It’s Sunday so that means it’s time for a little “Hell.” Please enjoy this week’s installment of the best quotes and scenes from Jorgen Leth’s brilliant documentary “A Sunday in Hell”:
Another main character is introduced: Francesco Moser. His Sanson team is having a pre-race meeting in a hotel room. The team’s director has sheets of paper – the race profile – spread out over a bed and the riders are gathered around him listening intently. The camera moves in on Moser and the narrator says:
“In Italy, Francesco Moser is hailed as the new great hope. At last, a new Campionissimo who might live up to the glorious past reminiscent of the great Fausto Coppi.”
Moser goes on to have an incredible race, a truly heroic effort.
One of the best things about cycling in China is that dogs usually won’t mess with you. In Taiwan, they frequently chased me, nipped at my ankles or just barked and snarled menacingly as I rode by. But in China, dogs keep a low profile. They just seem happy to be alive and away from the stew pot! But that’s not always the case. One of my old riding mates was pedaling through a village in the mountains outside Guangzhou one day. He started thinking about how chickens and dogs were always running around all over the place, but the dogs left the chickens alone. Just as he completed that thought, a dog came trotting around the corner with a big chicken in his mouth! I imagine the farmer had at least two types of meat on his dinner table that night.
A typical Chinese street mutt. He's got nothing to prove. Just wants to stay out of the hotpot.
Most of the dogs I’ve seen are small, and the wise bureaucrats who run Guangzhou want to keep it that way. Last summer, they issued a new edict that said families could only have one dog and it couldn’t be a big one. For those wondering what kind of dogs were OK, officials compiled what I call “The Big Dog Shit List.” It’s a list of 36 dog breeds that Guangzhou households are not allowed to have. Big posters went up in building lobbies and on walls in neighborhoods, explaining the policy, listing the banned dogs and showing photos of each breed.
The "Big Dog Shit List" poster on the side of a building, partially covered up by another poster.
I wish I could have been at the meeting when the bureaucrats were deciding which breeds to put on the shit list (see below). The much-maligned Pit Bull made it to the top of the list. There might not be much debate about that. But why was the Dogo Argentina ranked No. #3. Wait a minute, what is a Dogo Argentina? And did the Caucasian Owtcharka really deserve to be in the Top 10? The Dogue de Bordeaux would have made my Top 10, but the Guangzhou officials might have had better information than I do. I’ve always been a dog lover and thought I was pretty good at identifying all the breeds. It was truly a humbling experience reading through this list and realizing that I’d never heard of many of the breeds. A Saarloos Wolfdog? Wha?
I’m not sure if Germans should be proud or outraged that the Dutch Shepherd Dog ranked higher than the German Shepherd. I hope that all those Guangzhou folks who were tempted to start raising Flanders Cattle Dogs in this crowded metropolis have shifted to Yorkies or Poodles (the toy kind!).
I got the biggest kick out of the photo of the Tibetan Mastiff (below). The pictures of all the other dogs seem to have been provided by their breeders’ associations. The animals all looked dignified and beautiful, as if they were ready to enter the final round of a show. But the Tibetan Mastiff appears rabid, ready to rip off your calf muscle. What’s the message here?
Grrrrr, I'm evil and nasty, just like the Dalai Lama!
This bike was on display a few months ago at the Canton Fair, the largest trade show in China. The sign, which the company obviously spent a lot of money on, says: “Electric kid bicycle. Fun! Compact! Safe! Easy to use. Best gift for kids! Give kids fantastic experience.”
I’ve spent hours decoding this message, which seems simple on the surface. What it really says is: “Hey fat foreigner who has come to China to buy cheap plastic crap to sell in your domestic market. Your kids don’t really need to develop strong leg muscles because they’ll just grow up to be fat, dumb, greedy and lazy like you. Buy them this electric tricycle so you can speed up the process and usher them quickly to the inevitable. We will also provide a whole line of spin-off products, like a potato chip bag clip for the handlebars and a Big Gulp drink holder especially designed for Mountain Dew.”
He’s hauling a big clunky computer monitor and an air conditioner. To really appreciate this guy’s cycling skills, you need to know that he’s riding through a side street crowded with people going to the market to buy vegetables and meat for lunch. I had to run ahead of the guy to find a spot that wasn’t packed with people. Many of these folks are elderly people who tend to walk erratically. So to get through them, you have to do a lot of swerving and weaving. I’m always impressed by the ability of these cyclists to stay upright through such traffic.
The blueish orange flame hit the steak and the meat started sizzling. Al Kreitler was doing what he usually did when someone visited his factory in the eastern Kansas town of Ottawa. He was using his welding torch to cook up some lunch on a hibachi-sized grill he rigged up in his workshop, where for years he built the best rollers on Earth. Once the steaks were nearly done, he threw a blob of margarine in a skillet, dumped in a pile of frozen vegetables and then blasted it with his torch to make a well-rounded meal.
Al Kreitler was one of cycling’s legends. I felt honored to spend an afternoon with him during a frigid February day in 1997. I was returning to the sport after taking 10 years off to do graduate school, travel, study in Asia and get myself started in my career. I resurfaced in the cycling world to find that so much had changed. What happened to Suntour components? Why aren’t frames lugged anymore? But I was happy to see that Al and his rollers were still around. I was close to his neighborhood one day, so I called him up and asked if I could drop by. Sure, he said, no problem.
Al was a bit of a redneck, the good kind – a folksy, straight-talking and generous Kansan. He wore overalls and his tiny Yorkshire terrier “Killer” was with him constantly, riding along in the front pocket of his bib. A WWII veteran, he did all sorts of work: wheat harvesting, lawn mowing, truck driving and welding, which he taught himself to do. He joined a cycling club in Kansas City in the 1960s and borrowed some rollers from a friend so he could ride in the winter. He decided he could make a better set from scrap metal and soon other club members were asking him to make rollers for them. It turned into a business for him, and he was eventually supplying rollers to the USA Cycling program. But he didn’t know much about business. He described himself as being “unstructured” and suspicious of corporate ways.
When I met Al, he had an aura of sadness and weariness. He was hoping to find a country boy who would want to be his apprentice and take over the business. But he was still looking and had to spend long hours at the welder and lathe. He confided to me that sometimes late at night, he would put down the welding torch and take a few swigs from a whiskey bottle to keep himself awake. Financially, the business was struggling. He said only broke even each year, making just enough to pay off his bills and loans. The business, which employed two other welders, had been stagnant for years, shipping out between 1,400 and 1,500 sets per year. He said he had the best product in the world but he didn’t know how to market it.
The Internet was really starting to take off at the time, and I suggested that he build a Web site and start selling direct to the consumer. Al thought about it for awhile and a few weeks later, he told me that that he felt that by selling direct, he would be betraying his longtime dealers. He was especially worried about angering Colorado Cyclist. Later, he sent me an e-mail asking me to help edit a long letter that he was sending to his dealers, telling them that he would stick with his business-to-business model. I suggested that the letter was way too long and that he should get to the point faster. But he said, nah, that’s not his style.
Shortly after meeting Al, I moved to New York, then to Asia. We lost touch. He died in 2001, four years after my visit. His family sold the business and Kreitler Rollers is now a division of Mountain Racing Products, a company in Grand Junction, Colorado. I’m not sure if Al’s rollers are still made in the U.S. or if they’ve been outsourced to a factory overseas. The new Web site doesn’t seem to say. That’s usually a bad sign.
Please enjoy this installment in the weekly series featuring the most memorable scenes and quotes from the brilliant documentary “A Sunday in Hell:”
Flemish superstar Roger De Vlaeminck runs an electric shaver over his legs before stretching out on a massage table, where his trainer starts working over his leg muscles. It’s April and the tan lines on his quads are already well defined. The man has been doing a bit of training.
The narrator says: “The legs are shaved for a massage, one of the most important steps for preparing each individual rider. The muscles must be softened in readiness for the torture ahead.”
For outsiders, leg shaving is one of the most misunderstood rituals of our strange cycling subculture. Many seem to think it’s some type of homoerotic fetish. But “A Sunday in Hell” helps explain the practical reasons for shaving. It’s easier to massage a shaved leg. It’s also easier to wipe away massage oils from skin that’s not hairy. Hair tends to absorb the oil. After a crash, it’s also easier to clean and remove dirt and grit from cuts and road rash on shaved legs.
Fausto Coppi has been looking at me when I go to bed each night. His piercing eyes over his huge bird-beak nose have been staring at me from the DVD case that’s been on my nightstand the past few weeks. The DVD is “The Fausto Coppi Story.” I’ve thought of it as required viewing, a homework assignment I knew would benefit me but wouldn’t be entertaining. I enjoy cycling history – from the 1960s on. Not so much the 40s and 50s. That era seems so remote and primitive, with guys with spare tires wrapped around their bodies tooling around on dusty roads in goggles and saggy wool uniforms. I knew Coppi is a legend who won the Giro d’Italia five times and the Tour de France twice. I wasn’t yearning to know more. Shame on me.
Yesterday, I was home sick with the stomach flu. I was feeling too lousy to read, so I sat up in bed, flipped open my laptop and stuck in the DVD. It was fantastic. Coppi’s life was fascinating. He was a POW in North Africa during World War II, a superb climber who also dominated on the track, a classy guy who gave all his race winnings to his teammates and staff. He was the “Campionissimo,” or “The Champion of Champions,” adored by the Italians as well as the French because he could dig down so deep, says one of the film’s commentators. But he was fragile in body and mind. The film says everytime he crashed, he broke a bone in his birdlike body (The man had no calf muscles). One of the many hospital scenes shows him sitting up in his bed eating a big plate of gnocchi. He also didn’t handle a crisis well. But the narrator said when Lady Luck was smiling on him, he was unstoppable. He caused a scandal in conservative Catholic Italy when he left his wife for a woman the public and press called “The White Lady” or “La Dama in Bianco.” Pope Pius XII urged Coppi to return to his wife and refused to bless the Giro when he rode in it, according to Wikipedia. He was formally charged in court for “deserting his family.” He died shortly after retirement of a misdiagnosed case of malaria.
The black-and-white footage is spectacular. Coppi is shown racing through the rubble of villages that were bombed-out during the war. He played a key role in lifting the spirits of the Italians, desperate for inspiration, redemption and new sources of post-war national pride. There are numerous scenes of Coppi climbing in the Dolomites and Alps on dirt roads shrewn with gravel. Hundreds of cheering fans line the roads and cling to the mountain slopes, dressed in overcoats, suits and ties. What else would you wear to a bike race?
My favorite scene happens off the bike. Coppi is with his biggest rival, Gino Bartali. Both are in suits and ties as they sing together on some kind of variety show. The film ends with Coppi singing “Volare.” The image of him crooning is imposed over scenes of him climbing on those rugged roads. Wonderful.
On the surface, it seemed like a reasonable request. I wanted to visit the factory that builds a carbon frame that I was seriously considering buying. The factory was in a city that’s just a one-hour train ride from my home. I figured what the heck, why not ask for a tour?
From the bike company’s point of view, the request was unreasonable and most likely laugh-out-loud naive. In today’s business world, where Western companies source their goods – even advanced things like carbon frames – from factories in the Third World, customers aren’t welcome in the factories, even in the good ones. Yesterday’s post explained why, and several good points were made.
I snapped this picture of the factory owned by the Taiwanese bike company Merida as my driver sped past it in Shenzhen. I certainly didn't bother to stop and ask for a tour.
But one thing is for sure: It’s a helluva business to be in. They’re making things at the China price and selling them at the US/European price. And it’s all done behind locked factory doors. Most consumers are aware of this. But I doubt most people know exactly how fat the profit margins are. It would blow their minds if they did. Most probably don’t want to know. And they don’t care because the whole process makes things like carbon frames more affordable to the average rider. You don’t need to be a dentist or a corporate lawyer to afford these things nowadays. I can appreciate this.
After more thought, I realized that my factory tour request reflected my desire to enjoy the best of both worlds. I was hoping to get a nice moderately priced carbon frame from a factory that was willing to behave like a small European or American frame builder – one that would be willing to meet its customer. I was obviously shopping in the wrong aisle.
So it looks like the choices are clear: I should drink the Kool-Aid and buy the Chinese-made carbon frame, trusting that it was made well in the Shenzhen factory. Or I should get a frame from Trek or one of the other big brands that still make their own stuff in a huge cookie-cutter factory. Or I should pay extra to buy my next frame from a small bike builder who would welcome me in the shop. For me, the choice is obvious. I’m going with the small bike builder. I’m happy to have my running shoes and iPod built in a Chinese factory, but not my bike.
I decided not to name the company because our exchange about the factory tour began as a business-to-customer discussion, not an interview. I also wasn’t comfortable singling out the brand when I suspect that many others have the same policy about factory tours. (But if the company tells me it doesn’t mind being identified, I would be happy to name it.)
To its credit, the company made no effort to hide the fact that its frames are outsourced to China. That would have been pointless anyway because it has already been published in the cycling press. The company was also quick to trot out a long list of other big brands that are doing the same thing. The point was: Everyone else is doing it. In three brief e-mails, the brand said that its supplier is super secretive and restrictive about who gets to go into the factory. It also said that other companies that source their frames from the same factory wouldn’t want a customer with a blog seeing their product on the assembly line.
The final e-mail ended by saying: “No apologies, we make a good product, we just don’t invite people into a factory that we don’t own.” The company apparently didn’t bother consulting with its supplier.
I discussed the issue with my brain trust of manufacturing pros in southern China. These are guys who have spent years in factories in China and other places. Some are cyclists. All of them agreed with the company. They said they wouldn’t bother to ask their Chinese supplier to arrange a tour for a customer who contacted them out of the blue and only planned to buy one item. Some said it wasn’t worth the trouble for a single customer, especially one who might have some weird agenda fueled with suspicions about poor quality. One guy pointed out that keeping the factory closed wasn’t necessarily a sign that something was wrong. He said he’s visited many rotten factories that were happy to show people around. Yet another said that many companies don’t like their customers to visit the factory because Chinese suppliers are notorious for selling stuff out the back door at a factory direct price.
My favorite comment came from a savvy businessman who has done extremely well sourcing furniture from Chinese factories. He told me, “You suffer from the common affliction of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Awareness of the shit that goes on in China and then knowing the real cost of some stuff we buy from Western retailers is a modern day consumers’ Pandora’s box of decision making.” His final advice was to buy from a reputable retailer/supplier in the U.S. and trust that they did the groundwork to find the best supplier.
So much comes down to trust. This seems to be a case where the consumer’s interests clash with those of business.
Before I bought my hand-built steel frame, I had coffee with the company’s owner, toured the factory and met the guys who built the bike in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. It was a wonderful experience that really helped me have a special bond with a piece of equipment that I spend so much time on.
I was hoping for a similar experience as I shop for a carbon frame to replace my climbing bike – a Giant T-Mobile purchased six years ago. My research led me to an American company that sells a moderately priced frame that has received several rave reviews. When I asked the company where it was making its frames, I was told the bikes were produced in a factory in Shenzhen, just an hour down the road from my home in Guangzhou. Since the factory was so close, I thought it would be super if I could check it out before I forked over a bunch of cash on the frame. So I sent the company an e-mail asking for a tour.
I didn’t think it was an unusual or unreasonable request. Giant allowed me into its Taiwan factory twice. The company only requested that I not take pictures of other brands being built on the assembly line. Trek has weekly tours at two of its factories in Wisconsin. The company’s Web site says the tours “offer the chance to get behind the scenes at Trek and everything that goes into making your bike. ” Trek is apparently proud of its operations and is happy to show them off. I like that.
Although I think most factories are fascinating, I wouldn’t bother asking Sidi to open its doors so that I can see how my shoes are made. And I wouldn’t make a special trip to tour a Pearl Izumi plant to check out how my bib shorts are getting stitched up. But a bike frame is different. It’s much more expensive, of course. It’s also the most central piece of cycling equipment that we use. If my shorts or shoes fail on me, that will only cause me discomfort and possibly some embarrassment. But if my carbon frame cracks while I’m screaming down a mountain or trying to dodge a cement truck, I’m going to be in a heap of trouble. In short, we’re entrusting our lives to these bike frames. Is it crazy to try to check out how your frame is being made if the factory is just an hour’s drive away?
Carbon has been around for a long time now. In the past decade, we’ve seen it move from being a material that only wealthy bike geeks could afford to the industry standard for pros as well as weekend warriors. Some of the guys I ride with who recently got into cycling went straight to carbon, skipping the traditional progression from steel to aluminum to carbon. Prices have been dropping steadily and carbon frames are on the verge of becoming a commodity, if they haven’t already.
Despite carbon’s popularity, for many of us, the jury is still out about the material’s reliability. Sure, they build planes with the stuff now, and some of the best minds in the industry insist it’s one of the strongest materials around. Still, during my group rides, one of the most popular discussion topics is about how durable carbon frames are. Everyone seems to have a story about how a friend of a friend’s frame cracked. Five years ago, I was chatting with an Australian who was based in Belgium but was riding the Tour of Taiwan for the Giant team. The guy had a big red goose egg on his forehead. He told me he got it when he was speeding down a mountain and his new carbon fork snapped with no warning.
Cheap carbon frames on display at the Canton Fair, China's largest trade show.
As carbon becomes more of a commodity, I tend to worry more about quality. A few months ago, I was at the Canton Fair – China’s biggest trade exhibition – checking out a Chinese bike company’s booth, which was loaded with mediocre components and dodgy aluminum frames. Hanging over the booth, I saw a line of carbon frames that all looked cheaply made. A chill went down my spine, and I became seriously worried about carbon frames being produced at factories that had no business working with the material. I was wondering if carbon was becoming too mainstream too fast. For some greedy companies, the temptation to seek fatter profit margins and source their frames from these shoddy factories will be too hard to resist. I’m sure we’ll hear more about cracked frames in the coming years. I hope I’m wrong.
As I’ve said before, factories in China can produce incredible quality at fantastic prices. There are millions of Chinese-made products on our store shelves that cause no problems. But at the same time, the Chinese market is rough and raw. There are factories that put melamine in milk formula and lead paint on toys. The latest controversy involves dangerous levels of cadmium in children’s jewelry. It makes me want to have a better idea about where the important things in my life are being made.
My final thought about the factory trip was that it would be good for the American company to have a customer stop by the shop. It would show the supplier how demanding and discerning the customers are. Also, having contact with a customer that cared enough to go to the factory would help the manufacturer better understand the end user. I have a European friend in the business who often complains about how the Taiwanese, Japanese and Chinese companies don’t have a feel for the sport. He says they don’t understand the tradition and history. They have no special passion for cycling. If they could make more money producing golf clubs or fishing rods, they’d do so.
With these thoughts in mind, I sent off my request to see the factory.
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