090 – Faction Bike Studio: The Secret Engineering Firm Behind Your Favorite Mountain Bikes (Guest: Adam Robbins) - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Josh (aka Magellan) (00:20):
Adam, you got something to tell us?

Adam Robbins (00:21):
Yeah, I got a little joke for you.
Go for it.
I got maybe even a question.
I got a little joke for you, um, go for it.
I get maybe in the questionwhat's a pirate's favorite
letter?
You guys think it would be r,but it's actually the c.

Dane (aka The Guru) (00:35):
I love it, I love it.
My problem with dad jokes is Ialways forget them, like I.
I have two memorized and that'sit, and you've told them three
times on this podcast.
Yeah, I'll tell them every time.

Well, I was at the public pool the other
day and I had to pee like so bad, like super bad, yep, and
finally I just gave in and Iwent down to the deep end and I
peed.

Nice.

I felt really guilty about it.
Unfortunately, the lifeguardsaw me and he blew his whistle
Like he blew it super hard.

Yeah.

He blew that whistle so loud it like
startled me and I almost fell inAll right, I like that one.

I was on the edge of my seat and I had
all kinds of ideas, but yep, youcaught me.

Yeah, I got you.
You actually laughed out loud.
You don't do that very often.
So that was good so that, well,some of them are just groaners.
You know, right, like reallybad.

You're like oh my god, yeah, so all right.

So we've got a like we're really excited
about this podcast.
Uh, recently it's been peoplecontacting us trying to get on
the podcast.
Yeah, um, this one we actuallyreached out to, to, to these
guys and we were like, we werelike super secret organization
super secret.
Like who the hell are you Likewe're on zoom right now.

People can't see this, but there's a
like a blacked out His voice hasbeen altered.

His voice has been altered.

We're changing his name to protect the
innocent.

Okay, we're not changing his name, so we're
with Adam Robbins.
Adam is a product manager, isthe product manager for Faction
Bike Studio.
They're based out of Granby,quebec Shout out to the Quebec
Nordiques for my NHL friendswhich is pretty close to Bromont
.
If you've heard of the BromontBike Park and what I mean, adam

(02:18):
will tell us a lot more but ourunderstanding of what Faction
Bike Studio is.
It's a cutting edge industrialdesign and engineering studio.
You can think of it as thecreative minds behind your next
bike Nice, established in 2010.
They've done since then 350projects, 100 plus customers, 33
engineers.
They do about 25 projects ayear, adam, how'd I do?

Yeah, you nailed it.
That's pretty accurate.

You guys can use that on your next video.

It's almost like I read it from their
website.

Fantastic, and a nice radio voice as well.

That's good stuff, yeah, we uh, we uh pride
ourselves on our sound qualityhere at the mountain cockpot.

Yeah, so that's part of it, great care.

We'll be doing a lot of work on
post-processing for this.
Uh, that's true For the zoomaudio here, but we'll make it
work.
So, hey man, how are you doingtoday?

Fantastic.
Yeah, thanks, doing well.
It's 9 o'clock at night rightnow, but it's fantastic.
It's getting dark, we're inthat time of the year, but
spirits are high and happy to bechatting with you guys.

What time does it get dark?

there.
Oh, right now we're likemid-November and it's about, I'd
say, just after 4 o'clock.

Oh my God, Jesus Christ, because they're
north yeah.

Yeah, so as you go north, you get less sun.
You may be interested in thepodcast that we publish right
before you, which is withOutbound lights.
If you're familiar withoutbound, uh, we're really
stoked on on like their designsand what they're doing and uh,
actually I just ordered a coupleof their hangover lights from
Dane.
Did you order them?
Did you get them yet?

Awesome.
I don't know if they're hereyet, but Ben controls the
inventory.

Yeah, so shout out to outbound,
especially if you're riding atnight.
Um, how, how long do you guysride Like?

like, how long do you guys ride?
Like like how long into the,into the, into the late fall,
early winter, do you guys ride?
I guess it depends how eageryou are to get out there and
riding.
I guess for myself and a coupleother, I guess, core riders,
we'll kind of push it as much aswe can the entire year.
Uh, actually last winter wewere able to get out for at
least a weekend during everymonth of the year, which, for
being in Quebec, canada, is apretty rare, but there's a
couple of warm days, so we'llpush it.

(04:29):
I mean, it's super muddy, theconditions are horrible, but uh,
we make the most of it and uh,yeah, we're, we're core riders,
we love it and uh, we want toride as much as we can.

I saw you guys do a snow bike or did one
at one point.
Do you guys do a snow bike ordid one at one point?
Do you guys do a lot of fatbike, snow biking?

yeah, there's definitely a pretty big interest
in that.
Um, it's kind of an interestingone really.
Some people either love fatbikes or they're not into it at
all.
Um, so it's really hit or miss.
Um, a lot of the employees atfaction are super into it and
others maybe myself includingmight not be the most, but uh,

(05:05):
now they they're cool.
They definitely have a purposeand, yeah, they're there.
Any bike is cool, but yeah,they got their place.

It's crazy we're down in the desert and we
actually get little waves ofsnow bike.
You know purchases because theywork in sand.
And so they change all the drywashes into a trail system.
Uh, so you can float on thesand and ride it just like you
were in snow.

You might need to explain what a wash is
to our friend from quebec hereoh yeah, you're right, he's
actually not from quebec.
If I remember correctly, you'refrom ontario.
Ontario, do I have?

yeah yeah, washes here in the desert when
it rains, it'll channel thewater down into the little
gullies in between each littlefoothill or you know whatever,
and and it'll basically move thedirt around and create sand and
then it'll dry up.
So once it's dry, it's just asand pathway at that at that

(05:59):
point, and so you can kind ofconnect those cause, just like
tributaries, you know you can,you can basically ride your bike
all over the place and connectall those little things.

I mean the bottom line is like our rivers
are dry like 340 days a year.

And we still call them rivers.

We can still call them rivers, and so
it's just a sand river with nowater in it that we ride in, and
they use fat bikes for that.

Yeah, it's, it's crazy.

I was up in Anchorage, Anchorage, uh, last
summer visiting a buddy of mineand we went out to ride.
By the way, Anchorage has gotlike fucking amazing riding you
wouldn't think it but it's, it'slike really good, yeah, and
cause they only had, like Idon't know, six weeks or
something a year where they canride but it's light out for 24.

So I rode the fat bike, you know, just in
like in the summertime, it wasawful.
Yeah, they're like balloontires.
Yeah, it was bouncingeverywhere.

I was like what in the hell is going?

on here.
It's pretty crazy.

All right, so let's put in the back burner,
like the horrible conditionsthat you have, because we have
an idea for Faction Bike Studio.

Yes, cause we have an idea for faction bike
studio that we'll bring uplater on in the podcast to help
you guys fix that problem.

That serious problem of your awful
weather in the winter.
Um, okay, so so, uh, let metell a little story Like why the
hell did we reach out tofaction?
Go for it.
So, um, Dane and I went up topivot.
I work for a major defensecompany, that defense and Adam,
you've heard this story before.
But uh, my company has just inmy business unit, not company

(07:31):
wide, but just in my business,and we have 20,000 engineers.
And we went up and we met withpivot and they had a like single
digit number of engineers.
I think it's fine, yeah, it wasa really small number and I had
expected to see like anengineering department of like
50.

Yeah.

That's probably like way wrong and I
and and when they had thissingle digit number out, it just
like shook me.
I was like what in the heck?
Like, how do you guys, how doesthe bike industry if this is
the size of the engineeringdepartment for this amazing
company?
I think Pivot's an amazingcompany, puts out amazing
products really well yeah, howthe hell do you guys do this?

(08:09):
Yeah, and and then you startlooking at some of the other
companies that are out there,like, oh my god, how do you do
this?
And then we saw a post, or I sawa post from Danger Home about
the titanium.
We'll talk about this, but thetitanium printed um, uh,
derailleur, yeah.
And he said I worked withFaction Bike Studios.
I'm like who the hell's studio?
So I got you know, sucked intolike the rabbit hole and was
like researching this.
And I was like oh, there's likethis, like secret engineering

(08:31):
firm and maybe a few of themthat are like helping the bike
industry companies like designand factions, one of them.
So I I sent him a cold email tosay hey, I, you know you've
never heard heard of us before,but we're this little podcast in
the southwest.
We'd love to talk to you guysand bring like what you do to
our audience.
So I sent him an email and adamwrote me back and he's like hey

(08:53):
, yeah, but I need to talk toyou first did you sign an nda?
I did.
I did not sign an nda, okay,but I don't know anything.
Yeah, I don't know anything.
Okay, all right that I wouldneed to sign an.

NDA.
I mean is, if you know, do weneed to be worried that people
are going to show up in likelimousine or not limousine?

and like helicopters dark black, black
suits black.
Are the men in black going toshow up if we say the wrong
thing?
He's going to flash a littlething.
Had a great conversation withadam super cool dude so at adam,
what so?

what is?
What is the?
The plan?
Like what?

is your.
What is faction bikes?

yeah, what is the business concept like?
What's the idea behind it?

yeah, so I guess yeah, I guess he somewhat
touched on it in the littleintro, but I'll try and give you
a bit more detail on it.
So, uh, eric oj, he's thefounder of faction and, uh, he
started off earlier in hiscareer working up at DaVinci, so
Cycles DaVinci up in Quebec,and he actually started the R&D
department at DaVinci.
So that was kind of a reallycool job and it was really

(09:56):
really big, like that's supercool.
But Eric also had this ideathat he wanted to support other
players in the bike industry sothat everyone who can ride a
bike has the ability to ride agood bike.
That's what he wanted.
So at that time he kind of leftda vinci and started faction.
So I guess just before he left,he started to like drum up some

(10:16):
clients and get some peoplethat are interested to kind of
grow and expand their like smallbike businesses, um.
So that kind of developed andthen he's like, okay, we're
going to start faction.
So then faction became itsthing and that was 2010.
So since then, like youmentioned, we've worked on over
350 projects, um, and we've hadover a hundred clients and, yeah

(10:40):
, it's ever changing, we onlywork on bikes.
So that's one thing that'sreally specific to faction as
well.
Um, there are a couple othercompetitors that do similar
stuff to us, but faction is theonly bike specific engineer
design firm in the world.
Um, so that's one thing thatwe're proud about and that you
know, we want everyone to knowabout not really everyone, but

(11:00):
the right people, so to speak,since we are pretty soon, so
that you know.

so that gets me to my next question,
which is what is the, the clientthat you guys are looking for?
Who, who's most likely to cometo a faction and say, hey, we
need your help?
Like, is it going to be a trekor a specialized, or is it going
to be somebody tiny, um, youknow, like nico, you know, is it
like?

let's, let's, let's, let's make a
ground rule that we don'tmention specific companies.

Yeah.

Well.
I can say it'd be a bigestablished company or is it
going to be a small, small saytrack?
Okay.

Yeah, it's not yeah.
But I'm just saying it is atrack like organization, like
big one, you know.

Yeah for sure, but no, it can be absolutely
anybody.
So it could be the big topplayers, it could be a track, it
could be a specialized and itcould be like even just the guy
that's starting a newer brandand he's interested and he sees
potential.
We're open to anything.
So it's really cool and itdoesn't have to be just complete
bikes.
It can be components, like itcould be, like we saw with

(12:00):
danger home.
It could be a specificderailleur.
We're really open to exploreand and like kind of just dive
in.
So anything bikes were there tosupport any size.

Make bikes and all things for bikes.

Yeah, you said that exactly yeah.
Like I saw the fat bike designsand they had like an integrated
like heating system in the bar,like all kinds of stuff, like
no shit.
Yeah, it's kind of cool, youknow, and and that's a big deal.

We don kinds of stuff like uh, no shit,
yeah it's, it's kind of cool,you know, and and that's a big
deal.

We don't have to deal with that here, but
we need to integrate fat bikesin general integrated cooling
system.

Yeah, we yeah, internal like uh, ac built
into the bike, bicycle airconditioning would be great.
So so, like, why the discretion?
Why are you guys, why did youestablish like to be a behind
the scenes company to let I, Ithink, as you guys say, let your
let your clients like shine inthe spotlight.
Why not, you know, be more outin the open about what you guys
do?

Yeah, no, that's a good question for sure.
It's definitely a question thatcomes up a lot here at faction
Um.
A lot of times people are justthey're curious and they're like
, well, you guys do really coolstuff, so why don't you like
tell everyone, but we all, youhave to put yourself in the in
the shoes of the client.
So let's say, we're working forbrand X and they're like a
medium sized brand and they wantto make some really cool bikes,

(13:15):
but they want their brand andtheir name to be like the
spotlight and if everyone knowsthat someone else has made their
bikes, it kind of takes therecognition away from that brand
to some sort of degree.
So we want those brands thatit's their brand.
They've put in the hard work,they put in the hours and we

(13:36):
could help them and do theentire project.
But we like to think ofourselves as an extension of
their, their team.
So we're going to work withtheir engineers, we're going to
work with their designers, theirproduct developers.
We're going to support theirideas to make their brand and
their products bloom.
So that's why we let them takefull credit and we're just there

(13:56):
to support.
We learn from all the differentprojects that we do and we just
take the expertise and the goodpoints.
And we can not directly givethose secrets to the other
brands, but just take theexpertise and, like, the good
points and we can kind of notdirectly give those secrets to
the other brands, but just takewhat we learned and add that
together.
So at the end of the dayeveryone's getting really good
products and everyone's going tohave a good time out on the
bike.

How does that work?
So if you guys developsomething, is there a patenting
process or do you guys get toown that design?

Do you own any of the patents, or do the
major brands own the patentsthat you guys work on, so they
all still own everything.

So we're just considered like the contractor,
so we just do the work and thenthey are left with everything at
the end.
So we just step in supportwhile they need our support and
then at the end they're leftwith all the work that we
supported them with.

And you get the knowledge of the process
and the efficiencies that youcan use going forward from that.
So like, yeah, I'm going to ask.

I'm going to ask a super detailed question
now and I'm going to pull on myexperience like with uh, with,
you know, intellectual propertyand ownership.
So, like, the way that it worksis that whoever actually did
the design owns the intellectualproperty.
Okay, unless there's a term andcondition in the agreement
between two parties that wouldindicate that another party owns

(15:09):
the intellectual property.
So is that what you guys do?
Is you're in your TNCs, you'relike listen, we're going to
partner with you guys, you guysare going to pay us, you guys,
you guys get, get, get you know,exclusive rights to the
intellectual property that wehelp you design.

Yeah, yeah, simply , that's a.
That's how it's going to work,so you have to spell all that
out.

That's in the terms and conditions of the
agreement, for sure that makessense.

Yeah, we have a pretty good legal team as well
and they they make a nice goodsize contract there and it's all
.
It's all in there.
So it's quite nicely.

So you guys design this business to like to
help out companies, for themost part exactly like, uh, you
know, I think about somecompanies.
They maybe have their in-houseengineering team who is is
always there and always beingpaid for.
By the way, you know, coststhat that company money, yeah,
but maybe doesn't have as manyprojects to do, and so you guys

(16:01):
can kind of fill the gap forcompanies that don't want that
full-time staff and help themget a project out and then they
can focus more on getting itmanufactured and distributed and
sold.
So so they can.

Yeah, so really any any step of the process.
I mean some, some brands.
They might not have all theresources to to do a full
project from A to Z, so we cancome in and just do a portion of
it.
Let's say they need help toindustrialize it, they need help
to pick a new factory or theyjust need to do some FBA testing
.
We can do any of those andreally pinpoint where we need to

(16:35):
support.
Or we could do an entireproject.
So it really just depends onthe client and what they're
looking to get out of it.
But that's one thing that wealways like to make a point of
is that we can we're just anextension of the internal team.
So for that project we are apart of their brand and we
follow their rules.
You know we're, we're a part ofthem, so that's that's really

(16:57):
unique.
And it's not like we take theproject by ourself and make it
unique and make it somethingthat we think is good, like
obviously we're going to put ourour touch to it, our special
touch, but um, it does.
It does come from the brand, sothat brand is staying true to
their values.

That is cool and, like you said, there's
not a lot of, uh, directcompetition.
It does just bikes.
But is this a common thing inengineering, that you have these
engineering firms that thatkind of design, for, yeah, they
basically go Absolutely it is.

Yeah, okay, it is absolutely.

So that's really cool.
I mean, I mentioned thispodcast to one of the main guys
at Pivot and I said, hey, haveyou heard of these guys?
And he's like no.
I haven't.
And then we discussed it andwhat he you know sussed, you
know, is basically this is Sussis like Gen Z for like suspected

(17:49):
or something like that.
Wait, you should know, you'relike a younger guy.
My son says that what does?

suss mean let's help educate our older
listeners here.

Suspect.
I think it's suspect.
Yeah, that's pretty wellaccurate or sussed it out.
When you say I sussed that out,that's pretty well accurate,
okay, yeah, or?

sussed it out.
When you say I sussed that out,that's like 19,.
That's like 1810 language rightthere, yeah, well, that's
Sussed it out.

Yeah, you sussed it out.
What is that short for?
I don't even know.

I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know either.

But he suspected.
He suspected that it's thein-house engineering.

They want to be more efficient, you know
and they don't have theinfrastructure to do it.

Yeah, or or or.
Like I, I brought up a.
You know we worked with feltfor a while and when felt first
started bringing out theirmountain bikes they had they
brought in a mountain engineer.
You go see them and you know Iwas.
I was at felt and I was lookingat the engineering team and
there's one guy that had hairylegs and I'm like that's, that's
the mountain bike, sure enoughthat was him.

But, adam, you said, it's not just new
companies, it's also likeestablished, like mainstream
companies that you guys, maybethey want to spruce up their
looks or they need some fresheyes, or something like that.

Yeah, Like there's many different ways that people
want to kind of connect with usand work with us.
Um, and a lot of people knowthat we have a lot of expertise.
We've been doing this for awhile and even touched on the
fact that you just mentioned.
Like I felt, if the guys onlyhave only like one dude had hair
on his legs like with ourdiverse engineers and designers,
like some people are expertsfor road bikes, are experts in

(19:24):
mountain bikes.
So when we all collaboratetogether, like it's really cool
because you're pulling aspectsfrom other disciplines and
they're and you're merging thatand like everything just
interconnects and it gives likea really cool result in the end.
So you're not just having amountain biker doing a road
frame or even just a mountainbiker doing another mountain
bike.
Yeah, you need these like likecreative sessions where like

(19:47):
everything's flowing togetherand you end up with really
really unique and cool projects.
That's awesome.

Adam, as a product engineer and I know you
warned us and for our listeners,we're going to do a second
episode with faction.
We're going to bring in your,your top research and design guy
.
Is it Simon or Simone?
What's the right way to saythat?

Simone would be French, so that's I guess.
But we can go with Simon.
He'll go by Simon as well, soit can go either way.

Okay, he won't get mad at us, I'm a
linguist so I like to use theproper language.
If his name is Simone, weshould call him Simone.
So we'll bring in Simone andwe'll get like deep into
technology.
But like from your perspectiveyou said that faction can come
in and help at any part of thefrom from you know, concept to
it's in production.
Can you talk us through likewhat that from your perspective,

(20:37):
like what that process is?
Just talk through that wholeprocess, like the steps from
concept all the way toproduction.

Yeah, for sure I'll keep it somewhat brief,
just so we don't sell like allour secrets.
We can like.
We could take someone's likenapkin drawing, um, and be like
hey, like faction, can youcreate this?
So we can take that and kind ofgo through the entire process
and it's actually kind of cool.
So, even if you go on to like Ithink right now it's on danger

(21:04):
homesomes Instagram with thederailleur so it's a pretty good
example that you can kind ofget like a visual representation
.
So it'll kind of start out justas like sketches and drawings.
That's where, like the ID teamcan start and once it does that,
they'll start to do some modelsand like actually make it.
So I think for the derailleur,the ID team was really starting
to make this with like foam.

(21:25):
So they would just Dremel out awhole bunch of pieces of foam
and they could make the shapes.
Just because it's around thesame size, it can be pretty
handheld.
So that was like step two andthen step just to stop your
ideas.

Industrial design Okay, oh yes, correct,
perfect yeah.

Yeah, so once you have like it kind of created in
like a foam model or it can beany sort of material, but for
this case we did it in foam andthen the guys also put this into
their, their solid works andthey can kind of create like a
really nice 3D and that works asa computer aided drafting
software program Correct.

Correct software program correct,
correct, like engineers use.
So all the products that youhave in your house or that you
use in your life, or bikes, orwhatever you know.
We're, we're, we're.
We're at some point drafted andput into a computer model, a
CAD model in solid works, Ithink is it's probably the most
popular engineering tool.

That one in AutoCAD right.

Yeah, for sure, autocad Am.
Am I showing my age again?
It's old.
I'm showing my age again.

Okay, Keep going man For sure.

So yeah, so they'll create the 3D up in
there.
And then really cool is when wewere making the derailleur, we
got to work with Trump, sothey're a German like printing.
They do a lot of of really coolstuff.

Yeah, let's make sure for our American
listeners.

Yeah, that's Trump with an F at the
end.

Okay, Keep going, yeah, so, yeah that
clears things up, but there's.

So they agreed to print this in titanium.
So that's something that dangerhome has been really interested
in for quite a while.
So to be able to print theseparts of the derailleur in
titanium was really cool andreally unique and we wanted to
make it as wow as possible soyou're getting to the
prototyping stage and using thedigital printers to do that?

yeah, for sure yeah.

So that's kind of one way how we can do it.
So I guess for our prototype itcame out and it was a bit more
just plastic 3d printed, andthen for the actual production
one that danger home has on thebike is when it went to 3d
printing, 3d titanium printing.
So that's kind of a bit of theprocess.
So it comes from like a concept, an idea, and you get into a
bit more of like the prototypingstage and then we can go into

(23:34):
the industrialization of it.
So a couple different steps andit's somewhat similar for most
of the projects, but that one isuh, kind of what is the term?

Josh (aka Mag (23:43):
industrialization mean.

Oh, thank you, I needed that Industrial
engineer.
I hear that a lot and I'm notreally sure.

But that's different than industrial, so
maybe you need to define both.
What is an industrial engineer?

Let's start with that what is an industrial
engineer?

Like what's industrial engineer?
So we have industrial designersand we have our engineers.
Okay, so they almost run likethey.
They do run parallel with eachother, but they're still kind of
in their own field.
Okay.
So the engineers will kind ofcome up with, like, the geometry
of the bikes and then theindustrial designers will take
that geometry and make theshapes of the tubing and, um,

(24:18):
like the shapes of the bike.
So they collaborate together tocome up with the final version
of a bike or a component.

The way I like to think about it is that
the industrial designers orindustrial engineers do the form
and the engineers do thefunction.

Okay, but what makes it industrial and not
just a designer?

It's just the term.
It's just the term.
I don't think.
I think you could use the termdesigner and it would be the
same.

Like a designer can do a concept, like
you said, like a napkin drawingor you know, do the sketching
and like make it look all cool.
You see that you know in carsand concept cars and stuff like
that.
And then is the industrialdesigner?
Is he actually or she?

he makes it look cool just the engineer
makes it work.
Okay, yeah, how do you agree,adam?

yeah, yeah, that's pretty accurate yeah yeah, and
I guess the designer as well.
They have a pretty goodunderstanding of the materials
that they're working with.
So I think that also kind ofelevates their game a little bit
.
So it's not just like they'reworking with fabrics or
something, they're also workingwith metals and carbons and
different materials.
That kind of I guess elevatestheir game.
And carbons and differentmaterials that kind of I guess

(25:23):
elevates their game Okay.

Yeah, like one of the things we talk about
a lot in.
That's super important for theguys that are focused on the
form, like waste, the waysomething looks to understand,
like what the art of thepossible is.

Yeah.

And we do something we call DFMA design
for manufacturing andaffordability, or design for
manufacturing assembly.
So like can it actually be made?
Yeah, Like is theremanufacturing processes out
there that can make?

the design that you just drew on this
napkin.
Yeah, yeah, or is it likeimpossible?
So it's not like an MC Escherdrawing you know that isn't.

Well yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, for sure,
that's my layman's way ofwrapping my head around this
stuff is is to think likeexamples of you know, you know
something that you can writedown and make on paper, but it
can't actually physically happen, you know so like you know, we
had these concepts and we kindof knew forever and I won't get
into too many details abouthypersonic weapons, like

(26:14):
hypersonics, like you know,beyond supersonic, like beyond
Mach four, super fast, and untiladditive manufacturing came
around or digital printing right, which is the same way that
Nico made that derailer, nico.

Nico.

Nico Trump.
Trump printed it with help fromfaction.

Yeah Is a danger home.
Yeah, for danger home.
What did I say?
I said, nico, my bad.
Um this is why we have notes.

This is why we have notes right now, we
couldn't make that hypersonicsystem work because the
manufacturing techniques didn'texist.
Yeah, and with digital printingthe manufacturing techniques
existed and we could make theflow pass that we needed to
create a hypersonic weapon.

Nice, okay, all right, so you can come up
with a concept that the scienceworks, but unless you can
actually make it, it doesn'tmatter.

Yeah, so industrial designers or
designers or industrialengineers, they make it, it
doesn't matter.
Yeah, so industrial designersor designers or industrial
engineers, they make it lookgood.
What does industrializationmean?

okay so that would be taking it from like one
singular one and kind of makingit like mass-produced, kind of
making it go out to thefactories and, you know,
starting to actually sell thisas a product and make it a bit
more mainstream and streamlineit.

So do you guys have relationships?
And understanding of thefabricators throughout the world
.
Bicycle fabricators.

Yeah, exactly so we have our engineering team.
They make countless trips toAsia, in Asia.
But for all of the uh, like thecontracts and the clients that
we do have, we will make, likevery often we'll make trips to
Asia to visit the factories, towork closely with them, um to
make sure that the processes areworking correctly and

(27:56):
everything that we're designingis coming out true and accurate,
um, so, to kind of holdeverything accountable and just
make sure that everything'sworking well.
So, over the years, with allthese trips, we've gathered a
pretty big list of people thatmake really cool products and,
um, it's just a good way to keepeveryone in check and, um, when
new clients want to have a newfactory, um, we can suggest the

(28:19):
best fit for them.
So it's a, it makes it reallycool and makes it really unique.

That's has a lot of value to you guys too,
right?
That just cuts a lot of cornersfor somebody trying to figure
all that stuff out themselves.

Oh for sure .
Yeah, you can't talk about yourclients, but can you talk about
the suppliers at all, or areyou restricted from talking
about that as well?

Yeah, somewhat.
I mean, I guess a lot of timesit'll kind of come back to like
the client that we're workingwith, but yeah, they're spread
out kind of everywhere in theworld, so it is really cool.
Age is definitely still one ofthe hot spots.
That's where a lot of stuff'sgoing on.

So two questions like who are your top
three favorite factories in theworld to make bikes?

Oh, I don't know if we can name out our favorites
, that's not a bit of a question?

Yeah, because second and third are
going to fight.

And it really does depend on the product that's
being created.
So definitely some factoriesand suppliers and vendors can
really be specific and makereally good parts in a specific
aspect and others are betterthan others.
So it really just depends onwhat we're trying to create and
others are better than others.
So it really just depends onwhat we're trying to create.

(29:28):
And then even brands havespecific vendors and clients and
factories that they like towork with.
They have good relationshipsalready so we'll try and work
with that to keep thatrelationship going.

Adam, can I ask you a totally unfair
question?

Yeah, yeah.

One that I can almost guarantee you may
have never gotten.
But if I urge, my two passions,which is my strategy job in
defense and my love of, of allthings, mountain bikes.
I believe that China is goingto invade Taiwan Potentially.

I guess we'll wait and see.

And take that over.
I believe it's a foregoneconclusion.
It's going to happen.
So, based on the amount of thedependence that the bicycle
industry has on Taiwan, do youthink the bike companies have
any contingency plan to dealwith that if that actually
happens?

Yeah, I think so.
It's definitely a hot topic anda lot of people are talking
about it and, just from whatwe've been seeing, a lot of
people are moving into Vietnamand Cambodia.
Okay, right on, seems to be apretty big shift.
So people are definitelyprepared about it.
And, yeah, people are alwayslooking for good options and not
everyone has just one factory,so like one bike and one model,

(30:37):
or the same model, could be madeat two or three different
factories.
So brands are quite spread outand they don't put all their
eggs in one basket, so to speak.

That's good to hear, man.
I really thought I was going tostump you with that and you're
like no man, everyone's talkingabout that.

You have not come up with a unique question at all
.
No, it's definitely a goodtopic for sure, and I was just
over in Taiwan for Bike Week.

That was pretty recent, and yeah, it's
just good to see the.

Taipei Bike Show.
This was pretty recent and, um,yeah, it's just the taipei bike
show.
Uh, this one was like tai chung, so tai chung bike week, okay.
So it's kind of like the thefall time show, okay, and then
they also have taipei cycle show, which is in in the springtime
okay nice yeah, right on, allright, so we would like to.

Um well so we talked about danger home we
talked a little bit before weget to the specific projects.
So so we talked about like thewhole process.

Yeah.

And like you guys say hey, listen, we do
engineering support, we doprototype and test and we do
finite element analysis.
Can you talk us through, likewhat you guys do in those three
buckets?

Yeah, for sure.
I guess we could start just onlike an FEA finite element
analysis to start off with.
So this one here is actuallyreally unique as well and pretty
cool because we've kind of donethis publicly with nico mulely
from frameworks racing.
So that's like a I guess, aneasy one to speak about and
people can kind of get a bit ofa like a live view if you go up

(32:01):
on I think it's on nico mulely'syoutube channel we've done an
episode with him on there andessentially an FEA element
analysis.
It's just where you can put theframe into a computer program
and you can run tests and seewhat the frame is going to do
over a period of time and seewhere hotspots are, so where it

(32:21):
could fatigue, where it couldbreak, and just learn about the
frame and where you can make itstronger, stiffer and better.

But this is more than just an analysis,
right, you guys are actuallyputting sensors on the frame,
taking it out and having itwritten and then bringing that
data back from from, like actualwriting.
It's not just that's myunderstanding, right?
Not just simulation, and thenrunning all kinds of I'm sure
computational fluid analysis,analysis, right, to see what

(32:49):
happens.
They run through, like when Isay computational fluid analysis
, like a Monte Carlo simulationwhere you're running through
like thousands and thousands ofiterations and based on the data
that we've collected in thisreal test where we've got Nico
on the mountain riding down, Ican test the different stress
points.
I could run that through andsay, okay, 3% of the time this
joint is going to fail.

Yeah, yeah.
So what is cool about that thatyou mentioned?
It is typically we can just doan FEA.
That's just on the computer andit's just in the program, so
that's kind of like the simplest, easiest way.
But with Nico, that'sspecifically we've kind of taken
it to the next level, becausenico and then ace of vermet is
also on frameworks.
So we brought both of them tobromont, which is 15 minutes

(33:33):
away from our office, and we didsome real life testing.
But what makes it really uniqueis that these are some of the
fastest riders in the world andthey're putting some of the
harshest forces through bicycles.
Like no one's gonna be puttingmore effort into bikes than some
of the top pros.
So now that we can record theirdata and all the forces that

(33:54):
they put in to these bikes andwe didn't test it on just like a
simple track, we tested it inthe Bromont world cup track,
which was a world cup in 2008and 2009.
So it's a pretty gnarly coursewith some of the fastest riders
on the planet and with all ofthese forces and numbers we can
then update all the standardsfor our projects at faction.

(34:16):
So there's like iso standards,which are basically just four
standards that people need tomake their bikes like accustomed
to so that they can.
They're not going to break.
But these standards might notnecessarily be the highest and,
like you or I, could just goride down the street and if we
try some jumps or whatnot, wecould potentially try and get

(34:39):
them to break.
But now that we've tested withnico and asa and we have all of
these forces backed up, we canupdate our standards so we know
how much force like the highest,like the most aggressive riders
in the world are putting ontothese bikes.
So all of that data gets backedup into our system.
So for all the future projectswe work on, we have a really

(35:01):
good gold standard that we knowis quite accurate and general
people who ride bikes evenreally good athletes and riders
pushing their levels, they'reprobably not going to get to
these values.
So that's one way that we'vekind of taken our FEA analysis
and then given real worldtesting at a really high level
to support what we're doing inthe computer software.

So it's almost like a collaborative uh
you know project where you'rehelping him but he's also giving
you more data that you can usein the future on other projects.

And that's yeah.

And that's just good learning.
I mean, that's great learning.
But that doesn't always happen.
If you're an in-house brand andyou don't have that that uh
ability to go and touch allthese other different brands.

So you mentioned ISO and I feel like we
should probably double click onthat for a minute for our
listeners.
So like I'm on Wikipedia rightnow, make sure I don't screw
this up.

So that's the editing it, the
international.
I'm not, I'm not, I'm notediting it.

Okay, but ISO is an international
organization for standardizationand effectively.

Oh my God, I wish the bike industry would
do all of that Like can you guyswork on that?
So?

basically like what.
What the ISO standards say islike like these are the basic
design parameters that a bicycleshould survive, like you know.
Okay, it should be able to dothis you know like like go over
this bump.
Go, be able to go this fast,not you know those type of
things.
And so like and I think whatAdam's pointing out is that the

(36:32):
ISO standards, like if taken tothe extreme, you could still
like destroy your frame.

So this is why you would see a bike at
Walmart that says that's amountain bike.
Clearly looks like a mountainbike.

Has to be built to the ISO 9000 or or
whatever.

But it'll have a sticker that'll say not
for off-road use could be.
You know they're.

They're building it, it's it's mountain
bike shaped object, but it's nota real mountain bike, you know
and I think what you're sayingis that you guys help the
clients that you work with, gobeyond the iso standards to a
level of design that makes theproduct well below If you
consider, like the ISO standards, like the floor of, like the
bike should be, or the productshould be the survivable.
Yeah, you guys go beyond that.

(37:14):
Yeah, do I have that?

Yeah, yeah, no, you got that right.
And like a lot of people too.
Well, almost everyone wants tohave a strong bike that isn't
going to break, but they alsowant a bike that's going to be
light.
So by maximizing our testresults with Nico and Asa
because we know not many peopleare going to put out more forces
than that Um, so taking all ofthat, we can then kind of take

(37:38):
the perfect balance of having areally strong bike but then also
maximizing, like the weight, orlike keeping the weight as
minimal as possible.
So we're really having thatgood balancing act to create a
product that's really strong weknow that's almost never going
to fail and is extremely light.
So we're really maximizing bothof those categories.

If you look at the three categories, right.
If you look at strength, weightand price, it feels like the
bike industry has just forgottenabout price.
What do you think about?

that.
Well, it's pick two right.

That's like the old saying Pick strength
and weight.

Yeah, and we say that in the shop all the
time.
Do you want it strong, do youwant it light or do you want it
cheap?
Pick two, and you can usuallypick two.
It's hard to get all three,really hard to get all three,
unless you buy Shimano or no.

Don't start start.
Don't start with me.
We have adam.
You don't know this.
We have an ongoing debate aboutshimano josh versus shram dane
so so josh has an ongoing debate.

He keeps trying to push shimano.

I love them both you know, because you own
a bike shop and you have to lovethem both.

I will tell you that I'm not, like, I'm not
a huge lover of trp, but that'sreally because I haven't used
them, or MicroShift, becauseit's a little lower than my
caliber.

Let's ask Adam, adam, how many bikes do
you have?
I know you got a GT Fury.
How many bikes you got rightnow?

Right, now I probably have one, two, three,
four.

I think I got five bikes.

Five bikes Are they all mountain bikes or
are they a mixture?

No, I be a mountain bike.
Yeah, they're all mountainbikes or a gravel bike.
Okay, on the mountain bikes.

So what do you so?
What?
What component groups do youhave on those bikes?
So?
So I guess I'm a little biased.
So I have been an ambassadorfor gt for quite a long time,
okay, so I do have some supportfrom them.
Um, so almost all my parts arekind of like ambassador style
components like would that bestock, more stock.
You know like what comes on thebike or so I, I get frames from
gt, so that's like supersupportive, and then I get

(39:36):
support from gt to get othercomponents, so it's already kind
of somewhat pre-selected for me, sure?
Um, so I, I guess I I haven'treally chosen all of my
components, it's more or lessjust.

So what you're saying is you're not
going to tell us the answer.
No, you can tell us.
There's nothing wrong with that.

But you're just saying that if there's a
little bias that steers you to acertain part, it may not be
your personal preference.

So what are the components on your bike.
Do you have SRAM or Shimano?

Yeah.

So my bikes , they're all shram, yeah, yeah,
it's because yeah, I can tellyou're a smart guy, but uh, oh,
I was gonna say this is the endof the podcast.
It's nice talking to you.

I don't talk to you later now, uh, tell
me this we just, we just did ourepisode, we just dropped it on
electric in the bike and yeah,do you have any electronic?

I do not actually.
No, it's all mechanical, no way, yeah, so you're running
mountain SRAM and you don't haveaccess yes wow, what level do
you have?

are you running like a gx?

or gx, gx, yeah.

I mean, and if I read into what he said,
it's kind of like gt, here's agt.
We build them this way.
We want people to buy them thisway.
Please write ride it this way.
Is that?
Is that fair, you know?

to some degree for sure, I think the big thing.
So GT has been a supporter, asI mentioned to me for a little
while, and um, just where theycan support me on getting
component, yeah, it turns outthat Tram has been able to
support on that Um.
But I guess I'd have no, like Ihave no affiliation with
components, it's just kind ofwhat's available and accessible

(41:12):
to me Um, but I would have noissue to run other other
components and other brands Um.
I think that's a lot of itreally comes down to what people
get comfortable and used to Umlike.
For myself too, I've writtentram shifters and brakes for
quite a long time, so for methose are comfort points, um,
not to say that I could hop onShimano stuff and feel horrible

(41:33):
for a year.
I think I would get used to itand I think I could easily adapt
Um.
So I think a lot of it justcomes down to personal
preference and from what I'veseen just from the work side of
things, I don't think there'scomponents out there that I
could have a bad time on.
I think everyone.

I got to tell you this guy, for being a
young guy you have got thepolitics of this whole thing
down like really well.

I'm super impressed, but he does point on
something that we talked aboutin a podcast, where we talked
about it's frustrating, if youhave multiple bikes, to mix your
groups, because you do havelike this kind of get to know
your shifter each time, so likeI and I deal with that with
electronics, so like it blows meaway and and we just I just

(42:17):
listened to this episode it justdropped today as we're
recording this and which wouldbe like six weeks ago for the
listeners that are listeningyeah, but episode 88, 88, 88,
yeah and um the.
The big thing that we talkedabout is how the electronic
systems uh shram and shimanochose to have different types of
shifter paddles and they didn'tstick with, you know, uh.

(42:40):
So they didn't make their theiraccess shifters feel just like
their uh analog shifters feeljust like they're uh analog
shifters.
And neither did shimano.
And it's like, why, why wouldyou do that?
It drives me nuts.
When I go from one bike to theother, I have to get used to it
and sometimes I actually forgetwhich button does what you know.

So right on , are we driving you?

crazy yet, adam.
Yeah, this I'll tell you, we'vehad the least amount of rabbit
holes so far.

So, yeah, we've stayed.
I'm pretty proud of us becausewe've got this notes that we're
going through, we've got notesthat we're working through, all
right.

So let's talk.
So you guys are in the shadows,can't talk about your clients,
got it?
Not going to try to press youand make guesses, although we
have several hypotheses on whoyou're working with, but we
won't do that and in my you know, I was an intelligence agent in
my background, so I'm going tofigure out who you're working
with at some point.

We won't talk about that in the podcast.

But there are some things that we can talk
about because you guys havebeen public about them, and the
first is your relationship withFrameworks and Nico Malali.
So maybe you can tell us alittle bit about how that came
to be and just give us kind ofan overview of your relationship
with Nico, with Frameworks, andwhat you guys are doing with
him and what you guys are doingwith him?

Yeah, for sure, and maybe give us just a
little background or we can doit on what Frameworks is who
Nico is?

just a little bit.

We've got listeners all over the world.
They may pay attention.
I'm not a big racer.
I don't watch racing too much.

If you're not plugged into the downhill
scene, you might not know whoNico is.
Yeah, so.

Yeah, fair, yeah, so, yeah, fair.
But I'll give a littlebackground on to nico.
So nico malili, he's anamerican downhill racer.
He's uh been around for quite along time and he's raced on
some of the biggest teams in theworld.
So he's been on uh trek worldracing that was a really big
team.
He's been on scott factory teamand, uh, I think, even the yt
mob, so some like really bigteams.

(44:27):
And a couple years he had theidea to kind of start his own
bike brand.
So throughout his career hemight not have had the
opportunities to do all thethings he wanted to do with the
bikes he was racing.
So a lot of this comes down tojust engineering departments and
brands that don't really wantto.
You know, just change theirbikes all the time because they
want to sell them at the end ofthe day.

(44:47):
So Nico wanted to make his ownbrand where he could do whatever
he wanted.
So Nico started making his ownbikes and having Frank the
welder up in Vermont weld themall together.
So that's kind of where it allstarted and Nico has been super
open about his entire process.
So still racing them at theworld cups and racing them at a
super high level and, um, yeah,he was super open about the

(45:09):
entire thing and, yes, some ofthe bikes were breaking and he
was admitting that.
So a couple of years ago at seaotter, uh, my boss, david, was
out there and ran into Nico.
It was like, hey, nico, likewhat you're doing, super cool.
But uh, if you want somesupport, we can like work with
you and we can kind of figureout why your frames are breaking
and optimize this so that youcan have a reliable race bike.

(45:31):
And it can just kind of like upyour knowledge.
So Nico agreed and we startedto collaborate on some really
cool stuff.
So that's kind of, I guess, howit started and, uh, now it's
evolved quite a bit.
Uh, we've supported the team inmany cool ways, um, like the
FBA stuff that we werementioning earlier, and one of

(45:52):
Nico's really cool ideas is hewanted to ride a lugged, like
glued, bonded whatever you wantto call it bike.
So there's no welds on thisthing at all.
So we were super eager and kindof happy to help him with this
For Faction.
We've actually been them withthis, uh, for for faction.
We've actually been using likethis lugged, bonded um version

(46:13):
of bikes as a prototypingservice for quite a long time
now.
So we thought, hey, let's dothis with Nico, create a really
cool downhill bike, and then wecan kind of show off our
expertise as a prototypingservice and Nico can ride the
bike that he really wants to use.

Wow, that's I mean.
So you guys approached himwhich is crazy, you know and
said hey, you could I?
You know, if you guys are kindof you're in the background I
mean, we've talked about thatover and over again Do you guys
want to come out from being inthe background, or is that where
you really are comfortable withyou know?

Yeah, we definitely want to stay in the
background and because we're notreally targeting the general
public, like like there's justthe regular person that would
come into the bike shop and wantto buy a bike, like like we
don't need to sell anything tothem.
We're trying to sell servicesto the bike brand.
So we're trying to get likeproduct managers, product
developers, the engineeringteams to recognize our, our

(47:09):
services and our expertise sothat we can support them on
projects that they might nothave questions or answers to and
we can really kind of supportthem that way.
So we don't really need to belike super out in the public.
We just need to have thecorrect people understand we're
available for when they needsupport.
So working with Nico's greatbecause Nico's he's pretty tight

(47:31):
with the industry and he knowsthe right people and if those
people can see what we're doing,we're happy to help out
everyone that needs the support.

Do you think it helps a little to have
this, this very you know, openand out front guy who's trying
to go through this process ofdeveloping a bike to to go help
them?
Does it help you too, cause Ifeel like you can be in the
shadows all you want, but everyonce in a while you just need to
kind of shine a light onsomething that you've done, like
danger home and this you knowis that a is that an on purpose

(48:03):
thing, or is it just kind ofhappy coincidence when it
happens?

No, it's definitely on purpose.
Um, I mean, for the clientsthat do work with us, it's nice
for them to see something elsethat's not secret and then just
have more trust in our services.
Um, working with like dangerhome and Nico, like these are
two kind of like popular peopleand like Nico is very open.

(48:26):
So if he's trusting ourservices, there's no reason that
others also can't trust it.
And it's not like Nico's justriding them on fluffy greens.

He's like they're racing them.
Yeah yeah, For the record,there's nothing wrong with
fluffy greens?

No, just for the record, josh is a very
fluffy type person.

Yeah, nothing wrong, they're just your own
bikes hey, so, um, okay.

So so you guys reached out to nico a
couple years ago at seattle, youknow nico was kind of going
through the the trials andtribulations of, you know, of
design and and experiencing thatyou guys had had some of those
lessons you've already learned.
How is it, like, what's theresults of your relationship?
Like, how have you guysimpacted the designs of his
bikes?

Uh.
So we wanted to keep hisdesigns, kind of like specific
to Nico.
We didn't want to change hisdesigns because at the end of
the day it's his bike.
We just wanted to reallysupport him on ideas that he
wanted to test.
So anything that would come tohis mind, we wanted to at least
look into it for him and say,hey, yes, this is a great idea,
let's test this, or no, we don'tthink you should go down this

(49:30):
route because a it could beunsafe, it's going to cost way
too much, and really just kindof be like his engineering
sponsor.
So any questions that he has,we want to be there to solve
those and just kind of come upwith answers for him.
So the first big kind of thinghe wanted to try was the bonded
bike.

Yeah, and you guys work with Loctite for
that right.

Correct.
Yeah, so I guess over the years, like Simon and our R&D team
has come up with a way to likebond these bikes together.
So I guess at the beginning wecame up with our own in-house
formula for what we knew wasgoing to really work to bond
these bikes together.
And then Loctite just kind ofsupported us with the details of

(50:12):
their product to kind of likemake sure that what we're doing
is correct.

So they were what's Loctite's role in
this Like?
What do they provide?

Basically just a mixture of an adhesive that we
use inside the frames.
So we just kind of worked withtheir like chemical engineers
just to confirm that everythingwas was secure.
So a lot of it still came downto Simone and what he developed.
And then Loctite just kind ofsaid, yeah, like what you're

(50:43):
doing should work, Like he kindof gave us the green light with
their product.
So that's kind of how all thatcame together um.

What are the materials?
What are the materials thatyou're bonding together on
nico's bike?

so we're just using aluminum.
Um, for us, as I mentioned,it's always just been a
prototyping service, so we cancreate one of these bikes, we
can bond it and have it ready toride in 24 hours.
Wow, wow.

So that's something that doesn't include
like.
Is that like from?

is that just the raw?

material too.

Yeah, that's just the gluing.
So I mean, yeah, you could getso design, throw that up in the
CAD like up on the computersoftware for people, just so
that they have an idea.
They'll come up with that.
And then, once we have thatcreated which we can do pretty
quickly depending on how likemany hours we want to spend at
once on that, but we can do itsuper quick and then just taking

(51:35):
the raw materials, getting themCNC'd and then gluing it
together.
The longest thing is just forit to cure.
So it's a really quick processand you can have a rideable
prototype.
That's almost exactly the sameway as what a production bike
would be and the whole thing.
You could be looking around twoto three weeks.

Do you cure at ambient temperature, in a
room temperature, or do you cure?

like in an oven.
Yeah, just room temperature.

Oh wow, ambient temperature Interesting.
So, as you know, like we werewere up, we were up, we we had
the pleasure of being up atpivot, like just after bernard
kerr's bike failed was it afterit was after okay yeah, it was
after.

Yeah, I went up for a different one
before.
Yeah, before I got to play withthe bikes.

Yeah, so and uh and so obviously that
created a whole lot ofskepticism in the industry about
bonded bikes.
Like what is your perspectiveon that?
Like what, what have you guysseen?

Yeah, funnily enough, like there was actually
cause, he was Bernard Kerr wasin New Zealand for the I think
it was the crank works race, andI actually had that race on
live in my kitchen and I waswatching and we knew that he was
on the bonded bike and you know, like we were also working on a
bonded bike with nico and wewatched his frame just snap and

(52:55):
his face go into the dirt and wehonestly, we didn't really like
we're like oh shit, that's,that's crappy, but like we
weren't necessarily concernedwith ours at all.
And the reason we weren'tconcerned is that for the
adhesive, we're doing aluminumto aluminum and they were doing
aluminum to carbon.
So for us to keep two of thesame materials together, we were

(53:17):
very confident.
And once you start to adhere orput two different materials
together, it can create somelike non-sticking.
So that's why we were neverreally concerned.
Um, and it's kind of like evenwith pivot, I think it was more
of a freak thing.
Um, I don't think there's anyconcern with it, I think, as
long as the procedure is donecorrectly.

(53:38):
Um, we kind of believe honestly,that the bonding of frames can
be stronger than welds evenbetween two different, disparate
or different materials yeah, ifthings are done correctly and
the procedures are completelylike followed uh, there should
be no reason that it uh shouldfail if anything we think it
should, if anyone has a questionlike.

Pink bike put out an episode with chris
kakalas and the guys from fromuh, you know their design
engineers about the process.
What happened?
It's like a 10 or 11 minutevideo.

Yeah.

Go watch it .
They talk all about it, they'reconfident, bernard's still
riding.

He's confident.

Yeah.

He said straight up that he's like, yeah
, I don't have any problems.
That was a fluke, you know, andand that's part of the process
I kind of feel like he kind oflikes the idea that he's almost
like a test pilot.

Yeah.

Like you know somebody who gets to go
develop this cutting edge stuff,and so he didn't.
He didn't seem to be upset atall, Kind of like about time it
happened, you know, like, likealmost like I'm expecting it,
and it took forever for it toactually happen.

All right If we, if we shift to like
another thing that you guys havebeen public about we've talked
about relationship with danger,home and the titanium you know
printed, uh, derail.

You're like how did that come about?
How did that one come about?

I'm trying to think back a little bit here.
Um, yeah, that's a good one.
How did that come about, orwhat can you tell us about the,
about your relationship withdanger home and how that's going
?

Yeah, I guess it's .
I can't exactly remember how itcame about and who contacted
who first.
But um, like now it's like justa super easy going, fun kind of
relationship.
Like we'll message him like,hey, what do you got going on?
He kind of keeps up to datewith what we have going on as
well and we just kind of, youknow, keep up to date and keep
chatting.
And, um, he's been on this kickrecently where he just really

(55:24):
wants titanium printed stuff.
So he even came out with a bikevery recently with the whole
cockpit setup.
Um, that's also titaniumprinted, so that's really cool.
Um, and we he wanted to make aderailleur.
That was just wow.
So this derailleur was neversupposed to be light, it was
never supposed to be like themost functional, although it

(55:44):
turned out to be very functional.
But this was never the thepurpose.
It was just to give our idindustrial design team like a
big kind of do something crazy,something unique that no one's
really done before.
Like no weight doesn't matterhow much it weighs, just do
something crazy and cool.
So that kind of gave like thisreally cool exercise for the ID

(56:05):
team at Faction to just createwhatever they could think of.
And Danger Home was gladlyhappy to put this up on his new
build.

So it's super exciting and it's just a
good exercise for everyone, andhe's just like an eccentric kind
of dude that makes one-offproducts never intended to be
like mass produced or availableto the to the public, and does
like let me see if I can createthe lightest mountain bike ever
made, or you know just justsuper cool, like yeah like

(56:38):
one-off products.

I don't I.
I admire the guy.
I have like a yearning to belike him you know, and do that
stuff, and we've done a lot ofcustom stuff before but, never,
never, to the just eye-poppingyou know, state that he does it.

Ours is more practical, um I don't know,
man, when I went to interbikeand saw the shop that you're
working for at the time take ada2 road group and convert it to
work on a mountain bike.
That was pretty fucking cool.

Yeah, I mean, that was the heydays when
we were doing stuff.
Now I have to pay the bills.
No joke, and that's the hardpart so.
I don't know who Danger Home is.
I enjoy his bikes and thebuilds and I even had a customer
contact me and say hey, can youbuild me a bike like his?
He wanted a certain weight,mountain bike, full suspension.
And I build me a bike like his.

(57:27):
You know, he wanted a certainweight, mountain bike, full
suspension.
And I got really close and Itold the guy straight up I'm
like this is going to be 20grand minimum, you know.
And he's like no problem if youcan hit that, that target.
And we got super close and likeand that is not a an easy thing
to do.
I had one customer say I've gota thousand dollars on my
hardtail I want you to take, youknow, I want you to take five

(57:48):
pounds off of it or something.
And it was already a full xtrlike carbon hardtail.
And I I told him straight up Igo, I can do it if you double
your money.
So and that's that's the resultof this thing.
So he does build some stuff.
That's crazy.
I can't imagine a one-offderailleur, defined, designed by
the super secret.
You know, design firm yeah andthen have it 3d printed like I

(58:11):
can't even fathom how much thatderailleur actually would cost,
you know?

yeah, yeah, you wouldn't want to know.

No, you would, yeah, I keep, I keep you
know.
Like in the defense industry,we have like skunk works and
cavity works and all these works.
I keep wanting to call you guysfaction bike works.

Yep, yeah, well, hey, maybe they will rks I
I saw a little bit of evolutionin their logo and it was kind
of cool because now the, the bhas the f in it and so it's uh
but if you, if you watch some oftheir videos, you'll see a
little evolution.

So so you guys also did a uh, a test of
like different handlebars yes,which?
Which you were on, you did youdid a very good job in that.
Yeah, by the way.
Yeah.

Thank you Super impressed.

Um, like, what did you learn, like through
that process?
Like like, did that change yourbar selection or how you think
about handlebars and how theyimpact the bike?
Yeah, yeah it?

definitely, it definitely did.
Going into the test, I didn'tthink I was really going to
notice anything.
To be quite honest, I was likethere's no way that I'm going to
actually notice the differencebetween handlebars.
I was like suspension,potentially, tire pressure, yeah
, probably.
But if we keep all of thesevariables the same and do the
same trail back to back to backon the same day, just by

(59:22):
swapping handlebars in a blindtest, will I actually know?
And I was way more surprisedthan I thought.
So Simone was the only one thatknew the results of the test.
So he did all the testing inour lab over the course of like
a couple of weeks and wrote downall of the values that he

(59:42):
tested.
And we were testing compliance.
So compliance is justessentially how like flexi the
handlebar would be is to keep itas simple as possible and to
test this, all he did was likeclamp the handlebar on the exact
same angle all the time, so wewould keep it the same and he
would put the same like poundweight on the end of the
handlebar in the same spot andmeasure the deflection.

(01:00:05):
So this is how we can conductthe results, so we can see which
one would essentially be morecompliant than others.
So myself and then Jeremy Bensonfrom bike rumor were the blind
test riders, and so Simon wouldgo through and he would put like
an old inner tube over our bars.
I saw that and I had no ideawhat I was riding.

(01:00:28):
Um, so it just completely blindand went up and I mean it's a
trail that I've written hundredsof times, so I was very
familiar and I knew what my, myprevious bar felt like, which
was an FSA gradient bar, and wedid the test.
We did, I think we did.
I think it was like fiveSAgradient bar, and we did the
test.
We did, I think we did.
I think it was like five toeight runs, I can't remember

(01:00:48):
exactly, but back to back, andat the end we would write down
where we thought, on a scale ofone to 10, just to keep it easy,
where we thought the bar wouldsit on the compliance scale.

Josh (aka Magellan) (01:00:59):
You did five to eight runs per on each
bar.

Adam Robbins (01:01:03):
No, we did just one.
Yeah so yeah, yeah, back-to-backruns on different bars.
Everything else was the sameand I was extremely surprised
with what I felt, cause, like Isaid, I didn't think I was going
to feel anything and a reallycompliant bar which I think off
the top of my head, was atitanium bar from roost it was

(01:01:23):
the most complete bar on thetest and like it felt like a
noodle in, like the nicest waypossible, like it just felt very
compliant, it would give me alot of flex and it almost felt
like my ride was in slow motion.
If that were to make sense,yeah, so as I would come into a,
it would like my hands wouldlower, it felt like, and then

(01:01:46):
the spring back was extremelyslow and it made just everything
feel slow motion.
And yeah, I don't know if itwas my favorite bar.
I think it would definitelycater to someone that would
enjoy like large jumps and likejust a really mellow, flowy ride
.

Dane (aka The Guru) (01:02:03):
How about an old downhiller that hurts all
that time?
Potentially?

It could really work yeah.

He's going to have a roost bar next week.

Yeah, I'm calling him tomorrow.

I definitely think there's like positives to that
bar for certain people.
And then on the other end Ithink it was there was a nuke
proof aluminum bar and I thinkthat one was the stiffest bar of
the test and that one hadalmost no flex and you felt like
you were almost a bit likeplaying Plinko, so you would

(01:02:37):
kind of just drop in and youwould feel like every little
deflection, you would feeleverything directly to your
hands.
So I didn't think I was goingto feel that.
But definitely a handlebar thatsits right in the middle of the
compliance scale was the mostcomfortable for myself and this
scale is actually still up onbike rumor If you just type in
like faction bike studio.

(01:02:57):
I think it's still alive andyou can check out the scale and
have a look at where all thebars sit.
Um, so, in the middle for mewas the most comfortable.
But honestly, the biggest thingwas the rise in the sweep of the
handlebar.
To me that made the biggestdifference because there was a
chromag bar that sat in themiddle of the scale.

(01:03:19):
But there was a lot of downsweep to this bar and for me it
just it didn't feel comfortableand I wouldn't choose to ride it
.
But then there's a one up barthat was almost the the same
compliance rating, had just abigger upsweep and it felt like
the best bar in the test, wow.
But so it really just came downto the shape of the bar and

(01:03:43):
what like each each person'spersonal preference would be,
but it was cool to at least beable to change Any compliance
ratings.

That, like you guys consistently said, no,
I'd never go there Like superstiff or super super flexy like
anything.

So from everything that we tested, the roost
titanium was the most compliantand I think it was the nuke
proof like an aluminum nukeproof bar that was the stiffest.
So that was the range.
But the weird thing was is thatcertain brands that would have
different models of bars indifferent like carbon versus
aluminum, or different clampdiameters, they would all test

(01:04:24):
differently.
So it seems like certain brandswould do more testing with
their handlebars and have aconsistent feel and compliant
rating so you know what you werebuying, where others were just
all over the place.
So it didn't seem like they didas much homework.
Um, so it really seems as thoughevery handlebar is different
and you really just have to testdifferent bars to have a good

(01:04:47):
like decision on what you want,which is not easy.
I get that because it can getexpensive and not everyone has
the ability to try differentbars.
But, um, yeah, I think if you,if you're in the middle of the
compliance scale and you havelike a sweep or a rise that is
comforting to you, I think,stick with that, but at the end
of the day, I still don't thinkthere's a bad handlebar.

(01:05:08):
I mean, they're all going toallow you to have a good ride.

I was surprised that one up.
You know, the perception isthat one up bar is designed
specifically to have morecompliance and it wasn't as
compliant on their on their test.
Yeah, and I was really surprisedby that, cause I thought it
would be the most flexible youknow, um, because the goal is to
to be more flexible.
I, I really do like um, and Imentioned this to you off the

(01:05:32):
the recording but, uh, the factthat you actually added in the,
the comfort of the sweep and the, the rise and the uprise of, uh
, the bar that mattered to you,the other tester from bike rumor
, was pretty spot on, like Ifelt, like his, his uh
representation of you know, heguessed pretty close to what was

(01:05:54):
as actually true and I don'tthink you actually guessed as
close, but I think I did not.
I think it was because you weremixing the feel, you know and
that's and that's very consumerlike, like.
We deal with that with customersall the time.

Especially in suspension right.

Part of the reason why you don that you
want.
But will you feel thedifference?
Or is what you were asking foractually what you need, what you
needed, you know, and that'svery difficult, and so, unless
the people are I told Ronnie, aDVO, this over time, and I may
have mentioned this before, butwhen you're being paid by the

(01:06:41):
company to just do tunes in arace trailer, it doesn't matter
how many times you do it, youget paid the same amount but,
our business.
the customer has to pay everytime we retune it, and so I
don't want them to be upset, youmight kick ass and it still
might disappoint them.
That's why I tell them I we are.
You're not paying us for theresult, you're paying us for the

(01:07:03):
work to make it know, andthat's it so like.
If the result's not what youwant, you have to pay us again
to change it and that's and thatthat's hard sell.
It's hard sell to people.

So adam, how do you guys test in the
winter?

test in the winter .
Um, it's a tough one, um, Imean, we can travel, we can go
places, which is always a prettyfun option, um, but honestly, a
lot of the stuff is donein-house.
At Faction we have two bigtesting machines.
They're all modular, so we cankind of create any test that we
need to in-house, and we do alot of stuff that way.

(01:07:37):
So the only stuff that we wouldactually test outdoors would be
the ride testing, and most ofthat can kind of be done
throughout, like the warmermonths, when there's no snow, um
, or we, if we need to test,we'll just go on a trip.

So so I love removing constraints.
Yeah, it's a big part, and soI've got a great idea for you
guys.
What about like a faction bikestudio South based in Tucson
Arizona?
Which just happens to be wherewe are.
Yeah, yeah, we ride 365 days ayear.

Yep Sun all the time.
I like the sun.

Oh yeah we have amazing just riding, just
like the desert riding Severe tosmooth it's just nuts, you name
it.
And we have this hugeengineering workforce in Tucson,
arizona, that you can pull from, because I know you guys are
always looking for goodengineers.
Right, workforce in tucson,arizona that you can pull from,
because I know you guys arealways looking for good
engineers right and there's alot of.

With 20 000 engineers you're almost applying
for, I am kind of like tryingto be a partner to set up the
action bike studio south right,like I might leave my company to
do this, so we should talk moreabout this idea.

What do you think?

yeah, I like it.
I mean I like the sounds ofwarm weather in the winter,
riding all year, probably goodtrails.

Great trails we're building more
trails.
Yeah, you guys definitelyshould be snowbirds, because you
don't want to leave Canada.
It's beautiful up there, youhave certain, but coming down
here is amazing, and then youcan do year-round work.

And we're building a new iceplex so you
can still play hockey in thedesert.
What I mean?

yeah, that sounds really smart no, it's not
from a boy from detroit.

We, we grew up like I don't know, maybe 100
miles, less than 100 miles awayfrom each other, or something
like that pretty close, prettyclose.

Just the river getting in the way there and the
border, yeah, just the river inthe, in the border of the
country.

Yeah, right on man.
Well, hey, adam, reallyappreciate you, man.
Thank you so much for takingsome time.
What are you most excited about?
Last question what are you mostexcited about for the future of
faction bike studios?

Oh, I think just the diversity of projects we get
to work on, that's like thefunnest thing, honestly.
Every day I go in we can havenew projects and they're all
different types of bikes so like, one week it could be a
downhill bike, next week itcould be a road bike, the next
week it could be an e-bikecommuter bike.
It's always changing.
So I learned about alldifferent types of bikes and

(01:09:59):
it's just, it's ever-changingfun work.
And then we get to see thesebikes out in the public and I
mean we're not going to tellpeople, hey, we made that, but
to yourself, when you seesomeone riding that bike, you
just feel great and they'rehaving a good time and you know
that you've helped people enjoytheir time on two wheels so, or
even sometimes three or fourwheels some people put any

(01:10:20):
wheels on their bikes but, um,that's, that's really cool and
it's a fun thing.
That kind of keeps uspassionate about it.

That's pretty awesome.
I think that that level ofsatisfaction comes from.
We talked to trail builders,you know, and they they get the
same thing ride that section oftrail that they made or worked
on or what have you.
And they just have that feelingof like ownership and like, hey
, I did this and I love it evenmore because of that, you know.
Uh, I talked to Tyler at ourfit fit studio.
His biggest satisfaction ishelping somebody.

(01:10:48):
Getting that phone call that,hey, I have more power now or
I'm more comfortable.
That pain went away.
You know, uh, in the suspension, getting those those phone
calls or emails, where man thisis, this didn't even feel this
good new.
You know that's all of that isjust the best.
You know that's all of that isjust the best.
You know, getting thatsatisfaction.

That's why we all do it in the bike
industry, because usually notfor the money well, on behalf of
, like all the mountain bikers,all of our listeners and many of
them are probably riding onproducts that you guys helped
thank you so much.
You know faction bike studios,the creative minds behind your
future bike, maybe your currentbike.
Yeah, yeah, thanks for what youdo, man.
Yeah, really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you guys we'regonna tell everybody.

We're gonna tell everybody the golden age
is bike, maybe your current bike.

Yeah, yeah, thanks for what you do, man.
Yeah, really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you guys, we're gonna tell
everybody we're gonna telleverybody the golden age is
probably because of you, becauseeverybody's talking about how
everything is so good right now.
It's all started happeningaround 2011, 2012 you know, 12
all these bikes started to getbetter and better, all in the
same level level fields.

So assuming that, uh, adam dug this and and
thought it was worth his time.
We're planning to follow upwith the second episode with,
with simone, yep, uh, and in inthat episode we're going to get
more into depth on, like, really, really techie bike design
questions.
Yeah, and we need people'squestions, yeah.
So if you have questions, ifyou look in the show notes,
you'll see a little link thatsays send us a text.
Click on that link put in thequestion.
We'd love to hear what yourquestions.

(01:12:04):
If you look in the show notes,you'll see a little link that
says send us a text.
Click on that link put in thequestion.
We'd love to hear what yourquestions are.
And you know, sometime in thefuture don't know exactly when
yet, but sometime in the futurewe'll we'll, we'll reengage with
the, with the fashion team here, and we can get really down and
dirty on questions.
And Dane's already Dane'salready probably got an hour's
worth of questions.

Are you ready to go?
So, uh, get your questions in.
Yeah, poor Simone, we, we'recoming, we're coming.

We're coming hot and heavy.
Adam, thanks so much for yourtime tonight.

Thank you so much man Awesome, Thanks guys.

Can you dig it?
Can you dig it, can you dig it.

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090 – Faction Bike Studio: The Secret Engineering Firm Behind Your Favorite Mountain Bikes (Guest: Adam Robbins)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}090 – Faction Bike Studio: The Secret Engineering Firm Behind Your Favorite Mountain Bikes (Guest: Adam Robbins)