Balkan charm meets Alpine flair. Welcome to Slovenia, welcome to Unior. The professional tool manufacturer, which has a long history and varied background, produces bike tools, comprehensive tool trolleys, and complete workshop solutions. We took a cheeky look behind the scenes!
Unior Bike Tools have become part of the furniture in the mountain biking world and are well known for their high-quality tools. The Slovenian manufacturer is well represented in the racing segment, with many pro teams rocking their distinctive toolboxes and workshop cabinets. Even though the Unior Bike Tools team is relatively small, they’re all MTB enthusiasts and support many local trails. On top of that, they own their own DH and XC racing team together with Slovenian brake pad manufacturer Sinter, the Unior Sinter Factory Team. To this day, almost everything is manufactured locally in Slovenia, and even before producing bike tools, Unior had a long history stretching back to the former Yugoslavia.
Of Yugoslavia and legal disputes
The company was founded in 1919 in former Yugoslavia, under the name “Steirische Eisenindustrie-Gesellschaft”. Initially, the factory produced basic agricultural tools, expanding their product range over time and rebranding as the “Zreče Forged Tools Factory”, with Zreče being the town in which the factory was located – and still is today. In 1974, the company was renamed Unior, a contraction of Universal Orodje, which means Universal Tool in Slovenian. The logo, which is based on the letter Z, stands for the location of the plant in Zreče. Slovenia has been an independent country since 1991, and while Unior has retained the name, the company has worked its way up to become an internationally-acclaimed manufacturer of tools and forged parts.
Today, Unior is divided into three divisions: Forge, Hand Tools, and Special Machines. Unior Bike Tools is a section of Unior Hand Tools, and therefore only a very small part of the company. The Slovenians have been active in the bicycle tool market for seven years and have grown considerably over the past few years. For a long time, their tools were blue and grey – the classic Unior color pattern. However, due to a legal dispute with the American tool giant Park Tool, which also has blue tools, Unior Bike Tools have recently changed their colors to red and orange.
From the past into the future
In order to show us all the different faces and aspects of their production process, the lovely people of Unior Bike Tools set us up with not one, but two guides – Jure Merhar and Jernej Muzga. We kick off our factory tour at the original Unior site in Zreče, which is where workshop trolleys and toolboxes are manufactured today. The second part of the tour takes us to Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, which is where the hand tool factory is located.
The future: workshop tool carriage production
When we arrive at the tool trolley factory, there isn’t much going on. The site is pleasantly quiet and there are only a few workers – very different from the conditions you’d expect to find in a tool factory. Noise, heat, and dirt are foreign concepts here. That’s partly because many steps of the process are already automated: robotic arms grab pieces of sheet metal from pallets, cut them to size with a laser, and prepare them for bending and notching. The foam inserts for the boxes are also cut to size here and printed with the respective tool shape. After assembly, the result is a completely finished workshop trolley in which all the necessary tools can be neatly organized – a dream for every home mechanic.
A blast from the past: hand tool production
After a short drive, we arrive at the Hand Tools factory near Ljubljana, where, amongst other tools, the bike tools are manufactured. Entering the production hall, you’re beamed into a different era. While the workshop trolley production was new, quiet, and modern, the Hand Tools factory is rough around the edges; loud and stiflingly warm. There’s a thick layer of oil vapor hanging in the air and even during our visit in February, the ambient temperature was relatively hot. It quickly becomes clear why: baskets full of red-hot metal parts emerge from glowing furnaces to be transported around the factory, while heavy-duty forge hammers pound away, forming blanks into familiar shapes. All suited and booted with protective gear, safety goggles, earplugs, and high-vis vests, we start our tour. Many of the machines here look quite old, giving us an insight into the long history of Unior and the charm of the Balkan.
All tools are produced more or less the same way. First, a forklift brings the raw metal rods into the production hall. The metal is sourced locally, and due to the size of the tool factory and Unior’s other divisions, the manufacturer has a lot of control over the materials it uses. The rough shape is forged from the blanks using huge hydraulic forging hammers. The high temperature and extreme pressure give the material stability. And not only can you see that the forging hammers are incredibly powerful, you can actually feel it: with every blow of the hydraulic hammer, the ground shakes and you can feel the impact right in your stomach. It’s an awe-inspiring sight, even at a safe distance of a few meters. However, the workers stand directly in front of the machine, feeding it with parts in a relaxed fashion – you can tell that it’s just normal routine! After each impact of the hammer, the component must be rotated to form the correct shape. Standing so close to such a powerful machine gives a great sense of respect, but the workers look so unimpressed as they methodically turn the parts like an omelet in a pan. Our guide Jernej tells us that some of the workers voluntarily do without hearing protection so that they can hear the sounds of the forge better. Apparently, the “baaaannnngg” sound of the hammer is a science in itself, with different undertones and sound nuances revealing material defects. To test this, we also took off our earplugs briefly, but it just sounded like standing right in the middle of a firework display; we couldn’t imagine hearing any fine details among the barrage of noise. But it’s impressive that the workers do without their hearing protection in order to maintain the material quality.
After forging, the tool is cooled down and then hardened in an oven to further improve the material’s stability. Then all that remains is the finishing work: grinding, possibly chrome-plating, and attaching the rubber handles. The finished tools are then packed on site, either individually or sorted directly into tool sets. It’s really exciting to see that the entire production process, from the raw material to the packaging, is carried out by Unior in-house.
Unior Bike Tools is a company with a long history, where the past meets the future, where Yugoslavia meets the EU and laser robots meet forging hammers. Unior offers a huge range of tools, far beyond the cycling sector, and most of it is manufactured on site in Slovenia, from the raw material to the packaging. And it’s all made by a friendly team who are just as passionate about mountain biking as we are. Awesome!
Did you enjoy this article? If so, we would be stoked if you decide to support us with a monthly contribution. By becoming a supporter of ENDURO, you will help secure a sustainable future for high-quality mountain bike journalism. Click here to learn more.
Words: Simon Kohler Photos: Simon Kohler
