November 20, 2025 • 46 mins
What happens when a small North Carolina factory lets the trail—not the spec sheet—make the call? We sit down with Dorene O’Malley and Brent Graves from Cane Creek to unpack 30 years of curiosity, craft, and rider-first design.
From rugged Pisgah prototypes to components trusted around the world, they’ve shaped everything from headsets and titanium cranks to the legendary Thudbuster seatpost and Invert Gravel Fork—all designed to make every ride smoother, more controlled, and more fun.
Step inside their Experience Center, see how forks and shocks are hand-built and tested, and hear their vision for a future where cities embrace cycling for everyone—from school bike buses to e-bike family rides.
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
Podcast Website
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Instagram: explorationlocal
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
What happens when a small North Carolina factory
(00:02):
questions the Mora's bettermindset and lets real-world
riding call the shots?
Today we're joined by DoreenO'Malley and Brent Graves from
Cane Creek Cycling Components totell that story.
It all started in the 1970s whenDiacomp moved from Japan to
Fletcher during the gas crisis.
BMX and mountain bike wave wererising during those years, and
(00:22):
in 1995, the Cane Creek brandwas created as a way to better
distinguish Diacomp USA's moreinnovative products.
The namechains also rooted themfirmly in Pisca.
That rugged terrain became theirproving ground.
Prototypes left the lab and hitgravel, bumps, and descent to
test what spec sheets couldnever measure.
Control, comfort, andconfidence.
(00:44):
Along the way, Cane Creekcreated parts that became
legendary.
And this year, they'recelebrating 30 years of
curiosity, craft, and riderfirst invention.
We'll hear from Doreen and Brentabout hands-on testing, their
new experience center, andinnovations like the Invert
Gravel Fork.
A reminder that listening toriders still drives everything
(01:05):
they do.
Let's dive in.
You're listening to ExplorationLocal, a podcast designed to
explore and celebrate the peopleand places that make the Blue
Ridge and Southern AppalachianMountains special and unique.
My name is Mike Andris, the hostof Exploration Local.
(01:27):
Join us on our journey toexplore these mountains and
discover how they fuel thespirit of adventure.
We encourage you to wander farbut explore local.
Let's go.
Doreen and Brent, I'm thrilledto have you here today to talk
about how Cane Creek has beenshaping the cycling industry for
30 years here in Western NorthCarolina.
Thanks so much for making thetrek down.
(01:48):
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02 (01:49):
Thanks, Mike.
We're excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
All right, so for listeners who aren't hardcore,
either mountain bikers, gravelenthusiasts, or road cyclists,
let's start at the beginning.
And what is the simplest way forsomeone who hasn't heard of Cane
Creek to explain what you do andwho Cane Creek is?
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
We design and produce, sell, distribute,
market premium bicycle parts.
When I say premium, they couldbe for the racer, just as well
for a commuter in Switzerland,right?
They're designed to provideadditional benefit, whether it
be speed, safety, comfort, youname it, to people riding
(02:30):
bicycles.
So that's what we do, makepremium aftermarket bicycle
parts.
SPEAKER_01 (02:33):
Nice.
And something you just alludedto when you said either for the
cyclist here or in Switzerland,this isn't just a small regional
type of company.
SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
This is an international company, it sounds
like Yes, actually, more thanhalf of our sales are outside of
the United States, particularlyCentral Europe, and we have a
good following in Asia as well.
SPEAKER_01 (02:53):
So we always want to go back to the beginning, if we
can, and kind of understandwhere you came from.
So I'm really curious to knowhow did Cane Creek get its
start?
And when did you realize thatyour company had its own
identity in this space?
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
So back in the first gas crisis in 1974, so OPEC came
to prominence, flexed, flexedits muscle and said, hey, we're
gonna squeeze petroleumproduction.
And America freaked out.
I was only about six years old,and I remember lines literally a
mile or two at the gas stationwith people with gas cans in
(03:30):
hand, right?
And overnight the sales ofbicycles doubled in America.
And it was this Japanese companycalled Die Cump, it's been
around since the 30s, that madequality brakes for major brands.
Back then, brands were likeSchwinn, Huffy, Murray,
Columbia, and those brands hadfactories in America.
(03:53):
So the Japanese company,DieCump, decided they wanted to
be closer to the hottest marketin the world at that time, which
was the U.S.
How they landed in Fletcher,North Carolina in 1974, I
couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
All right.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
There wasn't not even an airport then.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (04:11):
But there was some railway nearby, which I
understand was a piece of it.
But like I said, there were bikefactories.
Murray had a factory inTennessee.
Obviously, Chicago was a homewith Schwinn.
Uh Huffy had a number offactories, uh, Columbia.
So they built this factorystarting in 1974.
They shipped machinery over fromJapan to truly build a factory.
(04:34):
They erected the walls andeverything.
We're still on that same site inthe same major main building
that was completed in 75.
SPEAKER_01 (04:41):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (04:42):
So the company was supplying parts of those bike
brands of those factories.
And then come the 80s and thisthing called BMX.
And the Americans that worked inthe company were telling the
Japanese counterparts, hey, thisBMX thing is pretty cool.
We should make some parts.
And the Japanese were prettyconservative.
(05:03):
They said, no, we know ourthing.
We make these kind of brakes forthese kind of bikes.
But eventually the Americansconvinced them and they made
some BMX product, primarilybrakes and brake levers.
And when I was a kid, it wassomething to lust over.
Wow.
I never even got those.
I couldn't afford them.
And the same story happenedagain in the mid to late 80s
with mountain bikes.
(05:24):
They became popular, and theAmerican team convinced the the
Japanese to develop somemountain bike products.
And this continued on in early90s, where there became more of
a um, let's call it somefriction between the two
companies.
And it was decided to split thecompanies.
(05:45):
And the US was renamed Die CupUSA and was taken ownership by
two of the employees.
And that continued uh throughthe nineties, major mountain
biking uh boom.
And in 1995, the company here inFletcher was uh developing the
(06:07):
first product here.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
Not relying on the Japanese engineering and and
development lab and so forth.
It was a rear shock for amountain bike.
And they decided to call it KaneCreek to really tie into the
local scene and right across thestreet from us is Cane Creek.
That's right.
And the next year they decidedthat it was smart to take that
(06:31):
one step further to rename thecompany because there was a lot
of confusion.
At this time, I was working fora bike company, and the
salesperson from Diacump, USA,was coming to me going, you
know, die comp this, die compthat.
I'm going, which which die comp?
Japan, USA, and it's oh, we'rechanging our name to Cane Creek.
So that happened in 1996.
SPEAKER_02 (06:52):
Didn't you tell him that that was the stupidest idea
you've ever heard?
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
That that's true.
Yes.
Peter Gilbert uh retired just afew years ago, employee at Cane
Creek for like 35 years, one ofthe nicest guys you'll ever ever
meet.
He was calling on me.
I was a product managerdesigning bikes and specing
parts, going, Oh, we're gonnause this seat, this brake, and
so forth.
And he came to me and said, Hey,yeah, here's our new product
(07:15):
line for next year.
I'll send you samples, here'sour price list, and by the way,
we're changing our name.
And I said, That's thestupidest.
I won't use the exact wordingbut idea I've ever heard.
Diet comp is legendary.
Why would you change the dietfrom the die comp name?
Well, obviously it made sense,and uh that happened in 96.
So when we talk about 30 years,we talk about 30 years of the
(07:37):
Cane Creek Company name.
But actually, we've been anongoing concern for 50 years,
right?
Uh making bike parts uh in thatin that factory since 1975.
unknown (07:49):
Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
One of the things when you look at Cane Creek that
really kind of comes through isthis idea of born in Piscah.
From what I understand fromreally hardcore bikers, even the
people who go out west and comeback here, um, some of this area
is not for the faint of heart.
Uh now there's something foreverybody to ride here.
Help us understand how you kindof tapped into that Pisgah-born
(08:11):
whole ethos.
SPEAKER_00 (08:13):
Yeah, you're right, Mike.
There's something for everybody.
And people also generally thinkof mountain biking first, but
the road riding here when youget out of Asheville proper is
fantastic.
I mean, yeah, you might think ofthe parkway or whatever, but
north, northwest of Ashevilletowards Tennessee, Irwin,
Tennessee, and so forth.
There are just fantastic backroads for road riding.
(08:33):
And I say this because I've hadthe great fortune of living in
some areas with some greatriding.
Southern California, NorthernCalifornia, Switzerland,
traveled a lot, and the ridinghere, road and mountain biking,
is just fabulous.
But to your question, there area number of things that we we
started to uh uncover, if youwill, about 10 years ago.
(08:56):
The company had gone, was goingthrough a very, very difficult
time financially, made somemissteps, missed timed the
market, had some product thatwasn't as good as it should be.
And so we had to re basicallyrestart and and yeah, save the
company.
And so we were like doing somesoul searching, you know, who
are we, what are we?
And it wasn't a matter of comingup with a story or whatever.
(09:18):
The pieces were there.
We were like archaeologicalarchaeologists, you know,
dusting off, oh, yes.
We have always been aboutcraftsmanship.
When I was at that bike companyI mentioned, you know, looking
at the product from from theoutside, I saw the craftsmanship
craftsmanship.
The brand has always been aboutbeing an alternative, doing
(09:39):
something a little differentthan the big guys, because in
the grand scheme of things,we're a pretty small company.
There are a number ofbillion-dollar, multi-billion
dollar uh bicycle parts makersout there, and we're a fraction
of that size.
So we look at ourselves astrying to offer something a
little different, a littlebetter, something the big guys
can't or won't do, right?
But that was always there.
(10:00):
We didn't come up with this.
We just said, hey, yeah.
We've been there, we just didn'tput a word to it.
Right.
So alternative.
And then authenticity, right?
Being here 50 years, making theproduct, designing all the stuff
ourselves and so forth.
That was something we dustedoff.
And then as we got deeper intoit, we got, hmm, what about our
local surroundings?
(10:20):
Right?
Not just in this building,right?
What we do, but our localsurroundings.
And as you said, people comehere from all over.
It's more of a destination pointnow, not just from Atlanta or
Charlotte or Florida.
But we just had people in fromBrooklyn last week doing a
factory tour.
Amazing.
Right.
Uh and they were down for ridingand so forth.
So the riding area, right?
We go, we actually make theprototypes, put them on our
(10:43):
bikes, go out to trails androads and so forth, and put time
on them.
And that's in addition to ourlab testing, which is really,
really critical.
But the the roads and trailshere truly are, you know, the
crucible, if you will, of thedevelopment process to make sure
they do what they are intendedto do.
You can check off boxes in thelab and on the on the spec sheet
(11:06):
on your on your Excel sheet andso forth, and then you can have
this product in your hand andyou say, Well, okay, big deal.
What do you bring to the table?
How's it different or betterthan anyone else?
Why should someone buy this?
Right.
But when you ride it and youlive with it on these trails and
on these roads, then you go,yeah, I feel good about this,
right?
And if I feel good about it, ifyou're not feeling good about
(11:26):
it, how do you expect riders tofeel good about it?
SPEAKER_01 (11:29):
Right.
Wow.
Doreen, that's impressive.
And you lead a lot of rides too.
Anything you want to kind of addin there?
SPEAKER_02 (11:35):
To talk about the gravel here in the western North
Carolina area, right?
We're looking at a lot ofgravel, calling ourselves the
gravel capital of the east overhere.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (11:45):
Mm-hmm.
So there's a lot of product thatwe do that also complements our
gravel folks, the invert beingone of them.
The inverted front fork, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
That part is the part that really has my
attention because I uh I enjoy alot of outdoor sports and I only
have but so much money to spreadout.
And I have a mountain bike thatuh I think I share with you.
I've been riding a hardtail GaryFisher uh for years.
It gets me around, but thegravel definitely has my
attention because I feel likewhen it's uh rainy and you can't
(12:17):
get out on the trails, you haveso much more to do.
And to your point, Brent, theyare everywhere.
We are just inundated with justamazing gravel trails and routes
here in these forests.
SPEAKER_02 (12:27):
Yes, like you guys said at the beginning, we have
something for everybody, nomatter what level you're at, no
matter what kind of riding youdo.
I spoke to someone recently, shesaid, Well, I ride my bike, but
I wouldn't call myself acyclist.
And that's something that wereally need to be conscious of
is yes, I ride my bike, but I'mnot one of those people that
(12:48):
you'd say, Oh, I'm bombingdownhill and I need to get into
it.
And what do we call them?
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
Enthusiasts.
SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
Enthusiasts, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (12:55):
That's a tough word to come up with enthusiasts.
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
Hey.
After a certain age, forgetwords.
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
But to pick up on that, I mentioned 10 years ago
we had to to you know turn thecompany around.
And one thing I found outquickly is I had to write the
company name up on a whiteboard.
Kane Creek Cycling Components.
Okay, doesn't say anything aboutmountain bike or BMX or road or
gravel or track or cycle crossor right?
(13:25):
Cycling components.
And at that time we were reallyfixated on extreme gravity slash
downhill mountain biking.
We had a huge legacy, and whatwas paying the bills most of
those decades were all thoseother bike parts.
So we had to remember who wewere and not just be focused.
Didn't mean we gave up on makinggreat downhill-oriented mountain
(13:48):
bike shocks.
No, but we were letting all thisother stuff die, right?
And that's really what fueledthe company turnaround was
broadening, reopening ourperspective on those other
components.
People ask, well, what are you?
I said, we make cyclingcomponents and we will make
design whatever we feel likethere's an opportunity to make
(14:09):
better.
And if it's in gravel, that'swhere we are.
If it's in mountain bike, that'swhere we are.
So we're not predisposed to bein one versus another.
SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
I love that.
Well, it expands your market forsure of who you're gonna reach
out to and who your users canbe.
But as we were walking into thefactory from the experience
center that we're gonna talkabout here in a minute, one of
the things that I noticed wasthat saying that was on your
wall.
And I'm gonna read it because Idon't want to mess it up.
I think it was your vision andpurpose.
It says, we believe riding bikesmakes life better, so we work to
(14:37):
make bikes better.
And I think that really kind ofdovetails into what you're
talking about because it's notjust these one percenters, it's
not just the ultra-enthusiast,it's really kind of capturing a
much broader market from or fromwhat I'm hearing.
SPEAKER_00 (14:52):
Yes, it's it's as simple as it sounds, right?
I mean, really, whether it'sphysically, emotionally,
psychologically, riding abicycle is just healthy and it's
good for the world.
SPEAKER_01 (15:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
It really is.
We just came from a um aconvention or conference
actually in Bentonville andheard this guy speak, uh, and
he's the founder of what's itcalled, bike bus.
Yeah, the bike bus.
Bike bus.
And it's just fantastic, right?
He just started riding bikes,riding uh helping kids ride
(15:28):
bikes to school in the morning,right?
And they go in a little caravanand they've got, you know,
adults around to keep themcorralled and do intersections
and all this.
And it was so awesome to seethese kids ride their bikes to
school, and it's now or it hasbeen um growing to other cities
(15:48):
and they call on him for adviceand so forth.
But just a great example of ofthe power of the bicycle, right?
Again, congestion, environment,health, right?
And for most people, it's prettyfreaking fun.
Yes, right.
So if we can find ways to toimprove the bicycle, like I said
earlier, it doesn't matter ifyou're about speed or comfort or
(16:10):
just ride longer or feel moreconfident and safer, whatever it
is, we want to make the bikebetter because we meet believe
that riding bikes for everybodyis better.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
You know, just a small story about that.
We a couple weeks ago, my wifeand I and my dad, we got my mom
and dad some e-bikes.
I may have told you this,Doreen, but it has just brought
joy back to them just to seethem moving.
And so they're out riding again.
But my and so we did 20 milesand on an e-bike, that doesn't
sound like a whole lot.
But my but my brother, um, hehas a friend who has a bike shop
(16:44):
uh in Charlotte, and so heborrowed his bike.
And so he did the and he hasn'tbeen on a bike in a a while.
So he does the full 20 mileswith us out and back when he got
off.
He looked like he sent us a memethat he was like a baby giraffe
trying to walk and he couldn'tget his legs.
But it was, we're still talkingabout it two weeks later about
how much fun that particulartrip was, and it was all
(17:04):
directly related to getting onbikes and pedaling.
And love hearing about schoolsin Bentonville, Arkansas that
are finding ways to make thataccessible to the kids.
I wish we had.
My wife and I keep talking aboutthis road right here.
We wish there was more sidewalksso our kids could actually that
kids could actually ride thebike.
SPEAKER_02 (17:19):
We do have a bike bus in Asheville.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
Do we?
SPEAKER_02 (17:21):
Mm-hmm.
Asheville on Bikes hasdefinitely gotten on the bike
bus movement.
Okay.
And then with the Asheville onpaved trails that will be coming
too, we should be able to getmore kids out on natural surface
trails.
SPEAKER_01 (17:32):
Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:33):
In the future, I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
That's so good.
So we've been talking aboutcomponents, and I'm sure that
people who are customers of CaneCreek they will know these
components we're talking about.
But for people who might not befamiliar, what are those
components that you all focus onthat you all make and
manufacture out of here?
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
We make pretty much every part on the bicycle except
for seats and tires.
Uh we make the headset, which isyour steering bearing set.
That's something that uh reallyput us on the map because we uh
had a patent for design thatrevolutionized bicycles
beginning in around 1990 or 91.
SPEAKER_02 (18:12):
I would say most people do know us for the
headset because it came standardon a lot of bikes.
SPEAKER_00 (18:16):
Depending on your vintage, yeah.
Uh cranks.
Um the cranks are the lever armsthat hold the pedals.
So when you push on the pedals,they actually direct your energy
into the sprockets.
We make sprockets, we make uhthe bottom bracket bearings,
that's the bearings that are inyour frame that when you turn
the pedals, they turn.
We make rear shock absorbers formountain bikes, we make front
(18:37):
forks, which are frontsuspension forks for mountain
bikes, we make handlebar stems.
Uh, we make some uniquehandlebar stems that actually
have a little mechanism thatprovides some shock absorption.
They're not like a full-offmount full-on mountain bike
product, but for people ridinggravel, as we mentioned earlier,
or rougher back roads, it takesthe edge off because let's not
(18:59):
deny it.
Generally, when you climb on abike for the first time, you're
not comfortable.
Yeah.
Right?
And a lot of that is you're notaccustomed to it, but the fit,
being bent over, all thesedifferent things, and there are
a lot of products andadjustments now that can reduce
that barrier, if you will, waydown.
And the more we bring it downand the less intimidating we
(19:21):
make it, the more people willride.
Another item is the uh C postthat holds your seat.
We have a post that's called, Ididn't come up with this name,
called the Thudbuster.
And we actually uh worked withthe inventor back in the 90s.
He developed it for performancemountain biking because this was
before full suspension mountainbikes.
Before you had shock absorberson your mountain bike, he came
(19:43):
up with a design to put a smallshock absorber underneath your
seat.
Now, when suspension finallycame around in the form of full
suspension on mountain bikes,then this was obsolete.
But it hung around and hungaround until, particularly in
Europe, they started using oncommuter bikes because they ride
bike paths and cobblestones andso forth until it took on a
(20:04):
whole new life.
And now it's one of our biggestselling products to the tune of
hundreds of thousands of units.
And it just has this littleshock absorber, very simple,
that takes the edge off.
So you're riding, go overrailroad tracks or something.
It's just nice and smooth,right?
And they're most of those thatwe sell now go onto e-bikes,
computers that are e um e-bikes.
SPEAKER_01 (20:26):
Nice.
It does make a difference whenyou're going over some of the
terrain.
It's just the you know, thedifference of your feeling like
your eyes can't focus to it kindof smooths out a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (20:35):
Absolutely.
That's the thing, right?
You want to increase a rider'sconfidence, no matter what their
skill level or what their aimsare, the more confidence they
have, the more comfortablethey're going to be mentally and
physically, right?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
So we talked, thank you for sharing all the products
that you guys have.
If somebody was to kind ofbecome a Cane Creek customer for
the first time, is there like asignature component that you
would want them?
And that may be kind of a loadedquestion because there's so many
different ways to ride.
I know that.
But it like what would be a goodintroductory component for
(21:12):
somebody?
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
Well, it depends on which way you're coming into it.
If you come in from the mountainbiking side and the performance
mountain biking side, we have acrank uh that I mentioned
earlier.
It's made out of titanium.
And it's it's literally, evenafter only a decade in
production, it's it's iconic.
I have we have had people fromthe inside the bike industry,
(21:34):
bicycle designers, engineers,product managers call us and
say, Hey, Brent, I want one ofthose.
I'll pay for it.
I can get anything I want fromthe other brands for free, but I
want to buy your crankset.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
And that's that's really like the high if you're
in the industry, that's like thehighest praise when people that
can get and have anything say, Iwant yours, right?
So if you're coming from thatperspective, on the other hand,
if you're just riding in BentCreek on dirt roads and you're
on an e-bike, that Thudbuster Imentioned earlier could be your
(22:10):
gateway.
Gravel, we have what we refer toas the world's first gravel
fork, the invert.
Um, it's more of a lightweight,dare I say, performance product,
not so much your gatewayproduct.
But again, it just depends onwhich door you're coming
through.
Uh and we have products too thatare are very basic.
(22:30):
We have a simple computer mountthat's like sixty, sixty-nine,
seventy-nine dollars that offersadjustment that other mounts
don't have.
And you can put your yourcomputer there, you can put a
camera or light underneath it,and it doesn't encroach on your
hand space, on your handlebars,and it's yeah, like I said,
affordable.
SPEAKER_02 (22:49):
I'd say the suspension seat post and the
suspension stem, especially ifyou're coming at it to just do
gravel and you're on one ofthose you're on an older
hardtail.
I want to keep your old steelbike, just make it a little
softer.
Yeah, yeah.
Suspension seat post and thesuspension stem.
SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
All right, adding it to the list.
Family, if you're listening,Christmas is right around the
corner.
I would love to.
The one thing I'd love to talkabout a little bit more is this
invert, because this was a verynew concept to me.
And I know when we were in theExperience Center, you were
very, very, very proud of that,Doreen.
And I love for you guys to kindof unpack that a little bit more
for folks who may not be awareof what this little invert fork
(23:26):
is.
SPEAKER_00 (23:27):
That that's a that's a good story.
Really good story.
We have this huge heritage inmountain bike suspension, and
our suspension is for theenthusiast.
It has all these adjustments,and to get the most out of it,
you need to spend time tryingdifferent adjustments out to see
what works best for you.
And so when we started talkingabout doing a suspension fork
(23:49):
for gravel bikes, it was justnatural.
You should put all thattechnology, all that
sophistication into the gravelfork, right?
That's just what we should do.
That's what people expect.
And some of us were, we don'tknow if that's the best route.
Why?
Well, we see a lot of gravelriders as people that are
(24:12):
looking just to ride a bicycle.
They don't see themselves doingbig jumps in a full face helmet.
They don't see them themselves,you know, riding a road bike
against all the traffic or orwhatnot and shaving their legs.
They go, I just want to ride abike, right?
And gravel riding has openedthat up to a lot of people.
Riding back roads that are allchoppy, maybe that dead end or
(24:34):
turn into gravel, whatnot.
They're away from cars.
It's just more of a uh sense offreedom, adventure, maybe even
escape.
And with that in mind, we're thequestion was why would we put
all this sophistication,complexity, weight, cost into
the gravel fork if people justwant to go out and ride and have
a good time?
(24:56):
So to test that theory, weactually built some prototype
forks, and we set up some testum sessions, and we had both
internal riders, employees, andsome external people, local
riders, bicycle shop employees,and so forth.
And we set up a very, as much asyou can, a structural structured
(25:16):
test where it was a 20-minuteloop with some gravel roads and
a small walking trail, not formountain bikes, but you could
ride a gravel bike on it.
And then after every lap, theengineers would interview them
and try to quantify what they'refeeling.
But they didn't know what wasinside the forks.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
So we had some forks that had sophisticated
sophisticated damping, hydraulicdamping, like our mountain bike
suspension does, some withoutit, some with an airspring, some
with a coil spring.
And at the end of the day, withsuch a limited amount of travel,
suspension movement, they couldnot tell when we had the
sophisticated damping inside andwhen we didn't.
(25:57):
And so it's wow, if they can'ttell, if it's not providing a
real benefit to them, why are wegonna add cost, weight, and
complexity?
Why?
Well, because that's just whatyou do, right?
You're always gonna add more,right?
If you don't, your competitorwill.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (26:13):
And we had a real challenge, you know, coming to
Jesus kind of moment, like whatare we doing here?
Are we really, you know, walkingthe talk and saying we don't do
product unless it really isauthentic and provides real
rider benefit?
If that's the case, then don'tput it in there.
And so we didn't.
And that was the cornerstone ofthis invert fork.
(26:35):
Invert meaning upside down.
So traditional suspension on allmountain bikes and gravel bikes,
if they have a suspension fork.
The moving portion, uh, thelower legs is usually the outer
side, outer section.
And with an invert fork, youflip it upside down and the
smaller sections on the bottom.
(26:56):
It uh provides some benefitsthat uh really speak to gravel
bikes.
One, it's visually integrateswell to the bicycle.
And we heard time and time againall around the country when we
talked to people about puttingsuspension on their gravel
bikes, they said, I don't want amountain bike fork on my on my
bike.
It doesn't I don't want amountain bike, I don't need it.
And we dug into that deeper andthey didn't like the look.
(27:19):
Wasn't the function of it?
Well, part of it was a function,it was too much.
SPEAKER_01 (27:23):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
It was too much, it was too much weight, it was too
much complexity, it was too muchaggressive look, it didn't look
right.
And sometimes when somethingdoesn't look right, you have to
say, hmm, maybe it's not right.
So going through this process,we identified four key what we
call pillars that we felt likewere really intrinsic to gra for
(27:44):
for most gravel riders.
One is simplicity.
Like I said earlier, they justwant to get out and ride, away
from cars, not doing crazystunts, right?
Just ride.
So keep it simple.
The other is lightweight, right?
It is a drop bar bike, andweight's always important
because even with a motor,you're still doing work, right?
A third is the aesthetic.
Like I said, we heard peoplesay, I don't want a mountain
(28:07):
bike fork, it just doesn't lookright.
Right?
And the fourth is offering truesuspension benefit in terms of
control and comfort.
Okay.
So each one of those things hadbeen delivered by other brands
for several years.
And arguably some brands hadmaybe delivered two or of those
uh pillars, but no one haddelivered all four in one
(28:30):
product.
Wow.
Keeping it simple, reallyvisually tying it in, right?
Offering true suspensionperformance and keeping it
lightweight.
So I said, you know what, guys,this is the world's first
mountain bike fork.
And oh no, we can't say that.
We can't say that because brandX had this and brand Y had that.
I said, Yeah, but they didn'tspeak to these four pillars.
Do we believe these fourpillars?
Do we really believe them?
(28:51):
Then when we believe them, goout there and proclaim it,
right?
In the very least, it's juststart a dialogue.
And people go, how can you saythat?
Here's why.
You just open the door to giveme an opportunity to explain
why, right?
So we did that.
And we still get some pushbackso forth.
I said, great.
That gives us an opportunity tohave some dialogue on why this
(29:12):
is the world's first gravel fortand why it's best for most
people.
They just go out and ride.
Yeah, if you're a racer, that'sgreat.
Okay, it worked for you.
And yeah, if you're doing thisunderbiking, trying to ride your
gravel bike on steep, technical,downhill trails, that's fine.
You can do that.
But for the majority of people,just getting out and trying to
get away from cars and explore,be out of nature, get some
(29:33):
exercise so forth, this is foryou.
SPEAKER_01 (29:35):
Oh, that's great.
So I'm that category.
That I mean, that would be me.
And so what I'll do is I'll gojust down the road, I'll go into
North Mills River.
And uh if that gate's closed,um, I just kind of go around
that.
I mean, you can, you can ride,right?
But so I try to climb to thetop, usually and go through the
switchbacks and then kind ofbomb down.
When I say bomb down, this isMike's you know, 57 year old
(29:55):
bombing down.
But um, but I still kind ofexperience some of that.
Same thing going through thegravel, and you probably can't
get rid of it entirely.
But would this fork really kindof mitigate?
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (30:05):
Are you talking about riding up uh towards the
parkway?
Yeah, yeah.
To the bridge and back down?
Yes, yes.
That's that's like the gravelriding, right?
That's what we define as youknow the riding for this type of
fork.
Crushed shale if you're inFlorida or roads or whatnot.
But taking away the chatter.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (30:23):
Yeah.
And does that chatter alsoaffect the the steering?
So you kind of feel like you'reyou're kind of staying more to
the ground than the chatter justkind of flapping, I'm imagining.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
Right.
So when you're coming down fromthe parkway on that that that
gravel road, right?
You start to go into a cornerand you have the braking butts
or the braking bumps or road uhrain ruts, right?
And so what do you do, right?
You grab your brakes, you tinchup, right?
Yeah, and you just turn intothis rigid structure and you're
going, this is no fun, youreyeballs are bouncing around
(30:55):
your head.
That's me.
And you feel like, hey, you feellike you're on marbles, right?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So there's always gonna be someaspect of that, varying speeds.
Uh, but when you put onsuspension, it changes
dramatically, where you can goin there and go, oh, you know
what?
I can stay on that line.
I don't feel like I'm gonna havemy tires wash out.
(31:15):
I have control, I'm not tensingup because you your body is your
best form of suspension.
Beyond any shock or fork you puton any bike, your arms and legs
are the best suspension for yourbody.
So when you lock up, and whichis natural, right?
You just freeze, uh holding ontight, that makes it worse.
The very thing you're trying toavoid, you're just compounding.
(31:36):
So when you have the fork, itactually snowballs the other
way.
You feel a little morecomfortable, you don't tense up.
Now you have your arms and legsproviding a suspension, and you
actually can carry your speedmore safely, controllably
through that corner and down thehill.
SPEAKER_01 (31:51):
Amazing.
Yeah.
Okay, that's the second thingfrom my list.
We've got the thud buster andthe invert.
Dang it, but we're gonna have tocut this episode off because all
of a sudden I'm gonna be in theNo, I'm just kidding.
All right, so uh we talked aboutthe the Experience Center, and I
don't want to kind of bypassthat because uh unfortunately I
wasn't able to make it to your30-year celebration and it was
in the Experience Center.
(32:12):
You were thoughtful to have meover and tour the plant, and it
is amazing, both and just how itsort of shares the whole story,
the color schemes, the productthat's out there, everything.
Tell me about the ExperienceCenter Doreen and who can come
in and when can they come in?
Check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (32:28):
The Experience Center was actually our old
cafeteria.
So the building was built, asBrent mentioned, in 74, 75.
And literally we had the tablesand chairs in there from 1974.
And over the past few years, wethought maybe we should open an
experience center somewhereelse, a little closer to trails.
And one of our employees said,Why don't we use the cafeteria?
(32:51):
It's 800 square feet of space,and nobody uses the cafeteria.
So we thought that was abrilliant idea.
So we transformed that cafeteriainto the experience center.
And what the experience centeris, is a museum of what we've
done over the last 50 years,along with a retail center,
along with a coffee bar.
(33:11):
And you can come into theexperience center Monday through
Friday from 8 a.m.
till 5 p.m.
Yeah, and that's what theExperience Center became.
And we actually had it happenedduring the hurricane that we
were doing this, and JoshWhitmore with Mountain Bike
Skills Factories actually camein and did some of the work for
us because he obviously couldn'twork out on the trails and he's
(33:34):
used to building things, so hecame in and helped us out with
the transformation.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (33:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:39):
Well, it tells a beautiful story.
Thanks.
Uh yeah, you're welcome from theaesthetics to the product that's
out there, and definitely forsomebody like myself or somebody
who may not be, you know, asversed in some of these high-end
alternative performancecomponents, it allows you to
really kind of dive in and kindof understand what this is all
about.
SPEAKER_02 (33:56):
Yeah.
And the gentleman that works inthe experience center is an
enthusiast of bicycle parts, andhe can tell you about anything
from A to Z.
Me, not so much.
I'm more of the I'll tell youwhy I don't want that, but I
can't tell you why it works sowell.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (34:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:13):
But he's also not just an enthusiast of parts,
he's an enthusiast of people.
He loves to try to findsolutions to people's problems
or or help them out.
I mean, he has patience to theend of time that I don't have.
unknown (34:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
So he's great at that.
I mean, you you can go intotraditional bike shops and find
someone knowledgeable, butyou're not getting helped.
SPEAKER_02 (34:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Right?
It's intimidating and it's adifferent language and so forth.
And the gentleman we're talkingabout, Craig, he's the opposite
that.
He is he's a Boy Scout.
Nice.
And he's fantastic at the at thejob.
But going back to the word youmentioned a moment ago,
understanding, we had been doingfactory tours for several years.
And people would come in andthey would see shocks being
(34:57):
built or forks being built, andthey really didn't know what
they were looking at.
All these small parts andsubassemblies.
And we also didn't have a way,if someone said, Hey, I want to
buy a shock or even a t-shirt,we didn't have a way to satisfy
that, right?
So that was another piece of theExperience Center was
encapsulating all we do outthere, and they can say, Oh,
that's what this is.
(35:17):
So you walk in the ExperienceCenter, you can see the
products, do the factory tool,or vice versa.
And we try to show how theproducts are used.
You know, I'm in gravel here,all the products that are apple
to gravel or mountain biking andso forth, in addition to the
history wall.
And the story I just told youabout the invert development, we
have that on a wall.
So you can see that original proone of the original prototypes
(35:40):
and some of the stages ofdevelopment on how we got to the
end product.
SPEAKER_01 (35:44):
I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And we don't have to go into afull thing about your your the
the inside of the shop, but oneof the things that really got my
attention was that once we leftthe experience center and we
started through that factorytour, we started to see these
little workspaces.
And even the people that wecould talk to in these
workspaces loved talking topeople.
They loved talking about theirproducts.
(36:06):
But one of the things thatreally stuck out to me and still
does is the fact that it wasn'ta machine that all these bits
and pieces were going through.
These were people who were justtrue craftsmanship.
Or that's what it was.
It was true craftsmanship.
It was an artisan sort ofapproach to this.
And it was really kind ofhands-on.
And I'm amazed at the amount ofproduct that you actually do
push out when it's notmass-produced, and you just
(36:27):
have, you know, all these peopledoing their little little bits.
But that part really kind of gotmy attention.
I thought this is truly custompeople who put their whole heart
and soul into what they'rebuilding.
SPEAKER_00 (36:38):
Yes, they're building one fork, one shock at
a time.
We do some prep and with thesubassemblies, but basically
they're built one at a time andthey're all calibrated.
Uh, we have these dynometerswhere you run a suspension fork
or shock on it to ensure that ithas the proper damping
characteristics withinparameters.
And we record that.
So we know when you buy a forkor shock, we record that damping
(37:03):
report with that serial number.
And two years later, five yearslater, you know, if there's an
issue or just for servicing, youknow, it comes back, we can go
back and look what it was likewhen it left.
Right.
You can't do that with the otherbrands.
Now, don't get me wrong, thosebig brands make great product
and it's great value.
Great value.
(37:23):
They also produce in one week10,000, you know, more than we
do in a year, right?
But ours are built one by oneand you know, but they have that
sp the spoke kind of feel tothem.
SPEAKER_01 (37:38):
I love it.
I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:40):
Yeah, we also get to do all our prototyping in-house.
Right?
I think you saw the machine inthe back, which we've only had
since the last year, actually,that new machine.
Our CNC gentleman is neverleaving.
He's happy with his new CNCmachine.
So yeah, all the prototypes aredone in-house so that they can
(38:01):
go back and forth from RD toprototyping really quickly.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
Nice.
So we're celebrating 30 years,but we've really been in this
space for 50 years.
When we think about the next 30years, or at least the
foreseeable future, and then youthink about the future of
cycling and Cane Creek's role inthat, what excites you the most?
SPEAKER_00 (38:24):
I think the next 30 years in America specifically uh
is uh is already out there forthe us to see, and that's what's
gone on in Central Europe forarguably a hundred years, right?
How cycling can actually go frombeing uh for the uh people of
means to play uh and compete tothe bicycle being a valued
(38:51):
utility for people to go toschool, to the shop, to work,
and infrastructure built aroundthat, uh both in the workplace
and riding to and from theworkplace or school to support
that.
And when you when you're inGermany or Switzerland or
Austria, the Netherlands, right,it's just uh all over the place.
(39:12):
And it's amazing.
By coincidence, you know, theytend to be healthier, they tend
to have higher scores on mentalwellness and so forth.
So that is there for us to see.
And organizations like Peoplefor Bikes, a U.S.
organization that's trying to toadvocate and support cycling
(39:34):
infrastructure and use inAmerica, you know, they look to
Europe as that model.
Right?
It's there in front of us.
And that's that's real promisinguh and very needed.
When I was a kid, we all rodeour bikes everywhere.
SPEAKER_01 (39:47):
Right.
That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
You just rode your bikes, and now if I see a kid
riding a bike somewhere in theneighborhood, I'm going, what's
wrong?
You know, where's the parent?
Is that safe?
And that's that's terrible.
SPEAKER_01 (39:59):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (40:00):
It's terrible.
When I live in Switzerland, Iwould ride to work in the
mornings or go out at lunch ridelunch and have a a short ride,
and I'd go through a littlevillage and I'd see four or five
little girls walking down thesidewalk with no adult inside.
And literally, I would stop andgo, Oh my gosh.
You know, somebody better callan adult.
But they're safe and securethere.
(40:21):
They've really invested in aninfrastructure.
And so to see that come back,potentially come back, and like
I mentioned earlier, the bikebus, that's that's a little
piece of it.
And then there are towns,Portland, to some extent,
Boulder, Austin are few thathave invested in that, and
you're starting to see thatopportunity present itself,
right?
(40:41):
So that's where the brightfuture lies in the US for
cycling, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (40:46):
Yeah.
I I would agree with all that,and I've experienced a little
bit of of that too, even justbeing in Europe, not the piece
about wondering, but just beinghaving the freedom and the
flexibility to go.
I lived in Spain, and it wasnothing for my mom to send me
with you know 25, 30 pesadas togo and buy bread at the market.
And I was like in the fourth andfifth grade.
Yep.
And I would go through thelittle villages in Spain, and
(41:07):
that's a core memory for me.
Like I will never forget that.
And uh also M Boulder had achance to kind of uh be there
last this time last year.
Uh Carson took me and just tosee how many people are actually
getting around, and that's theirmode of transportation was
amazing.
Um, from the little canyon roadinto town, all around town.
(41:30):
And then most recently, being inCharlotte, when I can ride from
South Charlotte all the way touptown and ride through
different neighborhoods anddifferent parks, y'all.
I mean, I was seeing things thatI had never seen before, and
that happens a lot when I'mriding the bikes, but but it was
community, it was people thatwas, you know, they were out and
they were all ages, and most ofthe people were actually on
(41:52):
bikes.
I mean, there were people whoare walking and jogging and
running, but most of the peoplewere on bikes, and I would love
to see that more.
I know even here inHendersonville, you know, we
have the Acusta Trail.
Yeah, and I can go down to youknow horseshoe right here by uh
cognitive and right across thestreet from cognitive and and
ride bikes down to my son'shouse and visit and then ride
home.
(42:14):
We have to do more.
Yeah, we really do.
SPEAKER_00 (42:17):
So on the opposite side of this innocence loss that
you you touched on, I justtouched on, right?
That we used to do this when wewere kids.
What we do have now that I seedid not have when I was a kid.
Yesterday I was finishing up amountain bike ride in Penn Creek
yesterday, and right before Icame out of Hard Times
Connectors, this couple wascoming my my direction.
(42:39):
And they were every bit of 75years old on regular mountain
bikes heading out for a ride.
When I was a kid, or even 20years ago, you would never see
that.
Okay.
Also, I don't know how manytimes we went riding, and to see
deep in the woods, out on inglesor something, a mom and her
12-year-old son and 10-year-olddaughter on mountain bikes.
(43:02):
Holy cow.
I tell you, if Martians wouldhave landed in 1975 in my yard,
that would have been easier tosee than my mom riding with her
sons out on a trail.
Yeah.
Right.
So while we don't have thatinnocence that we had, we do
have those things, right?
More people getting out to ride.
And participation studies timeand time again show that cycling
(43:26):
is now in the U.S.
at the highest level ever ofpeople just getting on a bike to
ride.
So that's very positive.
Love that.
But there's a lot of work to doin terms of infrastructure and
safety to make it moreaccommodating.
SPEAKER_01 (43:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, listen, y'all.
Um I have thoroughly enjoyedthis.
But before I I let you go, Ireally have to ask, is there
anything that we um that youwould love for listeners to know
that we haven't touched on?
SPEAKER_00 (43:51):
Well, we've talked about it, but I would just like
to to really crystallize.
We invite anybody to come by andvisit.
Okay.
Don't think that you've got tobe a cyclist, you've got to be a
racer or whatever.
If you've if you ride bicyclesfor whatever reason, right, come
by and visit.
I pretty much guarantee you'llfind it interesting and fun and
enlightening.
(44:12):
Um yeah, just come by and visit.
For sure.
SPEAKER_02 (44:15):
Yeah.
Our Experience Center, we'regoing to start doing some tech
talk Tuesdays, and we'll get Iride and lead a group called the
Silver Shredders.
And so we're going to do somecourses just for women.
I do a saddle workshop just forwomen.
So all the Experience Center isgoing to start having more
activities out of there.
So things for people to learnmore about their bicycles.
SPEAKER_01 (44:36):
Love that.
Yeah.
All right.
Where are you locatedphysically?
And then how can we find you onthe internet?
SPEAKER_02 (44:42):
We are located at 355 Cane Creek Road, right
across from Cane Creek Creek.
And you can find us atCaneCreek.com.
SPEAKER_01 (44:51):
Well, Doreen, I know it's taken us a couple of years.
I think the first time we hadthis conversation was the
Outdoor Economy Conference.
SPEAKER_02 (44:57):
Yep.
Two years ago.
SPEAKER_01 (44:58):
Two years ago.
Well, we did it, and uh, and Iappreciate you all taking the
trip down and certainlyappreciate your enthusiasm for
cycling and all things cyclingand the amazing components that
you all are producing.
SPEAKER_02 (45:11):
Thank you for having us.
We're excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (45:14):
Absolutely.
Thank you much, Mike.
My pleasure.
That was Cane Creek, celebrating30 years of curiosity, craft,
and rider first invention.
From Hall of Fame classics tonew breakthroughs like the
Invert Gravel Fork, their storyshows that paying attention to
riders and the trails never goesout of style.
(45:35):
Thank you for tuning in.
If this episode resonated,follow the show, share it with a
rider who could use more comfortand control, and leave a review
so others can discover it.
Follow me on Instagram andFacebook, drop me a note at mike
at explorationloc.com if youhave ideas for future episodes
or you just want to say hello.
And don't forget to subscribe soyou don't miss the next episode.
(45:58):
Well that's gonna do it for thisepisode.
As always, I encourage you towander far but explore local.
What happens when a small North Carolina factory
(00:02):
questions the Mora's bettermindset and lets real-world
riding call the shots?
Today we're joined by DoreenO'Malley and Brent Graves from
Cane Creek Cycling Components totell that story.
It all started in the 1970s whenDiacomp moved from Japan to
Fletcher during the gas crisis.
BMX and mountain bike wave wererising during those years, and
(00:22):
in 1995, the Cane Creek brandwas created as a way to better
distinguish Diacomp USA's moreinnovative products.
The namechains also rooted themfirmly in Pisca.
That rugged terrain became theirproving ground.
Prototypes left the lab and hitgravel, bumps, and descent to
test what spec sheets couldnever measure.
Control, comfort, andconfidence.
(00:44):
Along the way, Cane Creekcreated parts that became
legendary.
And this year, they'recelebrating 30 years of
curiosity, craft, and riderfirst invention.
We'll hear from Doreen and Brentabout hands-on testing, their
new experience center, andinnovations like the Invert
Gravel Fork.
A reminder that listening toriders still drives everything
(01:05):
they do.
Let's dive in.
You're listening to ExplorationLocal, a podcast designed to
explore and celebrate the peopleand places that make the Blue
Ridge and Southern AppalachianMountains special and unique.
My name is Mike Andris, the hostof Exploration Local.
(01:27):
Join us on our journey toexplore these mountains and
discover how they fuel thespirit of adventure.
We encourage you to wander farbut explore local.
Let's go.
Doreen and Brent, I'm thrilledto have you here today to talk
about how Cane Creek has beenshaping the cycling industry for
30 years here in Western NorthCarolina.
Thanks so much for making thetrek down.
(01:48):
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02 (01:49):
Thanks, Mike.
We're excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
All right, so for listeners who aren't hardcore,
either mountain bikers, gravelenthusiasts, or road cyclists,
let's start at the beginning.
And what is the simplest way forsomeone who hasn't heard of Cane
Creek to explain what you do andwho Cane Creek is?
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
We design and produce, sell, distribute,
market premium bicycle parts.
When I say premium, they couldbe for the racer, just as well
for a commuter in Switzerland,right?
They're designed to provideadditional benefit, whether it
be speed, safety, comfort, youname it, to people riding
(02:30):
bicycles.
So that's what we do, makepremium aftermarket bicycle
parts.
SPEAKER_01 (02:33):
Nice.
And something you just alludedto when you said either for the
cyclist here or in Switzerland,this isn't just a small regional
type of company.
SPEAKER_00 (02:41):
This is an international company, it sounds
like Yes, actually, more thanhalf of our sales are outside of
the United States, particularlyCentral Europe, and we have a
good following in Asia as well.
SPEAKER_01 (02:53):
So we always want to go back to the beginning, if we
can, and kind of understandwhere you came from.
So I'm really curious to knowhow did Cane Creek get its
start?
And when did you realize thatyour company had its own
identity in this space?
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
So back in the first gas crisis in 1974, so OPEC came
to prominence, flexed, flexedits muscle and said, hey, we're
gonna squeeze petroleumproduction.
And America freaked out.
I was only about six years old,and I remember lines literally a
mile or two at the gas stationwith people with gas cans in
(03:30):
hand, right?
And overnight the sales ofbicycles doubled in America.
And it was this Japanese companycalled Die Cump, it's been
around since the 30s, that madequality brakes for major brands.
Back then, brands were likeSchwinn, Huffy, Murray,
Columbia, and those brands hadfactories in America.
(03:53):
So the Japanese company,DieCump, decided they wanted to
be closer to the hottest marketin the world at that time, which
was the U.S.
How they landed in Fletcher,North Carolina in 1974, I
couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
All right.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
There wasn't not even an airport then.
SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (04:11):
But there was some railway nearby, which I
understand was a piece of it.
But like I said, there were bikefactories.
Murray had a factory inTennessee.
Obviously, Chicago was a homewith Schwinn.
Uh Huffy had a number offactories, uh, Columbia.
So they built this factorystarting in 1974.
They shipped machinery over fromJapan to truly build a factory.
(04:34):
They erected the walls andeverything.
We're still on that same site inthe same major main building
that was completed in 75.
SPEAKER_01 (04:41):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (04:42):
So the company was supplying parts of those bike
brands of those factories.
And then come the 80s and thisthing called BMX.
And the Americans that worked inthe company were telling the
Japanese counterparts, hey, thisBMX thing is pretty cool.
We should make some parts.
And the Japanese were prettyconservative.
(05:03):
They said, no, we know ourthing.
We make these kind of brakes forthese kind of bikes.
But eventually the Americansconvinced them and they made
some BMX product, primarilybrakes and brake levers.
And when I was a kid, it wassomething to lust over.
Wow.
I never even got those.
I couldn't afford them.
And the same story happenedagain in the mid to late 80s
with mountain bikes.
(05:24):
They became popular, and theAmerican team convinced the the
Japanese to develop somemountain bike products.
And this continued on in early90s, where there became more of
a um, let's call it somefriction between the two
companies.
And it was decided to split thecompanies.
(05:45):
And the US was renamed Die CupUSA and was taken ownership by
two of the employees.
And that continued uh throughthe nineties, major mountain
biking uh boom.
And in 1995, the company here inFletcher was uh developing the
(06:07):
first product here.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
Not relying on the Japanese engineering and and
development lab and so forth.
It was a rear shock for amountain bike.
And they decided to call it KaneCreek to really tie into the
local scene and right across thestreet from us is Cane Creek.
That's right.
And the next year they decidedthat it was smart to take that
(06:31):
one step further to rename thecompany because there was a lot
of confusion.
At this time, I was working fora bike company, and the
salesperson from Diacump, USA,was coming to me going, you
know, die comp this, die compthat.
I'm going, which which die comp?
Japan, USA, and it's oh, we'rechanging our name to Cane Creek.
So that happened in 1996.
SPEAKER_02 (06:52):
Didn't you tell him that that was the stupidest idea
you've ever heard?
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
That that's true.
Yes.
Peter Gilbert uh retired just afew years ago, employee at Cane
Creek for like 35 years, one ofthe nicest guys you'll ever ever
meet.
He was calling on me.
I was a product managerdesigning bikes and specing
parts, going, Oh, we're gonnause this seat, this brake, and
so forth.
And he came to me and said, Hey,yeah, here's our new product
(07:15):
line for next year.
I'll send you samples, here'sour price list, and by the way,
we're changing our name.
And I said, That's thestupidest.
I won't use the exact wordingbut idea I've ever heard.
Diet comp is legendary.
Why would you change the dietfrom the die comp name?
Well, obviously it made sense,and uh that happened in 96.
So when we talk about 30 years,we talk about 30 years of the
(07:37):
Cane Creek Company name.
But actually, we've been anongoing concern for 50 years,
right?
Uh making bike parts uh in thatin that factory since 1975.
unknown (07:49):
Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
One of the things when you look at Cane Creek that
really kind of comes through isthis idea of born in Piscah.
From what I understand fromreally hardcore bikers, even the
people who go out west and comeback here, um, some of this area
is not for the faint of heart.
Uh now there's something foreverybody to ride here.
Help us understand how you kindof tapped into that Pisgah-born
(08:11):
whole ethos.
SPEAKER_00 (08:13):
Yeah, you're right, Mike.
There's something for everybody.
And people also generally thinkof mountain biking first, but
the road riding here when youget out of Asheville proper is
fantastic.
I mean, yeah, you might think ofthe parkway or whatever, but
north, northwest of Ashevilletowards Tennessee, Irwin,
Tennessee, and so forth.
There are just fantastic backroads for road riding.
(08:33):
And I say this because I've hadthe great fortune of living in
some areas with some greatriding.
Southern California, NorthernCalifornia, Switzerland,
traveled a lot, and the ridinghere, road and mountain biking,
is just fabulous.
But to your question, there area number of things that we we
started to uh uncover, if youwill, about 10 years ago.
(08:56):
The company had gone, was goingthrough a very, very difficult
time financially, made somemissteps, missed timed the
market, had some product thatwasn't as good as it should be.
And so we had to re basicallyrestart and and yeah, save the
company.
And so we were like doing somesoul searching, you know, who
are we, what are we?
And it wasn't a matter of comingup with a story or whatever.
(09:18):
The pieces were there.
We were like archaeologicalarchaeologists, you know,
dusting off, oh, yes.
We have always been aboutcraftsmanship.
When I was at that bike companyI mentioned, you know, looking
at the product from from theoutside, I saw the craftsmanship
craftsmanship.
The brand has always been aboutbeing an alternative, doing
(09:39):
something a little differentthan the big guys, because in
the grand scheme of things,we're a pretty small company.
There are a number ofbillion-dollar, multi-billion
dollar uh bicycle parts makersout there, and we're a fraction
of that size.
So we look at ourselves astrying to offer something a
little different, a littlebetter, something the big guys
can't or won't do, right?
But that was always there.
(10:00):
We didn't come up with this.
We just said, hey, yeah.
We've been there, we just didn'tput a word to it.
Right.
So alternative.
And then authenticity, right?
Being here 50 years, making theproduct, designing all the stuff
ourselves and so forth.
That was something we dustedoff.
And then as we got deeper intoit, we got, hmm, what about our
local surroundings?
(10:20):
Right?
Not just in this building,right?
What we do, but our localsurroundings.
And as you said, people comehere from all over.
It's more of a destination pointnow, not just from Atlanta or
Charlotte or Florida.
But we just had people in fromBrooklyn last week doing a
factory tour.
Amazing.
Right.
Uh and they were down for ridingand so forth.
So the riding area, right?
We go, we actually make theprototypes, put them on our
(10:43):
bikes, go out to trails androads and so forth, and put time
on them.
And that's in addition to ourlab testing, which is really,
really critical.
But the the roads and trailshere truly are, you know, the
crucible, if you will, of thedevelopment process to make sure
they do what they are intendedto do.
You can check off boxes in thelab and on the on the spec sheet
(11:06):
on your on your Excel sheet andso forth, and then you can have
this product in your hand andyou say, Well, okay, big deal.
What do you bring to the table?
How's it different or betterthan anyone else?
Why should someone buy this?
Right.
But when you ride it and youlive with it on these trails and
on these roads, then you go,yeah, I feel good about this,
right?
And if I feel good about it, ifyou're not feeling good about
(11:26):
it, how do you expect riders tofeel good about it?
SPEAKER_01 (11:29):
Right.
Wow.
Doreen, that's impressive.
And you lead a lot of rides too.
Anything you want to kind of addin there?
SPEAKER_02 (11:35):
To talk about the gravel here in the western North
Carolina area, right?
We're looking at a lot ofgravel, calling ourselves the
gravel capital of the east overhere.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (11:45):
Mm-hmm.
So there's a lot of product thatwe do that also complements our
gravel folks, the invert beingone of them.
The inverted front fork, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
That part is the part that really has my
attention because I uh I enjoy alot of outdoor sports and I only
have but so much money to spreadout.
And I have a mountain bike thatuh I think I share with you.
I've been riding a hardtail GaryFisher uh for years.
It gets me around, but thegravel definitely has my
attention because I feel likewhen it's uh rainy and you can't
(12:17):
get out on the trails, you haveso much more to do.
And to your point, Brent, theyare everywhere.
We are just inundated with justamazing gravel trails and routes
here in these forests.
SPEAKER_02 (12:27):
Yes, like you guys said at the beginning, we have
something for everybody, nomatter what level you're at, no
matter what kind of riding youdo.
I spoke to someone recently, shesaid, Well, I ride my bike, but
I wouldn't call myself acyclist.
And that's something that wereally need to be conscious of
is yes, I ride my bike, but I'mnot one of those people that
(12:48):
you'd say, Oh, I'm bombingdownhill and I need to get into
it.
And what do we call them?
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
Enthusiasts.
SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
Enthusiasts, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (12:55):
That's a tough word to come up with enthusiasts.
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
Hey.
After a certain age, forgetwords.
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
But to pick up on that, I mentioned 10 years ago
we had to to you know turn thecompany around.
And one thing I found outquickly is I had to write the
company name up on a whiteboard.
Kane Creek Cycling Components.
Okay, doesn't say anything aboutmountain bike or BMX or road or
gravel or track or cycle crossor right?
(13:25):
Cycling components.
And at that time we were reallyfixated on extreme gravity slash
downhill mountain biking.
We had a huge legacy, and whatwas paying the bills most of
those decades were all thoseother bike parts.
So we had to remember who wewere and not just be focused.
Didn't mean we gave up on makinggreat downhill-oriented mountain
(13:48):
bike shocks.
No, but we were letting all thisother stuff die, right?
And that's really what fueledthe company turnaround was
broadening, reopening ourperspective on those other
components.
People ask, well, what are you?
I said, we make cyclingcomponents and we will make
design whatever we feel likethere's an opportunity to make
(14:09):
better.
And if it's in gravel, that'swhere we are.
If it's in mountain bike, that'swhere we are.
So we're not predisposed to bein one versus another.
SPEAKER_01 (14:16):
I love that.
Well, it expands your market forsure of who you're gonna reach
out to and who your users canbe.
But as we were walking into thefactory from the experience
center that we're gonna talkabout here in a minute, one of
the things that I noticed wasthat saying that was on your
wall.
And I'm gonna read it because Idon't want to mess it up.
I think it was your vision andpurpose.
It says, we believe riding bikesmakes life better, so we work to
(14:37):
make bikes better.
And I think that really kind ofdovetails into what you're
talking about because it's notjust these one percenters, it's
not just the ultra-enthusiast,it's really kind of capturing a
much broader market from or fromwhat I'm hearing.
SPEAKER_00 (14:52):
Yes, it's it's as simple as it sounds, right?
I mean, really, whether it'sphysically, emotionally,
psychologically, riding abicycle is just healthy and it's
good for the world.
SPEAKER_01 (15:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
It really is.
We just came from a um aconvention or conference
actually in Bentonville andheard this guy speak, uh, and
he's the founder of what's itcalled, bike bus.
Yeah, the bike bus.
Bike bus.
And it's just fantastic, right?
He just started riding bikes,riding uh helping kids ride
(15:28):
bikes to school in the morning,right?
And they go in a little caravanand they've got, you know,
adults around to keep themcorralled and do intersections
and all this.
And it was so awesome to seethese kids ride their bikes to
school, and it's now or it hasbeen um growing to other cities
(15:48):
and they call on him for adviceand so forth.
But just a great example of ofthe power of the bicycle, right?
Again, congestion, environment,health, right?
And for most people, it's prettyfreaking fun.
Yes, right.
So if we can find ways to toimprove the bicycle, like I said
earlier, it doesn't matter ifyou're about speed or comfort or
(16:10):
just ride longer or feel moreconfident and safer, whatever it
is, we want to make the bikebetter because we meet believe
that riding bikes for everybodyis better.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
You know, just a small story about that.
We a couple weeks ago, my wifeand I and my dad, we got my mom
and dad some e-bikes.
I may have told you this,Doreen, but it has just brought
joy back to them just to seethem moving.
And so they're out riding again.
But my and so we did 20 milesand on an e-bike, that doesn't
sound like a whole lot.
But my but my brother, um, hehas a friend who has a bike shop
(16:44):
uh in Charlotte, and so heborrowed his bike.
And so he did the and he hasn'tbeen on a bike in a a while.
So he does the full 20 mileswith us out and back when he got
off.
He looked like he sent us a memethat he was like a baby giraffe
trying to walk and he couldn'tget his legs.
But it was, we're still talkingabout it two weeks later about
how much fun that particulartrip was, and it was all
(17:04):
directly related to getting onbikes and pedaling.
And love hearing about schoolsin Bentonville, Arkansas that
are finding ways to make thataccessible to the kids.
I wish we had.
My wife and I keep talking aboutthis road right here.
We wish there was more sidewalksso our kids could actually that
kids could actually ride thebike.
SPEAKER_02 (17:19):
We do have a bike bus in Asheville.
SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
Do we?
SPEAKER_02 (17:21):
Mm-hmm.
Asheville on Bikes hasdefinitely gotten on the bike
bus movement.
Okay.
And then with the Asheville onpaved trails that will be coming
too, we should be able to getmore kids out on natural surface
trails.
SPEAKER_01 (17:32):
Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:33):
In the future, I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
That's so good.
So we've been talking aboutcomponents, and I'm sure that
people who are customers of CaneCreek they will know these
components we're talking about.
But for people who might not befamiliar, what are those
components that you all focus onthat you all make and
manufacture out of here?
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
We make pretty much every part on the bicycle except
for seats and tires.
Uh we make the headset, which isyour steering bearing set.
That's something that uh reallyput us on the map because we uh
had a patent for design thatrevolutionized bicycles
beginning in around 1990 or 91.
SPEAKER_02 (18:12):
I would say most people do know us for the
headset because it came standardon a lot of bikes.
SPEAKER_00 (18:16):
Depending on your vintage, yeah.
Uh cranks.
Um the cranks are the lever armsthat hold the pedals.
So when you push on the pedals,they actually direct your energy
into the sprockets.
We make sprockets, we make uhthe bottom bracket bearings,
that's the bearings that are inyour frame that when you turn
the pedals, they turn.
We make rear shock absorbers formountain bikes, we make front
(18:37):
forks, which are frontsuspension forks for mountain
bikes, we make handlebar stems.
Uh, we make some uniquehandlebar stems that actually
have a little mechanism thatprovides some shock absorption.
They're not like a full-offmount full-on mountain bike
product, but for people ridinggravel, as we mentioned earlier,
or rougher back roads, it takesthe edge off because let's not
(18:59):
deny it.
Generally, when you climb on abike for the first time, you're
not comfortable.
Yeah.
Right?
And a lot of that is you're notaccustomed to it, but the fit,
being bent over, all thesedifferent things, and there are
a lot of products andadjustments now that can reduce
that barrier, if you will, waydown.
And the more we bring it downand the less intimidating we
(19:21):
make it, the more people willride.
Another item is the uh C postthat holds your seat.
We have a post that's called, Ididn't come up with this name,
called the Thudbuster.
And we actually uh worked withthe inventor back in the 90s.
He developed it for performancemountain biking because this was
before full suspension mountainbikes.
Before you had shock absorberson your mountain bike, he came
(19:43):
up with a design to put a smallshock absorber underneath your
seat.
Now, when suspension finallycame around in the form of full
suspension on mountain bikes,then this was obsolete.
But it hung around and hungaround until, particularly in
Europe, they started using oncommuter bikes because they ride
bike paths and cobblestones andso forth until it took on a
(20:04):
whole new life.
And now it's one of our biggestselling products to the tune of
hundreds of thousands of units.
And it just has this littleshock absorber, very simple,
that takes the edge off.
So you're riding, go overrailroad tracks or something.
It's just nice and smooth,right?
And they're most of those thatwe sell now go onto e-bikes,
computers that are e um e-bikes.
SPEAKER_01 (20:26):
Nice.
It does make a difference whenyou're going over some of the
terrain.
It's just the you know, thedifference of your feeling like
your eyes can't focus to it kindof smooths out a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (20:35):
Absolutely.
That's the thing, right?
You want to increase a rider'sconfidence, no matter what their
skill level or what their aimsare, the more confidence they
have, the more comfortablethey're going to be mentally and
physically, right?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
So we talked, thank you for sharing all the products
that you guys have.
If somebody was to kind ofbecome a Cane Creek customer for
the first time, is there like asignature component that you
would want them?
And that may be kind of a loadedquestion because there's so many
different ways to ride.
I know that.
But it like what would be a goodintroductory component for
(21:12):
somebody?
SPEAKER_00 (21:13):
Well, it depends on which way you're coming into it.
If you come in from the mountainbiking side and the performance
mountain biking side, we have acrank uh that I mentioned
earlier.
It's made out of titanium.
And it's it's literally, evenafter only a decade in
production, it's it's iconic.
I have we have had people fromthe inside the bike industry,
(21:34):
bicycle designers, engineers,product managers call us and
say, Hey, Brent, I want one ofthose.
I'll pay for it.
I can get anything I want fromthe other brands for free, but I
want to buy your crankset.
SPEAKER_01 (21:47):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
And that's that's really like the high if you're
in the industry, that's like thehighest praise when people that
can get and have anything say, Iwant yours, right?
So if you're coming from thatperspective, on the other hand,
if you're just riding in BentCreek on dirt roads and you're
on an e-bike, that Thudbuster Imentioned earlier could be your
(22:10):
gateway.
Gravel, we have what we refer toas the world's first gravel
fork, the invert.
Um, it's more of a lightweight,dare I say, performance product,
not so much your gatewayproduct.
But again, it just depends onwhich door you're coming
through.
Uh and we have products too thatare are very basic.
(22:30):
We have a simple computer mountthat's like sixty, sixty-nine,
seventy-nine dollars that offersadjustment that other mounts
don't have.
And you can put your yourcomputer there, you can put a
camera or light underneath it,and it doesn't encroach on your
hand space, on your handlebars,and it's yeah, like I said,
affordable.
SPEAKER_02 (22:49):
I'd say the suspension seat post and the
suspension stem, especially ifyou're coming at it to just do
gravel and you're on one ofthose you're on an older
hardtail.
I want to keep your old steelbike, just make it a little
softer.
Yeah, yeah.
Suspension seat post and thesuspension stem.
SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
All right, adding it to the list.
Family, if you're listening,Christmas is right around the
corner.
I would love to.
The one thing I'd love to talkabout a little bit more is this
invert, because this was a verynew concept to me.
And I know when we were in theExperience Center, you were
very, very, very proud of that,Doreen.
And I love for you guys to kindof unpack that a little bit more
for folks who may not be awareof what this little invert fork
(23:26):
is.
SPEAKER_00 (23:27):
That that's a that's a good story.
Really good story.
We have this huge heritage inmountain bike suspension, and
our suspension is for theenthusiast.
It has all these adjustments,and to get the most out of it,
you need to spend time tryingdifferent adjustments out to see
what works best for you.
And so when we started talkingabout doing a suspension fork
(23:49):
for gravel bikes, it was justnatural.
You should put all thattechnology, all that
sophistication into the gravelfork, right?
That's just what we should do.
That's what people expect.
And some of us were, we don'tknow if that's the best route.
Why?
Well, we see a lot of gravelriders as people that are
(24:12):
looking just to ride a bicycle.
They don't see themselves doingbig jumps in a full face helmet.
They don't see them themselves,you know, riding a road bike
against all the traffic or orwhatnot and shaving their legs.
They go, I just want to ride abike, right?
And gravel riding has openedthat up to a lot of people.
Riding back roads that are allchoppy, maybe that dead end or
(24:34):
turn into gravel, whatnot.
They're away from cars.
It's just more of a uh sense offreedom, adventure, maybe even
escape.
And with that in mind, we're thequestion was why would we put
all this sophistication,complexity, weight, cost into
the gravel fork if people justwant to go out and ride and have
a good time?
(24:56):
So to test that theory, weactually built some prototype
forks, and we set up some testum sessions, and we had both
internal riders, employees, andsome external people, local
riders, bicycle shop employees,and so forth.
And we set up a very, as much asyou can, a structural structured
(25:16):
test where it was a 20-minuteloop with some gravel roads and
a small walking trail, not formountain bikes, but you could
ride a gravel bike on it.
And then after every lap, theengineers would interview them
and try to quantify what they'refeeling.
But they didn't know what wasinside the forks.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
So we had some forks that had sophisticated
sophisticated damping, hydraulicdamping, like our mountain bike
suspension does, some withoutit, some with an airspring, some
with a coil spring.
And at the end of the day, withsuch a limited amount of travel,
suspension movement, they couldnot tell when we had the
sophisticated damping inside andwhen we didn't.
(25:57):
And so it's wow, if they can'ttell, if it's not providing a
real benefit to them, why are wegonna add cost, weight, and
complexity?
Why?
Well, because that's just whatyou do, right?
You're always gonna add more,right?
If you don't, your competitorwill.
SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (26:13):
And we had a real challenge, you know, coming to
Jesus kind of moment, like whatare we doing here?
Are we really, you know, walkingthe talk and saying we don't do
product unless it really isauthentic and provides real
rider benefit?
If that's the case, then don'tput it in there.
And so we didn't.
And that was the cornerstone ofthis invert fork.
(26:35):
Invert meaning upside down.
So traditional suspension on allmountain bikes and gravel bikes,
if they have a suspension fork.
The moving portion, uh, thelower legs is usually the outer
side, outer section.
And with an invert fork, youflip it upside down and the
smaller sections on the bottom.
(26:56):
It uh provides some benefitsthat uh really speak to gravel
bikes.
One, it's visually integrateswell to the bicycle.
And we heard time and time againall around the country when we
talked to people about puttingsuspension on their gravel
bikes, they said, I don't want amountain bike fork on my on my
bike.
It doesn't I don't want amountain bike, I don't need it.
And we dug into that deeper andthey didn't like the look.
(27:19):
Wasn't the function of it?
Well, part of it was a function,it was too much.
SPEAKER_01 (27:23):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
It was too much, it was too much weight, it was too
much complexity, it was too muchaggressive look, it didn't look
right.
And sometimes when somethingdoesn't look right, you have to
say, hmm, maybe it's not right.
So going through this process,we identified four key what we
call pillars that we felt likewere really intrinsic to gra for
(27:44):
for most gravel riders.
One is simplicity.
Like I said earlier, they justwant to get out and ride, away
from cars, not doing crazystunts, right?
Just ride.
So keep it simple.
The other is lightweight, right?
It is a drop bar bike, andweight's always important
because even with a motor,you're still doing work, right?
A third is the aesthetic.
Like I said, we heard peoplesay, I don't want a mountain
(28:07):
bike fork, it just doesn't lookright.
Right?
And the fourth is offering truesuspension benefit in terms of
control and comfort.
Okay.
So each one of those things hadbeen delivered by other brands
for several years.
And arguably some brands hadmaybe delivered two or of those
uh pillars, but no one haddelivered all four in one
(28:30):
product.
Wow.
Keeping it simple, reallyvisually tying it in, right?
Offering true suspensionperformance and keeping it
lightweight.
So I said, you know what, guys,this is the world's first
mountain bike fork.
And oh no, we can't say that.
We can't say that because brandX had this and brand Y had that.
I said, Yeah, but they didn'tspeak to these four pillars.
Do we believe these fourpillars?
Do we really believe them?
(28:51):
Then when we believe them, goout there and proclaim it,
right?
In the very least, it's juststart a dialogue.
And people go, how can you saythat?
Here's why.
You just open the door to giveme an opportunity to explain
why, right?
So we did that.
And we still get some pushbackso forth.
I said, great.
That gives us an opportunity tohave some dialogue on why this
(29:12):
is the world's first gravel fortand why it's best for most
people.
They just go out and ride.
Yeah, if you're a racer, that'sgreat.
Okay, it worked for you.
And yeah, if you're doing thisunderbiking, trying to ride your
gravel bike on steep, technical,downhill trails, that's fine.
You can do that.
But for the majority of people,just getting out and trying to
get away from cars and explore,be out of nature, get some
(29:33):
exercise so forth, this is foryou.
SPEAKER_01 (29:35):
Oh, that's great.
So I'm that category.
That I mean, that would be me.
And so what I'll do is I'll gojust down the road, I'll go into
North Mills River.
And uh if that gate's closed,um, I just kind of go around
that.
I mean, you can, you can ride,right?
But so I try to climb to thetop, usually and go through the
switchbacks and then kind ofbomb down.
When I say bomb down, this isMike's you know, 57 year old
(29:55):
bombing down.
But um, but I still kind ofexperience some of that.
Same thing going through thegravel, and you probably can't
get rid of it entirely.
But would this fork really kindof mitigate?
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (30:05):
Are you talking about riding up uh towards the
parkway?
Yeah, yeah.
To the bridge and back down?
Yes, yes.
That's that's like the gravelriding, right?
That's what we define as youknow the riding for this type of
fork.
Crushed shale if you're inFlorida or roads or whatnot.
But taking away the chatter.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (30:23):
Yeah.
And does that chatter alsoaffect the the steering?
So you kind of feel like you'reyou're kind of staying more to
the ground than the chatter justkind of flapping, I'm imagining.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
Right.
So when you're coming down fromthe parkway on that that that
gravel road, right?
You start to go into a cornerand you have the braking butts
or the braking bumps or road uhrain ruts, right?
And so what do you do, right?
You grab your brakes, you tinchup, right?
Yeah, and you just turn intothis rigid structure and you're
going, this is no fun, youreyeballs are bouncing around
(30:55):
your head.
That's me.
And you feel like, hey, you feellike you're on marbles, right?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So there's always gonna be someaspect of that, varying speeds.
Uh, but when you put onsuspension, it changes
dramatically, where you can goin there and go, oh, you know
what?
I can stay on that line.
I don't feel like I'm gonna havemy tires wash out.
(31:15):
I have control, I'm not tensingup because you your body is your
best form of suspension.
Beyond any shock or fork you puton any bike, your arms and legs
are the best suspension for yourbody.
So when you lock up, and whichis natural, right?
You just freeze, uh holding ontight, that makes it worse.
The very thing you're trying toavoid, you're just compounding.
(31:36):
So when you have the fork, itactually snowballs the other
way.
You feel a little morecomfortable, you don't tense up.
Now you have your arms and legsproviding a suspension, and you
actually can carry your speedmore safely, controllably
through that corner and down thehill.
SPEAKER_01 (31:51):
Amazing.
Yeah.
Okay, that's the second thingfrom my list.
We've got the thud buster andthe invert.
Dang it, but we're gonna have tocut this episode off because all
of a sudden I'm gonna be in theNo, I'm just kidding.
All right, so uh we talked aboutthe the Experience Center, and I
don't want to kind of bypassthat because uh unfortunately I
wasn't able to make it to your30-year celebration and it was
in the Experience Center.
(32:12):
You were thoughtful to have meover and tour the plant, and it
is amazing, both and just how itsort of shares the whole story,
the color schemes, the productthat's out there, everything.
Tell me about the ExperienceCenter Doreen and who can come
in and when can they come in?
Check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (32:28):
The Experience Center was actually our old
cafeteria.
So the building was built, asBrent mentioned, in 74, 75.
And literally we had the tablesand chairs in there from 1974.
And over the past few years, wethought maybe we should open an
experience center somewhereelse, a little closer to trails.
And one of our employees said,Why don't we use the cafeteria?
(32:51):
It's 800 square feet of space,and nobody uses the cafeteria.
So we thought that was abrilliant idea.
So we transformed that cafeteriainto the experience center.
And what the experience centeris, is a museum of what we've
done over the last 50 years,along with a retail center,
along with a coffee bar.
(33:11):
And you can come into theexperience center Monday through
Friday from 8 a.m.
till 5 p.m.
Yeah, and that's what theExperience Center became.
And we actually had it happenedduring the hurricane that we
were doing this, and JoshWhitmore with Mountain Bike
Skills Factories actually camein and did some of the work for
us because he obviously couldn'twork out on the trails and he's
(33:34):
used to building things, so hecame in and helped us out with
the transformation.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Nice.
SPEAKER_02 (33:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:39):
Well, it tells a beautiful story.
Thanks.
Uh yeah, you're welcome from theaesthetics to the product that's
out there, and definitely forsomebody like myself or somebody
who may not be, you know, asversed in some of these high-end
alternative performancecomponents, it allows you to
really kind of dive in and kindof understand what this is all
about.
SPEAKER_02 (33:56):
Yeah.
And the gentleman that works inthe experience center is an
enthusiast of bicycle parts, andhe can tell you about anything
from A to Z.
Me, not so much.
I'm more of the I'll tell youwhy I don't want that, but I
can't tell you why it works sowell.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (34:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:13):
But he's also not just an enthusiast of parts,
he's an enthusiast of people.
He loves to try to findsolutions to people's problems
or or help them out.
I mean, he has patience to theend of time that I don't have.
unknown (34:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
So he's great at that.
I mean, you you can go intotraditional bike shops and find
someone knowledgeable, butyou're not getting helped.
SPEAKER_02 (34:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Right?
It's intimidating and it's adifferent language and so forth.
And the gentleman we're talkingabout, Craig, he's the opposite
that.
He is he's a Boy Scout.
Nice.
And he's fantastic at the at thejob.
But going back to the word youmentioned a moment ago,
understanding, we had been doingfactory tours for several years.
And people would come in andthey would see shocks being
(34:57):
built or forks being built, andthey really didn't know what
they were looking at.
All these small parts andsubassemblies.
And we also didn't have a way,if someone said, Hey, I want to
buy a shock or even a t-shirt,we didn't have a way to satisfy
that, right?
So that was another piece of theExperience Center was
encapsulating all we do outthere, and they can say, Oh,
that's what this is.
(35:17):
So you walk in the ExperienceCenter, you can see the
products, do the factory tool,or vice versa.
And we try to show how theproducts are used.
You know, I'm in gravel here,all the products that are apple
to gravel or mountain biking andso forth, in addition to the
history wall.
And the story I just told youabout the invert development, we
have that on a wall.
So you can see that original proone of the original prototypes
(35:40):
and some of the stages ofdevelopment on how we got to the
end product.
SPEAKER_01 (35:44):
I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And we don't have to go into afull thing about your your the
the inside of the shop, but oneof the things that really got my
attention was that once we leftthe experience center and we
started through that factorytour, we started to see these
little workspaces.
And even the people that wecould talk to in these
workspaces loved talking topeople.
They loved talking about theirproducts.
(36:06):
But one of the things thatreally stuck out to me and still
does is the fact that it wasn'ta machine that all these bits
and pieces were going through.
These were people who were justtrue craftsmanship.
Or that's what it was.
It was true craftsmanship.
It was an artisan sort ofapproach to this.
And it was really kind ofhands-on.
And I'm amazed at the amount ofproduct that you actually do
push out when it's notmass-produced, and you just
(36:27):
have, you know, all these peopledoing their little little bits.
But that part really kind of gotmy attention.
I thought this is truly custompeople who put their whole heart
and soul into what they'rebuilding.
SPEAKER_00 (36:38):
Yes, they're building one fork, one shock at
a time.
We do some prep and with thesubassemblies, but basically
they're built one at a time andthey're all calibrated.
Uh, we have these dynometerswhere you run a suspension fork
or shock on it to ensure that ithas the proper damping
characteristics withinparameters.
And we record that.
So we know when you buy a forkor shock, we record that damping
(37:03):
report with that serial number.
And two years later, five yearslater, you know, if there's an
issue or just for servicing, youknow, it comes back, we can go
back and look what it was likewhen it left.
Right.
You can't do that with the otherbrands.
Now, don't get me wrong, thosebig brands make great product
and it's great value.
Great value.
(37:23):
They also produce in one week10,000, you know, more than we
do in a year, right?
But ours are built one by oneand you know, but they have that
sp the spoke kind of feel tothem.
SPEAKER_01 (37:38):
I love it.
I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:40):
Yeah, we also get to do all our prototyping in-house.
Right?
I think you saw the machine inthe back, which we've only had
since the last year, actually,that new machine.
Our CNC gentleman is neverleaving.
He's happy with his new CNCmachine.
So yeah, all the prototypes aredone in-house so that they can
(38:01):
go back and forth from RD toprototyping really quickly.
SPEAKER_01 (38:05):
Nice.
So we're celebrating 30 years,but we've really been in this
space for 50 years.
When we think about the next 30years, or at least the
foreseeable future, and then youthink about the future of
cycling and Cane Creek's role inthat, what excites you the most?
SPEAKER_00 (38:24):
I think the next 30 years in America specifically uh
is uh is already out there forthe us to see, and that's what's
gone on in Central Europe forarguably a hundred years, right?
How cycling can actually go frombeing uh for the uh people of
means to play uh and compete tothe bicycle being a valued
(38:51):
utility for people to go toschool, to the shop, to work,
and infrastructure built aroundthat, uh both in the workplace
and riding to and from theworkplace or school to support
that.
And when you when you're inGermany or Switzerland or
Austria, the Netherlands, right,it's just uh all over the place.
(39:12):
And it's amazing.
By coincidence, you know, theytend to be healthier, they tend
to have higher scores on mentalwellness and so forth.
So that is there for us to see.
And organizations like Peoplefor Bikes, a U.S.
organization that's trying to toadvocate and support cycling
(39:34):
infrastructure and use inAmerica, you know, they look to
Europe as that model.
Right?
It's there in front of us.
And that's that's real promisinguh and very needed.
When I was a kid, we all rodeour bikes everywhere.
SPEAKER_01 (39:47):
Right.
That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
You just rode your bikes, and now if I see a kid
riding a bike somewhere in theneighborhood, I'm going, what's
wrong?
You know, where's the parent?
Is that safe?
And that's that's terrible.
SPEAKER_01 (39:59):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (40:00):
It's terrible.
When I live in Switzerland, Iwould ride to work in the
mornings or go out at lunch ridelunch and have a a short ride,
and I'd go through a littlevillage and I'd see four or five
little girls walking down thesidewalk with no adult inside.
And literally, I would stop andgo, Oh my gosh.
You know, somebody better callan adult.
But they're safe and securethere.
(40:21):
They've really invested in aninfrastructure.
And so to see that come back,potentially come back, and like
I mentioned earlier, the bikebus, that's that's a little
piece of it.
And then there are towns,Portland, to some extent,
Boulder, Austin are few thathave invested in that, and
you're starting to see thatopportunity present itself,
right?
(40:41):
So that's where the brightfuture lies in the US for
cycling, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (40:46):
Yeah.
I I would agree with all that,and I've experienced a little
bit of of that too, even justbeing in Europe, not the piece
about wondering, but just beinghaving the freedom and the
flexibility to go.
I lived in Spain, and it wasnothing for my mom to send me
with you know 25, 30 pesadas togo and buy bread at the market.
And I was like in the fourth andfifth grade.
Yep.
And I would go through thelittle villages in Spain, and
(41:07):
that's a core memory for me.
Like I will never forget that.
And uh also M Boulder had achance to kind of uh be there
last this time last year.
Uh Carson took me and just tosee how many people are actually
getting around, and that's theirmode of transportation was
amazing.
Um, from the little canyon roadinto town, all around town.
(41:30):
And then most recently, being inCharlotte, when I can ride from
South Charlotte all the way touptown and ride through
different neighborhoods anddifferent parks, y'all.
I mean, I was seeing things thatI had never seen before, and
that happens a lot when I'mriding the bikes, but but it was
community, it was people thatwas, you know, they were out and
they were all ages, and most ofthe people were actually on
(41:52):
bikes.
I mean, there were people whoare walking and jogging and
running, but most of the peoplewere on bikes, and I would love
to see that more.
I know even here inHendersonville, you know, we
have the Acusta Trail.
Yeah, and I can go down to youknow horseshoe right here by uh
cognitive and right across thestreet from cognitive and and
ride bikes down to my son'shouse and visit and then ride
home.
(42:14):
We have to do more.
Yeah, we really do.
SPEAKER_00 (42:17):
So on the opposite side of this innocence loss that
you you touched on, I justtouched on, right?
That we used to do this when wewere kids.
What we do have now that I seedid not have when I was a kid.
Yesterday I was finishing up amountain bike ride in Penn Creek
yesterday, and right before Icame out of Hard Times
Connectors, this couple wascoming my my direction.
(42:39):
And they were every bit of 75years old on regular mountain
bikes heading out for a ride.
When I was a kid, or even 20years ago, you would never see
that.
Okay.
Also, I don't know how manytimes we went riding, and to see
deep in the woods, out on inglesor something, a mom and her
12-year-old son and 10-year-olddaughter on mountain bikes.
(43:02):
Holy cow.
I tell you, if Martians wouldhave landed in 1975 in my yard,
that would have been easier tosee than my mom riding with her
sons out on a trail.
Yeah.
Right.
So while we don't have thatinnocence that we had, we do
have those things, right?
More people getting out to ride.
And participation studies timeand time again show that cycling
(43:26):
is now in the U.S.
at the highest level ever ofpeople just getting on a bike to
ride.
So that's very positive.
Love that.
But there's a lot of work to doin terms of infrastructure and
safety to make it moreaccommodating.
SPEAKER_01 (43:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, listen, y'all.
Um I have thoroughly enjoyedthis.
But before I I let you go, Ireally have to ask, is there
anything that we um that youwould love for listeners to know
that we haven't touched on?
SPEAKER_00 (43:51):
Well, we've talked about it, but I would just like
to to really crystallize.
We invite anybody to come by andvisit.
Okay.
Don't think that you've got tobe a cyclist, you've got to be a
racer or whatever.
If you've if you ride bicyclesfor whatever reason, right, come
by and visit.
I pretty much guarantee you'llfind it interesting and fun and
enlightening.
(44:12):
Um yeah, just come by and visit.
For sure.
SPEAKER_02 (44:15):
Yeah.
Our Experience Center, we'regoing to start doing some tech
talk Tuesdays, and we'll get Iride and lead a group called the
Silver Shredders.
And so we're going to do somecourses just for women.
I do a saddle workshop just forwomen.
So all the Experience Center isgoing to start having more
activities out of there.
So things for people to learnmore about their bicycles.
SPEAKER_01 (44:36):
Love that.
Yeah.
All right.
Where are you locatedphysically?
And then how can we find you onthe internet?
SPEAKER_02 (44:42):
We are located at 355 Cane Creek Road, right
across from Cane Creek Creek.
And you can find us atCaneCreek.com.
SPEAKER_01 (44:51):
Well, Doreen, I know it's taken us a couple of years.
I think the first time we hadthis conversation was the
Outdoor Economy Conference.
SPEAKER_02 (44:57):
Yep.
Two years ago.
SPEAKER_01 (44:58):
Two years ago.
Well, we did it, and uh, and Iappreciate you all taking the
trip down and certainlyappreciate your enthusiasm for
cycling and all things cyclingand the amazing components that
you all are producing.
SPEAKER_02 (45:11):
Thank you for having us.
We're excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (45:14):
Absolutely.
Thank you much, Mike.
My pleasure.
That was Cane Creek, celebrating30 years of curiosity, craft,
and rider first invention.
From Hall of Fame classics tonew breakthroughs like the
Invert Gravel Fork, their storyshows that paying attention to
riders and the trails never goesout of style.
(45:35):
Thank you for tuning in.
If this episode resonated,follow the show, share it with a
rider who could use more comfortand control, and leave a review
so others can discover it.
Follow me on Instagram andFacebook, drop me a note at mike
at explorationloc.com if youhave ideas for future episodes
or you just want to say hello.
And don't forget to subscribe soyou don't miss the next episode.
(45:58):
Well that's gonna do it for thisepisode.
As always, I encourage you towander far but explore local.
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