What we do and Why
At TerraCycle, we design and make parts for recumbent bicycles. We don't make ordinary level parts, only very nice or exceptionally nice parts, and we make everything in our shop in Portland, Oregon. Why?
• We love recumbents. We like all bikes, actually, but recumbents- what can we say? If you ride one, you know what we mean. There's nothing like flying along on a fine recumbent bike.
• We love really nicely made stuff. Really nicely made
useful stuff. Stuff that's nicer than it needs to be, that works better than it has to.
Things that are so nice they put a song in your heart every time you use
them.
• We love making things- real, three dimensional, functional things. We love the craft and the challenge of making things just so. And we like knowing a part of ourselves goes into every part we make.
• We love Portland. There are lots of great places in this world, and Portland's one of them. Great people, great riding, great bicycle commutes. And we can ride bikes or walk to get most everything we need- end mills, earplugs, stainless bolts, pizza, you name it. This is very cool. We are almost car free.
• We believe you can't expect things to have soul if you simply pay someone in a factory far away to crank them out for you. We want all our parts, even our less expensive ones, to be more than just "very good". We want them to be exceptionally satisfying to own and to use, to have an essence of the people and dreams that made them.
A little History
TerraCycle started out in 1996 making custom fitted, very dialed in recumbent bikes. In order to get the performance we wanted in a number of the special parts, we found we had to make them ourselves. It wasn't long before people started asking if we'd make parts for their bikes. Before we knew it, the parts side of the business completely outran the bicycle side of the business. We now no longer make complete bikes, and instead are focused on expanding and improving an ever growing line of parts and accessories. Our R&D list is long and varied,
just the way we like it. We get to work on all kids of
things every day.
We use a variety of processes to make our parts. Many things are CNC machined on one of our two CNC vertical milling machines. We like the precision of CNC, and the freedom of being able to make nearly anything we can dream up. There's some lathe work, and a good amount of hand work as well, as there are some things you just can't do on a CNC. We have our anodizing and laser marking done locally. Otherwise, everything is done in house. We have some products coming up that will use custom extrusions and molded plastic parts, again locally made.
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