Inside Kenda’s Taiwan Factory: How a Mountain Bike Tire Is Made
To mark the launch of its new Dagger XC, Kenda opened the doors of its Taichung factory in Taiwan to En Roue Libre — a rare look at how a mountain bike tire comes to life, from raw rubber to finished product.
The story begins at the Sea Otter Classic in California, where Kenda product manager Matt Peterson explains how the Dagger XC was engineered for the demands of modern cross-country racing. Alongside him, XC and gravel athlete Alexey Vermeulen shares his role as an athlete-developer in fine-tuning the tire, before putting it to the test on the Sea Otter XC course.
The film then heads to Taichung to follow every step of production: raw materials, casings, tire assembly — rubber and beads — and the vulcanization process that reveals the tread. The tour continues through Kenda’s testing center, from the guillotine rig to integrity, tread-resistance, wear and compound-longevity tests, all the way to the lab and 3D scanning, before returning to Sea Otter for the Dagger XC’s technical breakdown. This report was produced in commercial collaboration with Kenda.
Don’t miss our next behind-the-scenes reports — subscribe to the En Roue Libre newsletter.
