The fifth day in The United States

Wednesday:

Happy birthday Signe!

Today, it is Signe’s birthday, and may all her wishes come true!

We started the day with singing for Signe, we brought her cake, Danish flags and presents.

After, we went downstairs and ate breakfast before we headed our way to trek, which is a bicycle manufacturer. We have rent our “own” bus for the entire day, so we took the bus to Waterloo, where Trek’s headquarters is. The bus was a “real American school bus” just like those in movies, so even the bus ride was an experience.

"Our bus" - a yellow American school bus. 

Trek Bicycle:

Trek’s headquarters is and has always been in Waterloo, Wisconsin. At Trek we had a guide tour which was a great experience - we learn a lot and saw the production of a Trek bicycle from the very beginning to the final results. First we went through a little museum of Trek, where the guide told us about Trek’s history and about the development, which has been huge. We did also see some different kind of bikes, but old and new bikes. Afterwards we walked through the entire manufactory and we saw the production of the bicycles. First we heard something about the different models that they got and they have four different frames, which he showed us. After that he showed us the places where they collect the different pieces to a frame or to a wheel. When the frame is complete, it come to the “painting room” where both people and a robot are painting the frame in many different colours and patterns. The robot was very smart and incredibly effective, but also “the hand-made” work was excellent, most of the employees in the painting section have an art education, so they do want they are doing. After getting paint the frame comes to a “control room” where some employees are checking the frame for scratches and other defects before they polish the frame and send it further to the collect section, where some people collect the entire bicycle.

"Trek's motto."

Even thought the manufactory in Waterloo is Trek’s headquarter is not here where most of their bicycles are produced. The manufactory in Waterloo is primarily producing very expensive and customized bikes to private consumers and bikes to their professionals cycling teams. So most our production is customized to the individual consumer which explains the many different colours and patterns. They do both produce mountain bikes, racer, city bikes and children bicycles. Trek do also have a “teaching room” where both employees and their retailers can get new knowledge from experts, so they can give the customer the best possible experience, when they are buying a Trek bicycle.

"The Trek museum."

Unfortunately we were allowed to take pictures in the manufactory except from in the museum area. But we have some pictures from the museum area.

Harley-Davidson museum:

As you can see further down in the blog, there is an assignment about Harley Davidson, well there is a reason for that because today we went to the Harley Davidson Museum, where we got a guided tour around the museum, where got we divided into two groups.

"The museum entrance"

The tour was quite interesting it started out with an explanation about how there motors work and have developed through time. We also got and explanation to how and why they are so noisy, which some may think. After that, we heard about who the company survived through the world wars and the great depression, and to why they almost went bankrupt. The guide was especially interested in telling about world war II and the soldiers and the time after the war. Which we understand, because it was that way that the soldiers who were trained on the motorcycles got their bikes whit them home after the war, and many of them began to decorate them, like what bikers do today. For it was the soldiers who started the biker culture which we see today.
We also got a chance to see some celebrities bikes here was Elvis Presley's bike included.
After the tour has the museum made an exhibit where you can sit on some of their bikes, which were very fun, and only made us want a bike or to ride one even more than we did before.
After the museum visit, we ate at the motor museum, which is a cafe at the Harley museum. The food were good and especially the fries were excellent (I do not think I have had any better ones before), but sadæy it came a little late.

"Harley exhibits a  new bike every year"

"Elvis Presley's bike"

"Tanya on one of their bikes"

Johnson Creek Outlet Mall:

After the museum visit we vent to the Johnson Creek Outlet Mall, which is placed outside. The Mall is filled with cheap clothes  from brands like Nike, Addidas, Calvin Klein, Mac and Tommy Hilfinger.
We got about two and a half hour to shop, which is deffently not enough for us girls, but still we got to spend a lot of Money anyway.