The Basque Country, tucked into Spain’s northern corner along the French border, is home to a lot of unique things: an independent culture, with its own sports, types of tapas, and even a language – Euskara – unlike any other in Europe. And when it comes to cycling, it is also home to Spain's biggest bicycle manufacturer, Orbea, which isn't just like any other bike company in the world.
Yet, the location of the brand's headquarters is not quite what you'd expect. Orbea's headquarters are located in Mallabia, a hillside town in the Biscay province, about a half-hour drive from the country's biggest city, Bilbao. The building itself looks uncannily industrial and sits across the road from a scrap dealer.
Jokin Diez Barrio, Orbea's PR manager and my guide during the visit, admits the setting is "not the most pleasant," but adds the scrap plant will (or should) soon relocate, freeing up land Orbea hopes to expand into – possibly bringing its wheel brand, Oquo, closer.
Despite the unpretentious outside, the scale of Orbea's operations is immediate when entering the grey and blue building. The receptionist signs me in as a visitor, and then it's time to pull on the protective clogs in the long hallway leading into the factory itself. Already, it's a totally different setting from smaller-brand facilities.
Like many large bike brands, Orbea doesn’t manufacture its frames on site. Some of the fabrication happens in neighbouring Portugal, and carbon frames are made in Asia. Some of the more affordable bikes are also finished in Portugal, while the mid- and higher-tier frames are trucked into Mallabia, where they are painted, assembled, and shipped to dealers across Europe and beyond.
Orbea has had time to refine this way of working. Its history stretches back to 1840, when it began not with bikes but with firearms, supplying shotguns for hunting and weapons for the military. Economic and political shifts in the 1920s – both broader and specific to guns – made the company rethink its focus, and by the early 1930s it had begun to shift from gun barrels and triggers into making bicycle frames. Over the decades, Orbea grew from a regional maker into Spain’s largest bike manufacturer, and a globally recognised brand.
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