Bike Project: Earth Day Limited Edition – Part III

Here’s the third installment in a series on Seven Cycles’ Earth Day Bike.  The other installments can be found here:

Part I:  Product details
Part II:  Fuel consumption and commuting by bike

In this third installment I describe some of the manufacturing processes we employ, and how they differ from Seven Cycles’ standard production methods.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this information isn’t meant to be a “how to” series of posts; it’s not the way to build ecologically low impact bikes.  I’m simply sharing how we went about it—as more and more people have asked for details.  I’ve also learned that we have a lot of room for improvement for future Viridianesque projects.

Within the framework of this low ecoimpact bike project, we had a number of internal and external goals; here I’ll explain another of our primary internal goals:

Goal:  Cut frame building electricity usage by 25%

In short, we exceeded this target.  At first, I didn’t think we were going to be able to do it; we already run fairly lean electrically.  Here’s how we approached our electricity reduction goal.  I’ve parsed our electricity use, on this project, into five categories:

• Elimination of electricity
  
• Reduction of electricity
  
• Tradeoff or Optional electricity
  
• Primary or Required electricity
  
• Offset electricity

Follwing are the details:

Here are a few places where we eliminated electricity use

• Bottom bracket threading, facing, and alignment.  This was the single biggest electrical reduction.  On this project we are doing this fully manual—like we did way back when we started the company.  Nowadays we use a CNC machine for threading and finishing the bottom brackets.  However, the CNC machine draws the most electricity—along with our welding machines—in the building. 
• Head tube facing.  Typically we do this on a lathe.  Again, we went back to our old school and are doing it manually for this project.
• Paint.  This one is simple—we aren’t offering it on the Earth Day bike.

Bottom bracket note:  we briefly looked at employing a BB30 as an alternative to our standard threaded CNC bottom bracket shell.  We decided against this because the BB30 still requires some CNC work, even though it requires less electricity, it’s still more than our old school manual method.

Some places where we reduced electricity use

• Elements of machining.  We reduced our mill and lathe work by 25%—switching to more time consuming and labor intensive handwork.  We only did this in areas that would not impact frame accuracy, durability, tolerances, or alignment.  Of course, there aren’t many tasks in frame building that don’t affect one of those critical areas. 
• Work within our core hours.  This means no work on these frames during weekends, or before or after hours.  This goal is to share light, heat, and other power sources within the structure of our standard work flow.  In other words, no light, heat, or electrical power sources that are exclusive to this project.
• Employing natural light and heat.  This may sound redundant to the Core Hours parameter.  However, in March it’s still dark during some of our common work hours.  And, New England can still get pretty chilly at this time of year.
• Decals.  We traded decal-making electricity for “sand blasting” logotype and designs onto the frame.  Over the life of a bike we probably see 4+ sets of decals get used.  We estimate that the blasting electricity is offset by decal making.  And there are some other compelling reasons for blasting.

The optional electricity we ended up using—the tradeoffs

Most of these had something to do with safety; we could have gone without, but for safety reasons, we opted to electrify.

• Light and heat.  Again, for health and safety reasons.  We actually could have done it all with daylight use but that’s not particularly healthy—for eyesight.
• Head tube reaming.  It’s way too much material removal to do it manually.  We could have done some pre-machining on a lathe to enable the final step to be manual, but the net electrical consumption would have been nearly the same in either method.
• Computers. Used to track the frame’s process.  We felt it better to track each bike within our standard system, otherwise issues might occur.  Seven’s production and kan ban system is fairly complex—from initial bike design concepts all the way through frame building process flow—so we thought the tradeoff made sense.  And, computers are lower electrical use than the other frame building equipment we used on this project.
• Basic frame building.  This is a bit difficult to describe in simple terms.  But, we’re using 12 machines—mills, lathes, and drill presses—in the frame building process.  Our average frame requires 17 machines.  So, we’ve reduced equipment use by 30%.  Granted, one machine is not the same as 1/17^th of the electricity, but it is directionally accurate.

We could have done all the frame building with a hacksaw and file—like we did when we started—and avoided electrified machines all together.  Some other time I’ll explain why building frames that way is a bad tradeoff.

The primary electricity we are using

• Welding.  This was the most difficult area in which to reduce electrical use.  You can either weld faster or not weld on some of the parts—cable stops or brake mounts, for example; that’s about it.  Of course, neither of these ideas are appropriate for Seven.  We were, however, able to minimize weld time by designing the bike with a non-butted tubeset.  This type of tubeset welds a bit faster than a butted set.  We also did minimize welded parts.  In fact, the weld time on this model is about 25% less than on an average Axiom frame.

Places of electricity offset or “credits”

• Bicycle commuting covers more than the electrical use for each of the Viridian bikes.  I described this in detail in the previous post:  Part II.
• We also looked at generating power to build the frames through the use of bike trainers hooked up to generators.  Ultimately, we decided that we simply could not generate enough power to make a reasonable difference.  So we decided to focus on bicycle commuting—fuel consumption reduction rather than electricity production.

This post is getting long, again.  We had some other areas we explored for this project, including consumables reduction and reuse, toxin ellimination, some materials tricks, and a few other LOHAS concepts.  Another time, perhaps.  Right now, I’ve got to shut down my computer to reduce electricity use…

Comments

[crasta]

How can you count employee commuting habits into the equation? Because if they were already commuting via bicycle by choice, there's really no offset at all. Commuting has nothing to do with offset unless you provide employees with an incentive to swich from driving to cycling (or unless you require they ride a bike, which I would imagine would be difficult to enforce). Also, in the Part II discussion, you wrote that only employees that bike to work at least 80% of the time will work on the earthday bike. Doesn't that only amount to shifting people around, which would be more logistically and intellectually consumptive than energy-saving?
It's an interesting discussion- I'm just trying to wrap my head around certain reasonings. Thanks.

[Rob Vandermark]

Crasta: Thanks for reading and thinking about what I’m sharing. You’re bringing up some good questions. I’ll try to be brief in my answers without being too brief.

In fact, Typepad didn't let me post the entire note in one post. So' I'm splitting it into two comments...

We included employee bike commuting as a facet of the project because, for example, we could easily build a complete bike—from design through shipping—by Seven employees that don’t ride to work.

Additionally, not discussing commuting even though most employees do it at Seven seemed akin to not mentioning that the bike is titanium. Having the bike titanium—I argue—is better for the environment. At the same time, we build lots of titanium bikes so we could have not brought that up as a facet of the project.

I agree that not many people at Seven are going through hardship in order to commute by bike. I definitely wasn’t trying to suggest that it was a hardship. But the commute is still very relevant to this specific project. Conversely, prior to this project, we’ve never publicly mentioned that most of Seven’s employees commute by bike—so it’s not a marketing tool.

Final thought about why I think it’s important to include Seven’s bike commuting in this project: I’d wager that 99% of the bike frames sold in the US could not have been built 100% by people that commute by bike. So, even though we do it every day, it’s very unusual.

[Rob Vandermark]

Crasta: I'm back again.

On the “shifting people around” front, we believed—and it’s proven out through feedback—that riders interested in this bike, and its mission, have a positive connection with the idea that it is built by bike commuters. It would have been a lot less interesting is we said something along the lines of, “…built, in part, by some people that ride, sometimes, but not always…” So, we decided to commit to 100% bike commuting so we could say with 100% certainty that it was true—not a middle ground “sort of” statement.

I could keep rambling on but I think that covers some of your questions.

Crasta, thank you again for thinking about this!

[crasta]

Thanks, Rob. I completely understand the 2nd part now, that people have a connection with an ideal and find that information of value. If customers find that valuable, it would be silly not to offer it if you are able.

But for the offset-edness of employee commuting, I think we just have a fundamental difference of opinion. You're assuming the default is that everyone drives, and anything less consumptive is a credit, or something you can take credit for. With your reasoning, you must also factor in the 25% (or whatever it is, I have no idea) of your employees that do drive a car, which should be considered a deficit. Or, taking it a step further, since walking generates the least environmental impact, cycling should count as a deficit too. It all depends on how you want to work the numbers, and you're definitely working them to your advantage.
I'd agree that 99% of the bike frames couldn't have been built 100% by people who commute...in fact, I'd be surprised if it were half that. I'm not saying employee commuting isn't honorable or valuable. I'm saying that your employees happen to commute. Surely they have all sorts of reasons. It works for them living in a metropolitan area, and perhaps wanting to live an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, or they like the cycling culture which might at its most fundamental core have nothing to do with the environment, or maybe they live a mile or two away and its faster than walking. It just seems a tad exploitative to take your employees commuting habits and transform their reasons into something they're probably not.
How your employees decide to get to work doesn't factor into making your bikes environmentally-friendly at all-the fact that so many of your employees ride bikes is wonderful but incidental, and irrelevant to the company proper's environmentality.
[I might also cheekily add that simply because you never used it as a marketing ploy in the past doesn't mean you aren't doing it now].
Thanks for the discourse. Good stuff!

[Neil]

Being a Seven commuter, I'd like to add that a big reason why so many Seven employees commute is Seven makes it EASY to commute. The following amenities are available to commuters:

1) generous indoor bike parking. Some employees (like me) leave 2-3 bikes here. This space takes up a good 10% off leased space.
2) shower
3) individual cubbies
4) stocked workshop with cables, housing, lube, good tools
5) Devoted time to making wholesale orders of gear, which happens to be mostly the tires, tubes, chains, cassettes, and clothing commuters use.
6) a culture where it's OK to show up sweaty, spandexed, and in cycling shoes

I've worked in bike shops that make commuting super unpleasant, and as a result I'd drive 1/2 the time. And forget about non-bike industry jobs...

Take what you will from my statement, but I think Seven is devoted to bike commuting. The Earth Day bike is a partial embodiment of it, not a result.

[crasta]

ah..see? This is what I was getting at. Surely there are more built-in incentives like this that I hadn't considered. Thanks, Neil.

[Altec Bucket Trucks]

It is great that people are thinking about the environment and working to make the world a safer place. Not only the materials that you are using on your home are safe for the environment but dump trucks have come a long way since the earlier models. We are learning and expanding and coming up with a wide range of safer more effective vehicles for the work force. I think it is great that many auto manufacturers are turning to hybrid vehicles to protect the environment and now they are even using hybrid dump trucks.

[Sigma Machine]

Creativity can do wonders to save a little electricity. On top of that you are machining for the noble cause of bikes which are a very green transporation source.

[bike trainers]

Great post! It is very informative. Outdoor biking would not just let you save more money but can also be your great daily exercise. However, it is not advisable to go biking during winter. So, it is quite nice to have an exercise bike stand at home.