Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome to Fat Camp, the podcast about the technical aspects of fat and plus bikes. I don't really know what show number we're on, um, anymore. 0:17 We've had so many partially recorded shows in the last couple months that it's kind of a blur. I'm not sure what we've talked about and what we haven't. 0:24 Life's been getting in the way, but we hope to get back on track with more regular s- um, shows here soon. To make up for the lapse, we have a great interview with Adam Miller of Y Cycles. 0:36 In this interview, we get pretty geeky about the features of Y Cycles frames. Um, but before we dive in, I think it's important to provide some context about what they're doing is important. 0:49 Um, a lot of riders have experienced the incredible ride qualities of a Ti bike or at least have read or heard about them. 0:55 Ti has also had somewhat of a renaissance in recent years, and I would argue that's because of its reputation for durability and high performance. That said, Ti's a bitch to work with. 1:06 So if you look at most Ti bikes, they rely upon basic round tubes that may see a little bit of manipulation, like they're bent or ovalized, but you don't see a lot of examples of Ti getting heavily manipulated similar to what we see in modern aluminum bikes, which are almost indistinguishable from the flowy forms of molded carbon bikes nowadays. 1:29 This is where Y Cycles is different and noteworthy. Every single part that goes into a frame, I'm talking tubes, I'm talking, uh, you know, the, how cables are run. 1:41 You know, all the, all the little pieces that go into it. 1:44 Dropouts, head tubes, bottom brackets, you know, all of the individual components that come together to make a frame, they've gone through and analyzed and optimized every single one of those, and 1:59 they are doing more tubing manipulation than I think anybody else is in the bike industry with Ti. 2:06 So if you haven't checked out their bikes, I highly recommend hopping online or going to some place where you can check one out and really give them a look, because they're unique in the bike industry right now and are really probably, I would argue, pushing the envelope more with Ti for bike performance than any other, uh, company in the bike industry. 2:30 So crack a beer, settle in, whatever, and I hope you enjoy this interview. 2:36 [upbeat music] All right. Well, hey, folks. 2:51 Welcome to, uh, Fat Camp, another podcast about technical aspects of fat and plus bikes. 2:57 Uh, this is kind of a special edition, uh, Fat Camp podcast because we have, um, we've got a guy who knows a shit ton about, uh, bikes and, uh, has been in the industry and has started the own- started, um, his own company and, uh, we're gonna ask him a few questions. 3:16 His name is, uh, Adam Miller. So Ken has, uh, of course Ken has a very detailed and poignant outline with some questions, uh, to just throw to Adam and let him just kind of spew. 3:30 But, uh, we're gonna interview Adam Miller on today's Fat Camp podcast. 3:34 And, uh- Yeah, and Andy hasn't mentioned it yet, but, um, Adam is, is one of the guys that started up Y Cycles, uh, which is a fairly new, uh, brand for the cycling world. 3:45 Um, they- they're gonna be releasing, um, a fat bike here coming up here really soon. Soon. They've already ended up releasing the information out in the wild, but I think it's gonna become available. 3:53 Adam will correct me if I'm wrong about that. Um, so without any other to-do, Adam, welcome to the show. Welcome, Adam. Yeah. Thanks for having me. 4:05 So why don't we kick it off, um, you know, we normally like to start things out like this where we kind of get a little bit of history about, um, where you've been, been at in the, the bike industry and how you got here. 4:17 Um, you know, you've, you've got kind of an interesting past. I'll just, you know, call it out because, uh, you were one of the guys that started up Borealis Bikes, and Borealis- Yep... 4:26 is a really, really popular brand in the fat bike world. So, you know, and we don't, we don't need to necessarily start with that, but, you know, give us a little bit of your history in the, in the bike world. Yeah. 4:37 Yeah, totally. I'll kind of, I'll kind of ramble on there. So basically, um, I, I, I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, so hence kind of the, the, you know, a lot of the, the fat bike, um, uh, you know, fat bike love. 4:48 Um, I started, uh, just messing around with bikes, kind of cliché, probably like a whole, a whole lot of us. 4:53 I just, you know, k- k- kind of a weird kid and just got really into all sorts of, of bikes and pulling my bikes apart. 5:01 Then I started getting into mountain biking, um, and, uh, I was always, you know, al- always kind of nerding out on all sorts of things as, as a little kid, and I actually, um, when I was like 11 years old, I started, um, buying and selling, uh, uh, mountain bikes specifically on eBay. 5:17 So I'd like buy a bike and then pull it all apart and sell the parts and, and, and make money somehow. And, um, just got really into like kind of messing around and learning all about the different brands and parts. 5:28 And that was a long time ago. Things are a little bit different, but it definitely, you know, from a young age, I just was kind of obsessed with, with bikes. 5:35 Um, and then I was lucky enough, um, I got into mountain biking through a program called, uh, Mighty Bikes up there in Alaska, kind of a kids bike program, and I was hooked after the first ride. 5:45 Um, my parents very generously bought me, um, the last bike they ever bought me was a Gary Fisher, uh, Marlin when I was, [laughs] I think, about 13 years old. Ooh, that's, that's the same brand that, um- Yeah. 5:55 I had one of those. Yeah, that's what, that's what Andy started out on. Nice. It's, it was a great bike. I wish I still had it. 6:03 [laughs] So a- a- and then, and then I got lucky enough to get a job at the local bike shop when I was 14 years old at, uh, Chain Reaction Cycles up in Anchorage, Alaska. 6:13 Um, and the two owners, Jamie and Bill, were, were generous enough to kind of say, "He's some kid, he doesn't know much of anything, but is kind of obsessed with a- all these bike products." 6:21 [laughs] So, um, that's really what, that's really what got me hooked, um, uh, uh, to, you know, to e- everything about bikes. Um, and I ended up through high school I worked in the shop. 6:33 I, you know, I, I skipped class to go to work. I remember getting in trouble a few times because I'd skip out on school to go- [laughs]... work on bikes or to go ride bikes, so just a, just a total bike nerd. 6:43 Um, and, and through that, um, through working at Chain Reaction, uh, both Jamie and Bill started 907 Fat Bikes, another super well-known fat bike brand. Um, and, uh, and that, uh, taught me a whole lot. 6:56 I got kind of fascinated that you could come up with an idea for a bike and then make it. Um, and so I was able to learn a whole lot from them through that process. 7:05 Uh, then I moved to Colorado, uh, to go to school, and I kind of said to Jamie and Bill, "Hey, let me take some of these bikes down and see if I can sell these fat bikes to, you know, people outside of Alaska." 7:14 And that was back in, what was that? 2010, when fat bikes were still pretty new everywhere- Mm-hmm... except, you know, Minnesota, upper, upper Midwest, and, and Anchorage. 7:26 Um, and, uh, and then that sort of taught me how to, you know, work on making these bikes and selling them. 7:33 So, uh, long story short, that's sort of how I got to the point of, uh, oh, you can have an idea to make a bike and figure out how to make it and, uh, and get people riding them. Sweet. 7:43 Now, like I, like I kind of started out with, you were one of the, the co-founders of Borealis. 7:48 And I mean, the important thing in bringing this up is that, I mean, Borealis kind of checked off a lot of, you know, first fat bike, you know, feats type of thing, where they were one of the first- Mm-hmm... 8:00 like, real carbon fiber bikes. Um, you guys were one of the first companies to end up having carbon fiber, you know, fat bike rims that were tubeless compatible. 8:08 You also ended up, um, having some features on that Borealis bike, you know, things like, um, you know, previously the 197 spaced bikes, like the Moonlander, a thing like that, ended up having like super wide cranks and some things that worked- Mm-hmm... 8:22 is race oriented, and you guys were one of the first ones to run a, a little bit narrower Q factor crank, a more normal fat bike crank, you know? Um, something you'd normally end up seeing like on a- Totally... 8:32 a 170, 177 spaced bike. Yeah. So you kind of combined, you know, a lot of these different really formative technologies in that, and kind of, I mean, really kicked off what we see in modern fat bikes. 8:46 So I think- Well, that's, that's super, that, that's, that's super flattering. Pr- pressure's on now. 8:51 [laughs] But, uh, yeah, I mean, r- really h- honestly, I had all these knee problems from riding fat bikes up in Alaska with the wide, with the wide Q factor, so that was [laughs] kind of a big thing with Borealis is I, I wanted to make a bike that wouldn't hurt my knees quite, quite as badly. 9:05 And, and it, and it worked out. I mean, it, it worked out quite, quite well to fit those big tires and a little bit narrower cranks. Still wider than normal, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. 9:14 Yeah, it just, you know, it was kind of a, I, I just, it, I felt like it was one of those really revolutionary bikes. You know, when I was looking at it, it just kind of blew my mind when I first saw that came out. 9:22 So, you know, I, I ki- I just kind of wanted to call that out because, you know, some people might be familiar with the Borealis name, but they're not necessarily, you know, as familiar with the innovation that came along with when that, you know, that name was launched. 9:35 Um, since then- Yeah, and I, I think we got, we got really lucky. You know, a lot of people around that time were working on, okay, fat... I think a lot of people realized fat bikes are a real thing. 9:44 They're not just this weird bike for a couple people in Alaska and Minnesota and Michigan to ride on. 9:50 Um, and obviously there were other places too, but I, I think initially, especially in places like Colorado and Utah and this Rocky Mountain region where I'm now at, I mean, I walked into bike shops with a fat bike and just got laughed at. 10:00 [laughs] I mean, they just told me to leave. Like- [laughs]... you know, "No way someone's gonna ride that thing." And I'd kind of say, you know, "All right, but I bet next year you're gonna call us up." 10:08 And sure enough they did. Um, but, but we got really lucky with Borealis. Um, uh, we're the, the first company to launch with a carbon, with a carbon fat bike. 10:17 And it, um, you know, shortly thereafter several other companies came out with, uh, with similar products, so we were all kind of working on it at, at the same time, and I think we definitely got, got quite lucky with the timing to be able to say we were the first. 10:29 Um, and to do a few things, like, like you said, you know, the wider rear spacing, it would fit a big five-inch tire but not, not be heavy and clunky. So it's a really neat product. 10:37 And, and, you know, that seems like so long ago. It really was only about six or six to seven years ago, um, that, that, you know, we launched that brand. Um, and it was one of the coolest things. 10:48 We launched and the phones didn't stop ringing. I mean, we had- [laughs] We launched with a product that I... 10:52 You know, I started it thinking it would be a bit of a hobby while I was, I was actually still in college when I started it. And, um, sure enough, it turned into a, [laughs] a, a, a real company pretty quickly. 11:02 So I learned a whole, whole lot through that process. Nice. Yeah, so you've moved on from Borealis at this point, and now you've started up Y Cycles. 11:13 And it, and, you know, from, from, from an outside perspective, this seems quite different because y- you, basically your line of bikes are exclusively titanium. 11:21 There's no carbon frames anywhere in the lineup whatsoever at all. And- Correct... you've, you've been kind of, um, you're releasing, you know, s- you know, progressively different models. 11:32 You know, you first started off with I, I, I think it was like, you know, like a dirt jumper, and then you had some plus bikes, and you had a mixed surface road bike. 11:39 And then most recently you guys ended up, you know, announcing the, the Big Iron fat bike. Um, so d- Mm-hmm... 11:45 walk us a little bit through how you shifted from carbon fiber world and, and why you shifted over to, you know, this, you know, the Y Cycles and ti construction instead of carbon.Yeah, totally. 11:59 No, it's, it's, I mean, it's definitely a pretty valid point and are very opposite sort of, uh, types of products and, and, and companies, I think. 12:07 Um, and without, you know, spending too much time on the Borealis deal, you know, I started that company. I had a business partner. Uh, we started this thing up. I was in college. I was obsessed with bikes. 12:17 [laughs] And, um, I mean, we really started it as a hobby. I thought, "Okay, we'll make some carbon fat bikes, and I'll stay in school full time, and, you know, we'll see what happens." 12:27 And, I mean, literally overnight, um, I mean, we launched a BikeRumor article, and the next morning I was sitting, uh, you know, in my college house with six roommates, and I had put my personal cell phone number on the, uh- [laughs] on the press release. 12:40 And, uh, my phone didn't stop ringing. I mean, we... backcountry.com called that day and said, "Can we sell your bikes? 12:46 And we got a purchase order for, you know, twice as much as we projected our whole sales for the year." Oh, wow. 12:50 So it really, like, I mean, it, it was just this wild time with Borealis, and it just blew up, and we got so caught up in, you know, we're growing and growing, and people are loving the bikes. 13:02 And, and, you know, I learned a lot through that process, both on the product side, but definitely on kind of the business mentality side. Um, I ended up selling my 50% ownership to my, uh, business partner and investor. 13:15 Um, we just had different ways of, of seeing where we wanted to take the company and how we wanted to grow the company, and that ended up being the best, the best solution for both of us. 13:23 So it was certainly very bittersweet. Um, and, and through that, I, I think a lot of that experience is what sort of led me to, to what I wanted to create with, with Y Cycles. 13:33 Um, and after I sold Borealis, it, you know, it was y- you know, definitely, definitely a tough, a tough time because it was kind of my... You know, I created that and I, and I loved the product. 13:44 Um, and when I sold it, I, I lost kind of my, uh, baby, you could, you could say. I mean, it was, it really affected me more than I ever thought a, you know, a business could, could affect [laughs] your personal life. 13:54 [laughs] Um, and, uh, and I ended up, like, packed my truck up, drove to Alaska with a bunch of bikes and went fishing and biking every day, and totally didn't like, uh, you know, I hadn't planned on taking like a, you know, mid quart- quarter life retirement, I guess you could say. 14:09 And, um- Nice... so it, you know, I, I guess during that time I reflected a whole lot on, on bikes, and for like a week I was like, "Oh man, I'm never, never gonna be in the bike industry again." 14:19 And actually I think that lasted about two days. [laughs] And, and then I thought, "You know, this is what I love. This is what I know from when I was a little kid. 14:26 I, you know, my obsession, um, was with bikes, and that's how I made money, too. It's kind of like it's my life." 14:33 So, um, pretty quickly I got kind of fired up to do something different and, and to do it how I really wanted to, um, uh, uh, I, I suppose, and not try to just grow a company as fast as you can and not try to come up with a product that's gonna like, you know, take over the world of bikes right, right away, which sort of with Borealis was a lot of the mentality, like growth, growth. 14:54 You know, let's be the biggest company we can rather than let's do this for, for, you know, because we all love bikes. 15:01 Um, and, and so I definitely kind of hashed that out for a while, and as I was hanging out in Alaska catching salmon and, and, and going biking all the time, um, I sort of went back to my roots. I mean, I was, uh... 15:12 It's where I grew up. It's the bike shop I, I worked at. I hung out there a whole lot. And, uh, and the very first bike I ever wrenched on as a 14-year-old mechanic who knew nothing was a custom Seven. 15:23 [laughs] And I put a pair of brakes on. I forget what brakes they were, but I, I froze the brakes. I mean, you know, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. 15:30 [laughs] And, uh, so I've kind of always gone back to that moment thinking, you know, as a, my very first day on the job, I worked on like a $7,000 custom titanium bike and messed it all up. 15:39 But from that moment, I mean, I, I always thought titanium was like the coolest thing ever. Um, so that sort of sparked, um, starting, starting Y Cycles. 15:51 I mean, after Borealis, the neat thing was, um, I like all kinds of bikes. I mean, since I was a kid I've liked, you know, I've raced road bikes, I've raced triathlon. Did I say that? 16:01 I've raced, um, mountain bike, cross-country, you know, all sorts of things. Um, but Borealis was- We won't tell anybody about the tri history. You... Yeah, yeah, don't mention that. [laughs] All right. 16:13 I, I gave that up a few years ago. Actually, well, side note, I, I once walked into my office at Borealis because I, the triathlon thing came out the day before. 16:21 I walked into my office and my pride and joy fat bike with all these cool parts on it. So, you know, the, the guys had put Aero bars and like 80 millimeter valve stem extensions on my fat bike. [laughs] Jesus. 16:33 It was pretty funny. [laughs] Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. We- [laughs] So we don't mention the triathlon thing anymore. [laughs] Um, all right. 16:43 But, um, with, with Borealis, you know, we always, we rode fat bikes all year round. 16:47 That's the products we made and, and I was pretty excited to say, you know, "I'm gonna have a company with all sorts of different bikes," because I like riding different bikes all the time. Um, 16:57 so that c- sort of brings us into Y Cycles and the products we decided to make. Do you want me to just jump right into that? 17:04 Well, real quick, and so, you know, there wasn't necessarily like a, uh, a, like a, a tie bike that you had ridden or owned or something like that, and you were like, "Oh my goodness, you know, this is like, this ride is transcendent. 17:16 This is what I w- need." It w- it was more just kind of that, uh, I, I don't know. 17:21 I, I, I know how I grew up, like lusting after Merlins and things like that, and kind of having this, uh, you know, this, this, this infatuation with tie bikes for years and years and years and never could afford them. 17:31 And then all of a sudden I got one. Mm-hmm. I'm like, "Oh my God, this is amazing." Um, you know. Yep. W- did you have any kind of experience like that? 17:38 Or was it just, you know, kind of like still in the back of your head that, you know, the tie is out there and this could be a really cool material to work with? Yeah. 17:45 So maybe I shouldn't say that, but I've, I'd never even owned a titanium bike myself before starting this company, which, you know, sounds terrible on the surface level. 17:54 [laughs] But the, um, [laughs] I mean, it really does. Uh, but I'd owned a whole lot of different carbon bikes and aluminum bikes. 18:01 Uh, growing up a- and working at Chain Reaction, I got really into doing, um, uh, custom fits for people, and I was able, uh, I learned so much from that shop. But, um, I did, you know, a-... 18:11 hundreds of, of bike fits, um, and that's what I really liked and that helped me kind of learn geometry and how different riders, um, sit on bikes basically. Um, but we sold a ton of, uh, of Seven and Serotta bikes. 18:28 Okay. And so that's what got me into titanium, um- Interesting. I know, so-... 18:32 and then I, I was at a point- I know I don't mean to dork out too bad, but I was wondering if the Serotta bikes were an influence and well, I'm getting way ahead of myself, but we'll have to talk about- [laughs]... 18:42 the seat tube and how it's ovalized or I, I don't know if ovalized is quite the right term, but down near the bottom bracket [laughs] 'cause that was like- Total-... as soon as I saw that, I was like, "That is... 18:51 Like, that's what Serotta, like, you know, totally ended up bringing to market, and, like, they were the first ones to do something like that." Yep. So okay, I was wondering if there was an influence there. Cool. 19:00 Yeah, yeah. It was just, I mean, it was like I was working the shop selling these bikes that I could never afford, and I always just sort of lusted after cool titanium bikes. 19:08 Um, and you can see how people react to titanium and from when, when I was selling these bikes, like, you know, everyone likes a cool high-end carbon bike. 19:16 Um, you know, there's something about picking up a road bike that weighs 13 pounds or something. But I think, like, there's definitely, like, a, a magic about titanium that when someone's- Hmm... 19:24 getting that titanium bike that they know they're gonna get and have for 20 years, like, there, there's, there's something different about that. Um, and that always stuck with me. Yeah. 19:34 So that, that's, that was definitely a big spark for me wanting to make ti- titanium bikes. Yeah. Okay. So they, it's really interesting to hear kind of like sort of the influences on you. 19:46 So do, do you wanna talk a little bit about, you know, the lineup of bikes that you've got, um, so we kind of can give some perspective that way? Totally. Yeah. 19:54 So when we launched the brand, we shipped our first bike, uh, not even two years ago. We're pretty, pretty new. 20:00 Um, uh, w- we launched with three bikes, um, the, the S7, the 27.5+ hardtail, um, the R+, which is a gravel, gravel road bike, and, uh, the, the TF Dirt Jumper, and that stands for Take Flight or it stands for YTF because it's a $6,000 dirt jumper- [laughs]... 20:19 and that's not the most common thing. So [laughs] um, and, and, and then I'll just jump right into the Dirt Jumper bike. So that bike we totally made for fun. 20:29 Um, one of the, the main guys who really was a huge influence on me and helped me learn a lot and, and start these companies was, uh, a guy named Jason Schers, and he, he started ENVE, or Edge Composites later turned to ENVE. 20:41 Oh, yeah. Um, he, he lives out in Ogden, Utah, and, um, I met him. I was living in Ogden, Utah, for a summer job a little while back, and we just kind of connected. 20:50 Uh, and s- and through Borealis and everything, I talked to him, and, and just super 20:56 intelligent, thoughtful guy that really helped me both specifically with products and engineering, but much, much more so on kind of the bigger picture business and personal side of things. 21:06 So, um, uh, actually when I moved out to Ogden, Utah, to start Y Cycles, he was a huge influence and really kind of the reason I moved there to start this company up. Um- Hmm... 21:16 and, uh, he had recently sold out of his ownership in ENVE, um, and it was actually a very similar deal to my selling out of Borealis, quite bittersweet. 21:25 And so, you know, his company was a whole lot larger, um, but really a very similar situation. So we, we talked a whole lot about that, and he kind of said, "Hey, come down to Utah. I'll help you. 21:35 You know, if you're starting another bike company, I'll help you." And so I said, "Sweet." [laughs] So I packed my truck up and moved down to Utah [laughs]. Nice. 21:42 Um, and, uh, a- and now our company's based in, in Colorado. That's a, um, a whole different story. 21:47 But anyway, as I was getting things going with, with the, um, the S7, the 27.5+ hardtail and the gravel bike, those were two bikes that I was just obsessed with, and I knew I, I personally wanted those and thought we could do something kind of neat. 21:59 Jason kept saying, "You gotta make a dirt jumper. You gotta make a dirt jumper." [laughs] And I said, "There's no freaking way we're gonna sell titanium dirt jumpers." And he said, "I don't care. 22:07 I want one, and I'm helping you out." And I kind of said, "Oh, fair point. All right." [laughs] So, um, [laughs] so we actually spent a lot of time, uh, making this dirt jumper. Um, and, and it's pretty unique. 22:21 It's got 27.5 wheels instead of kind of standard 26-inch wheels. You can do a belt drive split on it. Uh, it, it, I mean, it weighs, with carbon wheels, you can build it to weigh, like, 20 pounds. 22:32 It's the lightest dirt jumper- Wow... out there as far as I, I know. Um, and I'm y- I'm an awful rider when it comes to, like, dirt jumper sort of thing. 22:39 [laughs] It's probably not my cup of tea, but I, I managed to work with a lot of other people who are really good at it and knew what they wanted with a dirt jumper. 22:46 And, and we made this bike that, like, people freaking love it. We certainly don't sell a whole lot. We never thought we would, but people who get them are just... I mean, it is, it's a cool, unique, fun bike. 22:58 Well, yeah. But that one- Kind of two things on that. 23:00 I mean, it, like, when I first saw, you know, the, the three bikes that you originally launched with, I was like, "I can tell that these people love to ride," because this is, like, basically it, it, it's, it's somebody's stable of bikes that they want to ride, you know? 23:14 Like, a true enthusiast- Yes. Yep... you know what I mean [laughs]? It's like you covered, like- We were a little selfish I think. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. No, but then it's like, I mean, I, I, I totally appreciate that. 23:22 It's like, you know, and, and that, that... I mean, that shows that you're actually riding the bikes. You're not just doing, "Oh, okay, this is where the market's going, so I wanna get out ahead of it or whatever." 23:29 You know, it's like it was, it was truly- Totally... like, the rider's lineup of bikes. Um, you know, second thing with the, with the- Yep... 23:37 titanium dirt jumper, I mean, I, I know that this is way outside of the scope of our, [laughs] our normal conversation on this podcast, but I mean, a ti dirt jumper is, like, the perfect material because, I mean, that is a bike that is just gonna get just the crap beat out of it, and ti takes it. 23:54 Yep. You know? It just, it shrugs it all off. You got a lighter bike, so you can throw it around a little more easily. Um- Yep... 24:00 you know, mo- most people that are kind of getting into dirt jumpers might not be affluent [laughs] enough to be able to afford something like that, but I, I don't think that anybody in their right mind would doubt that that is, like, the perfect material for a dirt jump bike.Totally. 24:14 If money's no option, it's fantastic. Um, and, and, and, you know, a- another big part of it, and we can talk more about this later, but we do a whole lot with the testing. 24:23 I mean, we really did put like a big company, you know, big picture, um, engineering oversight on, on these bikes and, and we set up our own full ISO certified lab. 24:33 Um, and, and the Dirt Jumper is one of those bikes that you gotta make that thing thoroughly. 24:37 [laughs] I mean, those bikes get beat up and a lot of smaller, um, companies, uh, don't, you know, aren't, aren't doing a whole lot of destructive testing on the bikes to kind of test different methods, and that was sort of a big reason [laughs] we did the Dirt Jumper- [laughs]... 24:52 was like, "Hey, we're gonna make this bike and make it work, and those methods will translate over to our, to our other bikes." Um, and, and it, and it did. 25:00 Um, I mean, we changed from the very first few prototypes, we changed quite a bit of things, butting and, and, and weld rod size and weld... 25:09 Um, you know, pass a lot of these, uh, lab tests so that we could be really confident in the bikes. And the Dirt Jumper w- was kind of the, uh, catalyst, I guess you could say- [laughs] Gotcha... for a lot of that. 25:19 Well- I think it's the coolest line of bikes I've seen in a long time. I mean- Yeah. [laughs]... the Dirt Jumper, a 29 plus, 27 plus, a, a gravel bike, and then a fat bike. [laughs] This guy is a... 25:32 Adam, you're making bikes that guys love to ride. Yeah. You know? Yeah. 25:35 And it, you know- [laughs] And, and the interesting thing also, I mean, it's like, I mean, I don't wanna end up belaboring this Dirt Jumper part, but- [laughs]... 25:41 it's like if you, if, if you look at a lot of like the custom bike builders, you know, the ones that kind of can build... 25:49 I, I don't know how to necessarily put this best, but, you know, the, the bikes that have features that add durability but still maintain the performance, you know, by not adding a lot of weight and all these other things, they have more elegant solutions and things like that. 26:01 A lot of times they were, they were building a lot of bikes similar to that, something that takes a lot of abuse, and then they find these, you know, kind of simple solutions to, you know, oh, okay, I just gotta... 26:12 Like you kind of talked about, I need to put a gusset here. I need to end up adding, you know, have a, a thicker butt here. Mm-hmm. 26:17 Or, you know, a lot of these like intricacies of the building that you really only learn with a bike [laughs] that gets the crap beat out of it, you know? I mean, that- Totally... 26:26 that's, that's a really important thing that I don't think a lot of, you know, mass manufactured bikes necessarily are diving into. I never thought about a thicker butt. [laughs] Your butt's thick enough, Andy. Yeah. 26:39 But moving on. [laughs] Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Sorry about that. It's shaped like you think it all. [laughs] That's awesome. Right. Uh, so, but that's, I mean, that's totally... 26:51 Like we were totally selfish with this line of bikes. They're all somewhat niche, weird bikes. Um, although not as much anymore with the gravel and plus hardtails and whatnot. Uh, b- but, uh, you know what? 27:02 I- in the beginning, I, uh, like you said, I, I started, I'd learned a whole ton about carbon fiber. 27:07 Uh, Jason Chiriak, who helped me a whole, whole bunch, still does, um, his experience with carbon fiber, he started ENVE by making rims and bars using his kitchen oven in his house- [laughs]... 27:18 um, and turned that into a massive company that was recently acquired by, by Allmer Sports. Um, so, uh, and he's really just intense, smart product guy, but none of, neither of us had done a whole lot in titanium. 27:32 So I mean, we spent about a year and a half making these bikes, which is much longer than, uh, we needed to, um, kind of just to learn all that stuff. 27:39 I mean, we spent a lot of time working with our manufacturer, setting up the test labs, um, and, and doing a lot of ride testing. Um, and the neat thing was, as a fun point, we weren't, we didn't have all this pressure. 27:49 We, you know, didn't have like a bunch of investors saying, "You need to launch at this date so we can get this amount of money back." It was just kind of our own thing. 27:57 Um, and so we didn't have any pressure to launch too soon. We took our time to make these, to make these bikes. Um, and I still ride the very first R Plus that I built up- [laughs]... before we even launched the brand. 28:09 I'm still, I'm bringing that to Dirty Kanza tonight, actually. [laughs] Nice. Nice. So, um, yeah. Yeah. 28:17 So- So yeah, so shifting from the Dirt Jumper, which is a super fun, amazing bike and everybody should ride it- [laughs]... but it's definitely not the most mainstream. 28:24 Um, the, uh, the 27.5+ hardtail was, was definitely like the bike I really was, was into. Um, and so we launched with that one, and it's a really neat bike. 28:34 That, that bike actually, uh, Bike Magazine said it was the best hardtail they'd ever ridden. We just got a review in Freehub Magazine that said, uh, said basically the same thing. Um, it's just gotten... 28:44 It, it's done really well. It's just a really good all around versatile kind of all-mountain bike. Um, I mean, I hop on that bike. 28:53 I own a couple full suspension, um, uh, carbon bikes [laughs] too, and I like riding kind of technical mountain bike trails, and I hop on my S7, uh, more often than any other bike. 29:04 I mean, it's just really a super good, durable, trusty, do everything really well kind of mountain bike. Well, and kind of give the lowdown on that bike. 29:13 Um, if I remember, it's built around or designed for like 130 mil, uh, fork. Yeah. Um, correct me if I'm wrong- Mm-hmm... on any of this stuff. Um, fairly short chainstays, you know, decent reach numbers. 29:24 You know, it's kind of, you know, if you want to call it the more progressive geometry. Um, a little more- Yeah... slacked out head tube angle. I don't remember what it was. It was like 66 or something like that. 67. 29:33 Okay. 67.5. Yep, yep. Um, you know, and a fairly low bottom bracket for, you know, that amount of travel. So, you know, a, a very playful, you know, kind of geometry to the bike. Um, and then- Totally... 29:47 and then [laughs] uh, I, I gotta say, you guys have got the craziest, uh, tube forming of any Ti bike I've seen. I mean, most- [laughs]... most Ti bikes that you end up seeing are, you know, round tubes. 29:59 Maybe, you know, if the, if the builder's getting a little bit nuts, they might end up, you know, bending a tube here or there, but, you know- Yep... it, there, there's... 30:07 You guys are doing some really elaborate shaping with that bike. 30:11 And this, this kind of was where I was getting ahead of myself because I looked at this thing and, you know, you, you-All three of the main, you know, tubes in the triangle, the down tube, top tube, and seat tube are all radically shaped. 30:25 With the, you know, the seat tube, this kind of ties back into that Sirota thing where, for a little history, Ben Sirota, he was a custom builder for years and years and years. He was one of the most reputable builders, 30:38 really, in the world. You know, tons and tons of pros would end up riding his bikes back in the day. You know, a lot of times it was, you know, steel. He ended up getting into a little bit of tie. 30:50 And they would have, like, their, you know, their actual, like, sponsor names put on the down tube just because these bikes were so amazing. 30:57 And he was one of the first people to kind of move the road bikes away from just straight up round tubes. 31:03 And he started doing things like ovalizing the seat tube down by the bottom bracket to help increase the stiffness, you know, of the pedaling. 31:12 So, you know, it basically would brace that bottom bracket and keep it from rocking more. And he started doing a lot of revolutionary things like that, which had not really been done much before in the road world. 31:23 And this bike kind of seems like it's got a lot of those same cues, but then takes it to the nth degree. Yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, that's totally it. Like, I mean, 31:35 again, I mean, those bikes totally inspired my, like, initial kind of lust for titanium. So I think on a subconscious level, that totally got me excited about it. 31:45 And really, I mean, a big thing we try to do, sort of the marketing spiel is like we do a modern take on a traditional material. But really what that means is like, hey, titanium's amazing. 31:57 Carbon fiber has kind of taken over the mainstream bike world for the last five or 10 years. And a lot of companies haven't pushed the titanium as much because carbon's just, you know, more popular. 32:11 So kind of where we saw the, I guess, maybe gap in the market, you could say, is pushing the kind of mainstream innovation of titanium. And where the tube shapes come into play is, 32:25 again, my experience is in a lot of carbon fiber. Jason is fantastic with carbon fiber. And we really took sort of like a carbon engineering approach to developing these titanium bikes, which it's the exact same concept. 32:40 You want the bike stiff in some directions and supple in other directions. And to do that, you have to modify the shapes. Using round tubes all around works, you know, works just fine. 32:50 But when you really start getting into the nitty gritty and, you know, making sure you can rail into a corner and the bottom bracket's not going to flex as much, you have to modify these shapes. And so that's where 33:03 we found a manufacturer that was willing to work with us on all this titanium tube shaping and really push the limits. And it makes a massive difference. 33:13 I mean, when people hop on, especially our S7 hardtail, you know, everyone sees titanium. I think in their mind, they initially think cool, kind of old school flexi. 33:25 And then they ride it and people, I mean, I feel like 75% of the time we get test riders to come back on that bike and they say, holy shit, it was really stiff. Stiff in, you know, in a good way. 33:35 And like you stand up and pedal and it moves forward instead of kind of flexing back and forth. And so that's where those tube shapes come into play. One, it's kind of that mix of artistic stuff. 33:45 We want the bikes to look unique and look different. But every feature on the bike, specifically the tube shapes, is done primarily to increase performance. 33:57 And then we try to make them look, you know, look as good, at least in our eyes, as we can. Well, that's always important. If you don't look good, then that's- No, they look good. Yeah, the bikes are hot, I gotta say. 34:10 Well, I'm glad you think so. I think most people do. But, you know, look, that's one of those rather, you know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. It's always different. 34:21 But we have gotten a lot of really good compliments on our bikes. We try to make them look pretty neat and have a really kind of cool artistic overtone as well as the kind of nerdy engineering side of it. 34:31 So it looks like you've used like basically different tubing profiles for each model of bike. So, I mean, you, I mean, I just, 34:40 if you were just trying to end up making the bikes look cool or whatever, I mean, it would be much more economical not to do that. You know, so, I mean, obviously there's a design reason for that. 34:50 So kind of walk us a little bit through that. Yeah, yeah. So the down tubes are actually fairly similar between all, they're actually almost exactly the same shape between the, all the mountain bikes. 35:03 The armless gravel bike's a little bit different. It just didn't need to be quite as aggressively shaped as the mountain bikes. So the down tubes, that's a big one. 35:11 And that really plays a big role in the bottom bracket stiffness. And then on the S7, since that's kind of that all around mountain bike that can really be, I mean, it can ride some pretty gnarly terrain. 35:23 Like everyone's surprised. I'm constantly surprised with that bike on what it can ride. The idea with that bike is it's super versatile. It could be your bike packing bike. 35:31 It can be your cruising bike, but it's really, I mean, it's at home getting pretty rowdy on capable trails you'd normally take like a five inch travel suspension bike. So that one, we wanted to be really laterally stiff. 35:44 So the seat tube, we also, we kind of matched that shape to ovalize and stiffen up the seat tube down by the bottom bracket. So it's a really laterally stiff bike. It's got a yoke or a plate 36:01 for chain ring clearance, but that also, it adds a little bit of weight, but it stiffens it up a whole lot as well. So the S7's really, I mean, when you rail that bike into a berm, like it'll put a smile on your face. 36:10 It does not feel like your classic titanium mountain bike.Similar to, Dirt Jumper's the same. Again, that bike we've already [laughs]... kind of a goofy fun bike, but s- sa- same concept there. 36:25 Um, uh, the, the Wayward is, uh, it's our 29 plus hardtail. We launched that later on, and that one is much more of like your overlay and adventure sort of bike. 36:33 It is, that one's not made to be as, um, kind of rowdy and playful as the S7. We went with just a standard round seat tube. 36:43 It still has that beefed out rectangular bottom, uh, or down tube near the bottom bracket, um, but just not quite as aggressive. Just it's not necessary. 36:51 A little more flex in that bike is actually good because ideally, or the idea is that bike's being ridden, um, you know, maybe weighted down with gear, uh, you know, a little bit longer days in the saddle, big wheels. 37:03 Um, and even that one, I mean, we've had several people, it just set the Baja Divide record actually. Pete Bassenger, um, a good friend of mine- Nice... set the record, 1,700 miles in like 11, 11 and a half days- Jeez... 37:14 on that bike. Sweet. And the first thing he said... Oh, I shouldn't say that. He said a few other things. 37:19 [laughs] But pretty early on he said, he said, "Dude, that bike," I mean, he had all his gear on it for, you know, 12 days out there, he said, "It was so stiff." 37:26 Like, it handled so well because of those, he thinks because of the shaped tubes and, and I'd agree. So, um, it's cer- certainly not a flexible bike you could say, just not as stiff as the, as the S7. Um, so let's see. 37:41 And then the R Plus, uh, that R Plus gravel bike is, I, I love that bike. Obviously I'm biased, but I love that bike. [laughs] And I, um, i- in our office there's five people. 37:52 Every day there's, you know, our five personal S- or, or R Pluses and everyone has them built up specially. [laughs] That's like a universal favorite. 37:59 Um, that bike we actually got on the cover of Road Bike Action magazine last summer too, which was super cool. Sweet. Um, and, and that one's got a little different, not quite as aggressive down tube shape. 38:09 Um, uh, it's, it's really stiff. It's designed, you know, road plus, so gravel of course, but still, um, still able to, you know, be aggressive and be fast enough to race cyclocross. 38:20 I love cyclocross racing, so I wanted to, to be able to do that. [laughs] Um, 38:25 and, uh, so it has a little less aggressive tube shaping, but it, they're all butted tubes, and it's a really, again, get the same reaction on that bike. It is not stiff. 38:34 Or, I mean, sorry, it is, it is not, it's not a flexy round tube bike. It's really laterally stiff- Mm-hmm... and pedals really well. 38:40 Um, so that's, that's kind of the breakdown of the different tube shapes on, on all those bikes. 38:45 And, and by the way, while I'm just thinking of it, hats off that you guys made it so it fits up to I think it was 44 millimeter tires. 38:51 Um, it seems like there's a lot of, like, gravel company, uh, gravel bikes out there that like they'll fit up to like 40s or something like that. But I've played around with some tires- Yeah... 39:00 bigger than 40s and they're amazing. [laughs] And I just, I'm glad to see that, you know- Oh... 39:04 even though this was a bike from a couple years ago that when you guys originally released it, I mean, yeah, that w- had a lot of foresight to- Yeah... to see where things were headed. [laughs] Totally. 39:13 And you know what? 39:13 It's actually, so we published 44 'cause that's, you know, legally with 6 millimeters of, uh, clearance for the, the standards, uh, that's what we published, but we've had riders put 50C tires in there, and it, it's pretty tight with a 50, but you can fit way bigger than a 44. 39:27 Nice. I think legally I can't say that, so I should take it all back, but- [laughs]... yeah, absolutely You didn't hear that here. [laughs] No, no, not at all. I didn't say that. But it's, it's got awesome clearance. 39:36 So we actually, we upgraded that bike, um, last fall I believe, um, to have better clearance both for a double crank set, for a dropper post, or a front derailleur- Wow... and more tire clearance. So it's- Nice... 39:49 that, that bike is just awesome. I feel like it ticks so many boxes and it's, it's a gravel bike that's gonna be, you know, still modern for, you know, years and years to come I, I, I hope. [laughs] Nice. 40:02 No, I, I, I'm, I'm super impressed with the design of... I mean, all these bikes, you know, e- each one of them kind of, you know, really nail the, the characteristics you wanna see in that category of bike. 40:12 Um, just, uh, kind of just blown away with what you guys are doing that way. Um, so I don't want, wanna get too geeky- Cool... but, like, when it comes to the tubing, I, I'm, I'm curious, like, um, 40:24 you know, you must have found a really good manufacturer to be able to end up doing some of this tube forming. 40:31 Um, I don't, I don't know if you're willing to end up sharing, you know, some of how you're going about this, but I mean, these are, these are manufactured overseas. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, are, are you- Yep... 40:41 hydroforming? Are you doing some sort of, like, mandrel type thing? Um, I mean, you're, you're obviously taking- Yeah... some, [laughs] you know, you know, some, you know, stuff you can't get anywhere else- [laughs]... 40:56 to build your bikes. I mean, it's like, it's just, it's totally unique in, you know, the, the tie bike world. Yeah. 41:02 Yeah, and I spent a lot of time on, on, on, on airplanes and with our manufacturer working, working on a lot of this stuff, so th- this is the part I, I, I really like. 41:09 So I'll get into it just a little bit, but basically the, the factory we work with, it's hard to even call it a factory. It's kind of a mom and pop shop. There's 18 workers. It's super small, and they just do... 41:20 It was set up back in the '70s, um, and, and it's just this kind of old school with like a kind of new school approach, but they just, they're really good at titanium stuff. Um, 41:32 and, uh, they actually supply raw material to a whole lot of, um, other brands that people have heard of. 41:37 It's, you know, a very, very good quality factory, and I worked with them last summer to, to build out a whole ISO-certified test lab on site, which is amazing- Oh, sweet... 41:47 for as we're doing things like new tube shapes or just, you know, coming out with a new model of bike, um, we can build a bike, uh, same day we can put it on the test fixtures. 41:56 It takes realistically about three to four days to run through all the tests 'cause a lot of them are, are, um, fatigue tests that just have to run- Yep... [laughs] you know, run all night long. 42:04 Um, but it cuts down our development time, uh, by a huge amount and, and our costs, so we're also, you know, if we wanna say, "Let's push the limits and see if we can get away with a, with a thinner wall tube or a different shape," we'll know in a matter of days how that's gonna work, um, at least in lab testing. 42:20 That's one aspect of it. Mm-hmm. It's gotta ride well too. 42:23 Um, so the factory was just really willing to work with us-Um, on a lot of this sort of thing and I feel like we have amazing resources with this test lab at our fingertips for, for developing, uh, stuff. 42:34 And again, that kind of goes to a lot of that more carbon engineering approach to a more traditional metal. Um, but the way we form the tubes it's, it's, it's, uh, not... 42:45 You can't really hydroform titanium, at least in this sense. 42:48 Um, it's sort of a mandrel technique, but basically the tubes are, are, uh, capped off at either end, filled up with a fine sand, and then pressed in a, in a mold. Oh, interesting. 42:57 A steel mold that squishes the tube into shape, and it's all done by hand. Um- Wow... titanium's really hard to bend, so when you bend titanium it wants to spring right back to where it came from. 43:09 So you kind of have to over bend it and hope it springs back to the right spot. So, um, you know, that's a reason it was a slower process to get these bikes to market with those tube shapes. 43:19 Um, and we've certainly, you know, w- w- certainly we've ha- we've had some delays as we're, you know, working on perfecting some of those tube, tube shapes. 43:28 Um, all that's super dialed right now, but in the beginning, you know, it's, it's all handmade. 43:32 It's the same whether it's, you know, made overseas or here in someone's garage, it's, you know, it's just a person bending a tube. [laughs] No, it, it's- So, all right... 43:40 that's, that's what I was wondering because, I mean, titanium, I mean, for, for those that might not know, I mean, uh, you know, w- a lot of us are familiar with, you know, with the steel is used for springs. 43:50 There's a special alloy of steel that's used for springs. But if you want to get a really premium, like let's say a coil shock for your bike or something like that- Mm-hmm... 43:59 you know, a lot of times that's gonna be Ti because it's lighter and it's actually a better spring than spring steel. Um, so it's one of those things- Mm-hmm... 44:06 that it's super, super hard to work with in a lot of different respects because it always wants to [laughs] return back to the original shape. 44:14 And that's, that's why you don't see, you know, a lot of these formed titanium tubes. 44:19 Um, now I was just kind of blown away by how far you guys had taken some of this because it's, it's very easy to take a, you know, a t- a traditional round tube, try to shape it in some way, and have, you know, the, you know, the, the, the tube rip or have these other negative- Yep... 44:35 aspects. So it's like it's not an easy thing to do, what you guys did. [laughs] Um, you know? Yeah. That, that's why I was just like- Well, thank you [laughs]... blown away that you guys were able to pull it off. Yeah. 44:46 Well, it's kind of fun. I mean, it is kind of that artistic side of it, but it also makes the ride better, so that's fun. 44:50 But it definitely took a little while and, and our manufacturer really is just amazing to work with. 44:55 Um, but I did spend a whole [laughs] whole lot of time on the ground over there working with them and I, I go over about every other month now, um, just 'cause it's, that's the fun part and that's how we can, you know, come up with new stuff, um, to work on. 45:07 Um, but we also, uh, beyond that, uh, you know, titanium, uh, raw material is only produced in a few places in the world. 45:14 Uh, and, uh, so I've, I've gone to, to work with those actual raw material producers as well, where they're mixing- Nice... 45:21 raw titanium ingot ore that comes out of the ground with aluminum and nickel to form these different alloys. 45:27 Um, and kind of going through the quality checks and ensuring that the raw material we're getting is right, and that's really the base for then when you go to shape those tubes, if you have a not so good quality r- round tube that you're starting with, then you're gonna run into issues. 45:42 So, um, I feel like we've, we've tried to, you know, check as many things as we know of off, off the list to make sure we're coming out with a super high quality product. 45:49 And the neat thing with our test lab is we're able to simulate years of ride fatigue and, and, you know, we, we do offer lifetime warranty on these frames and, and feel like we can really stand behind that because of the testing, um, uh, that we've done. 46:02 Wow. Well, that, that's super impressive. I, [laughs] you know, I'm not sure how much other people appreciate that, but I'm, I'm kind of blown away. [laughs] So, you know, it's good to hear the background. 46:11 Thanks for sharing so much information about everything that's gone- Mm... into this. Um- Yeah, definitely. S- so, um, let's shift gears a little bit and start talking about some of the other features with the bike. 46:22 I mean, you guys do some things kind of getting back to the aesthetic thing. You, you do things like, you know, internal cable routing, um, pretty much across the board on all your bikes- Mm... and for all the cables. 46:33 Um, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. So internal cable routing I love 'cause it makes the bikes look good. 46:40 It totally takes longer to build your bike up, but, um, I worked in a bike shop for years and I've struggled with internal cable routing and, and I feel like we at least took the right approach in trying to make it easier than, than some other systems. 46:52 Um, and we've actually changed this. About e- oh, eight months ago I changed the internal routing system just a bit to really improve it. 46:58 Um, but basically it takes a l- a long time to, to make the internal routing system on our frames. It is not a cheap endeavor. 47:06 [laughs] Uh, there's basically a, a, a, a 6/4 titanium rectangular block welded on the inside of the tube. Oh, wow. And then filled in so it looks totally smooth, um, from the outside. 47:19 Uh, but internally we started with that system and, um, you could run your cables, but, you know, I'll admit it was certainly... You'd just budget some time and have a beer on the, on the counter- [laughs]... 47:29 [laughs] because it would take a little bit of time- Or three... to run those cables through. Yeah, [laughs] exactly. 47:34 Um, but, uh, we, we changed the shape of that internal part on the inside of the tubes to be this really big, fully polished, smoothed out funnel shape. So, um- Oh, nice... 47:45 when you run your cable through, it sort of catches it. Um, and I mean, we build these bikes a lot, but we can cable a whole bike in, you know, 10, 15 minutes. It, it's really pretty easy. Wow. 47:55 Park Tool makes a super cool magnetic internal cable routing tool- Yep... that will save you, like, a ton of gray hairs. 48:02 [laughs] Um, so that combined with this, like, polished funnel shape thing on the inside of the tubes, it's really, really easy. Um, and the tubes really, or the cables really don't rattle, um, much at all. 48:13 Uh, the shift and brake cables are so tight in there, so that welded internal block, it's got a funnel shape, but then it sort of tapers down a bit. 48:20 It's really tight hold around the cable, so it keeps it, keeps it really tight and therefore- Nice... quiet. Sweet. Okay. 48:28 Now, y- I mean, you guys are doing a lot of other, like, little touches, like, you know, a lot of-A lot of, uh, companies will end up doing things like riveted, uh, you know, um, water bottle bosses and other bosses on the frame as a, as a money saving. 48:40 But, you know, those can come loose and have issues and, you know, things like that. Especially- Mm-hmm... you know, under hard use like for, you know, bike packing and things like that. 48:47 But you guys, you guys have gone, you know, the welded route on that. Uh, same thing with like your s- you, you guys end up using sliders on all your mountain bikes and fat bikes. Mm-hmm. 48:56 Um, and it, it, you know, for people that might not be familiar with the design, it looks similar to like what Paragon and some other companies do, which is a real tried and true setup. Um, 49:06 you also end up having, uh, a pretty cool coupler, um, on the, on the, uh, seat stay on the drive side for, you know, s- sort of a- Mm-hmm... stealth belt drive compatibilities. 49:16 You know, it doesn't, doesn't look any, you know, out of the ordinary, but if you wanna put a belt on it, you can. Um, you- Yep... 49:22 you've got a, a really cool, uh, you know, head tube, uh, that, uh, you know, is, uh, it's tapered, inset, you know, bearings, so it looks really nice and clean. 49:32 Uh, I don't know what else I'm, I'm missing [laughs] but it's like- [laughs] There's just, there's, there's, there's a lot of- No, I, I- There's just sweet features here. Yeah. 49:40 Well, uh, no, I'm glad you pointed all, all that stuff out, and that's, um, you know, at this point I, I kind of take it for granted, but e- each one of those things did take a lot of time and e- and engineering work to, to come up with. 49:52 Um, a- a- and also just decisions like, "Hey, we don't, we don't wanna cut corners with the riveted water bottle bosses compared to welded." 49:59 Um, I mean, it takes way more time and therefore more money to weld all those water bottle bosses in, but I mean, shit, it just looks way better for, for one. [laughs] Oh, yeah. 50:09 And then you don't have to worry about an, an, an issue down the line. Um, a- a- and so, yeah, and that's part of the reason, you know, we took a lot of this time in the beginning to, to make these bikes. 50:20 Uh, the head tube's are a huge thing. I mean, we machine those head tubes out of a solid block of 6/4 titanium. The raw material alone for that head tube is, is, I mean, it's a pile of money. 50:30 [laughs] And half of it, uh, well, we, we recycle, uh, the material afterwards, but half of it just goes away in machining. Um, and, uh, but then with that you get to... 50:39 It's an integrated head tube just like a modern carbon bike would have, and you drop your bearings in there instead of having to press headset cups in. 50:46 And then that head tube comes all the way down to match with the fork crown, and it's just a smooth look. Um, it's also a stiffer interface, less maintenance. 50:54 If it's a creaky headset you just pull the bearing out and clean it up or pop a new bearing in. It's just really easy. Um, also with that head tube, it's a really thick, um, 51:04 thick wall, um, which forms a really solid thing to weld the front of the top tube- Mm... and down tube onto. So all those little features we got pretty, pretty nerdy on. I mean, this is like my dream come true. 51:15 Like I was saying- [laughs]... as a kid I was a total bike nerd, and now I get to like hang out and, and make this stuff. 51:20 [laughs] And, you know, and a, a neat opportunity here is kind of not having the pressure, you know, timing pressure to come out with something. So we were able to do all that. So same thing with our belt drive sliders. 51:29 This neat, um, piece of, uh, machine 6/4 titanium that's kind of like a puzzle piece and just two four mil bolts to hold it in place. And you don't even need much torque on those bolts. 51:38 It's kind of the, the piece itself keeps it stiff, and we could not break that system or make it even creak in, in testing. Um, so it's a- Nice... super durable thing. The idea is not everyone wants a belt drive. 51:49 Some people do. Um, so it gives you the option. Same with our sliding dropouts. It is similar to the Paragon dropouts. 51:55 We actually, on our first prototypes we built them in steel just here in, in house, and I'm a horrible welder so they look absolutely awful. 52:03 [laughs] But we use Paragon dropouts and, [laughs] um, uh, the, the, the dropout system works really well, but I thought we could improve upon it a little bit by we use these big old eight millimeter stainless steel bolts. 52:15 Oh, okay. Um, and that keeps it just really burly and durable and, and in, you know, w- we again couldn't make those things creak or slip. Mm-hmm. 52:24 We even had a single issue, um, with, you know, even down to just, "Oh, the dropouts are making noise." We haven't had anything like that 'cause it's just this burly system. 52:33 So it's certainly not the lightest, but, you know, we took the time to machine these things out of solid, solid chunks of titanium. Um, and they're, they're, they're burly and work really well. 52:42 [laughs] Well, and then this kind of goes back to, I mean, the reason why somebody gets a Ti bike is, you know, they're not, they're not going for a bike that they're gonna replace every year. 52:49 I mean, you get a Ti bike 'cause it's gonna last, you know? And- Yeah... you guys are really [laughs] putting features in that, you know, it's not just like, you know, the tubing's not gonna crack or something like that. 52:59 I mean, th- these bikes are gonna be solid all around for their whole lifespan, which is gonna be measured in probably decades, not years. Hopefully. Yeah. 53:09 Yeah, I mean, the, yeah, it's a bike from 10 years, you know, you're sick of it and new technology's come out, so turn it into a single speed and make it your bar hopping bike or something. [laughs] There you go. Yep. 53:18 Yeah. I, I'm, I'm pretty excited to see what, what these bikes are doing 10 years from now. [laughs] Yeah. 53:24 No, you know, you mentioned creaking a couple times with like the, the headset and then, you know, the, um, the dropouts and things like that, and how, you know, none of that's gonna end up creaking. 53:32 And I really like the fact that you're using a threaded bottom bracket, so that's another place- Yeah... where, you know, the bikes can just be nice and quiet as it should be. Yep. 53:43 Yeah, and that's where, you know, we wanted all these modern features on the bike, like the integrated head tubes and through axles and, uh, post mount brakes and internal routing. 53:51 But the bottom bracket was like a no-brainer. [laughs] Like I've, I've spent a lot of years in bike shops. Like I'm freaking threatened a Shimano, you know, bottom bracket you can buy anywhere in the world. 54:02 [laughs] Even when they're like 25 grand, it's more, but that's one thing like, yeah, it, it, it's, it's a, it's a much safer, better bet- Nice... in my mind. Yeah. 54:12 No, I, I think you and just about everybody's kind of seen the light on that one now. It's like thank goodness the- Yeah... the industry's finally shifting that way, or shifting back that way. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh- Yep. 54:23 [laughs] So, and I guess, you know, one, one other kind of feature that jumps out at me when looking at, um, you know, your Plus bikes is, you know, there, there's a lot of companies that are-I, I would, I would describe it as the plate trick with your chain stays, um, because, you know, we've, we've seen a, I don't know, probably a two, three-year period here where the, the trend has been to go with, you know, very short chain stays. 54:45 We've now seen kind of the explosion of plus bikes where you gotta end up having a lot more, you know, tire clearance. 54:51 You gotta, you know, kind of build that area down there by the bottom bracket a lot wider to clear the wide tires. But you wanna suck the, you know, the tire way in. 54:57 But then on top of it, you've got, you know, chain ring clearance that you gotta end up accommodating for. So there's like all this stuff going on in the bottom bracket area, and it's hard to fit it all in there. 55:08 So a lot of companies will just kind of use a, you know, a metal plate down there because it's very thin- Yep... and it can be pretty stiff. Um, but you guys didn't even just leave it at, like, just a straight up plate. 55:20 It looked like, I mean, there's, there's, like, three-dimensional, you know, shaping, forming- [laughs]... whatever you wanna call it, uh, you know, even with that. Yep. 55:27 Um, which I, I mean, I don't know how much there is to talk about with that, but it just, I just thought, you know, th- it w- was like there was no stone left unturned anywhere I looked on this bike. Yeah. 55:39 Well, you're making me feel really good about all these- [laughs]... all these bikes. I mean, it's, it's, uh, it, it's awesome to hear y- you say that 'cause you're, you're right. 55:46 I mean, we did spend time on all those features, um, to, to try to, you know, improve it ever so slightly and, and, uh, um, yeah, I mean, the, the yoke looks pretty cool. 55:55 It actually also stiffens up that, that bottom bracket area a whole lot with that design. It's a big, heavy chunk of titanium, but again, we're not going for the lightest bikes. 56:03 We're going for bikes that, that work well and ride well and last a long time. Um, but o- on that note on chain stay lengths, though, that's a big, uh, thing, I think, in the bike industry. 56:12 And everyone says shorter chain stays is better, and I, 90% of the time I fully disagree with that statement. [laughs] I think a lot of bikes are done for too, chain stays that are too short, where they... 56:22 You know, short chain stays are great when you're going downhill at 25 or 30 miles an hour. Um, but for most, most of us, we're not doing [laughs] that very often. [laughs] Um, and short chain stays make the bike... 56:35 Because short chain stays coupled with, um, bottom bracket drops can make the bike kind of unstable. 56:40 So a lot of these plus bikes have gotten pretty funky with, you know, uh, chain stays, elevated chain stays and different things to fit your tire and, and, and chain rings in there. And, um, uh, 56:51 you know, I, I just think for the average rider it's not always the most comfortable, best all around, um, uh, uh, geometry choice. So that's the big reason we do those slider dropouts. 57:00 One is for the single speed c- compatibility or belt drive compatibility. But I think the biggest reason is so you can adjust your chain stay to the length that the, you know, is most suited to your riding style. 57:11 And for most people, it's not that short. Mm-hmm. It's not the shortest position at all, so. No, and that's something that I appreciate. 57:19 I've got sliders on pretty much all of my bikes and, you know, depending on- Mm-hmm... the time of year and the conditions and things like that, you know, I'll- Totally... 57:26 I'll move them all over just because, you know, you know, sometimes, like in the winter, you wanna have a little bit longer so you got a little more stability when you're riding through powder and trying to hold a line. 57:34 And then- Absolutely. 57:35 [laughs] You know, you know, there's, there's times when you wanna have it really tight in there if you're gonna be on, like, some really, you know, ripping tight single track and you want a little- Yep... 57:43 more playful feel and just kind of feel like, you know, that, that rear end is sucked under you and you can pop it around wherever you wanna get it, you know? 100%. Yeah. So I mean, having- Yep... 57:51 that flexibility is huge. So. Absolutely. Cool. Yeah, no, totally. 57:56 So we've, we've kinda have bounced around and kind of ignored the elephant in the room, no pun intended, but w- [laughs] You guys are, um, you guys are gonna be releasing a new bike in your lineup, the Big Iron Fat Bike. 58:10 Um, and I've seen some press about this. Uh, before I, like, just to correct myself if I'm wrong, that's not available yet, but that's gonna be available very, very, very soon, right? Ex- ex- exactly. Very soon. 58:22 We are taking pre-orders on it. The first bikes are gonna ship here in really just a matter of, of, of a few weeks. So, um, we're, we're basically saying it's, it's available. 58:31 We've, you know, we've shown the bike, people have ridden it, um, and it'll ship very soon here. Nice. Okay. 58:37 So let's, let's get into some details about that because it, it's, it's similar in a lot of respects to, you know, some of your other bikes as far as, you know, the highly formed tube so that it's, it's really kind of specific to the needs of that bike. 58:49 Um- Mm-hmm... 58:51 it's, it's designed around 27.5 by up to 4.5 inch tires or 26 by five inch or 29 plus, so you, you, you know, it'll fit a wide, wide variety of any sort of the modern setups that somebody might want to end up, uh, you know, doing. 59:06 Yep. Um, it's got suspension corrected geo, so if you wanna run a rigid fork or if you wanna run a suspension fork you can. Um, if I remember, it's got a, an internal dropper post routing also, is that right? 59:16 Yes, of course. Okay. Yep. Yeah, so, you know, I think that's, that's kind of the, I, for lack of a better way of putting it, kind of the, the Reader's Digest version of specs that I s- Yeah... saw on it. 59:28 You, you, you should, you should come hang out at our trade show booth and, and, and give that spiel. [laughs] You, you, you got, you got it down pretty good, yeah. [laughs] What can I say? I'm a geek. Uh- Yeah. Okay... 59:37 so, you know, so tell us a little bit more about, you know, sort of the background, how you ended up jumping into that. I mean, obviously you've got a long history in fat bikes. Um, so I'll, I'll be honest- Yeah... 59:46 I was a little bit surprised that, you know, it took this long for there to be a fat bike in your lineup. 59:51 So I'm guessing there was, you know, some, some, a lot of thought going into, you know, that process before you guys- Yeah... ended up releasing it. Yeah, totally. Well, this bike's really, um... 1:00:02 I, I'm really excited about this bike, um, maybe for obvious reasons just on a, the personal level of, like, I started riding fat bikes a long time ago up in Alaska, and really have been super involved with, you know, see- seeing how fat bikes have changed since then. 1:00:15 And, and, um, this bike was, is, is very, very dear to me, so I'm, I was really excited to launch it and, and it was a fantastic launch. 1:00:23 We've gotten some great excitement already and so I'm, I'm really, really, really happy, um, wi- with that. It's definitely, you know, more than just another bike for me. Um, so to, to get all, you know, um, [laughs] 1:00:35 emotional about it, I'm, I'm pretty excited about- Sweet... about this bike, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Um-So, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's... The idea is it's like, 1:00:46 in my mind the last few years there's been a little bit of a lack of, of a lot of companies really pushing the limits on, on fat bikes again. Um, and, uh, you know, there's a lot more that can be done there. 1:00:57 So the 27.5 wheels thing, a few other companies have done that and, and I've ridden a few of those bikes and they're amazing. Um, that bigger, bigger wheel on a fat bike I just think is, is the ticket. 1:01:07 You get a really, you know, even bigger footprint, but you can have a narrower tire so cornering feels good. Um, it just feels good all around. 1:01:15 So the idea was to make, um, kind of like the other bikes, you know, modern, modern geometry, modern features on, you know, a more traditional material and a traditional kind of fat bike. 1:01:26 So, um, you really kind of covered all the main bases, but, uh, it's, it's a little more slacked out. 1:01:32 It's a 68.7 degree head angle, um, and that's just 'cause all bikes in general are going towards these slacker head angles. The fat bike will feel more like your normal mountain bike. 1:01:42 Uh, suspension corrected, so you can run a, a Bluto fork set at 120 millimeters of travel. Nice. Um, it'll, it'll feel awesome on that bike. 1:01:51 Um, and again, those sliding dropouts that we just talked about is huge on a fat bike. Oh, yeah. 1:01:56 Let's say, you know, you know, a small part of that is for single speed or belt drives compatibility, but, um, you know, the, the geometry on this fat bike is, is in my mind gonna be the best all around fat bike geometry, whether that means you're on snow or riding on mixed surface or sand, um, it's gonna feel like a playful, fun, capable bike. 1:02:17 But being able to adjust those dropouts is just huge. 1:02:20 If you're riding to Nome on the ITI race in Alaska and you've got all this gear on your bike and you're running the biggest tires possible, you want the longest wheel base you can. Yeah. 1:02:30 And going out to 460 millimeters is, is pretty long. I mean, that's a good chainstay length, um, for that style of riding. 1:02:38 Slamming the f- the wheels all the way forward at 445, um, millimeter chainstay length is, it's too short I'd say for most fat biking types of things. 1:02:47 Now, if you're one of those guys who rides a fat bike on rowdy technical trails in the summertime, you know, hell yeah, the 445's- [laughs]... gonna feel awesome. 1:02:55 Um, but it just, it just gives you that capability to kind of dial it into your riding style. Nice. Sweet. So now in this case, uh, I noticed you didn't end up doing the plate style for the chainstays. 1:03:08 You, you kind of stuck with, you know, regular round tubing there and, you know- Mm-hmm... I was still impressed to see how, s- you know, short you could make the chainstays and some things like that. Um- Mm-hmm... 1:03:18 uh, it was nice to end up seeing, you know, a full, um, sort of, uh, uh, d- different options for, you know, uh, uh, what's the term? 1:03:28 The, the bosses for, you know, f- whether the, not necessarily fenders, but, uh, like racks and some things like that, uh- Yep... you know, triple mounts for anything cages or many thing cages. 1:03:38 Um, th- s- some more versatility for that kind of expedition or bike packing type, you know, setup there. Totally. Yep. 1:03:47 Yeah, and that's the idea is to make it really versatile both from a geometry perspective and, and therefore a wheel and tire size perspective. 1:03:54 Um, but, but definitely, you know, it, it's a bike that's gonna be super durable and comfortable for those epic long adventures. 1:04:01 We already have, uh, two people who are gonna be riding these bikes for 1,000 miles across Alaska and then- Wow... posting a journal of the whole thing, and that's sort of... 1:04:10 I was so excited, like, that's what this bike's made for is that, as well as doing like your local, you know, one or two hour fat bike race on, on the weekends. Um, it's, it's just, it's, it's a really capable bike. 1:04:23 So we put all those, uh, rack mounts and, um, you know, triple bottle cage mounts on there just, just for that reason as well, just to give as, as many options as possible. 1:04:32 I feel like, um, fat bikers especially really like getting into the, the nitty-gritty of a lot of those features and getting kind of creative. You know, back, back in the day with fat bikes too- Mm-hmm... 1:04:42 people were building fenders out of two liter Coke cans- [laughs]... and, and stuff like that, figuring out how to attach them to their frame. So it's like I figured let's put everything we can on there. Nice. 1:04:51 You know, who cares about a little extra weight? This bike with 27.5 by 4.5 tires is still 24 and a half pounds. I mean- Wow... it's a light bike. Holy shit. 1:05:01 Um, but it's got all the features on there to, to, you know, you can, you can confidently ride it, you know, with people who are talking about going across the desert in Australia, you know, all these epic, uh, adventure trips as well, so. 1:05:15 Sweet. Wow, that's awesome to hear. Hey, I've been listening to you guys geek out here for about an hour. [laughs] I got a really, really interesting question for you. Um- [laughs]... w- why did you name the company Why? 1:05:29 [laughs] That, that is a fantastic question and, and I don't even have a great answer for it, but h- honestly, the, it's a really stereotypical story. I was sitting at a bar with, uh, with Jason Schurz in, in Utah. 1:05:43 We were sitting at a bar talking about all this stuff. I gave him, you know, the whole rundown of all these bikes I wanted to make. That's where he said, "Well, you got to have a YouTube too." 1:05:49 And I said, you know, "Sure." And, um, and, uh, he said, "Have you thought of a name for it yet?" And I said, "No." Um, I'm not very creative when it comes to a lot of those things. 1:05:59 And, uh, and he said, "Well, how about Why?" And I said, "Sweet, that sounds awesome," 'cause it kind of encompasses- [laughs]... uh, the whole thing, you know? Why, why do we all like to ride bikes? 1:06:09 Why do we get all geeky and nerdy on all these little features? [laughs] And, and, uh, so that's really where it came from. It's not a very glorious story, but that's how it happened. [laughs] No, that's excellent. 1:06:19 I was hoping that's where it came from. I hope... I was like, "It better have taken place in a bar." [laughs] It, it totally did. A bar, a bar in Utah. [laughs] Excellent. Excellent. That's... 1:06:30 [laughs] You know, I'm, I'm sitting here trying to understand what you guys are talking about, which is, which is normally my role on this podcast. 1:06:36 [laughs] And, and I could keep up with some of it, but in the back of my head I'm like, "Why?" Why, why? Why, why? Why, why? Why? [laughs] Man. Yep. 1:06:45 Well, it's a totally weird name and it's, it's always like I get a lot of funny looks when I say it, but you know what? Like, people remember it. 1:06:52 When, when we're at a trade show, people walk by, they look over and they see the logo and they kind of say, "Why?" And then they'll-It, people remember it and, and it's, it's pretty cool. 1:07:00 I think it really, I mean, it kind of goes into the ethos of the company of like, you know, enjoying bikes for, for the, you know, purpose of enjoying bikes, not just trying to sell as many as we can and, and all that stuff. 1:07:12 And I think it really does resonate with, with, with people who are interested in these kind of bikes, so- That's super cool, yeah... 1:07:17 it's, uh, it's definitely, definitely not too normal, but [laughs] I think it's worked really well. No, that sounds really good, Adam. I, I, 1:07:24 because of that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to check this, ch- check these, check your bikes out a little bit more- [laughs]... in depth. [laughs] Well, come on down anytime. 1:07:32 We got a full bar at our office here in Carbondale too, so you can come down and ride bikes and have, have a drink afterwards. Ah, you're, you're, you're speaking our language. Nice. Nice. That sounds like- Yeah. 1:07:41 [laughs]... a good environment. Um, you got some guys riding- Yep... the, um, the, uh, R7 in, uh, Kanza? The, yes. We have, we have, uh, several riders on, on our R+ gravel bike in, in Dirty Kanza. 1:07:55 Um, so it'll be pretty neat. 1:07:56 We're gonna be down there to show off, you know, show off the bikes, do demos and whatnot at the expo, but then it'll be, uh, pretty awesome to watch our, you know, people on, on our bikes do the race. 1:08:06 And one, one guy, Mark Curry, is a good friend of ours, and he's riding our R+. He works at ENVE, and he's, he, he should be right up there. Uh, you know, he, he, he should do pretty well in the race, so- Cool. Cool. 1:08:16 Yeah... it'll be kind of neat to follow along and- I meant R-... see what happens... I was crossing the, uh, S7 and the R+. [laughs] It... Oh, yeah. No, the S- Now, there's an idea for you right there, Adam... 1:08:24 S is gonna be the bargain. You, now you gotta make an R7, you know? [laughs] Yeah. A, a, a drop bar 27.5 plus bike. That's- Now you're talking. Perfect. 1:08:34 [laughs] Yeah, I think that's, I think that's niche enough right there. There is, no, there's no niche there. [laughs] That's a general public bike right there. [laughs] Yep. A bar hopping bike. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. 1:08:45 Cool. Yep. Yeah. Well, well, sweet, Adam. I, it was really fun talking to you. Hopefully we didn't put all our listeners to sleep with all our geekitude, but I, I really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah. 1:08:56 [laughs] Talking about a lot of this stuff. 1:08:57 And, you know, your enthusiasm definitely comes through in the bike line, but then also all these little features and, you know, just talking to you, I can tell that it's just, like, overflowing in you, which is so cool to see. 1:09:09 Oh, that's, that's awesome. No, I, I love talking about this. I hope I didn't bore people too much. 1:09:13 I know I can just throw my mouth about nerdy techy and just through, you know, get extremely geeky with details sometimes. And, and, uh, um, i- if anyone, you know, listening, we are out here in Carbondale, Colorado. 1:09:24 Small little mountain town. The trail head's about 100 yards away from our office, and we do, uh, you know, free demo rides. Uh, we have an espresso machine and, you know, I shouldn't say a full bar, but we serve drinks. 1:09:34 [laughs] So, uh, if anyone, you know, if you guys come on by sometime, ride bikes, we'll, we'll go for a spin, and, and, you know, that's what it's all about. Well, awesome. That sounds so good. 1:09:43 So once again, thanks so much. I really appreciate talking to you. Um, you know, best of luck at Dirty Kanza, and I hope all your riders end up doing great out there. Thanks so much. Good talking to you guys. Goodbye. 1:09:56 Why, why, why. Why. Why, why. Why. Why, why. Thank you for listening. The music we are using on today's show is from the Free Music Archive by McNorman and their song Why, if you hadn't guessed. 1:10:12 You can find all our shows at fatbikeandhike.com, including notes for today's show. You say you love me. Why, why, why. Now you dump me. But why, why, why. Why. Why, why. Why. 1:10:28 Why, why. Why. Why, why. Why.
