Founded in Belgium in 1918, Sapim still specializes in spokes and nipples. Its history includes investment in production alongside new products: in 2019, the company invested in its own oxidation line in Wilrijk.
Today, the Sapim group describes a network of more than six factories across Europe and Asia. That geography helps it serve customers closer to where bicycles are made. Nipples are produced from brass or aluminium, through operations including forging, drilling and quality control.
Making brass nipples in Belgium and Taiwan produces metal offcuts. Sapim collects this material and returns it to its supplier for remelting and reuse. The company reports that this approach puts 95% of purchased raw material into finished products. That is a measure of material utilization, rather than the recycled content of each nipple.
This example invites a closer look at bicycle manufacturing at component level: a tiny fastener connects not just a spoke to a rim, but several industrial processes.