Spartanburg County in South Carolina will host Time’s new 13,000-square-meter factory that will complement its current factory located in Slovakia and where the brand will seek to return to the glory of the past after some eventful years marked by changes of hands at the helm of the brand and the economic difficulties that put the legendary French firm in jeopardy
These have been difficult years for the brand founded in France in 1987, one of the pioneers in the manufacture of clipless pedals, as well as a benchmark at the beginning of the 21st century in the manufacture of carbon frames that it produced at its own headquarters using the RTM (Resin Transfer Moulding).
However, the economic crisis of the past decade affected them fully, bringing the brand to the brink of disappearance, at which time the firm from the world of skiing Rossignol took over Time, although it was unable to get it out of the obscurantism in which it had existed. fallen by prioritizing resources towards Felt, a bike firm also belonging to Rossignol.
Finally, Time would end up being sold in 2021 on the one hand to SRAM, which kept the pedals, and the North American group Cardinal Cycling Group, which acquired the bicycle division willing to give a new impetus to the once successful firm.
The first step is an important investment of 6.5 million dollars to acquire a new factory in South Carolina where it is expected that by the end of the year the painting works of their bicycles will begin to be carried out throughout 2024. to incorporate all the carbon frame manufacturing technology of the brand in which they foresee
One of the reasons for choosing Spartanburg for the location of the new factory is that it is an area of extensive technological development as well as its proximity to Clemson University with whom Time has a collaboration agreement for the development of the carbon production technologies.
In any case, Time’s decision in this new stage to choose the United States to manufacture its bikes is surprising, in what is one more step in breaking the paradigm that had been developing in recent decades of relocating production to the East, a concept that seems to be changing after the serious supply problems that many brands have had to face as a result of the pandemic.
In recent years we have seen how many brands were looking for alternatives for manufacturing like Eastern Europe, in fact, Time had been manufacturing in this last stage in Slovakia, or Portugal where the bicycle industry is experiencing significant growth. Other brands such as 3T or the tire firm Pirelli have chosen to return to their origins by recovering production at their own headquarters in Italy.