On a slight tangent, Richard Schwinn, mentioned in Part 2 of the article, has a great interview hosted by Georgena Terry of Terry Bicycles. They discuss the mov

On a slight tangent, Richard Schwinn, mentioned in Part 2 of the article, has a great interview hosted by Georgena Terry of Terry Bicycles. They discuss the move of bike manufacturing from the States to Asia, largely due to the aluminum subsidies in China which allowed them to produce a frame for $4 in 1998 (~7 mins in). iTunes Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/terry-bikecast/id284144083?mt=2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/terry-bikecast/id2841440... (#24 Steel Really is Real) Original Podcast: http://community.terrybicycles.com/media/podcastgen1.3/?p=episode&name=2010-11-16_schwinn.mp3 http://community.terrybicycles.com/media/podcastgen1.3/?p=ep... Sadly, I couldn't find a transcript of the podcast, but there seems to be some excerpts here: http://community.terrybicycles.com/wordpress/sidesaddle-blog/from-georgena/a-chat-with-richard-schwinn#.V62ZSSPyu_s http://community.terrybicycles.com/wordpress/sidesaddle-blog... However, there's a lot of knowledge not mentioned in the blog post and I recommend listening to it if you're into bicycles and the change of materials from steel to aluminum to carbon. Richard Schwinn is a bit biased since he runs Waterford, but he does know a lot about steel.