Industry experts said that mid-to-high-end bicycles are "difficult to find", which fundamentally reflects the problem of insufficient supply of high-quality bicycles and is a manifestation of structural contradictions in the bicycle industry. If China wants to grow from a big country of bicycles to a powerful country of bicycles, it needs to further improve its product structure, strengthen its layout in the mid-to-high-end market, and make up for the shortcoming of "transmission".
How to break through the bottleneck of the transmission？
To solve the problem of insufficient high-quality supply in the bicycle industry, we must find a way out in technology research and development. For bicycles, the most difficult thing to develop is the transmission.
Our country has the manufacturing industry with the most complete industrial categories and the most complete industrial system in the world. So many major technological bottlenecks can be broken through. Why is it difficult for a small bicycle transmission to be independently developed?
When the reporter saw Liu Chunsheng, the founder of Zhuhai Lantu Controller Technology Co., Ltd., he was communicating with foreign customers about the transmission experience. This "post-70s" man is less than 50 years old and already has gray hair. He joked that he had lost his hair for the domestic transmission.
He is not the only one who suffers from gray hair. Liu Weibing, general manager of Suruida Bicycle Parts (Foshan) Co., Ltd., is about the same age as Liu Chunsheng, and also has gray hair.
The two of them are also from the SRAM company of the United States, and they also joined the transmission manufacturing field after the SRAM company withdrew from the mainland of China. After years of operation, they have a deeper understanding of transmission research and development.
The derailleur is both a single component and a complex system that is almost standard on bicycles today. To complete the speed change of a bicycle, more than 100 parts, including the crankset, flywheel, front derailleur, and rear derailleur, need to be coordinated and coordinated.
It is difficult to say, many domestic manufacturing companies can produce this set of parts, and the technical content is not high. It's easy to say, these companies can only produce low-end products, and there are actually very few high-end products that have been mass-produced.
According to Liu Chunsheng, Japan's Shimano has a history of 100 years, and the United States has also been established for more than 30 years. Domestic transmission companies have not started for a long time and have insufficient accumulation. However, the gap exists not only in the insurmountable accumulation of time and the number of product categories, but also in the technical barriers of patents.
It is understood that in terms of bicycle transmissions, Shimano has applied for more than 6,000 patents around the world, and the number of patents applied in China has reached more than 2,500. "A simple transmission has such a huge patent layout, which basically locks the way for latecomers." Liu Weibing, an engineer, said with emotion that the transmission technology is not difficult, but how to bypass the patent restrictions and avoid falling into the same Patent disputes of international brands.
"How difficult is it to get around patent restrictions? For example, the transmission will sleep when the bicycle is stationary, and it needs to be woken up when the car moves. Shimano has applied for a patent for the vibration sensor of the transmission in China. To avoid infringement, Blueprint Technology has developed an angle sensors and acceleration sensors to perform wake-up operations. However, the vibration sensor technology has been perfected after dozens of iterations. However, our technology has been applied for a short time, and there are still many BUGs that need to be repaired, and the stability is poor.” Liu Chunsheng said .
"Our idea is to steadily promote the development of mechanical transmission on the one hand, and to open up new technology routes through lane-changing competition on the other hand." Liu Chunsheng said that in terms of mechanical transmission, it is difficult for domestic companies to shake Shimano's dominance. At the level of electronic transmission, relying on my country's solid electronic information industry foundation, we are confident in solving the "stuck neck" problem.
In March of this year, Blueprint Technology launched the first road gear kit in China that integrates hydraulic disc brakes and electronic gear shifting - Blueprint eRX road bike electronic gear shift kit, vigorously deploying the electronic gear shift market. At the recently held 31st China International Bicycle Exhibition, Lanxi Lunfeng Vehicle Materials Co., Ltd. also brought its own electronic gear shift kit for road bikes.
In addition to patents, precision machining capabilities also need to be improved. The relevant person in charge of the Guangdong Bicycle Association stated that the requirements for manufacturing precision of high-end transmissions are even higher than those of watches. "Unlike mechanical watches, which are in a stable state most of the time, bicycle transmissions are in high-speed motion for a long time, which requires very high precision parts, and the processing precision of some parts should reach one tenth or even one hundredth of the diameter of a hair. .”
For processing enterprises, such precision is not difficult to achieve, the difficulty lies in how to balance the relationship between cost and quality. The products provided by large suppliers can meet the precision requirements, but because of the small order quantity, they are unwilling to do so. Small suppliers are willing to do it, but the processing accuracy is not stable.
How to solve the processing problem? Su Ruida chooses to use the products of foreign big brand suppliers, but it has to bear higher prices. Blueprint Technology also adopted the form of outsourcing before, but as the scale expanded, it began to consider cultivating its own suppliers, or even building its own supply chain, but this required longer time and larger-scale investment.
In addition to patent barriers and processing accuracy, materials are also a problem. A person in charge of a transmission manufacturer in China told reporters that transmissions have high requirements on material hardness and toughness. However, the current domestic steel products are brittle with strong rigidity, but not hard enough with strong toughness, and the overall performance cannot reach the quality of similar foreign products.
Experts said that the annual steel demand of the domestic bicycle industry is about 3 million tons, and the amount of transmission steel is even less. This amount of demand is far from being a major customer for steel companies. If you cooperate in the research and development of special steel for transmissions, the cost of research and development is a problem. After research and development, whether the order quantity can meet the mass production standard is another problem.
Liu Weibing believes that from the perspective of research and development, the high-quality development of the bicycle industry requires the coordinated advancement of technology, craftsmanship, and materials. At the same time, this test is how the enterprise balances the relationship between short-term interests and long-term strategy.
During the interview, the reporter found that some riders pay more attention to the parts brand than the complete vehicle brand when buying a car. For example, if a different brand of transmission is used for the same Giant vehicle, the price difference can even be several thousand yuan. This is brand premium.
Qian Henglai, the person in charge of Beijing Wallaby Cycling Club and a senior rider: "Foreign high-end transmissions are not only good in quality, strong in stability, precise in shifting, continuous shifting without skipping gears, but also like a craft with connotations. Both inside and outside the circle Very much recognized."
"In recent years, domestic transmission companies have made great progress, and some products have gradually established word-of-mouth, but they still need to improve quality and cultivate consumer habits." Qian Heng said that high-end domestic transmissions are widely used by vehicle companies and consumed by consumers. Widespread acceptance by readers will take time.
There are many difficulties and great difficulties, but it does not mean that it is difficult for domestic transmission companies to have a bright future. "One car is hard to find" brings an excellent window period. Due to the shortage of foreign brand transmissions last year, domestic automakers began to partially use domestic high-end transmissions on mid-to-high-end models.
With the help of Dongfeng, domestic transmission companies quickly filled their positions in production. Blueprint Technology will achieve an average annual operating income of over 100 million yuan in 2020, and it will be close to 200 million yuan in 2021. In 2019, Surida's annual revenue was only a few million yuan, and it will double in 2020 and 2021, and its revenue in 2022 will exceed 30 million yuan.
In June 2022, five departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Light Industry", officially including bicycle transmissions as key technology research and development projects. There will be more new expectations for the development and manufacture of bicycle transmissions.
