Peddling to the Top

This article was written by Jim Hwang and published by the Taiwan Review on October 1, 2005. It features CSK - a specialty bike maker located in Dajia Township in central Taiwan's Taichung County. CSK is a small workshop that makes Taiwan's best racing bikes for professional cyclists.

CSK was founded by Chang Shen-kai, a former cyclist and one of the best in Taiwan. Chang had won several Asian and world road and track championships before retiring to coach Taiwan's national cycling team. He and other professional cyclists often talked about the world's best racing bikes, in particularly those made in France and Italy. He began to think about making custom-made bikes because big international brands were not in the habit of filling small orders for custom designs.

In 1999, Chang began to design his own bikes, using parts that suited different types of bicycles in different brands. His professional bikes can meet the particular needs of different customers - their height, weight, lengths of arms and legs, and shoulder length. Because each cyclist is different, each bike should be different as well.

This article provides plenty of details on Chang's ideas about bicycle design, how he focuses on a bike's performance as well as its looks, and how he meets each customer's specifications. Because CSK is a small shop, Chang designs all the bikes himself and keeps a tight grip on quality. He targets at racers from national teams, instead of professional cyclists and cycling organizations who are usually supported by major bicycle manufacturers. Today, national teams from Australia, Malaysia and South Africa, to name a few, ride Chang's bicycles.

For those interested in bicycles and the professional cycling world, this article is a must-read. It is also a good article for those small and medium-enterprises who focus on quality rather than quantity.