110 - Quality Bicycle Products (QBP): Why Your Bike Shop Depends on This Hidden Giant (Guest: Bryce Buckner, QBP) - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I don't know if everybody knows that you do that
, you physically do that.
It's not a button.
It's not a button I'm hittingnow.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, I was going to tell you a joke about a broken
collarbone.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, I wonder why.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
But I didn't want to fracture the mood.
I think we should start out.
Dane, right now is in a slingright hand.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Doing the stranger with everything with his left
hand.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, tell us about your broken collarbone buddy.
Well, uh, last weekend we hitangel fire big guru trip, you
went, I did we had like 15people, something like that 16
people including our guests.
Yes, yeah, our guests.
And uh, yeah, I went toliterally pass a guy in the air

(01:03):
as I hit a wall ride and did notthink about the wall being wet
and so I cause it was in athunderstorm.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well yeah, I'm not actually hail coming down as
well.
It's not my proudest moment.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
It had just started, it was hail, I wasn't feeling
wet, and so I was, didn't thinkthat it was wet, like there was
no mud or anything, there was norain.
It just didn't realize the wallwas getting way more moisture
than I, than I was on my bikeand jumped.
You have to jump into the wall.
You should ride about halfwaythrough it and then jump back

(01:39):
down.
And and there was a guy goingslower who decided, you know
smartly, not to ride the wall.
So I was going faster than him,so I hit that lip.
I.
I got a good halfway up, if nothigher, on that wall and it was
like a cartoon.
My wheels just did not stick atall and I went straight down

(02:00):
into the ground, shoulder first,and broke my collarbone.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
And was the lift open at that time?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
No, no, it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So how did you get up on the trail?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I was riding an e-bike.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And you rode up the trail.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Why are you trying to make me feel stupid?
That was the smart part.
Honestly, that would have beenamazing if I had not hit the
wall ride.
I would have had an amazingdescent because the climb was
fine.
It was the cross-country climbthat goes up.
I went for a whileEnlightenment trail.
Yeah, and I went for a whilejust having a good time until I
felt the hail drops and I'm like, oh, I know, angel Fire.

(02:36):
As soon as that starts, I couldget a lot.
It could be snow-like level.
And so I turned around andjumped on this trail called
hungry no, I'm sorry, lemonade,yeah, and lemonade took me into
happy hour.
And then, right as I got thisnew trail that, uh, they just
built, has a a drop feature asyou go into it and then a step

(02:59):
up uh, that has been difficultfor me to hit because you have
to come around a berm and thenpick up speed, go straight down
into a gully and then straightup like four feet to hit the
step up, which goes up anotherfive feet, you know, and then
you land.
And so I was kind of picking upspeed and I saw, um, these guys
in front of me, and so as I hitthe step up, I see another guy

(03:23):
and he sees me and hears mecoming and he pulls and I go
high on a berm and pass him.
And then I go around a couplemore berms and then I pass
another guy.
There's a jump that jumps out ofthe woods and kind of hip jumps
to the left as you go acrossone of the access roads up the
mountain to the other side ofHappy Hour where they have the
wall ride, and so I pass the guyat the hip jump.

(03:46):
So I've got two guys down and sonow I can see the third guy and
I'm thinking, this is awesome,I'm going to pass this guy too.
Like I felt like a superstar,you know, and I'm just riding
along and and he misses.
I do the first jump on theright, which is a small one, and
then I see he goes straightinstead of hitting the wall ride
, and I'm like, oh, I can eitherslam on the brakes and wait

(04:08):
behind him or I can just passhim in the air.
That's where it went bad, so nogrip on that wall whatsoever,
like I even saw.
I saw Chad slipping on thatwall when there was no rain, the
video that I sent you right,the last two times he hit it he
was slipping so, but I had beenhitting that wall all day, not
having any problems.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
And I was in the garage.
Were you in the garage too whenDane came back?
I can't remember if you werethere.
No, I was up at the other cabin.
Yeah, we were all working inthe top of the skills park or
whatever, and then rode downkind of the hat, the second half
of the happy hour, yeah.
And where's Dana?

(04:48):
I don't know.
I think he's out there stillriding.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Good for him.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
You came up and you were all happy and you're like
guess who broke his collarbone?
And we were like so fuckinghappy.
So we're looking around like oh, bryce isn't here.
Shit, did he blow out anotherback wheel?

Speaker 1 (05:07):
that did happen, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, how many back.
How many back tire problems didyou have on that trip?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
uh, two in two days, so two the first day, I feel
like four well, if we includeputting in tubes then, yeah,
then we'll go four.
We're not counting days.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
We're counting how many times.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
I tried to fix the flat on the first one.
It didn't work, had to put atube in.
Okay.
Same thing happened the nextday.
I cut the tire, put a plug inand it held for about half a day
and had to put a tube in.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
So I guess, yeah, four tire issues altogether
together two different tires,two tires and four issues, and
chad told me he was ridingbehind.
He's like I've never seensomeone is so hard on their back
tire.
I'm like you must.
I'm not fast enough to keep upwith you, so I've never seen
what it looks like riding behindyou, but what are you doing to
your back tire, man?

Speaker 3 (05:54):
uh I I'm not sure exactly, I would guess when I
was younger I rode fixed gears alot and was used to like
skidding my rear end around,sliding at the back end, and
I've probably transferred alittle bit of that to mountain
biking.
It's the same thing as I'mgoing into a berm or tight turn.
Why not kind of throw the rearend out a little bit, have some
fun?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
oh, yeah, yeah, that'll do it.
So you got a new tire, did youget a new rim?

Speaker 3 (06:16):
not yet.
It will be coming soon.
I just went with a tire first.
Probably next paycheck will benew wheels what's the the tire
that you got?
I went with a ContinentalContinental.
Yeah, conti Crypto tall rearand I went with the Enduro
casing and super soft rubbercompound.
No more trail casing.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
We're six minutes in.
We don't even know who we'retalking to here.
Would you like to introduceyourself and like where you are
in the bike industry?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, sure, so I'm Bryce Buckner.
I am the outside sales rep forQBP in Arizona.
I've been in this role for alittle over three years now and
absolutely love it.
That's kind of how I met Daneand Josh.
That's awesome.
Yeah, before that, I worked atTrek bikes for three years in
customer service and theire-commerce department doing the

(07:01):
live chat and phone support withpeople, and then prior to that,
I worked at a bike shop here inTucson, or Valley bikes, for
about a little over five years.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh, wow, yeah, At the , at the um or Valley store.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, I started at the Oro Valley location and then
, once I started going to the Uof a, I was switching between
Oracle and then the sunriselocation with Corey Nice.
That's very cool.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
So QBP is what quality bicycle products?
Yep, you got it and and tell,tell us cause, uh, you know, as
I was kind of talking to folksabout this, about talking to you
and doing a podcast with you,uh, I learned very quickly that,
like most of your averageriders don't even know who or
what QBP is.
But you guys play a criticalrole that we all benefit from,

(07:43):
so maybe kind of talk us through, like, what QBP does.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Definitely.
Yeah, qbp is kind of thatsilent partner in the industry
where we deal a lot with shops.
We are the wholesaler to mostbike shops.
I like to explain.
My job is I work for the Amazonand the bike shop world where
every bike shop when they startup they set up an account with
QBP and then they can orderanywhere from up to over 300
brands with us Um, tram, shimano, rock shocks, fox, all the you

(08:10):
know key brands that most shopssupply.
You know that's where they'reprobably going to get it from us
.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
So some, some, some data just to kind of put it in
in perspective from your websiteassuming your website's
accurate, you guys support 5,500independent retailers that's
what the website says 50,000unique products, 300 total
brands, and 70 of which areunique or specific that you can
only get through QBP.

(08:35):
I picked a handful of companies.
You mentioned a few but thatour listeners will probably know
Continental, crank Brothers, dt, swiss Fox, marizoki Industry,
9, hayes, magura, maxxis, parkTool, schwalbe, Shimano, sram,
wolf Tooth and WTB.
That's just a few examples ofthe big companies.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
You might know.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Did you practice that ?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
No, why did it sound like I did?
Yeah, it did.
It totally did.
No, no, I just that's prettygood.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Speaking of which, tomorrow night my son's getting
I don't even know why I'm goingin this, but my son's getting
headshots, okay, and body shotsOkay, uh, like pictures, just to
be clear, just for the hell ofit, because he wants to start
auditioning for acting roles.
That's awesome I think it'sgreat, it's random.
Huh, how old's your son?
He's 12.
Okay, yeah, yeah, he's 12.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Does he do anything in school?

Speaker 2 (09:26):
He did was part of the drama program in his school
for seventh grade and it was aninteresting experience and he's
just, he's got a super bigimagination.
To this day this kid stillplays with like toys by himself,
like acts out huge scenes anddoes all this stuff.

(09:48):
So we'll see how it goes.
This is interesting.
Oh, that'd be cool, yeah, yeah,never, never, dealt with that
stuff.
So, in addition to being adistributor, a wholesale
distributor, to these 5,500independent retailers, these
bike shops all over the country,um, you guys have some house
brands.
Maybe you can tell us a littlebit about your house brands.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah.
So, um, um, some of our keyhouse brands would be salsa,
surly and terraville, kind ofour three key ones.
Um, salsa is going to be moreof our bike brand where we're
having mountain bikes, gravelbikes, adventure bikes, kind of
a full range of lines fromanything from an entry-level
hardtail all the way up to arace ready gravel bike, along
with some of the bikes that whenI was riding this weekend was

(10:22):
the notch kind of our longertravel e-bike.
That's really good one.
It was handled angel firereally well.
It's one 80 up front, one 70 inthe rear with a Bosch mid drive
.
Yeah, and it's very cool.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
You didn't need the motor, though, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
No, I didn't.
It was pretty much off thatwhole weekend.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
And if you would have not gotten a flat, you could
have gone to South boundary.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
I know, hopefully gone in south boundary.
I know, hopefully next time yougotta validate a story for me
then, because you just told methat he didn't use the motor and
chad chad's my brother-in-law.
He was with us on the trip.
He's a good rider and he wasriding behind you and he said I
couldn't figure out how bracewas like able to speed up real
quick and then hit these jumpsand get so much more pop than I
got and he said you told himthat you actually flip it on and
maybe do one half a pedal orsomething so, yeah, I do have a

(11:06):
remote on the handlebars andnormally it was off.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Occasionally I would hit it on just because, oh, I
know the jump's coming up, I'mnot enough speed.
Pump it up to like my emtb orsomething.
Do a half a pedal and then itgives me a lot more speed, ready
to hit a jump yeah, there's somany downhill pros that use
e-bikes for training.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
It's becoming the thing, yeah we talked about that
.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
I can't remember if we've published that episode.
We talked about JacksonGoldstone.
Or maybe we were just drinkingbeers talking about it.
I can't remember.
But how he's been puttingweights in his what does he ride
Like a.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Santa Cruz V10 or whatever.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Because it feels closer to his e-bike, because
that's what he does most of hisriding.
Yeah, because it feels closerto his e-bike because that's
where he does most of his riding.
Yeah, and they like the lowweight.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
you know, not low like the low on the frame weight
.
Yeah, they like the weightcentered low and also they just
like doing laps.
They love the fact that theycan go do laps.
They don't have to rely on ashuttle or, you know, a
chairlift, and they can just dolap after lap.
So there's more training andthey're not as tired.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I mean that's kind of why I've gotten into the longer
travel more e-bike stuff is.
I can do laps on stuff thatnormally I do one lap and be
cooked and that's it.
Versus the e-bike, I can go dothree, four laps on the upper 50
or red mountain rush at Hawesand I can sit there and session
it all day.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, yeah it.
Session at all day.
Yeah, yeah, it's it.
I love Haas on e-bikes.
It's great, you can just keepriding.
It's awesome.
Otherwise, I go up there ridemy regular bike and I get one
loop done and that's it so solet's let's dive a little bit on
each of these house brands, ifthat's okay with you.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, it's fine.
Like, talk about salsa for aminute.
So you talked about the notch.
What else are you excited about?
Anything coming that you cantell us about?
Anything like that?

Speaker 3 (12:41):
yeah, I mean, the other thing I'd be most excited
about would probably be thespearfish.
That's kind of the non oracoustic bike that I've been
riding yeah, for the past andthat's more of that xc kind of
endurance, xc bike right, it'slike a 130, something like that
yeah, well, come out of the boxit's 120, 120, but up front you
can do 130 or down to 100 and inthe rear you could go down to
100 as well.

(13:02):
Make it like a true xc race bike.
Okay, and that's been reallygreat for when I'm doing lower
stuff at haas all the lowerstuff, not doing the red
mountain rush.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
I'm absolutely loving that and it's extremely fast,
very snappy bike and is thatavailable in both carbon and and
aluminum just in carbon just,but in the?

Speaker 3 (13:17):
carbon, we do have two layups we have a standard
carbon and then a deluxe carbon.
Oh, deluxe carbon, what's?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
What's the difference between standard and deluxe
carbon?

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Deluxe carbon is just going to be a little bit
lighter weight frame.
You're going to have morecarbon layup in there to help
stiffen up the frame, but theride quality between the two is
exactly the same.
It's just a weight savingsthing.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
I wish the listeners could have seen his face when he
said stiffen up.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Did you see that Stiffen up Like a little A
little wiggle in it.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
So what's the Salsa bike?
I think it's a Salsa bike thatjust came out.
That is modular, you can change.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah, so that would be our Blackthorn.
And so the Blackthorn isoffered in two versions called
the Blackthorn 125 and theBlackthorn 145.
Same frame, it's just changingout the linkage and suspension
on it.
So the 125 is 125 travel on therear, 140 up front.
The 145 refers to the 145travel on the rear and then 160
up front.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
So I'm going to say something because I've been
watching a lot of YouTube andwatching about e-bikes, watching
about bikes.
Trek has a new modular bike.
It's all the news that this isgoing to be the thing, and if
some of our listeners rememberone of our episodes with faction
bike studio, they mentionedthat they're going to we're

(14:30):
going to see more modular so,which I thought was insightful.
But I got to mention right nowthat I've been a Rocky fan for a
long time and they've beendoing that.
I just want to get it out inthe air so people can can can
understand that they've beendoing this for like over 10
years.
where you can change the bikesaround, so it's not a new thing.
But man, everybody is gettingon well I mean even salsa.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
The previous gen blackthorn was the same way.
If you look at the cassidy andthe blackthorn, it was the same
frame, same concept.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
You just change out the linkage and suspension and
you could go from all mountainto enduro bike very quickly I
think that's so smart, becausetoo many riders start off either
they get talked into one thingby a friend and then they don't
end up doing that thing, or theyend up getting the smaller
version because they're juststarting and the salesperson or
whoever they talk to is like youdon't need that much bike.
And then they quickly advanceand then they either need a

(15:19):
second bike or something.
You're even your gorilla isthat?
Yeah, I was just say that.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I mean, you know, last year for all the bike park
trips I rode that gorilla and itwas set up in the smash
configuration which is like 150,145 yeah and I just felt like I
wanted something a littlebigger and so, luckily, you know
gorillas, gorilla gravity's outof business right now.
but um canfield picked up alltheir old like leftover material
whatever, and I was able to.
To convert my bike to thenarvana configuration, you need

(15:45):
to change the seat stays, and soI got some new seat stays,
brought them over here, dane,which we thought was going to be
a quick job press the bearings.
And it wasn't a quick job, um,but we got the bearings pressed
and, uh, put that on.
Uh, we swapped out the shot orthe fork, the shock you had.

(16:05):
I think we had alreadyoverdriven that shock anyways,
and so that worked okay.
And first trip, I went up toSunrise, the bike park up there,
and just absolutely loved it.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
It was just fantastic .
Yeah, that's that growing withthe bike idea.
So Salsa's doing that, trek'sdoing that, rocky's done that,
gorilla did it.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
I know there's more, so it's it's awesome I think
that new trek, they said, islike six, can be 16 different
bikes.
Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, I mean the, the knots that I was riding this
weekend.
You can I had it 180, 170, butyou can go down to 160, 160, all
the way up to uh 200.
Dual crown up front 180 in therear.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
So that's, that's their big bike.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
That is their big bike and same with our other
e-bike.
The Moraine is the same version.
It's a lighter assist, so it'susing a Fazua, but it's the same
travel as that Blackthorn wherehe comes in the 145 iteration
145 rear, 160 up front.
But you can step it down to the125 where you have 125 in the
rear and 140 up front with theFazua.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
I think that's the future.
I really do, and I I alwayshave you know, even before other
companies were doing it and weheard it from somebody else.
I always thought this is smartfrom a business standpoint
because you've got one frame anda couple of different parts
that you can change around tomake it fit more people.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, definitely from a consumer perspective, All
right.
So if we move over to Surlyunless there's anything else you
want to talk about relative tosalsa that you're excited about-
no at this time.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's about it.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Everything I'm talking, about everything I'm
trying to like, needle them hereand tell them to give us
something secret you guys stillsell the quick releases and the
collars right uh, we still dosome of the collars, not as many
anymore.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, um, some of that's going to be changing here
that's where a lot of peoplewill know salsa from way back in
the yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
I think I had many Salsa collars throughout my time
early on, when I was ridingBack before you were born
probably Possibly.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, salsa.
Quick-release collar with aChris King headset was like
standard.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Because you matched the colors too.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Man right, they were pretty close.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Not exact, though, if I remember correctly, surly
which is near and dear to myheart, for I don't even know 20
years I rode a cross check andthen, when I took some time off
from riding and I got back intoit the first bikes I was heavy,
I was big, I was over 300 poundsand I needed something like
meaty that could hold me up, andthe first thing I did is went,
bought a krampus, um, which thatwas when the 29er plus was like

(18:20):
a thing, yeah, and we've kindof moved past that, I think for
the most part, but just rode theshit out of both those bikes
and they were just rock solidand I was so heavy, didn't know,
we didn't, didn't you know?
The steel frame didn't matterme.
There is something specialabout riding a steel frame
though.
Yeah, like you can, just itjust like sucks up the, the
trail, chatter man, it's, it'sfantastic.
Anyways, I love surly.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
But tell me, tell me what's going on with surly,
surly.
Oh, I'm trying to think what I.
I'm trying to think what I canand can't say, because right now
we're in the process of, like,pre-booking for new stuff that's
coming out okay so don't, don't, don't get yourself in trouble.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, yeah, how about this?
What is the most popular?
I've heard there's a bike intucson that sells more krampuses
than any uh in the country.
Is that true, do you know?

Speaker 3 (19:06):
that I don't know.
Off the top of my head, thatwouldn't surprise me.
I'm thinking campfire, it's.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Broadway, broadway bikes.
That's what they told me.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Broadway told you that.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, that's where I bought my Krampus.
I had a bunch of Krampuses inthere.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
That might've been true when you bought your
Krampus so much anymore Not somuch anymore.
No, they're great.
They still do another, somesurly, but yeah, they have not
doing as much anymore.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Not doing as much.
They had a surly guy in there.
That's where.
That's where I ended up.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I always take a issue , when I always am skeptical,
when the person that tells youthe biggest or they're the best
at something, is the personselling it.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, you have no way to independently verify it.
I took him at his word.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, if Bob tells me that Joe is the best person on
the planet, that weighs morethan if Joe tells me Joe is the
best person.
All right, fuck you, Bob.
We're going to strike that fromthe record.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
But what would be?
What do you think?
What's the most popular surlybike that's out right now?

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, I mean for my territory it would definitely be
kind of the karate monkeykrampus.
Those are kind of up there as avery popular one.
One that we're seeing that'sgetting more and more popular in
my opinion would be themidnight special okay that's
kind of more of that.
Um, is that gravel?
Yeah, that's a gravel kind ofgravel in all road bike.
I'm actually building one upmyself right now for a gravel

(20:19):
event.
Um, yes, steel frame, I canaccept up to a 700 by 45,
officially, uh-huh, you knowpeople have pushed it.
Yeah, I might have a little bitbigger than that on my in the
desert, in the desert especiallyso that one's been doing pretty
well.
We got some exciting stuffcoming up in that model later or
early next year.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Very cool what um, so you know what do you ride?
Do you ride mountain gravelroad, everything like a little
bit of this, but more this, whatis?

Speaker 3 (20:51):
it do a little bit of everything now.
I started more in the mountainxc world and that's kind of
where I come back to um.
I spend probably most time onmy gravel bike anymore and then
probably e-bike now okay, okay,do you ride the gravel bike on
trails?
Light trails yes.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Because that's like my favorite thing to do, I mean
is it like blues and greens?
Yeah, that's totally yeah, youcan take it down to black, but
it's so awesome.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Okay, so for both of you, what's your most desired
tire width on the gravel bike?
And everybody, don't get boredwith us right now.
I just I wanted to start afight, and so I just want to
hear what everybody's desiredwith this.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
So I'm running.
44 is right now and they'reVictoria.
That's on your road bike, right?
It's not my gravel bike.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Lacey calls it a road bike, and uh.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think if I could get the tire that I'm running,
which, for the life of me, hasescaped me Mescal, mescal If I
could get it in a 46, I'd run itin a 46.
I'd prefer a 46, but I can't.
I can only get it in a 44.
Okay, so I think 40, 46 wouldbe my ideal for my bike.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
You would go bigger if you could.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
I would, but I think I'm riding probably 75% on green
trail.
It may be a little bit of bluetrail, but mostly green trail.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I feel like your green trail is smoother than all
of our gravel roads.
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
I ride on Fantasy Island too, right so?
That's not that smooth, butyeah our green's not that smooth
, yeah, but um, yeah, uh, our,our green trails are pretty
smooth, yeah, um, we do haveplenty of washes and stuff like
that and some rocks and stuff toget over, but uh no, it's just,
it's a fucking blast and like35s is my max.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, so 45 I'm very happy with, I don't.
It's going to be tough for meto want to put on like a 50,
because in my mind that's amountain bike and once you start
getting into that like, 2.1.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, that is your 2.0 I think 2.0.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
That to me is like well, why don't I just have
suspension, a flat bar at thatpoint that, 45 and 50, I think,
would probably be the max Iwould ever consider that's what
all the bike companies they'rein the, so the e-bike companies
are all in this arms race withpower right you know, and torque
and stuff and the gravelcompanies are all in this arms
race with how big a tire you canfit on the bike.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know every year they come out bigger and bigger,
so I'm just wondering whereit's gonna stabilize.
I think the monster gravelthing where we're at is really
makes sense to me so what's?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
what's monster gravel ?

Speaker 3 (23:18):
that's go ahead I mean monster gravel is
essentially an old schoolmountain bike or certain bikes
like the salsa cutthroat.
It would be a perfect exampleof that where it can accept up
to like a 2.3, you can put on ahundred millimeter travel fork
up front, so it's very capable,but it still has drop bars Like
I know a lot of people thatwould love to ride it up at
honeybee.
It fits perfectly up there.

(23:38):
So it's kind of essentiallyolder mountain bike would drop
ours.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, and they usually have, um, they'll
usually run like a 50 or 51,even a 52 cassette one by.
So they're running kind ofmountain gearing but they'll
usually have like a 44 up on thefront or a 42 on the front for
you know kind of it's.
It's basically a monster truck,gravel bike is what I think of
it as I feel like I've seen someSurly set up that way too.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
What would the frame be that they would use?
Is it a karate monkey that youdo that too, or is it a cross
check?

Speaker 3 (24:08):
More like a bridge club, bridge club.
Yeah, the karate monkey isgoing to be more of your
mountain bike style.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, and there's a lot like at Leadville.
That's a big deal.
They they're starting to putdrop bars on the full suspension
mountain bikes and so like youcan cross them up all over.
That's one of the things withall this wireless stuff coming
out is they're gettinginterchangeable.
Even Shimano is starting to dothat, so you can kind of add
mountain gearing into your roadsetup and vice versa.

(24:34):
So it's kind of cool.
So I want to see the flat barXT bike with Dura-Ace gearing.
Oh, Jesus.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
It seems like we used to get weird like that more
often.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, there's been a trend to where everything's
systemized.
I remember when wheels started.
So Mavic was one of the bigones that pushed what's called
system wheels, their wheelsystem, which meant that they
made the hub, they made thespoke and they made the rim, and
so then they could test themall together and get the optimum
weight and strength and all ofthat and that was the selling

(25:07):
feature.
So, you know, chris king wouldmake a kick-ass hub, and then,
you know, dt would make anawesome rim, or even mavic would
make a great rim, and then youcould get a dt spokes or sapiums
or whatever you know, and putthem all together you could
could get the tie dye, you know,or whatever.
You know.
Titanium that kind of went awaywhen they started making these
wheel systems because theyreally could nail the strength

(25:29):
to weight ratio at a betterprice, you know you just didn't
do them in volume.
You just didn't get thecustomizability.
Now that carbon's come out,it's gotten away from that a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yep.
So yeah, because a lot of thecarbon guys are just building
rims, yep.
And they build them up withdifferent.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yep, yeah, that way you can get the color you want.
We do that.
So if you don't need color, welove Reynolds, but if you want
color, we do our own wheels thatare like Reynolds.
And then bikes started doingthe same thing, where they kind
of integrated everything onlyinto their own thing.
There was a little time whereyou could swap derailleurs
between brands you know and messaround.

(26:08):
You'd find the pole ratios wereso close that you could make
them work.
Now they're all.
I mean anything wireless is nottalking to each other.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
And as you talk about getting weird in, like trying
to integrate multiple differentparts from different companies
onto the same bikes, you can runinto a lot of fitment and
connector problems.
Yep, and that leads me to oneof your other brands, which is
problem solvers, and I was.
I was telling bryce that I deepdived problem solvers, which is
really cool, and if you don'tknow about this, you should go
take a look at it.
I think wolf tooth does somesimilar stuff with, like you

(26:40):
know, matching shramAM brakeswith Shimano shifters and stuff
like that.
It looks like Problem Solvershas all that, but your price
points are a lot better.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
I was going to say Wolf Tooth is like the more
bougie Problem Solvers.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
I didn't realize that there was another option, and
now that I do, Problem Solver isyour budget option.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
You need that to make it work.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
That's where you're going to go with Problem Solver.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
You're not going for something super light, you're
just like it's gonna work andit's gonna last.
Yeah, you need something forthat old bike to make it work
and run it in this scenario goto problem solver.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, they literally solve the problems we deal with
them all the time in the shopwell, if you're a bike nerd like
we are, I suggest you get abeer or a whiskey and you get
onto the problem solvers websiteand just mess around for an
hour or so.
That's what I did last nightand I was like oh shit, I didn't
know I could do that.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yes, yeah there's a um, a company that started
rebuilding shram derailleurs.
Have you seen this?
So, uh, we see shramderailleurs twist.
Their parallelograms will twist, and so what often needs to
happen is new parallelograms,and they don't make them SRAM
doesn't.

(27:42):
So you're kind of out, and ifit's an access derailleur or XX1
or XO or something expensive 12speed derailleur, you're kind
of out, a big coin.
So I think it's a drone.
I think they're in the US andthey started rebuilding them and
putting CNC you know, basicallyparallel links back on the
derailleurs and drilling themout and fixing CNC.
You know basically parallellinks back on the derailleurs

(28:03):
and drilling them out and fixingthem, which is great.
Then they started doing colors.
That was cool.
Then they were kind of like oh,we'll make them work with
different ratios.
So they started doing that.
Now they have their ownderailleur, so you can buy one
of their derailleurs which youcan then take these chips and
change the pull ratio so you canuse it with different drive
systems.
So I want to get one of thosebecause I, I, w, I w.

(28:26):
It's pretty universal.
You know it's probably spendy.
I haven't looked at the priceyet, but when you compare it to
the price of an XX onederailleur it's can't be that
much more, and you could use iton Shimano.
You could use it on Shimano,you could use it on SRAM, and
then you can use it on 11 and 12speed.
So it would be nice to have inthe shop to really get somebody
out of a jam.
So SRAM, derailleurs arebending.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Well.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I can tell you about the Shimano problems too Nice.
Most of those aren't repairableoh, how long does that laugh
button go.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Oh, you gotta shut them off.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, I see how it is .
That's that better.
So if you and that one shutsoff automatic some of them are
short.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
I didn't realize we don't use the laugh one, that we
don't use any of these.
Really, I know nobody laughs,nobody laughs at us.
People laugh at us.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
For sure, people laugh at us.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
All right, next brand TerraVal.
So I've been running justrandomly.
I've got a friend of mine whoruns a little kind of
service-only shop out of hisgarage and it's like a mile from
my house and he's a fantasticwrench and so it's like perfect
and I'm an amateur wrench wrenchand I often get myself over my
head.
So anytime I call him or comewalking and he's like God damn

(29:46):
it, not again, cause he knowsthat like all the easy shit I
can do, but if I'm coming to himlike there's something bad.
But he he suggested I tried theTerravel A-line which I've been
running as a rear tire out here.
So it's like you know it's hardover hard, pack over, you know
soft over hard.
Basically, desert, desertriding, and I've, I think,

(30:08):
replaced my rear tire threetimes and I keep going back to
that same retirement.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, no, the airlines are great tire.
I was using that as a rear tirefor a long time and absolutely
loved it.
Um, I mean, I would pair itwith a Kestrel up front and
that's going to be kind of yourmore aggressive setup, but it's
a fantastic.
It hooks up really well.
It'll last really long and evenin the tan wall which, from my
experience, tan walls tend todry out a little bit quicker the
TerraVale one seems to last thelongest out of my tan wall
tires.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, I wonder.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I wonder why that is like.
Is it the color Cause ithappens in grips too.
If you have gray grips they gogummier usually quicker.
Yeah, something with the colorimpacting the material
properties.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I think it's just yeah, the it's a lighter,
lighter color, so it's absorbing, absorbing a lot more sunlight.
That's my kind of thoughtlighter colors did not absorb
yeah, they reflect more, theyreflect more, here we go I know
you just out signs you're gonnahave to bob GPT or whatever it
is Claude, Claude yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
We're not supposed to say Claude.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
What other tires are you guys excited about that
TerraVale makes?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
TerraVale just actually launched three new
tires.
One is on this Spearfish that Ihave with me.
This is going to be the Camrock.
That is our fast XC rolling.
Then we had the Clifty and theDrop Point.
Those like fast XC rolling.
And then we had the Clifty andthe Drop Point.
Those are going to be more oflike a down country and kind of
all mountain tire focused.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
What are the different casing?
It seems like on the TerraValthere was two options.
It's like kind of I can'tremember.
The camera is like saw or likelight and heavy or something.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
So yeah, typically in TerraVal we're offering two
sidewall casings.
There's going to be like forthe xc tires it's going to be
light and supple and durable, oryou'll have durable and durable
plus.
Those are kind of the kind ofoptions, depending on whether
it's more xc focused, it'll bethat light and supple and
durable.
Where you start getting to thatmore all mountain and more
aggressive tires, you're goingto have that durable and durable
plus I've not tried terriblesyet, so yeah, why not, we carry

(31:58):
them in the shop.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Uh, I don't know, I have so many tires.
Most of the time I have four,four sets of a brand that I want
to get rid of.
So well, do you need four more?
Uh, not of that same brand.
You want to do some horsetrading?
I?
Mean maybe depending on whatbrand it is okay.
Well, I'm trying to say itbecause there's one brand that I
don't like yeah, which you'vesaid on this I have.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah, you keep saying you don't like this one brand,
and then I'm like it's Maxxis.
And then everyone knows oh no,no, it's not Maxxis, oh, it's a
different brand that you don'tlike.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
No, like.
So here's my love-hate withMaxxis.
I think they're actually areally.
We had some issues with casingsand I kind of like an underdog
and I feel like maxis gets somuch credit for being amazing
when it's really mainly becausethey have a huge oem business

(32:51):
and if you didn't have that likeif bikes, if you went and chose
your tires and they weren'tforced upon you, I think you
would see more out there.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
So try different tires.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Well, I like to, and so then I tend to like brands
that seem as good or better thanMaxxis, but aren't necessarily
as big.
I don't know why it's like it'sthe underdog.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
I totally get that Trying to be punk rock.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, I think that's what it is.
Now I genuinely have some tireswhere I absolutely love them
better, but I'll ride a Maxxisall day long.
I've raced them.
They do great, so it's nothingagainst them.
But if I'm pulling for somebodyto win a race, I tend to like
the underdog.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
So you should listen to the Mountain Cog podcast and
just turn Pinkbike off.
Basically, is what you'resaying?
I don't know, man, we're theunderdog.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
I've been listening to those guys and I respect that
they're.
They're a bunch of bike geeks.
But the only thing that I bugsme a little bit about all
YouTube including when we talkhonestly um YouTube or or
podcasts or whatever is that youknow, sometimes people you know
kind of take it as gospel andit's not.
It's an opinion in most casesand I think it's

(34:05):
well-established.
We don't know what the fuckwe're talking about.
I don't think there's a singlelistener.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
right now it's like definitely going to take us a
hundred percent on our word, andthat's my big issue is
sometimes.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
I just wish they were a little bit more clear about
the definition of their opinionversus you know, uh, what's
better.
I think everybody struggleswith that.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, that's a good reminder we should check
ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
I do it all the time and and I'll I'll try so hard
not to tell somebody that thisis what it is, but this is how I
feel about it, or I like that,or my favorite tire, because I
ride this way, you know orsomething like that, rather than
what's the best tire in thestore oh, it's this brand, you
know.
So I try and steer clear ofthose, and that's many, many

(34:44):
years of practicing and it's notan easy thing to do, so for
sure.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
So I want to put our listeners in the in the seat of
the bike shop owner.
Okay, and you are starting yourbike shop, you're starting to
to to bring in product.
You know what's the decisionmatrix?
Cause cause a lot of thesethings.
Besides the 70 that are uniqueto, besides your house brands,

(35:09):
and the 70 that are unique toQBP, the 330 other ones you can
get from other locations.
So what?
So I'm interested, like what'sthe decision tree or decision
matrix that you go through todecide what are you going to buy
from QBP versus what are yougoing to buy from some other
distributor or direct from thatcompany?
And like, how do you, how doyou decide it's convenience

(35:29):
factor?
Like, like, how does it workout for you?
You're talking to me, talkingto the bike shop owner.
Bike shop owner.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Okay.
So, um, if you don't know,you're going to go find out.
But but quality is probablyconsidered the biggest they're.
They're just really big in howmuch they have.
The other thing is their, theirbusiness facing um website is
super easy to use, and so thatreally creates a flow and makes

(35:56):
it easy.
So your first decision is whenyou're opening a shop is like
where do I get all this stuff?
You have to call every singlecompany and try and talk to them
.
They usually have minimums andthey usually charge shipping and
uh.
So you kind of find out realquick that if I want some stands
, you know I need to have a caseof it, otherwise I don't get
free shipping.
Or maybe they don't even offerfree shipping, uh, or they only

(36:20):
sell it by the case.
But I only need one or twobottles.
Maybe I'm like your buddy Chris, who doesn't need a case of it,
he just needs a couple bottlesbecause he's not as high volume.
And then same for tires, samefor everything, and so quality
does that, and they have so muchin one location.
It makes it really really easy,and so it's really nice.
We go, that's it's.

(36:40):
It's really nice I.
We go direct sometimes if itmakes sense for volume.
But uh, in economics or businessworld it's called breaking bulk
, and that's where you're takinga big item, shipping it, paying
that shipping is is a lotcheaper the bigger the item,
believe it or not.
You know, there's usually abreak point.
Um, and then when that itemgets there, if you split it up

(37:02):
into a ton of little ones,they've all shared that shipping
, and so that's what qualitydoes.
And so if Shimano wants to shipone crank to every single
person who's buying a crank inthe country, it is so much labor
for them to do.
But if they send a pallet ofthem to QBP, but if they send a
pallet of them to QBP and QBP isselling that crank along with

(37:23):
some stands, along with somesilica parts or you know what
have you or some Maxxis tires orTerribles or whatever, it all
gets put in a box and then youcan actually get freight credits
towards that, so you can get acertain amount coming and get
either no freight or reducedfreight a certain amount coming

(37:44):
and get either no freight orreduced freight.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
So so, convenience of those.
So you got a.
So you get a badass gui.
That's really a graphical userinterface.
It's really easy for thewebsite for.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Thank you for that, because I was very confused when
you said badass gui I'm likewhat, what the hell?
I've never heard that term.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Never heard that term .
You've never heard that term.
Dui no, all right.
So you've got a great GUIthat's easy for the bike shops
to use.
It pulls the pain in the ass ofcalling 100 different people.
You can call one person.
You've got 55,000 SKUs to pickfrom, or 50,000.
Sorry, 50,000 products to pickfrom, to pick from most of the

(38:27):
major brands out there, from uhparts, pieces, tools, goo, gel,
food, clothes, all that shit.
It's just really easy for theum bike shops to work with you
guys.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah yeah, I'd say that's spot on.
I mean, like dan mentioned alot of brands you can go direct
and, to be honest, you'llprobably get better margin than
what qbp has.
The big thing is, is thosehurdles to kind of order from
them directly?
It's like we just want to makeit convenient for everyone to
order from us.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, and you're adding a step in the in the
distribution chain, right, soyou gotta.
You guys gotta make money too.
So you, so you there's, a it'sa little bit less margin for the
shop, but a lot moreconvenience.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah, a lot more convenience, yeah, a lot more
convenience.
And then that's a big part ofus is being a distributor, is
our supply chain and how thatfunctions is very fast, and that
is our main focus, and that'swhy we have four different
warehouses and we're constantlytrying to figure out ways to
improve those and how ordersflow through there.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, right on their GUI I'm going to use that so
much Right on their page it'lltell you what warehouse is
coming from.
So when I'm talking to acustomer I can give them a good
idea, you know, of roughly howmuch time it's going to take to
get that product for them If Idon't have it in stock.
And then I can also makedecisions like oh, this cart is

(39:36):
going to, everything is in thisone, but it's going to get held
up because of this other one inPennsylvania, or something like
that.
We can kind of shift thataround.
We can see it, so it's notunknown to us.
So that's very nice.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
So you said I had asked you this when we were up
in New Mexico about where yourwarehouses were.
You had mentioned that therewere four.
I'm assuming that's theMinnesota, pennsylvania, nevada
and Colorado locations.
Yes, but your website also saysyou got one in Vancouver and
Toronto.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yes, so I believe we do have some distribution up in
Canada I am not as familiar withthat area because I do not live
up there.
I'm on the farther side of theUS.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
So, but so so is QBP just United States and Canada,
as far as you know.
Do you guys?
Do you guys ship to bike shopsoutside of North America?

Speaker 3 (40:23):
I am not sure I don't know.
On that, yeah, that doesn'tfall under my job description no
, I'm asking big questions, I'msorry.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
But that's a good question, because I would have
said no, I would have saidthey're a US distributor.
But you see Salsa's and Surly'sall over the world.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Well, that's the thing is.
I have heard that Surly's arevery popular over in Japan just
because of the kind of the nameand what it represents and
everything.
They find that it's a veryAmerican brand and it does
really well over there.
Really, he says they're big inJapan Everybody's big in Japan.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
I got a band.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
They're super big in Japan.
There's no way to independentlyverify that, but they're big in
Japan.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Just there's no way to independently verify that.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
but they're big in Japan, Just fuck with you, keep
going, it makes sense Surlylines up with Japanese culture,
I think.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
So I wonder if they have distribution of that
product somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, because those are house brands, right, so I
would imagine those you couldsell anywhere, right?

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, Surly's an air and house brand.
So yeah, I would imagine we'redistributing over there.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
But again, I don't know, it's not my job.
The big distributor in in ukwas, uh, wiggle wiggle.
Yeah, they were a big one.
Yeah, they went out of businessbecause they were a bike shop,
a consumer direct and thedistributor for so many things
and it caused a lot of problems.
But I think they had a heavilyweighted consumer direct
business plan and as soon as theconsumers stop buying stuff, it
affects them way faster.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
So I bought one of their bikes, yeah.
The Vitus after it won likebudget bike of the year when I
hit the Krampus and I was like Igotta get a, I gotta get a full
suspension bike.
So I bought a Vitas trail bikeand it was like 2000 pounds or
something, it's like 2,500 bucksSuper cheap bike.
And uh, it was like 2 000pounds or something, it's like 2
500 bucks super cheap.
Yeah, you know, kind of diorspec is good bike.
Marzocchi fork, which I had allkinds of problems with, ended

(42:11):
up replacing it with a fox, butum took it up to its first real
test.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Now I was probably 280 pounds at that point and
took it to prison camp and thatlittle drop in the middle yep
yeah, and just collapsed thatframe, the one that we were
practicing that little, thatlittle drop in the middle, yep
yeah, and just collapse thatframe, the one that we were
practicing that little, thatlittle drop, oh jeez, took one.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
So I was scared of drops forever, not because I was
afraid I was going to crash,yeah, but like I don't trust
that the bike, it's going tohold up, it's going to hold up.
That's why you see this giantmonster truck that I, you know,
I don't know what the gorillagravity, gravity.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
It's massive yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Cause I'm worried, like when I jump, is it gonna?
Is it gonna?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
collapse.
Yeah, I think that's legit,like, uh, I think some companies
rely on the average in themiddle and then they just kind
of pink and shrink or blue andblow up or whatever you want to
call it up for the big ones, youknow, and they end up being
just kind of short sighted onthe ends.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
You should probably explain pink and shrink.
Cause I could, I could I couldcome up with about 16 different
definitions of that.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Pink and shrink is a term in the bike industry.
Whenever a bike company,instead of making a women's
specific bike, they just make asmall one and then do it in a
feminine color and they don'treally design it around a woman.
And there's cert there's somecompanies that… have
women-specific design?
Yeah, and then there's somecompanies that say they do, and

(43:31):
they just change the color.
So like figuring that out, andthen you know.
On that note, one thing wealways preach is just because
it's a women's bike doesn't meanit's the right bike.
If your geometry takes adifferent style of bike, don't
feel like you have to get thewomen's.
That's the number one thingthat we see wrong with women's

(43:51):
bikes is that women buy thembecause Because they're a
woman's bike, because it's Onlybecause they're a woman's bike,
yeah, and they don't actuallyget the right size for
themselves.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
All right, Bray, so we got some questions for you.
Here we go.
All right, Bray, so we got somequestions for you.
Um, what is like?
What are your most popularproducts that the bike shops are
hitting you guys up for in yourregion in Arizona today?

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Ooh a region.
I would say probably tires orcomponents as a fill-in.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Okay, so which, uh, which brands of tires, which
models are most popular?

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Continental.
Obviously You're a big Contiguy, huh.
So which brands of tires, whichmodels, are most popular?
Continental, obviouslyContinental.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
You're a big Conti guy, huh.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Well yeah, we just became their sole North American
distributor about a year and ahalf ago.
So that's why you're slingingthe Contis, that's why we're
slinging them so hard.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
So in your world, in distributor, because that's one
thing that we can mention isthat QBP is one of only a few of
these companies that do thisfor the bike shops, Yep, and so
a lot of those distributors haveMaxxis, as do you.
They do, but nobody else willhave Conti.
Correct, yeah, okay, and so ifyou guys like Conti, nobody else

(45:00):
can sell it.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, you have to go through us to get continental
anything mount bike related andthere's 70 brands that are in
that category, that are uniqueto, to quality, to quality, yeah
, yeah which is, I mean, youhave to be the biggest to
leverage that.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
So, because conti used to have its own distributor
right so but you don't havevictoria no, we have victoria as
well, you do uh-huh, we sellvictoria.
It's not on your website oh,interesting worst marketing
company like canaver but yeah,we're business focused, not
consumer folks.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Okay, yeah you're right, you're right and I don't
have access to the business.
Uh, yeah, okay, so so obviously, tires, components, stuff like
that.
You said you guys are slingingconti components, are you guys?
You you seeing more Shimano ormore SRAM?
What are you seeing right now?

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah, so probably more SRAM, although that is
changing as they're trying to dotheir own direct-to-shops.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Oh, really yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
I can definitely see that trend when I'm looking up
shops, information and seeing,oh, they used to have this much,
and then all of a sudden itdrops off a cliff and that's
probably because they're goingdirect.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, you don't think .
That's because they realizedShimano was better.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
I mean, that's what I would have thought.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
No, there's a little time when some of the companies
will pull out of distributorship, yeah, so when they want to get
control of their supply chainfor SRAM, where their big not so
much distributors but their bigonline retailers were kicking a

(46:30):
fuss and so they had to do somestuff to appease them, which
pissed off all the little guys.
So you run through that once ina while and then when you're
using distributorship, you losea little control.
So I think Shimano just wanteda little more control.
And keep in mind Shimano NorthAmerica is not Shimano Japan,
and they are a distributor.

(46:51):
So they're actually kind of acompetitor.
Double distributors, yeah.
So the other thing is theyaren't the ones who manufacture
the product, they're the oneswho represent Shimano in North
America.
They're the ones who representShimano in North America.
So that's a little weird,because we went through a

(47:23):
similar problem with the Wiggleand the Chain Reaction, where
they were getting the bigdifference in costs that allowed
one distributor to undercut theother one and it caused a
problem and we found out thosetwo guys are just customers of
Shimano.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
A little rabbit hole.
Did you see the text that Isent you about the Taiwanese
dollar?
Yeah, it's gone up 11% in threemonths.
That's going to have asignificant compared to the
dollar.
The US dollar, that's going tohave a significant downstream
impact on bike prices.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
And then this is separate from tariffs.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, that's just in general.
What's causing that?
I didn't.
I didn't die that oh no, yeah,it's a that's.
All of these little things canaffect things.
I have talked about how Rockynever really was popular in the
U?
S for quite a few years becauseat one point, but they were at
one point and the.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Canadian exchange rate changed.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
And then, when it came back down, all of a sudden
Rocky started popping up.
So and same for Da Vinci's andNorco's and stuff like that.
So if the world market tradingis affected, if we may stop
seeing stuff, it's interesting.
Oh, that gets me on something.
Let's talk about silica yeah,yeah yeah, tell us about silica.
Yeah, you brought me some coolsilica stuff yeah, the one thing

(48:37):
I want to ask you that I wasn'tclear about, but because I've
been watching some of the videosand stuff, is I thought it was
an italian brand, but it's not.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
No.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
So did it used to be, because I could swear they were
an Italian brand.
It's just really good marketing, no Serious dude.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
I could be wrong, but I thought it was started from
someone who left Zip.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Oh, really we can fact check this.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Are you going to Bob GBT that?

Speaker 2 (49:05):
I'm going to GBT it, but keep going.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Okay, so that was one of my questions, because the
new guy was talking, and he wastalking about mini pumps and
this was coming around thetariffs, and he was saying that
one of the manufacturingpartners that they're using and
that's, by the way, code forsomebody else may make part of,
or the entire product, whichhappens yeah, no, I mean, if you

(49:28):
watch the video on silica,they're pretty open about who's
manufacturing it for them andwhere a lot of people are
getting those pumps.
Yeah, and he said that becauseit was affected by tariffs, that
they may just choose not tobring it into the us, and so
they released it all over theworld except the us.
So, but I think, because thingshave stabilized not necessarily
gotten cheaper, but we have abetter idea of what's going to

(49:49):
happen, I think.
I think, um, now we can getthem.
Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (49:55):
yeah, that is correct .
Yeah, you're right on witheverything you said there.
They initially had developedthem.
We're like, oh, we're going tobring them in then with the
tariffs, they're like, I don'tknow if that's going to be
realistic.
And then everything'sstabilized and we're like, all
right, we're able to bring themin at this price point.
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
So Soca is an Italian company.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
It is.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Okay, soca was founded in 1970 by this is from
their website, by the way Okayby Felice Sacchi, just outside
of Milan, italy.
The company innovated and grewquickly by innovating as the
first company to to put gaugeson pumps, the first company to
produce a true high-pressureframe pump, the first to work
with revolutionary lightweightmaterial plastic after the end

(50:33):
of World War II.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Now scroll down to Silica today, because I think
what happened is somebody in theUS bought it.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
In 2014, Silica headquarters and manufacturing
moved to Indianapolis, Indiana,so they started as an Italian
company and they are now a UScompanyapolis, Indiana.
So they're they started as aItalian company and they're now
a U S company.
Okay, yeah.
Uh, here we are rebuilding aonce great icon into a new great
icon.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
That's cool, cause I think that's about when we
started seeing a bunch ofdifferent random parts coming
from silica silica that weren'tjust a frame pump, you know,
cause that's what they werefamous for.
And then their floor pumps wereand their presto heads.
We would buy their presto headsfor the bike shops and they
would just get hose clampedright to a hose, like with super
perfect yeah so um, so yeah, sosilica now has, uh, mini pumps,

(51:22):
which is a big thing.
So yeah, you had to tell usabout that silica mini pump yeah
so silica has two nowelectronic pumps.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
They have their micro version, which is a just basic
pump, has one button on the back.
You turn it on.
It would automatically shut offat 72 psi or you could toggle
it on and off can you changethat, or is that just always?
72 no, it's just a preset.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
They're like this is the best pressure you should all
ride.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Don't do that on your mountain bike.
Yeah, exactly.
No.
Yeah, the mini one, I would say, is more of like a road and
gravel focus Cause it's a littlebit smaller package.
Like I can throw up my Jerseypocket and I don't even really
feel it bounce around at all.
It's a very smaller onecompared to the ultimate one,
which is the one I was showingyou this weekend, that has the
gauge on the back.
You can turn it on and you canset it from pressures up to 100
psi.
Once it hits that pressureit'll automatically shut off.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, yeah, how does?
How's the battery life on thatthing?

Speaker 3 (52:13):
it's been really good .

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I mean for the, the bigger ones, the one I've been
using more, and I've gottenanywhere from like three to six
tires completely inflated onthat with one charge with one
charge and then the mini one yousaid automatically cuts off at
72 and you have to be carefulbecause I heard that if you rely
on your pump automaticallyshutting off and somebody messed

(52:35):
with your pump, you may blowyour tire off I heard about that
yeah and

Speaker 2 (52:41):
should I tell that story now that you've introduced
might as well.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah, because I think it's hilarious, because I think
you're not alone.
You know, I think people dothat.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
So I have an air compressor with a cool park bike
shop head and I set my aircompressor to 40 PSI and that's
the most it will.
It's got like a little gaugethat goes up to like 180 PSI or
something.
I set it to 40 and that's themost that it'll do, unless I'm
inflating my gravel tires andthen I'll go and take it up to I

(53:11):
think 65 is what my tires areset at.
But so I'm out there and I'mputting a new tire in the whole
tubeless system or whatever, andand I'm I, I just, and I it was
, it was a gravel bike, gravelbike tire and I wasn't thinking

(53:32):
about it and I'm like, oh, thisthing will shut off at 40 and
we'll see if it pops and if Ihave to increase it.
So I really wasn't payingattention to the PSI and I was,
I don't know, probably listeningto some punk rock music or
something rocking out, notreally paying attention, looking
at my phone or something,trying to inflate this tire, and
it blew.
And it blew so like likefantastically that it like like

(53:54):
literally knocked me back.
I hit my head in therefrigerator.
I like, I like blacked out for aminute.
My ears were, I felt like itwas like a grenade.
I was like holy shit, what inthe hell just happened?
I like Holy shit, what in thehell just happened?
I like I'm on the ground.
I'm like I didn't know.
I didn't exactly know whathappened I?
just knew.
I was like my ears were ringingreally bad.

(54:14):
I had a fricking bruise on theside of my face and, yeah, it
blew off.
And, uh, what had happened wasmy my beautiful bride had gone
out and she didn't reallyunderstand how that air
compressor worked and she justcranked it up and so, I don't
know, it probably blew it like ahundred PSI or 110.
Psi or something?
I you know my fault for notpaying attention.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
I've seen some violent you know, uh, like
blowing off the rims.
Uh, the ones that I feel so badfor the customers are the ones
when they put their bikes intheir cars and in this heat that
we have in Arizona, and theyblow while they're at work, like
, oh, I'm going to take, I'mgoing to go ride after work.

(54:51):
So it's really common thatsomebody will stick their bike
in their car and then go to work, right, and then come back out
and then go to on their bikeride, and the amount of times
I've seen those things blow intheir car Cause they heat up and
air expands when it hits and,and it's just all over the
interior like there's stands andstand.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
When we talked to the president of stands, we asked
him is there, do you have asecret to getting the stands
stain out?
And he's like I don't know nodon't get it on your stuff.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
That's what we need.
Is we need everybody to give ustheir worst tire explosion?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
any cool tire explosion stories.
I did see you walking on Ziggywith no tire.
Yeah, I mean, that happenedtwice this weekend.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
But those weren't that impressive, they were just
unfortunate.
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean recently, probably in the past year, I
was at a shop and he was tryingto set a tubeless tire and we
were both kind of chatting.
As he was sitting there doingit with the air compressor and
it blew up and there was sealantall the way like to the wall
all around the whole servicearea it went all over and I had
my dog with me.

(55:52):
She was not too happy, she ranto the door.
Yeah, I felt kind of bad, butbesides that, I mean that's kind
of a yeah, that happened withBrian's dog Casey.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
She was shell shocked for weeks afterwards.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
You guys had one blow here yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
We have one blow so violent it blew the carbon rim
apart.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Oh Jesus yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
And that's that was an expensive issue.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, but uh, was that a?
Was that a new mechanic?
Probably yeah, Like me.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, honestly, it was it.
Honestly, it was somebody whowas waiting for the system to do
something they were used to,but in a bike shop environment
it was a different system.
So that's what happened to you,right?
Yeah, common, yeah, you wereused to it always shutting at 40
, and then you had somebody comein and change it and then you

(56:38):
didn't think to look at itbecause you were used to it.
And so if you're used to yourtire making two popping noises
every time you put it on, youmay wait for the second pop, but
you may not realize that sometires don't pop.
We heard that.
Who is that?

Speaker 2 (56:54):
That came up in the garage this weekend, when you
were doing your tire someone'slike.
Well, we didn't hear the secondpop and you're like it doesn't
always second pop.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Look for the bead, that's all you need to do.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Look for the bead, do yeah, I usually go to 40 is my
max, and then if I'm going to doanything beyond that, I put a
floor pump on it.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Yeah, to pump it, just to watch and I'll watch it.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
I'll just watch the bead and you can see it kind of
creep into place and sometimesthey creep into place and pop
but make no noise so that'scrazy, it's above 40, it's going
outside the door.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you put it away from you.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
I've.
I I've even been holding one,you know.
Luckily it didn't go, but I'veheld them before.
But usually if you take it to40, you're probably pretty safe,
unless you've got something bad.
We did have that happen theother day in the shop where,
when the beads was bad and sothe guys got it up to pressure
and then, because the bead wasis what holds that round, and

(57:49):
when it started to go and flex,it just got too big for the rim
and popped off.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
So that's what happened with that uh schwalbe
tire that I brought in and had.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
You know, yeah, yeah yeah, I've seen that once in a
while not very often, but we dosee it so all right.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
What do we miss?
What do we miss aboutBP?
What should our listeners know?
Why should they care?

Speaker 3 (58:07):
I mean your listeners , I'm not sure.
We're more focused on bikeshops.
Oh, here we go.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Well, what you should know is they're a crucial part
of the bicycle supply chain.
Make it easier for your shopsto get all the stuff that you
need.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Yeah, I would say, for consumers the big thing to
check out would be salsa, surlyTerravale.
They're kind of our consumerfacing brands.
Go check those out.
And problem solvers, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
And I got a little PSA for people.
So, um, one of the things thatin the bike shop that troubles
us that we can't do much aboutis, uh, shipping time and this
day and age of Amazon and youget stuff in one day or two days
.
When I tell a customer it maytake three or four, they
sometimes give me the side eye.
You should know that I have tousually get it from a

(58:53):
distributor, from direct, notfrom Amazon.
And even when you can get thatproduct, if you can go through
the shop and it's the same price, try and give them the business
.
But just also realize that theship times are not for us to get
a free shipment.
We have to build enough productthat we're buying to get that

(59:14):
free so that we don't pass thatto the customer.
And that's one of ourdisadvantages is that we don't
get that free shipping in oneday from Amazon.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
We talk about that, how the amazon effect has been a
big issue where everyoneexpects free shipping two days,
and that is not how shippingworks.
But that's what consumers thinkbecause they deal with amazon
all day long.
But that is an extraordinarycase of like how they've
optimized their logistics tomake that happen.
Well, it's not sustainable.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
They're actually making the.
The product sellers take asmaller margin and they've built
their own infrastructure, youknow, and their margin is going
towards that, and so it's notsustainable in a world without
that so uh, you can't.
Even when you get it from yourgrocery store, you usually have
some sort of fee.

(01:00:00):
If you get dominoes, you getsome sort of fee.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, are you guys going to start using drones to
deliver?

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
No, unless fedex or ups is we're not going to that's
awesome, I think that semis aregoing drones before anything
yeah, semis are driverless.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Yeah, driverless semis.
Yeah, right on bryce.
Well, thanks for taking thetime and spending an hour with
us.
You got any final thoughts forour listeners?

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
no, appreciate you guys having me on um, I would
say encourage listeners to checkout salsas earlier.
Terravale yeah, there you go,there you go, I really.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
I like that a line.
So if you're looking for a goodcross country rear tire in a
hard pack, it's uh, it's beengreat for me, yeah, and problem
solvers make my job easier yes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
All right, guys.
This thing keeps going down soslow I don't notice it, and then
I get uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Can you dig it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Can you dig it?
Can you dig it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Can you dig it?

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110 - Quality Bicycle Products (QBP): Why Your Bike Shop Depends on This Hidden Giant (Guest: Bryce Buckner, QBP)

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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;}110 - Quality Bicycle Products (QBP): Why Your Bike Shop Depends on This Hidden Giant (Guest: Bryce Buckner, QBP)