One year on: Golden Wheel’s fully operational Tianjin bicycle mega factory
Reporting for CIN, Chris Keller Jackson returns to this purpose-built mega bicycle factory to see it in operation, producing everything from kids bikes to thoroughbred UCI-badged road frames. Featuring cutting edge processes all under one roof, could this be one of the world’s most advanced bicycle factories? We take a look inside…
I saw GoldenWheel this time last year as they launched a Joint Venture with Dahon to manufacture some of their folding bike range. Alongside this, GoldenWheel also showcased a brand new ‘Mega Factory’ that was still to be populated with robots and automation, it was empty but the opportunity was exciting.
You may remember that I wished to see the ‘Mega Factory’ in production. I was invited to the official launch at the facility in Tianjin on Saturday 9 May 2026.
I was already in China, attending China Cycle, the biggest cycle trade event on the planet, and those planets must have aligned because, here I am, sat outside that Mega Factory, suited and booted in 30 degree heat with over 1,000 of the global bike industries great and good (plus myself), witnessing the grand and very opulent opening of this facility.
It’s not GoldenWheel though, all the signage says ‘J&G’, with banners hung down from the roof to the floor of the facility, with messages of congratulation from suppliers, customers and industry
friends, all in Chinese. These massive red and gold banners wafted gently in the breeze, with regal pomp and circumstance music, ceremonial (and very loud) cannons and lots of flower garlands. This feels very Communist China, almost more like a USSR May Day Parade, minus the ICBMs and heavy tanks, thankfully this is hinterland China, sat behind and serviced by its major port infrastructure, in a newly developed business park.
J&G (Tianjin) Technology Co., LTD or J&G is a collaborative Joint Venture between Joy Kie Corporation Limited and GoldenWheel Group, taking the premises built for GoldenWheel and now making a range of bikes, from the more economic Joykie range (much of it children and youth-focused) through to thoroughbred badge engineered UCI stickered road frames – more the Gold
enWheel focus, along with Totem, Uplands, Amslod and a plethora of well known names under the ‘Bike Work’ banner. You can see who they make for with a quick Google – it’s eye opening.
This new factory blends traditional hand crafted workmanship, low cost local labour, cutting edge carbon fibre and robot fabrication with eco-friendly finishing shops and complexed ERP software fused with a modern take on the Toyota Production System. It was very satisfying to see what has been achieved in fitting out and developing this facility.
Let’s break down what GoldenWheel promised last year and compare to reality.
Carbon Weaving – last year I clocked three weaving machines still wrapped in plastic, purported to take raw Toray Carbon Fibre bobbins and weave them into carbon textiles. The reality? This was their shining star, a carefully sealed and beautifully choreographed production room with racks of raw carbon bobbins, feeding into one long loom and sets of rollers. with a wide reel of woven carbon fibre matting as the output. There was a second production line facing this, with room to add two more looms next to these, as time and the need arrives. This is cutting edge manufacturing, with the benefit that the factory can self manage carbon substrate quality.
We were also promised Robot Frame Welding, and saw the dormant machinery last year, looking some what forlorn. Cellular Manufacture is a big part of the Toyota Production System (TPS) utilised throughout China and the Far East, a production methodology and philosophy where each station in the production line does one specific set of tasks, bringing order and control to production.
In the case of frame welding, an operator places the parts into a jig, carefully taking the frame components and aligning them. When ready, a screen comes down to shield the operator and a specialist robot arm takes over, welding the tube junctions. The results are beautiful, noisy and a well choreographed waltz around the alloy tubes. Whilst the robot is doing this, the operator is setting the next frame into a replacement jig. Two operators feed the robot, one at a time to maximise throughput. This is a compact machine that maximises floor space and time on task for all involved, a wonderful blend of human and machine.
Not all frame fabrication is automated however, many of the lower specification frame are hand welded, but even this seems clean, meticulous and well executed. Automation is used where it best benefits production and makes financial sense. The blend of human and automated fabrication is at the core of TPS and shines through in the well lit, clean air workshop.
This fabrication area in particular feels very industrious, lots of people feeding tube stock into machines to profile the ends, some using robots to aid in the precision tube mitring. Whilst it appears to have been in operation for a while (it’s well bedded in) it’s clean and efficient.
Making carbon fibre fabric is neat and economic, it is nothing without an application though, and we witnessed carbon layup, where sheets of carbon fabric are laser cut, then the fabric parts are wrapped around a former by hand. Over a series of hand finishing activities, we saw handlebars and frames being laid up, then placed onto stillages for later curing. Layup is such a manual task, where correct application and quality is vital to ensure a good finish. With a raw carbon finish there is nowhere to hide, no filler in sight nor pots of resin to seal voids. We also saw several moulds, most of which are made in-house in the mould shop.
So far, everything has been incredibly comfortable, with a clean-room feel, acceptable heat and a relatively benign environment. Moving on to the curing room, everything changes. This part of the facility is where carbon weave is fused together, using heat and pressure to bond the fabric to the resin that forms part of the ‘prepreg’ resin impregnated carbon fabric. This is far more intense, hot, heavy, industrial, oily, manual, noisy and with lots of hammering and a distinct pressure and manufacturing smell in the air. It’s alchemy, turning a fabric, wrapped around a former into a solid shape capable of bearing a riders weight with compliance, flex and support. It’s material science at its finest, and as with all transformational processes like this, it’s heavy and hot.
Before finishing, all frames are checked manually, not just visually, but by feel and non-destructive testing methods – they have an extensive testing department. Modifications are made where necessary, then frames are painted, lacquered and decaled. Much of the approach of this facility revolves around environmental sensitivity, with the painting facility built into the factory, hermetically sealed and using water-based paints and water sprays to help reduce the use of harsher chemicals. Again, paint finishing is a mixture of manual activity, robotic spraying and guided transport along the paint path, depending upon the requirements.
Control of the process is vital in such a large facility making diverse products from kids bikes to Tour-specification superbikes. Much of this identification is controlled by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, each stillage of finished frames included a wireless indicator, somewhat like the one hidden in your airport luggage tag, telling the Parts Warehouse what parts are needed to complete the build, the routing and order details.
This is classic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), where a Bill of Materials, forward planning and Just In Time delivery come together at the assembly line, where the parts are delivered in time for assembly.
Assembly line workers don’t have a workshop full of tools at their disposal either, only the specific tools they need to do that job at that work station, such as a torque tool with the correct bit, and only the components they need for that build. This level of efficiency, planning and control is built into the assembly process.
A highlight of last year’s trip was a just installed box handling robot arm, moving fully boxed eBikes onto pallets. This was still there (now fully integrated into the rest of the plants assembly line) but now this is supplemented by AGV minions. These Automated Guided Vehicles run on underfloor sensor tracks, lifting, moving and depositing stillages and pallets of eBikes around the site, a very clever integrated and automated handling approach.
Is any of this new? No, I have seen every element of this process, carbon weaving, robotic welding, automation, TPS production and enterprise planning across other facilities with in the Far East. What I haven’t seen is all of this in one place before, nor have I seen it at this scale in any facility – this is a step up, and if you are following the TPS philosophy and eschewing Total Quality Management from the ground up, this is the way you’d do it. Building a modern plant like this is efficient, environmentally responsible and smart, blending production methodologies with
automation, in-house manufacturing to support quality, and the craftsman ship of skilled workers.
One year on from an ‘empty’ ware house, the J&G facility in Tianjin truly is a Mega Factory.
