A Trip to T.I.Cycles of India !

On a special trip to Chennai, I got a chance to go and visit the guys at T.I. Cycles in Ambattur, Chennai. I reached the factory at around 3 p.m. and was received by my host at the entrance. After filling an official visitors entry sheet, I was allotted a pass and was allowed to go inside the premises.

As soon as I entered I noticed around 30 bicycles from the Hercules 'Ryders' range parked in an area. My host explained to me that these were bikes for the employees to ride around in the huge factory premises.

I was offered a tour of the Factory and the Product Development and Research Centre. How could I have not accepted this offer, as it was my dream to one day visit the factory of the manufacturer of my first real mountain bike - The Hercules 'StreetCat' Rock n Roll

Me on the Hercules StreetCat Rock'N'Roll in the Annapurna Ranges in NEPAL (1998)

Although the name might sound corny for a Mountain Bike nowadays, but back then it was the best rig that you could buy in INDIA. It was a stainless steel hardtail with a 1.5" travel suspension (made in-house by T.I) and came factory fitted with 18 speed Shimano Gears with Index Shifters.

The Tour started out first, with a visit to the Product Development and Research Centre, where I saw lots of engineers engrossed in their work in front of large computer screens showing cad and 3d illustrations of their future products. I was taken to this one room, which was the design centre and there I got to meet 3 bike artists who were designing the next bike from T.I.
I had a quick tour of the R&D Department, after which I had a long chat over tea with Mr.Kumar who is one of the oldest employees of T.I. We shared lots of moments, as we went into the past discussing certain bike models, and history of the company itself.

After this, I was offered a complete tour of the factory which I gladly accepted. My tour guide was Mr.Raju who started off the tour from the first process. ie: Welding. Here I saw neatly cut tubes of aluminium and steel stacked in high racks and waiting to be welded by the hands of expert welders.

The process is simple, first you lay the tubes on a JIG which has the correct layout of the frame you want to build. ie: top tube, down tube, head tube, seat tube, chain stay lengths. Then after fastening the tubes onto the jig, a few spots are welded on the ends of the tubes, and a weak frame is made.

After this the frame is taken to a welding booth, where the experts weld together these pipes using either T.I.G or M.I.G (tungsten inert gas or magnesium inert gas) welding. Depends whether you are welding Aluminium or Steel.

After this the frames were put on to large rolling racks and transported into the second building which housed the Phospating plant.

Here the welded frames underwent a Phosphating Process which involved several stages of Phospate coating.

From here the frames, forks and other parts were put on to a elevated conveyor and sent to the next unit, which was the Painting Plant.

These parts then underwent the painting process in the special paint shop booth,

after which they came out looking like eye candy !

Next Stage

Next, came the decal application stage. Here I saw employees meticulously applying stickers to
freshly painted frames
.

After which came the assembly line, where all the parts of the bikes were put together,

and finally the packaging and boxing area where the complete products were nicely packed, strapped numbered and dispatched onto trucks which bring these solid build quality products of T.I.Cycles of India to all Cities, towns and villages across INDIA !

The AV101 a fully imported mountain bike !

After the tour, I went over to the main building to have a meeting with the TOP BRASS at T.I. and while leaving the office I had a quick glance at the Company Showroom

which housed all of T.I. Cycles of India's current lineup. Although I would love to see a museum being built on the premises housing all thier models throughout the years, I was very much content with what I got to see !

Sami Makki
www.ride2026.com

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