WHAT 'MADE IN AMERICA' ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
YouTube is one of the best places to find niche educational channels focused on interesting subjects. A good example is "Business Explains the World," a channel run by Nicholas Carlson, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, former Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider, and founder of Dynamo, a new video journalism company. Litespeed had the honor of being featured in their latest video:
The team behind "Business Explains the World" reached out for help navigating the complexities behind making bikes here in the United States. Luckily for them, Litespeed is one of the largest and oldest manufacturers building bikes in America (since 1986!), so we are the ultimate experts.
"Business Explains the World" host, Kyla Scanlon, visited our headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and discovered that being "Made in America" is a lot more complicated than it seems.
Litespeed bikes are "Made in America from globally sourced materials." We custom-form our advanced titanium tubesets and manufacture and assemble every Litespeed titanium frame by hand right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But things get complicated because the raw materials necessary to build our American-made frames—i.e., the titanium itself—need to be sourced from overseas.
Not only is the quantity and quality of raw titanium we need currently difficult to source domestically, but the majority of components needed to actually make a bike rideable—drivetrain components, touchpoints, wheels, and tires—are also manufactured overseas. Even the machines and tools necessary for bicycle production are made overseas. The days of being able to make every single part of a bicycle in the US are long gone. Kyla summed it up well as "American manufacturing powered by a global supply chain."
Despite raw materials and components being "globally sourced," Litespeed has always taken pride in hand-building all of our frames here in America. Engineering and design, tube forming, welding, finishing, and final assembly all happen under one roof. We also work hard to form partnerships with other Made in America brands like Chris King and Industry Nine to give customers the option to equip bikes with American components. When you call, chat, or email us, someone here in Chattanooga is on the other end to help you out.
In these modern times, this is what 'Made In America' ACTUALLY looks like. It's complicated and messy, but no matter what, our goal has always been to build the highest-quality, highest-performing titanium bikes in the world, and to ensure they give every rider a lifetime of joy. The best way for us to do that is to build our bikes with our own hands right here in Chattanooga, and if you ask us, the end result looks pretty darn good!
