They’re made cheap. China could make a quality bike, if they wanted to. But it wouldn’t be cheap anymore, and nobody would buy it. So they are kind of stuck, in doing what they do.

I got into riding when I bought a chinese scooter. A piece of krap that I loved and made me realize how much I enjoyed being on two wheels. I later bought a honda shadow and then a suzuki intruder, neither of which I would have ever bought, had I not started on that chinese pos. So in a way they can help big makers, by bringing new people into the bike market who are not ready yet to make a large financial comittment. Once they realize how much they like riding, they’re likely to save up for a “real” bike.

Too true. That’s exactly how the U.S. “Chinese invasion” of motorcycles began. I want to say back around 2003 or thereabouts a company called “Sundiro” entered into a contract with Honda to produce and sell a 250 Rebel clone. At the time Sundiro was China’s fourth largest motorcycle/scooter manufacturer. The Rebel clone never came to be as Sundiro folded up shop within the same year of said contract. About six months after Sundiro dried up and fell off the map, no fewer than six other companies were belting out this same Rebel clone. I’ve lost track of how many are using the engine and basic bike design today — Tank, Baja Motorsports, Johnny Pag (google that last one, they’re actually pretty neat), etc.

Now we have these companies like Lifan and Vento belting out 250 Virago clones, and here’s yet another one…

Some years ago, I worked overseas for a large American company preeminent in their field of designing, building, selling & servicing offshore oil well drilling rigs. They figured out that if they kept the “core technology” at home but had the assembling & building done in a third world country, they could sell to their customers (mainly American drilling companies) an adequate acceptible vessel at a reduced price. So along with a couple of dozen other expats, I helped build a shipyard, train the workers, & help get “the business plan” working over there.

5 years later, I was disemployed, my job being taken over by smart capable local people some of whom I had trained to do exactly that. I’d had a good 5 years of work that I enjoyed with people that I enjoyed in a place that I’d enjoyed so I took my life & moved on.

The shipyard ended up in the hands of local companies, doing the work that we had trained them to do. The workers we trained in their dozens are now in their thousands & compete both locally & internationally with our yards here at home. Now our shipyard workers are finding it hard to remain employed in the business while THEY plan to open yards in China. (& Vietnam, etc)

That’s what is going on here. Some very smart dedicated people have used their “long eyes” to look far ahead, plan accordingly, spend the time, effort, & resources to get good at something (building bikes in this case) & now they are continuing to move forward.

At present, they may be aiming mainly at a different market (third world & emerging countries) where the appetite for transportation is HUGE & growing fast. Their main cash cows are the 50’s, 90’s, 125’s etc. that are readily snapped up by people who are trying to make their own lives better. The Hi Bird Moto “250 Sport Cruiser” is a niche market special to help them sell in India or Turkmenistan or Tibet or Pakistan or Indonesia or… Then, North America & Europe & on.

“Trade Protection” by any name is an effort to control the market so that “I can continue to profit from it by eliminating the competition!” It’s not new. The Romans were experts at it during their day. We’re fairly good at it now-a days. But It’s only one way to remain profitable in the market. The other recognised path seems to require us to remain competitive. There’s folks been preaching this for years!

Think back to when the Japanese & Taiwanese & Koreans flooded our markets with poor quality (crappy junk if you will) cars. We didn’t effectively protect our market share then & while “THEY” continued to improve their products, what did Detroit do? Did their quality improve? Did they develop products that were ever better? Or did they just wrap another flashy body around a dated chassis & sell it as the new model for this year.

Get into gear folks! The rest of the world is not waiting for us! Wanna prosper? Then compete! But have a long term plan in mind, set short term goals & achieve them. Just like THEM! There’s folks been preaching this for years so the information is out there!

Rafe03

Sorry about the excessive verbosity but the world doesn’t happen in 30 sec sound bites! Please feel free to trim to suit. Or just into the bin! It’s economics, not bugs in the teeth!

I don’t seem to know very much about anything anymore. The more I learn, the more there is to learn. The more I see, the less I seem to know. Maybe I should learn to speak Mandarin & help my grandchildren with their Mandarin lessons.

Rafe03