Yesterday I had the opportunity to tour the BMC Impec bicycle factory in Grenchen, Switzerland. The tour followed the entire process, from start to finish, of the production of the Impec frame. I, for one, love factories and assembly line production, and this tour did not disappoint. The most remarkable part of the process is the carbon braiding machine. It is a huge wheel that actually braids the carbon to spec. Different lengths can be achieved as well as different shapes. The engineer that led us on the tour, pointed out that to get this machine to do what they wanted to do, was no easy feat. Lots of testing went into the process before the final product was achieved. Because of the amount of research and testing, BMC are now able to carefully control the entire process, meaning the final product is consistent and perfect. This leads to being able to produce exactly what they set out to do with the Impec. I find it remarkable that BMC set out to make a machine to produce carbon, when almost the entire cycling industry relies on Taiwanese factories for carbon. And to top it off, they are doing it in Switzerland. Hats off to BMC.