He wants children's bikes made in the U.S.A. — and tariffs against his rivals

## Summary
Economy He wants children's bikes made in the U.S.A. — and tariffs against his rivals March 29, 2026 5:00 AM ET Scott Horsley Brian Riley, the CEO of the Guardian Bike Company, showcases a rack of frames that were built in his factory in Seymour, Indiana. Scott Horsley/NPR hide caption toggle caption Scott Horsley/NPR Brian Riley got into the bike business by accident. Scott Horsley/NPR hide caption toggle caption Scott Horsley/NPR Robots and lasers help keep costs in check Riley's company started slowly at first, assembling bikes in Indiana from imported components. Scott Horsley/NPR hide caption toggle caption Scott Horsley/NPR A Walmart just down the road from the Guardian factory was selling imported kids' bikes for as little as $88.

## Article Content
Economy
He wants children's bikes made in the U.S.A. — and tariffs against his rivals
March 29, 2026
5:00 AM ET
Scott Horsley
Brian Riley, the CEO of the Guardian Bike Company, showcases a rack of frames that were built in his factory in Seymour, Indiana.
Scott Horsley/NPR
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Scott Horsley/NPR
Brian Riley got into the bike business by accident. Two decades ago, his grandfather was riding his bicycle when he got cut off by a car, and squeezed his brakes in a panic.
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"He over-applied his front brake and went flipping over the front of his handlebars," Riley recalls. "He survived that accident but it was a really serious, traumatic experience that my whole family went through."
So a few years later in college, Riley teamed up with some classmates and developed a new kind of bicycle brake they called the SureStop. It's designed to slow front and back tires together, with a squeeze of a single lever.
"When you drive a car, you step on one pedal and your brakes just work," Riley says. "That's SureStop for a bike."
When Riley began peddling this new brake to bike manufacturers, he quickly discovered they're all based overseas. For decades, nearly all the bicycles sold in America have been imported. Even classic American brands like Huffy and Schwinn are primarily manufactured in China.
Riley wanted to put the brakes on that trend by opening his own factory in the United States. Now, he's asking the Trump administration to give his bikes a push, by imposing higher tariffs on foreign competitors. It could become a test case of the administration's strategy of using import taxes to promote domestic manufacturing. But it's already drawing stiff opposition from bicycle retailers and importers.
Location, Location, Location
After years of studying Chinese bicycle factories, Riley began scouting locations to build his Guardian Bike Company in the U.S. He eventually settled on Seymour, Ind., a town of 22,000 halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville, Ky.
"Just being in a small town like this makes a huge difference on the community," Riley says. "That was something we wanted as well."
Seymour happens to be the birthplace of John Mellencamp, whose giant portrait fills the brick wall outside a downtown music store. The town is also a logistics hub, with good freeway and railroad access, and nearby mills that could supply Guardian with steel, a key ingredient for building bike frames.
"At the end of the day, it checked all the boxes that we wanted," Riley says.
Most importantly, Seymour has a workforce that knows how to build things. Factories account for about 30% of the jobs in town — nearly four times the national average.
"This is an area that knows manufacturing," says Jim Plump, executive director of the Jackson County Industrial Development Corporation.
The Guardian bike factory in Seymour, Indiana is making 2,000 bikes daily.
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Robots and lasers help keep costs in check
Riley's company started slowly at first, assembling bikes in Indiana from imported components. But last year, Guardian went all in, and began building "Made in the USA" bikes from the ground up.
The operation now fills several buildings in a Seymour industrial park. It's just the kind of home-grown enterprise President Trump's tariffs are supposed to encourage.
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But Riley knew that to compete with low-cost Chinese bike-makers, he would have to be super-efficient. Where a Chinese factory might employ a small army of workers to cut and bend steel into the pieces for bicycle frames, that work is largely automated at Guardian, relying on robots and high-powered lasers.
"That fiber laser can just cut through steel like butter," Riley says, pointing to a $1.2 million machine.
Wages at Guardian start around $22 an hour, plus benefits. But it takes only a handful of people to assemble the bike frames.
"The hard, complicated work of welding is being done by robots and the humans are just working with the robots," Riley says. "These four guys are ridiculously productive because they're getting four- or 500 frames a day with four people."
The steel for those frames comes from a tube mill in Columbus, Indiana, just 20 miles up the road. By keeping its supply chain short, and building and painting bikes in-house, rather than an ocean away, Guardian can adjust quickly to any sudden change in demand.
"A good example is, when the Barbie movie came out, we started selling way more pink bikes than we ever have," Riley says.
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Guardian bikes are more expensive than many imports
Guardian sells bikes — mostly for children — directly to customers on its company website. That allows it to showcase safety features like those SureStop brakes. It also avoids

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Riley is seeking to chip away at the imports' cost advantage.
- Guardian's rivals are fighting back While Guardian would benefit from higher tariffs, the rest of the U.S. bicycle industry would likely pay a price.
- Riley argues it's not the bikes themselves that are important for security, but the manufacturing experience that comes from building them. "It's important to have that know-how exist onshore in the country," Riley says. "Because if it's all gone and then you really need to make things that are important for national security, it's hard to spin up an industrial base overnight." Growing in the USA In the meantime, Riley's company continues to grow.

### Areas for Consideration
N/A

### Implications
- It could become a test case of the administration's strategy of using import taxes to promote domestic manufacturing.
- The town is also a logistics hub, with good freeway and railroad access, and nearby mills that could supply Guardian with steel, a key ingredient for building bike frames. "At the end of the day, it checked all the boxes that we wanted," Riley says.
- Where a Chinese factory might employ a small army of workers to cut and bend steel into the pieces for bicycle frames, that work is largely automated at Guardian, relying on robots and high-powered lasers. "That fiber laser can just cut through steel like butter," Riley says, pointing to a $1.2 million machine.
- By keeping its supply chain short, and building and painting bikes in-house, rather than an ocean away, Guardian can adjust quickly to any sudden change in demand. "A good example is, when the Barbie movie came out, we started selling way more pink bikes than we ever have," Riley says. 50 Guardian bikes are more expensive than many imports Guardian sells bikes — mostly for children — directly to customers on its company website.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers bikes, riley, guardian topics. Notable strengths include discussion of bikes. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1617.