“Made in Belgium”, “Handmade in Europe”, … Numerous West European bicycle brands claim their bicycles are made locally. Why then does Achielle call itself a genuinely local bike? What’s the difference?
If you replace “made in” by “assembled in”, you may be closer to the truth. Many manufacturers build their bicycles from components bought mainly in Eastern Europe and Asia. Even bicycle frame production has largely moved to Asia. This is very unfortunate, as a wealth of knowledge, many years of experience and numerous jobs have been lost in this manner.
Achielle takes a different approach. We prefer to swim against the tide, do not opt for the easiest solution and keep on building our own frames one at a time. We do this on the basis of 3 generations of experience and craftsmanship, traditional handiwork combined with continuous investments in modern machinery.
This enables us to put our heart and soul into the very essence of every Achielle, its frame. We then look for the best European components to equip the frame, such as Brooks, Lepper, Van Schothorst, Rigida, Hebie, Steco, AXA basta, Humpert, Thun, Spanninga, and Mach1.
So an Achielle is not just “made in Europe”, but actually “made, built and assembled in Europe”. That’s why an Achielle is a genuinely local bike!
These efforts have been awarded with the ‘Handmade in Belgium’ label. In addition, we were named ‘Creative Company of the Year’ in 2011, were crowned ‘Craftsman of the Year’ in 2012 and won the ‘Trends Business Tour’ in 2014