With low-volume manufacturing methods becoming cheaper and more readily available, the amount of designers cranking out bicycles and bicycle accessories to the tune of their own liking has increased exponentially within the past few years. Among others who have jumped into the bicycle manufacturing game is ex-Nike Innovation Director Rich Fox and his new Circa Cycles design concept that focuses on localized manufacturing.
The product designer and design strategist noticed that a lot of American bicycle manufacturers were closing shop and shipping orders overseas. After analyzing why orders were going overseas (in a nutshell: lots of processes that could be stripped away), he developed a new method of manufacturing that uses a clever industrial design hack to make the bicycle easier to fabricate and assemble into a final frame.
Using a system he developed titled ‘Mabel’ (Modular and Bonded Endless Lug), the modular design not only keeps all manufacturing and finishing work in the United States, it stays in one city (Portland, Oregon). To put things into perspective, a trip to the factory to sort out a manufacturing kink no longer means long trips overseas…it means grabbing a latte at the local coffee shop and riding your bicycle across town:
“Mabel is a Patent Pending process and is a core Circa technology platform that helps us create a wide range of frame geometries and styles in a quick, precise and cost-effective way. We can’t tell you the inner workings of Mabel right now, but we can tell you that she’s tough as nails, very detail-oriented, and can handle all sorts of frame design challenges.”
A complete Circa Bike starts at $1,500 over at Circa.
