White Industries Korea | Precision Bicycle Components from Petaluma, California

Making parts
that outlast trends.

White Industries is a bicycle parts maker that Doug White started in 1978 in a spare room of his home in Inverness, Marin County, California. The first product was Peggers, a Velcro band that keeps your trouser leg out of the chain, and for nearly ten years it was the only one.

In the late 1980s the sewing machines gave way to milling machines, and White Industries became a machine shop. Today in Petaluma, Doug's son Alec White leads the company as CEO, designer and engineer, and more than 20 people machine and assemble hubs, cranks, chainrings, bottom brackets, headsets and freewheels in-house.

The hub of 1992
is still the benchmark.

In 1992 White Industries released the Ti Cassette rear hub at around 260g, the lightest rear hub on the market, along with the Tracker front hub, whose oversized axle stiffened the flexy suspension forks of the day. The design has changed little in 30 years, and today's hubs carry it on.

Rear hub shells are 6061-T6 aluminum and freehub bodies 6/4 titanium. Three steel pawls with stainless leaf springs engage a 48T drive ring every 7.5°, and four Enduro sealed bearings carry the load.

Cranks carved
from square aluminum.

MR30 cranks are machined from US-sourced 2024-T365 aluminum square stock through a series of operations. Arms and 30mm spindles alike are machined, finished and assembled in Petaluma.

In one corner of the shop is a robot Doug bought from Taylor Guitars around a decade ago. It sat looking for a job until the MR30 cranks arrived, when Doug programmed it himself to polish crank arms. The person who used to polish by hand now runs it.

Single speed
saved the company.

When Shimano's XTR arrived in 1991, White Industries worried about closing its doors for the first time since 1978. What saved it was the single speed freewheel and the single speed mountain bike community that embraced it. The ENO freewheel and eccentric ENO hub came out of that era, and White Industries still makes single speed parts today.

Chainrings and bottom brackets are machined in the same shop. VBC chainrings vary the bolt circle so one outer ring takes several inner rings, and the bottom brackets carry 24, 29 and 30mm spindles on Enduro bearings.

A line opened
by the next generation.

When The Radavist visited Petaluma in 2018, the newly released headsets were a project Alec had led from the start. The 6061-T6 aluminum cups are machined, machine-engraved, then anodized, and run on Enduro stainless angular contact bearings.

External cup (EC), zero stack (ZS) and integrated (IS) designs combine EC34, EC37, EC44, ZS44, ZS56, IS41 and IS52. A split crown race installs without tools, in black, blue, gold, polished silver, purple, red or stealth black.

The right hubs and cranks
for your bike.

For hubs, check brake type, axle standard and rotor mount first; for cranks, BB shell width, target chainline and Q-factor. Figures are from White Industries' official technical information.

From a spare room in Inverness
to a two-generation factory.

From a spare room where two sewing machines made trouser bands to a Petaluma factory employing more than 20 people. Over nearly 50 years in which many parts makers disappeared, White Industries has adapted to change while holding on to making things in-house.