Inside Shimano's Malaysian wheel factory
From Cyclingnews.com: 'If you were to wander into Shimano's Malaysian wheel operation, you'd be greeted by the usual cacophony of factory machinery. All of the company's road wheelsets (and many, if not all, of the mountain bike ones) are built here amidst the whoosh of compressed air lines, the banging of presses, the buzzing of drills, the whirring of CNC mills. The second thing that strikes you is the sheer size of the operation. Shimano won't say exactly how many wheels it produces or sells, but considering that the 12,000 square meters of pre-preg carbon fiber that is kept on hand at any given time period exclusively for use in wheels lasts but a single week and you can at least get an idea. Once you remind yourself that only a handful of Shimano's wheel uses carbon fiber at all, the scale of things really begins to set in.' More
