Flying Pigeon - Company

Company

The Flying Pigeon's current building was built in 1998. It employs 600 workers who produce the bikes, using modern automated equipment. Flying Pigeon now makes 40 models of bicycles, most of which look like modern mountain or city bikes, in dozens of colors. The frames are welded piecemeal; wheels are built on an assembly line, with spokes first laced to hubs, then threaded to rims. Workers hand-spray rough welds with coatings of enamel; the bikes move on conveyors similar those of a dry cleaner's.

Despite declining domestic sales, the Flying Pigeon remains China's bike, if only because much of the brand's old rolling stock is still in service. The government estimates that a half-billion bikes are in use throughout China, many handed down through generations. The Pigeon is one of the few nostalgia-inducing artifacts of China's postrevolutionary era, which was darkened by the Cultural Revolution and intense poverty. In 1994, the government named it a "national key trademark brand under protection", enshrining it similarly to national treasures.