Canadian bike manufacturers

[velocia]

In Quebec, a lot of people ride "local" brands, such as DaVinci, Marinoni, Guru and Argon 18.

I know that Cervelo is from Ontario but I was wondering if the above brands are as popular elsewhere in Canada and if there where other small manufacturers in other provinces ?

Fred

[LuMach]

I do see a lot of Devinci's here in Ontario..

[joe50]

The advantage of buying local bike "canadian", if you have any problems at least you do not have to send the unit back to Europe or the USA.

So far there is no custom between Quebec and the rest of Canada....

[JiMCi]

Instead of manufacturers, shouldn't we talk about either bike designers, "assemblers" or marketers? My definition of manufacturing is designing, building and assembling a product. So-called "Canadian" bikes are basically components designed and manufactured elsewhere which are installed on a frame that may have been designed locally and may have been built here...

My bike frame is French; the wheels are American; tires and tubes somewhere from Europe; the gruppo is from Asia; etc. Can I define my bike as "Canadian" simply because I assembled it?

[DigitalCyclist]

Cervelo is a good example of a global bike company, but one that we still like to think of as Canadian.

They started in Toronto, but are now HQ'd in Switzerland. Frames designed in Toronto, tested in California and elsewhere, made in Taiwan. Components from USA, Europe and Asia. Final assembly in Canada.

Brands that I personally still think of as Canadian are Devinci, Brodie, Guru, Norco, Opus, Rocky Mountain, Argon 18, Marinoni, Cervelo and Louis Garneau.

And there are about half a dozen custom builders including Peyto, True North and Winterborne.

And finally, all the private label brands from Procycle and others (Iron Horse, Supercycle, Vagabond, CCM, etc). Hard to think of these as "Canadian", yet really they're just as Canadian as Cervelo, and there are probably 1,000 Supercycles being ridden for every 1 Cervelo.

...alan

[velocia]

Brands that I personally still think of as Canadian are Devinci, Brodie, Guru, Norco, Opus, Rocky Mountain, Argon 18, Marinoni, Cervelo and Louis Garneau.

I would definitely put Marinoni in a separate group. We had a chance to visit them a few years back and they do all their welding internally, they have their own oven to heat treat the frames and also do their own painting. This is for their steel frames, not sure about their carbon lines.

It was quite impressive and I don't think too many others do the same.

Fred

[DigitalCyclist]

It's fairly typical for bike companies to have all their low to mid range bike frames built and painted offshore (China and Vietnam for low end, Taiwan for upper end), and even to have them assembled offshore.

For the higher end bikes, several of the Canadian brands build & paint their own higher end frames in Canada, as Marinoni, Devinci and Rocky Mountain (Procycle) do (not sure about which others).
...alan

[SpG]

Originally Posted by velocia

I would definitely put Marinoni in a separate group. We had a chance to visit them a few years back and they do all their welding internally, they have their own oven to heat treat the frames and also do their own painting. This is for their steel frames, not sure about their carbon lines.

It was quite impressive and I don't think too many others do the same.

Fred

Marinoni's Carbons frames aren't made here. It's all Taïwan stuff! Like most of the carbon bikes... I don't want to put every compagnies in the same basket but I do think that most of the carbon bikes are made in China or in Taïwan.

SpG

[doctorz]

Originally Posted by joe50

The advantage of buying local bike "canadian", if you have any problems at least you do not have to send the unit back to Europe or the USA.

So far there is no custom between Quebec and the rest of Canada....

well maybe im new here but , here i go , there committed mountain cycle in Brossard, south shore of montreal , we specialize in building the type of bike people want , no matter if its hardtail or dually or road bike we will have new tool to do better job by the end of this summer but for now it utherly hand made , really we have only basic tool (hand tool) nothing else
so check it out
Committed mountain cycles 2008
cheers and thank you
Francois

[hoekstyn]

I don't think that anyone builds their own carbon frames either. As was stated in one of the posts, the better frames are from Taiwan, the cheaper ones are Chinese made. I was told that Norco for one, imports everything and only assembles in BC.
However, I ride a steel 1995 (94?) Marinoni that was custombuild from the ground up in their factory in Quebec and is a dream to ride. Quality (build and ride) equal to anything from Europe. Yes the tubing (Columbus) and components were imported, but design and construction are Marinoni. And @ just under 21# (fully equipped) still better than a good number of Al. bikes.
As far as I know, Cervello did build their own alluminum frames here at one time, but that's now also a thing of the past.
I also have an old Velosport (Colnago Sport) frame still hanging in my basement that was build here by CCM under licence from Peugeot.
Nick.