumbent bikes produced? And where? Here are a couple of videos from different companies and even one from JaYoe who made a great one directly in Taiwan in Pacific Cycles where frames are produced from brands like Hp Velotechnik, HASE, ICE, and some others.

It is very interesting to see the different approaches the manufacturers have. From US producer Catrike and the Taiwanese Performer building all the parts and assembling the bikes completely in-house over the AZUB building the frames still in Czechia in Europe and assembling them in their factory to HP Velotechnik and ICE trikes with frame production in Taiwan and final assembly in Germany and UK.

The difference between ICE and HP Velotechnik, for example, is that HP Velotechnik receives their frames from TW in a bare form, but ICE receives them painted and partially assembled.

The last solution is complete build in Taiwan and just importing the partly assembled trike or bike to the US or Europe which is represented by Terra Trike, Trident or KMX for example. Also, the US versions of HP Velotechnik are completely built in TW and just brought to the US.

Another difference is in the level of how much the cycle is assembled in the factory. Some companies like Catrike does very little assembly and most of the work is done by dealers. Same for Terra Trike or Trident. Some companies like KMX or Performer even ship the trikes directly to customers in an unassembled state. Then the ICE does most of the assembly and the dealers do only the final part of the work. And for example at AZUB they build the trike completely, test ride it and then disassembled it partly for shipping.

So enjoy the videos here and the inside view of the production facilities.

Catrike is one of the few recumbent companies producing all the bikes in-house. Definitelly the only one out of the big players. Here is their original video from 2013.

Video made by Gary Solomon and his team describes very well how the Catrike produces his trikes in the US.

HP Velotechnik produce their frames in Taiwan, but the rest of the process of building the trike or bike for you is happening in Germany near Frankfurt. Velo-Ads has made a nice factory tour video with Daniel Pulvermüller, the CEO of HP Velo and also engineering and production director. The video is from 2018.

Performer is a pure Taiwanese brand building bikes and trikes under their own brand. They build bicycles for some other companies as well. Here is the video from Matt Galat about his visit to that company in 2018.

These guys don’t produce the complete trikes and recumbent bikes in-house but they build the complete frames and many parts in the Czech Republic in Europe which is quite rare already. Their video is pretty old and doesn’t really capture their latest top models like the AZUB Ti-FLY X, but it can give you some inside view as well.

ICE from UK is producing their frames in Taiwan as well and the final assembly is done in Cornwall then. Here is a factory tour video from Gary Solomon and a second video which gives you some idea what the owners and other team members can do after the factory is moved into a new building and you end up with a lot of free space.

Here is the promised Matt Galat’s video about Pacific Cycles. One of the main producers of frames and parts for recumbent bikes all around the world. And not only for them. As you can see they produce a lot of different special bicycles. The video is from 2018 and some recumbent bikes visible there are a bit outdated so it may happen they are no longer produced there, but you will get a very interesting view into a Taiwanese bike frame production.

I remember I have seen videos of production of Greenspeed trikes and Challenge recumbents as well, but I can’t find them anymore. If you does or if you have some other companies’ videos available, just let me know in the coments and I will add them to here.