Which is more ethical - Woosh or Cyclotrocity?

[Cyclezee]

Wizzo was 100% UK conceived and designed,that means the decision to buy a batch of Chinese bikes was made in a pub in London,drawn on the back of a fag packet,hehe!!!...and just in case you have any doubts we will put on a Union Jack flag
KudosDave

Surely you are not serious Dave, who would ever do that

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[EddiePJ]

Orange bikes are one of the few decent sized MTB brands that still manufacturers some of its frames in the UK.
https://www.orangebikes.co.uk/

Orange were the first that sprang to mind, quickly followed by Enigma.

 

[Yamdude]

I was talking to Bob at Juicy Bikes yesterday and they buy from China. However, Bob visits the factory out there 3 times a year and the factory adhere to certain good practice such as working 8-5 rather than all hours. He didn't go into it in great detail but if you chat with him he will tell you more. He gave me the impression that good working practices and ethics were important to him and his wife/business partner.
Not a direct answer to your question I know, but maybe some dealers have more of a handle on what is going on in their factories than others.

A factory in the far east can tell their customers whatever they want to hear.
I remember a TV expose on Indian clothes factories, supplying clothing for well known high st stores here in the UK. Supposed to be ethical employers with good working conditions and reasonable hours, but they were anything but, with books of falsified working hours and wages for employees that were just for show to the customer.
You're never gonna know for certain how ethical an overseas employer is, because the customer can only spend a very limited time there.

 

[RobF]

Surely you are not serious Dave, who would ever do that

View attachment 12795​

Who could forget the Wisper Union flag?

We had almost as much fun with that as we are with Smart ebiker.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Surely you are not serious Dave, who would ever do that

View attachment 12795​

Keep quiet,just whisper it,hehe !!!!!
KudosDave

 

[Kudoscycles]

Who could forget the Wisper Union flag?

We had almost as much fun with that as we are with Smart ebiker.

Rob....you must have guessed that my postings in reply to smart ebiker had a number of traps but he was bright enough not to respond. Anyone who knows Guernsey would know that the western approach would need Hannibal dragging his boat over the island and the northern approach is so rock strewn that nobody would use it. There is only one way into Guernsey,that is down the Great Russell Channel,turn round the big cardinal buoy and approach from the south.
Also there is no lock gates at St Peter Port,it is a tidal sill harbour.
One thing is certain smart ebiker is not a yachtsman and has never taken a boat into Guernsey,if he was genuine he would have pointed out my intentional mistakes. He is a fraud and anything he says must be taken with 'a pinch of salt' but I suppose he is having his idea of fun just not respectful and wasting our time.
KudosDave

 

[RobF]

but I suppose he is having his idea of fun just not respectful and wasting our time.
KudosDave

You got that right.

I have mixed feelings about Smart ebiker.

While I support the general notion of freedom to post what you want, it's a shame to use the forum in the way he does.

No proper comparison with David Miall from Whisper.

I know you've had your business differences, but I expect you agree he is a genuine guy, and a nice guy to boot.

Neither of which can be said about the other bloke.

 

[Kudoscycles]

David and I have had our on-line battles,but they have always ended amicably. David should be respected for promoting e-bikes at the pioneer stage. He knew he was being 'tongue in cheek' with his Union Jack flag on Chinese or was it German bikes,with a lot of flak on this forum he got rid of them.
But he is a good guy,I meet him at every cycle show and he is still as keen as ever in progressing electric bikes.
I never supported BEBA because trade organisations either fail or become self interest,the autosports world is full of them. It's a shame that despite some enthusiastic and hard lobbying of government,government went off and did what it wanted ,pretty much ignoring BEBA.
Smart ebiker is a strange guy,I don't find him funny,not sure what he is trying to achieve,he is swamping the forum with his boring drivel.
KudosDave

 

[Yamdude]

If he bugs people that much, you could easily put him on 'ignore' and never see his posts again. So why not do that ?
Personally i find him hilarious.... although that's laughing at him, rather than with him.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Smart who????

 

[Croxden]

He's highly intelligent and called Rupert.

Smart who????

 

[Jefner]

@Jefner
what do you think of converting your old bike instead of buying a new one?
The way I see it, converting an old bike would reduce the lifecycle carbon footprint by half.

A conversion would reduce the carbon footprint. This is where ethics become tricky to follow, as I am reluctant to spend £500 on a conversion when for a few hundred pounds more I could get a shiny new bike, fit for purpose (I believe converting bikes doesn't always work that well). Food for thought though, and I will mull this over and ask my local bike shop if they could convert my current bike.

 

[Jefner]

A factory in the far east can tell their customers whatever they want to hear.
I remember a TV expose on Indian clothes factories, supplying clothing for well known high st stores here in the UK. Supposed to be ethical employers with good working conditions and reasonable hours, but they were anything but, with books of falsified working hours and wages for employees that were just for show to the customer.
You're never gonna know for certain how ethical an overseas employer is, because the customer can only spend a very limited time there.

I notice ethics are not something many of the biking websites mention. I hope that the more customers start to ask these difficult questions, the more it gets thought about and the more likely it is that someone will see a gap in the market and start to produce an ethical e-bike (I'm thinking about Patagonia doing similar with outdoor clothing).

 

[JohnCade]

A conversion would reduce the carbon footprint. This is where ethics become tricky to follow, as I am reluctant to spend £500 on a conversion when for a few hundred pounds more I could get a shiny new bike, fit for purpose (I believe converting bikes doesn't always work that well). Food for thought though, and I will mull this over and ask my local bike shop if they could convert my current bike.

Conversion of a good bike is increasingly being seen as good way to go by many experienced owners. The cheaper e bikes use fairly low end components, and the finish and build quality is as you would expect from a £150 push bike. But a reasonable £500 bike fitted with a good kit will have as good or better parts and finish than a £1500 plus e bike from a manufacturer, and will probably be lighter and nicer to ride.

 

[anotherkiwi]

You get to choose the parts you want/need when you build your own. I got a free bike and since then I have spent 1000€ converting it - motor and battery were 686€ of that amount. A second free bike permitted upgrading the transmission and the rear brakes. If I wanted to buy a hub motor bike with the same quality components it would be well over 2000€.

I looked at converting a 199€ brand new bike from Decathlon but there are just so many other parts of the bike that need upgrading it is better to jump in the deep end and buy a really good bike with most of what you need for starters. You will probably have to change the seat and I recommend ergonomic grips because you will be doing more kilometres on your bike before you even realise!

 

[JuicyBike]

Conversion of a good bike is increasingly being seen as good way to go by many experienced owners. The cheaper e bikes use fairly low end components, and the finish and build quality is as you would expect from a £150 push bike. But a reasonable £500 bike fitted with a good kit will have as good or better parts and finish than a £1500 plus e bike from a manufacturer, and will probably be lighter and nicer to ride.

It's not quite as clear-cut as that.
Import duty on road bikes from the far east into the UK is very high - an "anti-dumping duty" imposed by the EU to support its domestic industry.
Complete electric bikes only suffer a 6% duty on the whole product.
This effectively provides better value bike components on complete electric bikes compared to their non-electric counterparts from the same country of origin. Of course, it's still important to consider all components of any electric bike when choosing.

 

[JuicyBike]

A factory in the far east can tell their customers whatever they want to hear.
I remember a TV expose on Indian clothes factories, supplying clothing for well known high st stores here in the UK. Supposed to be ethical employers with good working conditions and reasonable hours, but they were anything but, with books of falsified working hours and wages for employees that were just for show to the customer.
You're never gonna know for certain how ethical an overseas employer is, because the customer can only spend a very limited time there.

Yes, I saw the same program, interesting for us as we also have a Fair Trade shop.

Yamdude, I don't like to criticise others opinions usually, but you've touched upon a particular concern for me. I've spent several months, in total, working in the one factory we have used for the last 6 years.

Without going into great detail I hope it is enough to say that my daughter has spent time working there, and if you knew how passionate my daughter is, when it comes to the politics of fairness, then you'd understand how high the standards she has set for our family business.

One key thing I've observed about our factory (that we share with 11 other European manufacturers), is that staff turnover is very low. Typically in China employees are on one year contracts and come Chinese New Year (around February) many will move to a new factory, possibly making a different product entirely, quite possibly in a different city, if the wages and conditions are better.

But that clearly is not happening in our case and I think reflects well on the pay and conditions provided by the factory.

The last person I recall who left was "Tall John", who managed the parts store and was extremely knowledgeable at 23 years having worked in the factory since leaving school at 16. He started a new job at a neighbouring factory in their sales department (his ambition, supported by evening classes) and had a nice send-off, which I missed. But I did see him socially when I next visited. He still asks after Dotty, my daughter and I still tell him she would not make a good match for him.

I now recognise most of the staff who work on our bikes and am getting quite good at remembering names too. Many times I've been frustrated at 5pm when wanting to finish some project because it's time to leave.

On my last but one visit we arranged to go fruit picking together on Sunday with some children too. I don't know the name of the fruit but it was similar to a blackberry in colour, the size of a small walnut and knobbly like the skin of a lycee, from trees about 15' high growing on steep hills above paddy fields. During our meal together at the end of the day we reflected that had fruit-picking been our only source of income, based on what we achieved together only one of us would be able to afford to eat. Amusing as an excuse for self-ridicule, but there was then discussion about how life had improved since working in the factory.

Before we found our factory Sarah and I spent 2 months inspecting and rejecting all but 3 factories, with which we placed 3 sample orders. We selected based on working conditions first and foremost. The sample orders helped assess production quality.

We worked with two of those for a further year and then placed a sample order with our current factory after a recommendation by a Swedish gentleman called Orjan, in the same line of business and with similar values to ours. We've never looked back and have continued to develop a very strong working relationship.

Having said all that, I am well aware that a naive businessman anywhere can easily be hoodwinked by the unscrupulous scallys that exist all over the planet. But I've no intention of falling victim nor lowering Juicys standards and will continue to monitor and help improve the conditions for the Chinese members of the Juicy Team.

 

[trex]

I am with anotherkiwi on this. I recently bought a Giant Defy 5 for £293 after reading a post from yamdude. The bike weighs 10.2 kgs as delivered. I put a relatively lightweight conversion kit on it, a SWX02 rear hub motor (3.3kgs), a 13AH downtube battery with integrated 18A Lishui controller (3.5kgs). The finished bike weighs about 17kgs. I tested the new bike this afternoon. You can't buy a bike that good in China.

 

[Jefner]

Yes, I saw the same program, interesting for us as we also have a Fair Trade shop.

Yamdude, I don't like to criticise others opinions usually, but you've touched upon a particular concern for me. I've spent several months, in total, working in the one factory we have used for the last 6 years.

Without going into great detail I hope it is enough to say that my daughter has spent time working there, and if you knew how passionate my daughter is, when it comes to the politics of fairness, then you'd understand how high the standards she has set for our family business.

One key thing I've observed about our factory (that we share with 11 other European manufacturers), is that staff turnover is very low. Typically in China employees are on one year contracts and come Chinese New Year (around February) many will move to a new factory, possibly making a different product entirely, quite possibly in a different city, if the wages and conditions are better.

But that clearly is not happening in our case and I think reflects well on the pay and conditions provided by the factory.

The last person I recall who left was "Tall John", who managed the parts store and was extremely knowledgeable at 23 years having worked in the factory since leaving school at 16. He started a new job at a neighbouring factory in their sales department (his ambition, supported by evening classes) and had a nice send-off, which I missed. But I did see him socially when I next visited. He still asks after Dotty, my daughter and I still tell him she would not make a good match for him.

I now recognise most of the staff who work on our bikes and am getting quite good at remembering names too. Many times I've been frustrated at 5pm when wanting to finish some project because it's time to leave.

On my last but one visit we arranged to go fruit picking together on Sunday with some children too. I don't know the name of the fruit but it was similar to a blackberry in colour, the size of a small walnut and knobbly like the skin of a lycee, from trees about 15' high growing on steep hills above paddy fields. During our meal together at the end of the day we reflected that had fruit-picking been our only source of income, based on what we achieved together only one of us would be able to afford to eat. Amusing as an excuse for self-ridicule, but there was then discussion about how life had improved since working in the factory.

Before we found our factory Sarah and I spent 2 months inspecting and rejecting all but 3 factories, with which we placed 3 sample orders. We selected based on working conditions first and foremost. The sample orders helped assess production quality.

We worked with two of those for a further year and then placed a sample order with our current factory after a recommendation by a Swedish gentleman called Orjan, in the same line of business and with similar values to ours. We've never looked back and have continued to develop a very strong working relationship.

Having said all that, I am well aware that a naive businessman anywhere can easily be hoodwinked by the unscrupulous scallys that exist all over the planet. But I've no intention of falling victim nor lowering Juicys standards and will continue to monitor and help improve the conditions for the Chinese members of the Juicy Team.

That sounds good to me. Think I'll go look at some Juicy bikes

 

[Yamdude]

I am with anotherkiwi on this. I recently bought a Giant Defy 5 for £293 after reading a post from yamdude. The bike weighs 10.2 kgs as delivered. I put a relatively lightweight conversion kit on it, a SWX02 rear hub motor (3.3kgs), a 13AH downtube battery with integrated 18A Lishui controller (3.5kgs). The finished bike weighs about 17kgs. I tested the new bike this afternoon. You can't buy a bike that good in China.

Very interesting and i bet it makes a great roadie ebike...... any chance of putting some pics up sometime ?