Keener is BRAIN's Retail Editor and handles media relations and industry history for PeopleForBikes.
Last week, PeopleForBikes (PFB) launched their America Builds Bikes initiative in support of the U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act, (HR 3904) currently under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives.
We reached out to Chris Bell, the Director of Federal Policy for PeopleForBikes for context. Chris leads PFB’s engagement with lawmakers, executive agencies, and partner groups to advance PFB’s policy agenda. We also connected with U.S.-based supply companies, one of whom clearly does not share the industry’s general enthusiasm for on-shoring.
The initiative was started by PeopleForBikes primarily to support the U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act and to highlight the challenges and opportunities of the current moment. “Policymakers have increased the pressure to ‘build at home’ without addressing the specific challenges faced by the U.S. bicycle industry,” Bell emphasized. “We saw an opening to shape the conversation before the conversation got shaped for us. We want to create a business environment where our members have the ability to scale up their domestic production and assembly.”
“PFB has always supported its members who choose to produce bicycles and components in the United States,” said Bell. “For example, PFB led a study tour across the Carolinas in 2025 to survey opportunities to expand the bicycle industry's domestic production in that area.”
HR 3904 has a 10-year window of tariff relief to encourage on-shoring to the U.S. “In the short term, the bill is designed to protect and grow domestic assembly, including for companies working with frames produced overseas,” Bell said. “In the long term, we believe that the way to increase domestic frame manufacturing is to reestablish the U.S. as a bicycle production power via expanded domestic assembly.”
“Today, tariff barriers make it economically unrealistic for the vast majority of the U.S. bicycle industry to even consider building on U.S. soil. HR 3904 removes those barriers. Our goal is to give many bicycle companies something they haven’t had in a long time: a choice,” Bell said.
Hyper Bike Company, a brand focused on mass price points and advised by respected industry veteran Pat Cunnane, plans to take advantage of any opportunity that brings production to the U.S. “I have been involved in the effort since it was a small group at the last Interbike in Reno,” Cunnane said. “I did not originally agree with the approach but I have supported the U.S. having an environment where it made sense to make bikes here. It took a long time to get legislation into a format that makes sense for an industry that imports at least 97% of what it sells.”
Cunnane speculated on the impacts for U.S.-based companies. “If HR 3904 passes as-is and the 301 tariffs stay in effect, there will be a huge transfer of assembly back to the USA. Hyper would start assembly quickly; our plans are ready to implement,” he concluded.
Cane Creek is in a unique position as America’s largest component maker, with 70% of their production done domestically. They also export 50% of what they make, which means reducing tariffs on imports while maintaining them on exports hits them both ways.
“This bill is an issue for me because it leaves domestic parts assemblers out in the cold,” said Cane Creek CEO and President Brent Graves. “Sure, parts we assemble that go to domestic bike assemblers would be tariff-free, but as I understand it, parts that Cane Creek assembles that are sold to non-domestic bike assemblers would face a tariff. Why is assembly of a bike treated better than assembly of a bike suspension fork? To add insult to injury, Cane Creek has been assembling in the U.S. for 50 years, but a start-up domestic bike assembler would get preferred tariff treatment.”
While Graves is concerned about short-term impacts, he’s not optimistic that HR 3904 will have the intended long-term effect. “We totally support the idea of increasing domestic bike production, however we are not optimistic that anything significant will occur,” he continued. ”If you look at the closest global example to what this bill is intended to foster, Bike Valley in Portugal has been in progress for well over a decade and yet it is still almost exclusively frame painting, wheel building, and bike assembly with few Asian component makers setting up to support manufacturing in Portugal.”
“In the current world of bicycle production, I do not see anything significant happening in the U.S. I think America has moved on from that production stage of its life cycle whether I like it or not,” he concluded. “I just don’t see Americans wanting to work in factories like they did in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. However, robotics and AI could be a game-changer.”
Pivot Cycles represents the high end of the off-road market that would be likely to take advantage of domestic assembly and manufacturing opportunities. CEO Chris Cocalis laid out the evolution of the company’s position:
“In 2016, I connected with industry members from Specialized and Kent on an initial bill and worked with a legal firm in DC that specialized in trade policy,” Cocalis recalled. “But then the political climate changed. Once PeopleForBikes got involved, we were able to strip the bill down to something that we felt would be attractive to both political parties by creating manufacturing jobs, and supporting transportation while being health- and environment-friendly, and most importantly, not resulting in a net loss to the Federal government.”
Pivot has done their best to react to rapid policy shifts. “Before the advent of 301 tariffs, we were assembling everything in-house and had plans to expand our U.S. assembly substantially,” Cocalis said. “One hundred percent U.S. assembly allowed us to be more flexible and react faster to changes in the marketplace even though some of the standard duties on items like brakes made us less competitive than assembling in Asia or Europe.
For Pivot, the flexibility benefits still outweighed the slightly higher product and assembly cost. “However, once the additional duties were levied on all the individual components, it simply made it financially unfeasible to assemble all our bikes here and we were forced to reduce staff on our assembly line,” Cocalis said.
“Passage of HR 3904 would make U.S. assembly very attractive to not only Pivot, but I assume most of the largest brands in the U.S. as well,” concluded Cocalis. “Long-term, I believe it would bring back some component manufacturing to the U.S. to support the increased assembly volume similar to what has occurred in Europe.”
Not all U.S. suppliers, so varied in where their production takes place and why, are specifically supportive of HR 3904. However, there seems to be a consensus that in the long run, it’s better to create conditions for domestic assembly and ultimately, manufacturing and see how that opportunity plays out over the next decade.
“Between cost increases and evolving trade pressures, it’s not getting any easier to build bikes in the United States,” Bell concluded. “Under the current trade environment, many bicycle companies can’t even consider producing domestically. This bill would present a moonshot opportunity for companies to consider expanding their domestic footprint and to reimagine what is possible for the U.S. bicycle industry.”
