- Did you know that 13 million brakes
are made each year by Tektro TRP?
Did you know that that takes 3,200 tonnes of aluminium?
Did you know that Tektro have 160 CNC machines,
and that no one needs to operate them?
See that last bit wasn't true, everyone was just at lunch.
Did you know that Tektro TRP have won multiple World Cup,
World Championship, and Olympic medals
under the likes of Niels Albert and Aaron Gwin here.
But, did you also know that they've won countless titles
having made brakes for other people as well?
Did you know that 1,200 people work here?
No?
I think we need to find out a little bit more.
(industrial music)
As part of our mini tour of Taiwan
to look inside the bike industry, we've stopped by
to see the folks at Tektro TRP.
See how they do things.
From making five million hydraulic disc brakes per year,
right through to the advanced R&D facility
that helps them create products for riders like Aaron Gwin.
Come on, you know who Aaron Gwin is, mountain bike legend.
The guy that won a Downhill World Cup,
even though he snapped his chain on the second pedal stroke.
Yeah, that guy.
Now, in total, they have three manufacturing facilities.
Two in China that handle the more entry level market,
and then this one here in Taiwan
which acts as their global headquarters
and where all the advanced manufacturing,
high end brakes are made.
Now if you are confused as to why some parts say Tektro,
and some say TRP, and yet, I'm talking about Tektro/TRP
in the same breath, is because although
they are two distinct brands, they are inextricably linked.
So think kind of Toyota and Lexus.
Tektro was launched back in 1986,
and then TRP came in 2006, aimed as the high end brand.
Right then, let's go and see how brakes are made.
♪ Boo da buh boo da buh boo da bah boo ♪
(upbeat industrial music)
Before we start making anything,
we of course need a design,
so we've come to the upper floors to see that happen.
Magic key card (beeps).
Okay, so there's about 25 people work
in this particular part.
There's actually another 30 people down the road
in an advanced R&D facility who are looking
further into the future.
But when you look around here,
you actually get a real feel of what goes on.
There's prototype brakes everywhere you look,
and some things I hadn't expected to see as well.
Like this.
So random time trial and aerodynamic frames
knockin' around, and that's for a very good reason.
In that all the kind of integrated brakes that you see now,
90% of them are likely to have been made right here
at the Tektro TRP facility.
So let's have a look at a process.
We've got people like Garan here,
who is working very studiously on a prototype e-bike brake.
Now he's just working on CAD there.
One of the beautiful things about everything
being done in-house, is that everything
is literally done right here.
So, he could press print, hypothetically,
and just down here, the brake gets printed.
Tada, the 3D printing room.
So, within just a few hours,
it can go from that CAD drawing to this,
which is a working prototype.
Have a look at that.
Printed in clear resin.
You'll see on this e-bike brake, it's quad-piston,
so actually a lot of technology from mountain bikes,
learnt through sponsoring Aaron Gwin,
will end up on a product like this,
even though it's going nowhere near a downhill track,
nowhere near a race.
All of that technology does have a purpose
for the general consumer.
Now, that of course cannot really be used,
so we next needs to get something like this
made out of aluminium.
And to see that happen, we need some heavy machinery.
Oh yeah.
Quick change of location,
and a definite change of gear.
This is where the raw materials hit the factory (groaning).
You can see though, it's not just giant lumps of aluminium;
this one has been extruded by another company
to Tektro's specifications.
You should probably recognise that.
Yeah?
No?
Basically this then gets chopped
into more manageable pieces like this.
I'm quite glad as well, because that's really heavy.
Now a little bit of extruded aluminium
doesn't stay like this for long.
Its journey continues in here, where it gets hot forged,
which is a particularly painful
but fortunately quite short-lived process.
So you'll see all of the tooling here
for various different components that Tektro make.
Basically, extrusions like this will fit in
and then get heated up to
between 180 and 200 degrees Celsius,
and then stamped with 400 tonnes.
Let's go an have a look.
(raucous techno rock)
Now you see if you look down a production line
that most of these forges are operated manually.
This one here is the first step
in automating the whole process.
So this robot takes a hot aluminium,
pops it on that tool in there, where it then gets forged,
and then put back.
It's pretty hardcore work, to be fair!
(machine stamping)
Stamping, so this is what comes out of the hot forge,
but this is what we need, so very simply,
this gets placed in, punched out,
and we're left with something very much resembling
a brake calliper.
Through this doorway,
and you'll notice a distinct change of pace,
and that's because we're going away from our heavy machinery
and more towards our precision machining.
And there's a really high level of automation here,
a lot of very sophisticated robots.
I've been told that this robot really likes watching GCN.
How do you do?
Now the reason why robots are so important here
is because of the incredibly high tolerances
to which they operate at.
And that is particularly critical
when you talk about hydraulic brakes.
So to put it in context, we'll go over to this machine
which is doing quality control on the pistons.
So, this little laser beam there
measures the exact dimensions of each piston.
And if we detect that one of them
is just 0.04 millimetres out, in any orientation,
then a little jet of air will blast it into oblivion,
where it then gets recycled,
and then all the good ones come down here.
(metal clinking)
(parts rattle loudly)
Tumbling, putting a finish on your brakes.
Little ceramic do-das.
We're moving from manufacture now to assembly.
On this floor alone there are 100 steps
to actually make a hydraulic brake.
Which seems quite remarkable, isn't it really?
And what was news to me was that almost everything
that goes into a TRP hydraulic brake
is actually made right here.
In fact it's easier to tell you what they don't make
than what they do make.
So, somebody else makes their rotors;
they contract that out.
The bolts are made somewhere else,
and also the hoses, which incidentally,
I love this little machine,
they're currently being cut to length.
Now you might think that's a bit weird;
why would you need a machine to do that?
But, if a bike brand comes to Tektro TRP and says,
"We want to buy 1,000 brakes,
"and we've got them on this bike in five different sizes,"
they give the length to Tektro TRP
and their machine will cut it to five different lengths.
So, saving loads of time.
How cool is that?
(relaxed funky techno)
So we've assembled our brake; it's been bled.
This next step is almost unbelievable.
Every single hydraulic brake that comes out of Tektro TRP
goes through the same quality control process.
Literally every brake will go onto a machine like this
where it's squeezed 250 times,
and then squeezed for 400 seconds, before being taken off,
left to rest like a fine wine for 72 hours,
before being brought back and going through
exactly the same thing.
And what they are looking for
is that just in case all the previous quality control
hasn't quite picked up one last bit,
which would mean that potentially a drop of oil leaks out,
this will make sure that those brakes do not hit the market.
You ready?
(machine tapping)
225, 224, 223, 222, 221 ...
(muffled machinery echoing)
(greets in foreign language)
This is a paint shop.
Some brakes come in to be analysed; others are painted.
Clearly this is where the painting happens.
(sprightly techno music)
So one analysed brake calliper ready now for laser etching.
Okay; I can't get enough of laser etching.
Whoa!
That is awesome.
Check it out, a GCN brake calliper!
(techno music)
There we go then, your finished article.
I feel emotionally quite invested in this
now we've seen it from an extruded piece of aluminium
to the finished product, but there you go,
that's what you're going to find on your bike shop shelf.
Now despite the fact that we are leaving Tektro TRP
with a finished article,
there is still one very important place
we've got to go on our journey inside this brand
and that is the advanced R&D facility
which is about 30 minutes down the road.
That's where they not only design products like this
but they are looking well into the future.
So I wonder whether we're going to get
a sneaky peek of what's to come.
Now you know you're in an advanced R&D facility
when you get asked to take your shoes off at the door.
I wish I'd know that this morning
when I went to put my socks on,
but nevermind, you live and learn.
Here is a very, very swish office; I think you'll agree.
It's separate from the rest of the factory
because in order to recruit the very best engineers
they needed to be located in downtown Taichung,
where people don't have to commute half an hour
to get to work.
Now in here we've got all the top engineers,
and they are working three years down the line, I'm told.
And everyone has been very suspicious and secretive,
because as we walked in here there was a flurry of activity
whilst everyone tidied up.
I have no idea what they were tidying up,
but I suspect it's good.
Flip-flops off, there we go.
From our 22nd floor balcony, we can conclusively say then,
that is how you make a brake, from a beginning,
technically which is at the end,
all the way through to the finished product.
And we've got to say a massive thank you to Tektro TRP
for inviting us out here and giving us such amazing insight.
Do make sure you subscribe to GCN
if you want to see more of this kind of factory tour;
we've always got loads on the channel.
To do so just click on the globe; it's completely free.
And if you want to watch a couple more videos,
firstly you could check out those Aaron Gwin brakes
on a GNBN Bike Check, that one is just down there,
or for something for roadies, how about
"How to Brake Like a Pro"; that one's just down there.
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