Podcasts about godel

LED revolutionerade världens belysning inom prestanda och livslängd. Karlstadsbaserade familjeföretaget Lumine North har både följt och drivit utvecklingen under flera decennier. Nu har de dessutom adderat en biobaserad armatur tillverkad av sidoströmmar från skogsbruket. Och kanske står stjärnorna rätt för produkten? Vd Jacqueline Hedin berättar i alla fall om patenten, klimatberäkningarna och den hägrande marknadsbearbetningen. Heja Framtiden har ett betalt samarbete med tävlingen ⁠⁠Startup 4 Climate⁠⁠ som anordnas av Godel och Ellevio för sjätte året i rad. Två vinnande bolag går hem med en miljon kronor vardera efter finalen i Stockholm den 13 november 2025. Samtliga åtta finalister presenteras här i podden, och Lumine North kvalade in i tävlingen genom att vinna Folkets röst. Programledare: ⁠Christian von EssenLäs mer på hejaframtiden.se och prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet.

Vindturbiner och elektrisk framdrift av stora fartyg kräver kraftfulla processer och enorma naturresurser. Hagnesia har utvecklat en patenterad teknik för att driva motorer och generatorer på ett smartare sätt. Bolaget är i final i Startup 4 Climate för andra året i rad, och medgrundare Mårten Keijser gästar podden på nytt. Den här gången har Hagnesia utvecklat sitt erbjudande från ett kraftigt vindfokus, och riktar nu även in sig på den marina sektorn. Potentialen i tekniken är enorm, men ledtiderna är långa och affärerna komplexa. Heja Framtiden har ett betalt samarbete med tävlingen ⁠⁠Startup 4 Climate⁠⁠ som anordnas av Godel och Ellevio för sjätte året i rad. Två vinnande bolag går hem med en miljon kronor vardera efter finalen i Stockholm den 13 november 2025. Samtliga åtta finalister presenteras här i podden.Programledare: Christian von Essen // Läs mer på hejaframtiden.se och prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet.

Hydrogen is increasingly important for the energy transition. But it's still expensive to produce it without fossil fuels. Rutvika Acharya is co-founder and CEO at Caplyzer, aiming to change that equation. By developing a new generation of electrolyzers, Caplyzer wants to make a real impact in the world of hydrogen. Heja Framtiden has a paid collaboration with the competition Startup 4 Climate, initiated by Godel and Ellevio, running on its sixth year. Eight finalist startups will be presented here in the podcast, and two of them will walk away with 1 million SEK after the final jury pitches on November 13th in Stockholm. Caplyzer is the second finalist featured here in Heja Framtiden in 2025. Podcast host: Christian von Essen // Learn more at hejaframtiden.se and subscribe to the newsletter (still only in Swedish).

Plasten runt våra frukter och grönsaker är varken naturlig, hållbar eller nödvändig. Det menar Michael Neuman, som är vd och medgrundare på startupbolaget Kitocoat med bas på KTH i Stockholm. Genom att använda ämnet kitin från skaldjur och svampar har man lyckats ta fram ett pulver som blandas med vatten och bidrar med en beläggning runt produkter som avokado, mango, gurka och ananas. Livslängden tycks öka markant. Nu återstår bara den regulatoriska pusselbiten. Heja Framtiden har ett betalt samarbete med tävlingen Startup 4 Climate som anordnas av Godel och Ellevio för sjätte året i rad. Två vinnande bolag går hem med en miljon kronor vardera efter finalen i Stockholm den 13 november 2025. Samtliga åtta finalister presenteras här i podden, och Kitocoat är först ut.Programledare: Christian von Essen // Läs mer på hejaframtiden.se och prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet.

I kväll i Karlavagnen vill vi höra om den saken, grejen, prylen som betyder det lilla extra - berätta om din käraste ägodel! Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Har du kanske en ärvd vas som står på den allra finaste platsen i hemmet? En veteranbil som du polerar till perfektion? Eller en ett smycke som inte är värt en krona men som är ovärderligt för dig? Hur kom din käraste ägodel in i ditt liv och vad betyder den för dig?Alla grejer är välkomna i kvällens program! Favoritprylar i Karlavagnen sommarkväll med Julia LyskovaRing oss på 020-22 10 30, skriv till oss på Facebook och Instagram eller mejla på karlavagnen@sverigesradio.se. Slussen öppnar som vanligt kl 21:00 och programmet börjar 21:40.Programledare: Julia Lyskova Producent: Ellen Kittel

Startup 4 Climate är en årlig tävling som drivs av Ellevio och Godel. Studion gästas därför av Ellevios vd Johan Lindehag och Godels grundare Stefan Krook, som berättar om tävlingens syfte, dess tidigare vinnare och det övergripande behovet av energiomställning . Två bolag vinner en miljon kronor var och får en rejäl skjuts på sin resa. Men det måste inte handla om energibolag, utan alla lösningar som på något sätt premierar energiomställningen är välkomna att söka. Ansök på Startup4Climate.com senast den 24 augusti 2025. Heja Framtiden samarbetar med Startup 4 Climate och kommer att genomföra poddintervjuer med samtliga 8 finalister under hösten 2025. Här hittar du intervjuer från föregående år.Programledare: Christian von Essen // Läs mer på hejaframtiden.se och prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet!

Julia går på en fest där det börjar spridas hemska rykten om henne. Louise är i Italien, går på tivoli mitt i natten & precis alla bryter ihop. Tack Läkarmissionen (lakarmissionen.se/louisejulia) och GodEl (godel.se) för veckans poddspons. 

Nelle venti puntate di Vite da logico, andate in onda su Radio2 tra l'11 ottobre e il 5 novembre 2004 per il ciclo Alle otto della sera,  Odifreddi racconta la storia della logica attraverso le vite, le morti e  i miracoli dei suoi principali protagonisti, dai greci ai nostri  giorni. In questo quarto ed ultimo episodio vi proponiamo le seguenti puntate: 16. ⁠L'intuizionismo di Poincaré⁠ 17. ⁠Il teorema di incompletezza di Goedel⁠ 18. ⁠Il teorema di indecidibilità di Turing⁠ 19. ⁠Il teorema di indefinibilità di Tarski⁠ 20. ⁠La logica oggi

Today we are joined by philosopher Jennifer Nagel for a take-no-prisoners look at universal skepticism—philosophy's greatest deception. We unpack why doubt itself is the ultimate illusion, how knowledge is primitive instant recognition, and what this means for self, free will & consciousness. As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:28 The Nature of Knowledge 10:58 Philosophers and the Skeptical Mindset 16:57 Types of Skepticism 22:27 Exploring Knowledge Attribution 29:51 The Illusion of Knowledge 34:16 Knowing Without Knowing 38:10 Writing About Knowledge 46:10 Analyzing Knowledge 55:08 The Gettier Problem and Its Challenges 1:01:10 The Functionality of Knowledge 1:11:23 Collaborative Understanding of Knowledge 2:10:00 Understanding and Consciousness 2:26:32 Truth and Its Nature 2:32:16 Superposition and Contradictions 2:32:19 Conclusion Listen on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/SpotifyTOE Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join Links Mentioned: - Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (book): https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/019966126X - Knowledge and its Limits (book): https://www.amazon.ca/Knowledge-its-Limits-Timothy-Williamson/dp/019925656X - Very Short Introductions (series): https://www.google.com/search?q=a+very+short+introduction+to+series&sca_esv=3da4db664be6b3a1&ei=ypX6Z6flHsDniLMP2v2QkQk&ved=0ahUKEwin8oSB9tKMAxXAM2IAHdo-JJIQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=a+very+short+introduction+to+series&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiI2EgdmVyeSBzaG9ydCBpbnRyb2R1Y3Rpb24gdG8gc2VyaWVzMgUQABiABDILEAAYgAQYhgMYigUyCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFMgsQABiABBiGAxiKBTIIEAAYogQYiQUyCBAAGIAEGKIEMggQABiABBiiBDIFEAAY7wVIqBRQxAtYwBBwAXgAkAEAmAFZoAGtAqoBATS4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgSgAocCwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICDRAuGIAEGLADGEMYigXCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIPEAAYgAQYQxiKBRhGGPsBwgIbEAAYgAQYQxiKBRhGGPsBGJcFGIwFGN0E2AEBwgIGEAAYBxgemAMAiAYBkAYKugYGCAEQARgTkgcBNKAHph6yBwEzuAf_AQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#wgvs=e - Time: A Very Short Introduction (book): https://www.amazon.ca/Time-Short-Introduction-Jenann-Ismael/dp/0198832664 - Laplace meets Godel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB3tS7j7nNU - Flexible Goals (paper): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cogs.13195 - The Legend of the Justified True Belief Analysis (paper): https://philpapers.org/archive/DUTTLO-3.pdf - Lay Denial of Knowledge for Justified True Beliefs (paper): https://philpapers.org/archive/NAGLDO - TOE's Consciousness Iceberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDjnEiys98o - Matt Segal on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeTm4fSXpbM - Curt reads Plato's Cave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PurNlwnxwfY - David Bentley Hart on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEAgVvW9i10 - Donald Hoffman on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmieNQH7Q4w&t=1s - Iain McGilchrist on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-SgOwc6Pe4&t=6326s&ab_channel=CurtJaimungal - Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_DUft-BdIE - John Vervaeke on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVj1KYGyesI&t=1s - Wolfgang Smith on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp18_L_y_30 - Polymath's Ai panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abzXzPBW4_s - Donald Hoffman and Philip Goff on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmaIBxkqcT4 - Robert Sapolsky on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0IqA1hYKY8&pp=ygUUY3VydCByb2JlcnQgc2Fwb2xza3k%3D - Curt debunks the “all possible paths” myth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcY3ZtgYis0&t=46s Support TOE on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump may forever reshape the boundaries of executive power. This week on “Interesting Times,” Ross and Jack Goldsmith, who was the head of the White House's Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, discuss which cases are most likely to win in the courts and permanently expand the executive branch — for better or worse.00:02:03 Donald Trump's “moonshot on executive power”00:04:16 What has surprised Goldsmith the most00:06:57 Are we in a constitutional crisis?00:08:59 Alien Enemies Act00:14:02 The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia00:25:23 Godel's loophole and Supreme Court enforcement30:10 Trump's firings of federal employees and restructuring of U.S.A.I.D.36:11 Trump's power over congressionally appropriated funding41:29 Obama v. Trump's discretion on enforcing laws passed by Congress43:03 The TikTok case45:46 Lawsuit over Trump's tariffs51:57 How the Supreme Court (maybe) thinks about picking its battles54:24 Worst case scenarios56:59 What the Supreme Court can do if the Trump administration does not comply01:01:32 What a Trump executive power revolution could look like in 2028 and beyond01:04:39 If Democrats win in 2028, what happens?(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.) Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

In this episode, Eli is joined by Dr. Chris Bolt to address an interesting objection to presup & TAG (Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God).

Det blir lite bråkigt i studion ett tag men Louise får i alla fall meddelande från en biolog. Julias biolog! Dessutom läser Julia om glada forskare som meddelar att hon kommer dö i förtid. Tur i alla fall att hon pratar väldigt, väldigt trendigt. Tack Vibes (kod LOUISEJULIA), HelloFresh (kod humorpodd) och GodEl för veckans poddspons.

Is string theory actually science? Many argue that string theory cannot be proven and should therefore be abandoned. For them, string theory is not science at all. But are they right? I had the pleasure of discussing this with none other than Cumrun Vafa! Cumrun is a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics at Harvard University, where he has been researching and teaching theoretical physics since 1985. His primary area of research is string theory.  In our interview, we discussed whether we should trust string theory, fine-tuning, and the message he'd put into a billion-year time capsule. We also talked about his book Puzzles to Unravel the Universe.  Tune in to learn about string theory! Key Takeaways:  00:00:00 Intro 00:01:20 Judging a book by its cover 00:03:35 What is a puzzle versus a mystery? 00:06:06 Black hole entropy 00:08:12 Godel's Theorem: Are some puzzles not solvable? 00:12:04 Is string theory actually science? 00:17:15 Dimensional analysis 00:21:15 Singularities 00:28:31 ADS and 5 dimensions 00:30:48 String theory 00:34:49 Supersymmetry 00:40:22 On religion 00:52:45 A scorecard for physics 00:55:21 What would your "ethical will" be? 01:02:50 What have you accomplished that once seemed impossible? 01:06:30 Outro  Additional resources:  ➡️ Learn more about Cumrun Vafa:

In this week's episode of the Feminvest podcast Sara narrows down what stocks she should look into buying this month. Michaela offers to assist in analyzing a few listed companies that Sara is actually using herself in her everyday life. Moreover Saba is interviewing inspiring Maria Erdmann, CEO at the groundbreaking electricity company GodEl - that donates all profit to charities. She participates in the Feminvest podcast and talks about entrepreneurship, building companies and the green tech innovation competition Startup 4 Climate. https://startup4climate.com Follow @feminvest @michaela.berglund on instagram

Today we discuss sections of Roger Penrose's book "Shadows of the Mind" with special guest Brother X. We focus on chapters 2.1-6 and 3.23, which detail Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and why Penrose thinks this points to a non-computational theory of consciousness. Disclaimer: All opinions are our own, respectively, and don't represent any institution we may or may not be a part of, respectively.

Practical Psychology for navigating life's challenges and cultivating joy. Sam Webster Harris explores the concept of life as a series of games, blending psychological insights with practical wisdom. He discusses how every aspect of life involves some form of gameplay, from professional networks like LinkedIn to personal decisions and social interactions. We dig into the intersection of Philosophy and Psychology to understand the experiencing self and how we navigate our moments. Sam emphasizes the importance of understanding the different 'modes' of approaching life's games—machine, intelligent, and zen. He advocates for living authentically, focusing on self-amusement, and challenging societal norms. Learn to apply some of the more surreal and abstract concepts of the mind into real life: How to understand what game you are playing? Establish what is really at stake Define the rules for yourself to play your own game Have more fun The episode encourages listeners to reassess their motivations and redefine what winning means in their personal game of life. Further reading: Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas R. Hofstedter Finite and Infinite Games - James P. Carse The Infinite Game - Simon Sinek The Way of Zen - The Taboo of Knowing Who You Are - Alan Watts Sponsors: Cozy Earth: Luxury Bamboo sheets and Loungeware that become softer as you use them. 35% off code 'GROWTH' - CozyEarth.com SleepyClub: Doctor-approved natural sleeping aid that improves sleep quality. Safe to take every day. 20% discount code 'GROWTH20' - SleepyClub.co.uk ShortForm: Summaries and guides for the world's best books and ideas. FREE trial and 20% off annual fee - ShortForm.com/Psychology Meet Sam Free Call - Schedule Link Influence the Show Feedback - Request and Ideas Form Growth Mindset pod: Sam Webster explores the psychology of happiness, satisfaction, purpose, and growth through the lens of self-improvement. Watch - YouTube (Growth Mindset) Mail - GrowthMindsetPodcast(at)gmail.com Insta - SamJam.zen Newsletter - Expansive Thinking Chapters: 00:00 The Concept of Life as a Game 01:28 The Rules of Life's Games 03:17 The Games of LinkedIn and Appearance 06:30 Life Lessons - Philosophy for fun and success 11:36 Your Point of View is First Player 14:03 The Three Modes for Playing Games 15:00 Applying the Modes to Social Media, News and Health 17:00 Final Thoughts 18:00 Housekeeping and Recommendations Topics: understanding life games and personal growth how to play life games on your own terms mastering life games for more fun and success psychological models for better life decisions navigating life's games with mental models building mental strength through understanding games enhancing life strategies with cognitive psychology applying psychology to everyday life games tips for playing life's psychological games dealing with societal expectations psychologically philisophical insights into life's hidden games developing self-awareness in life's games practical psychology for navigating life's challenges Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We talk about: All the things we can't talk about yet. Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorems The Walking Dead

Dagens avsnitt bjuder på döda tänder, tjuvaktiga barn och kraschade minneskort. Men hur blir det egentligen med livepodden? Allt kanske försvinner på grund av klåfingriga barn och stressade mammor? Tur i alla fall att Louise är en silverpinne och att Julia får gå i djurterapi. Tack till My Helsinki, Oslo Skinlab (kod LJ60) och GodEl för veckans poddspons!Avslutslåt: Schnappi, das kleine krokodil

Det pågår en fest i Julias stuga och det slutar tyvärr i ett sorgligt mord och massa ångest. Men värst är väl ändå Louise? Andra som skapar både ångest och irritation är självgoda influencers. Vad tycker Louise om hudvård för barn-debatten och vad är det enda en mamma gör? Tack till Under your skin (kod LJ20) och GodEl för veckans poddspons! Slutlåt: Lill Lindfors - Mitt lilla fejs

Does the use of computer models in physics change the way we see the universe? How far reaching are the implications of computation irreducibility? Are observer limitations key to the way we conceive the laws of physics? In this episode we have the difficult yet beautiful topic of trying to model complex systems like nature and the universe computationally to get into; and how beyond a low level of complexity all systems, seem to become equally unpredictable. We have a whole episode in this series on Complexity Theory in biology and nature, but today we're going to be taking a more physics and computational slant. Another key element to this episode is Observer Theory, because we have to take into account the perceptual limitations of our species' context and perspective, if we want to understand how the laws of physics that we've worked out from our environment, are not and cannot be fixed and universal but rather will always be perspective bound, within a multitude of alternative branches of possible reality with alternative possible computational rules. We'll then connect this multi-computational approach to a reinterpretation of Entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The fact that my guest has been building on these ideas for over 40 years, creating computer language and Ai solutions, to map his deep theories of computational physics, makes him the ideal guest to help us unpack this topic. He is physicist, computer scientist and tech entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram. In 1987 he left academia at Caltech and Princeton behind and devoted himself to his computer science intuitions at his company Wolfram Research. He's published many blog articles about his ideas, and written many influential books including “A New kind of Science”, and more recently “A Project to Find the Fundamental Theory of Physics”, and “Computer Modelling and Simulation of Dynamic Systems”, and just out in 2023 “The Second Law” about the mystery of Entropy. One of the most wonderful things about Stephen Wolfram is that, despite his visionary insight into reality, he really loves to be ‘in the moment' with his thinking, engaging in socratic dialogue, staying open to perspectives other than his own and allowing his old ideas to be updated if something comes up that contradicts them; and given how quickly the fields of physics and computer science are evolving I think his humility and conceptual flexibility gives us a fine example of how we should update how we do science as we go. What we discuss:  00:00 Intro 07:45 The history of scientific models of reality: structural, mathematical and computational. 20:20 The Principle of Computational Equivalence (PCE) 24:45 Computational Irreducibility - the process that means you can't predict the outcome in advance. 27:50 The importance of the passage of time to Consciousness. 28:45 Irreducibility and the limits of science. 33:30 Godel's Incompleteness Theorem 42:20 Observer Theory and the Wolfram Physics Project. 50:30 We 'make' space. 51:30 Branchial Space - different quantum histories of the world, branching and merging 58:50 Rulial Space: All possible rules of all possible interconnected branches. 01:19:30 The Measurement problem of QM and Entanglement meets computational irreducibility and observer theory.  01:32:40 Inviting Stephen back for a separate episode on AI safety, safety solutions and applications for science, as we did't have time. 01:37:30 At the molecular level the laws of physics are reversible. 01:45:30 Entropy defined in computational terms. 01:50:30 If we ever overcame our finite minds, there would be no coherent concept of existence. 01:51:30 Parallels between modern physics and ancient eastern mysticism and cosmology. 01:55:30 Reductionism in an irreducible world: saying a lot from very little input. References: “The Second Law: Resolving the Mystery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”, Stephen Wolfram “A New Kind of Science”, Stephen Wolfram Observer Theory Article, Stephen Wolfram

About the GuestJunius Johnson is a writer, teacher, speaker, independent scholar, and musician. His work focuses on beauty, imagination, and wonder, and how these are at play in the Christian and Classical intellectual traditions. He is the executive director of Junius Johnson Academics, through which he offers innovative classes for both children and adults that aim to ignite student hearts with wonder and intellectual rigor. An avid devotee of story, he is especially drawn to fantasy, science fiction, and young adult fiction. He performs professionally on the french horn and electric bass. He holds a BA from Oral Roberts University (English Lit), an MAR from Yale Divinity School (Historical Theology), and an MA, two MPhils, and a PhD (Philosophical Theology) from Yale University. He is the author of 5 books, including The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty, and On Teaching Fairy Stories. An engaging speaker and teacher, he is a frequent guest contributor to blogs and podcasts on faith and culture. He is co-host of The Classical Mind podcast and is a member of The Cultivating Project.Show NotesDr. Junius Johnson joins Adrienne to discuss the art of teaching. In this episode they discuss some important mistakes that happen in classical schools and how to overcome them. Junius explores the creative ways in which teachers should approach ALL subjects and help students enter into fruitful discussions no matter what the subject. Some Ideas Discussed:The importance of helping students engage with real learning and relational connectionsThe importance of believing in studentsThe pitfalls of teaching objectivesHolding onto lesson plans looselyCreating an atmosphere of wonderHow a teacher can increase his or her own imagination! Books Discussed in This Episode Include:On Teaching Fairy Stories by Junius JohnsonThe Chronicles of NarniaJK RowlingDante's Divine ComedyThe Sword in the Stone by T.H. WhiteThrough The Looking Glass by Lewis CarrollThe Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan CooperBeowulfHamletThe Voyage of the Dawn Treador by CS LewisPaintings to inspire imaginative conversations with your students (Print them in color and let them study it with a partner and then narrate as many details as they can remember without looking at it.)Children's Games by BruegelMasque of Love by John Duncan The Plumbers by Norman RockwellDeclaration of Independence by John TrumbullThe Death of Caesar by Jean-Léon Gérôme Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake by Hiroshige and then compare it to van Gogh's Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige)Books to Build Imagination (for educators to read for self-edification in learning to wonder)Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter. This book can get really dense at times, but it uses the work of these three figures to stretch and challenge our view of reality.G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles. A delightful, accessible must-read in which Chesterton re-orients our attention to the small and everyday things.Fantastical and speculative fiction. A great place to start is The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, one of the unsung masterpieces of the 20th century.The Awakening of Miss Prim by by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera  Games mentionedSplendorLords of the WaterdeepGolf card game... can be played with regular card of buy this already made set called Play Nine. ________________________________________________________Upcoming Winter Workshop Links:Society for Classical Learning Winter Workshops, 2024 (scroll to read more about Adrienne's Narration Intensive)Snapshot Series Courses by Beautiful Teaching Master TeachersSign up for Beautiful Teaching Monthly Newsletter by visiting the website! Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!Meet our Team, Explore our Resources andTake advantage of our Services!This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★ _________________________________________________________Credits:Sound Engineer: Andrew HelselLogo Art: Anastasiya CFMusic: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic © 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa Questions include: When researching, do you find it's more helpful to stay close to modern times in terms of content, or do findings from hundreds of years ago also prove valuable? - ​Can you talk about the history of theories of cognition and consciousness? What did the ancients think? Did Gödel or Turing think about this much? Does ChatGPT disprove Penrose's Orch OR? - Aristotle, Leibniz, Godel, Wolfram: How were/are these philosophers able to somewhat understand the idea of universal computation? How did they and you reach those insights? - Is there something you could speak to about von Neumann's work to understand that the models of computation could relate to the mind? - Has the importance of areas of science shifted in history? What was the main focus of science five hundred years ago? One hundred years ago? Ten? - Is there a connection between these advances in science and education? Does education evolve with these changes? - What has been the most important invention that has improved research overall? - Right! By 1991 we had ERIC for upper-graduate research, and it was a game changer. No more need for librarians in the traditional way and history at our fingertips. - Historically, what have been the the most difficult problems or obstacles for us to overcome or solve in the areas of science and technology? - About unintended consequences of revolutions: what lessons from the Industrial Revolution have we learned that we could use for the AI revolution? - Do you think it's fundamentally possible for science as we know it to hit a wall at some point and slowly degenerate into a nonproductive state?

Our resident Board Game Expert, Phil Godel, shares his favorite games to enjoy from the family rooms to the serious gamers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pedro Domingos é professor emérito de Ciências da Computação na Universidade de Washington. Licenciou-se pelo Instituto Superior Técnico e doutorou-se na Universidade da Califórnia em Irvine. Recebeu em 2014 o prémio de inovação, SIGKDD, o mais prestigiado na área de ciências de dados. É autor do livro «A Revolução do Algoritmo Mestre - Como a aprendizagem automática está a mudar o mundo», publicado em 2015. -> Apoie este podcast e faça parte da comunidade de mecenas do 45 Graus em: 45grauspodcast.com -> Inscreva-se aqui nos workshops de Pensamento Crítico em Coimbra e Braga. -> Registe-se aqui para ser avisado(a) de futuras edições dos workshops. _______________ Índice (com timestamps): (04:32) INÍCIO - O que é revolucionário no Machine Learning? | As cinco famílias de modelos (as ‘cinco tribos'): conectivistas (backprop, a tecnologia por trás do ChatGPT), simbolistas, evolucionistas, bayesianos e analogistas. (27:25) Porque é que a robótica tem avançado mais lentamente? (32:10) Como funcionam os modelos conectivistas de deep learning (como o ChatGPT)? | Large language models | Transformers | Alexnet  (40:11) O que entendes por ‘Algoritmo Mestre'? | Como unificar as várias famílias de modelos para chegar à Inteligência Artificial Geral? (55:47) O que é especial no cérebro humano que nos permite generalizar melhor do que a AI? | Algoritmo que conseguiu descobrir as Leis de Kepler | Livro Leonardo da Vinci, de Walter Isaacson. | Livro Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, de Douglas R Hofstadter (1:07:47) A IA pode tornar-se perigosa? Vem aí a  singularidade? | Yuval Harari, Elon Musk | Cientistas sérios que se preocupam com o tema.  Livro recomendado: Godel, Escher, Bach, de Douglas Hofstadter (1:32:20) O que explica um engenheiro da Google ter afirmado que o chatbot tinha consciência? _______________ Desde que foi lançado, no final do ano passado, o ChatGPT trouxe o tema da IA de novo para a discussão. Já tardava, por isso, um episódio sobre o tema. E dificilmente poderia pedir melhor convidado.  _______________ Obrigado aos mecenas do podcast: Francisco Hermenegildo, Ricardo Evangelista, Henrique Pais João Baltazar, Salvador Cunha, Abilio Silva, Tiago Leite, Carlos Martins, Galaró family, Corto Lemos, Miguel Marques, Nuno Costa, Nuno e Ana, João Ribeiro, Helder Miranda, Pedro Lima Ferreira, Cesar Carpinteiro, Luis Fernambuco, Fernando Nunes, Manuel Canelas, Tiago Gonçalves, Carlos Pires, João Domingues, Hélio Bragança da Silva, Sandra Ferreira , Paulo Encarnação , BFDC, António Mexia Santos, Luís Guido, Bruno Heleno Tomás Costa, João Saro, Daniel Correia, Rita Mateus, António Padilha, Tiago Queiroz, Carmen Camacho, João Nelas, Francisco Fonseca, Rafael Santos, Andreia Esteves, Ana Teresa Mota, ARUNE BHURALAL, Mário Lourenço, RB, Maria Pimentel, Luis, Geoffrey Marcelino, Alberto Alcalde, António Rocha Pinto, Ruben de Bragança, João Vieira dos Santos, David Teixeira Alves, Armindo Martins , Carlos Nobre, Bernardo Vidal Pimentel, António Oliveira, Paulo Barros, Nuno Brites, Lígia Violas, Tiago Sequeira, Zé da Radio, João Morais, André Gamito, Diogo Costa, Pedro Ribeiro, Bernardo Cortez Vasco Sá Pinto, David , Tiago Pires, Mafalda Pratas, Joana Margarida Alves Martins, Luis Marques, João Raimundo, Francisco Arantes, Mariana Barosa, Nuno Gonçalves, Pedro Rebelo, Miguel Palhas, Ricardo Duarte, Duarte , Tomás Félix, Vasco Lima, Francisco Vasconcelos, Telmo , José Oliveira Pratas, Jose Pedroso, João Diogo Silva, Joao Diogo, José Proença, João Crispim, João Pinho , Afonso Martins, Robertt Valente, João Barbosa, Renato Mendes, Maria Francisca Couto, Antonio Albuquerque, Ana Sousa Amorim, Francisco Santos, Lara Luís, Manuel Martins, Macaco Quitado, Paulo Ferreira, Diogo Rombo, Francisco Manuel Reis, Bruno Lamas, Daniel Almeida, Patrícia Esquível , Diogo Silva, Luis Gomes, Cesar Correia, Cristiano Tavares, Pedro Gaspar, Gil Batista Marinho, Maria Oliveira, João Pereira, Rui Vilao, João Ferreira, Wedge, José Losa, Hélder Moreira, André Abrantes, Henrique Vieira, João Farinha, Manuel Botelho da Silva, João Diamantino, Ana Rita Laureano, Pedro L, Nuno Malvar, Joel, Rui Antunes7, Tomás Saraiva, Cloé Leal de Magalhães, Joao Barbosa, paulo matos, Fábio Monteiro, Tiago Stock, Beatriz Bagulho, Pedro Bravo, Antonio Loureiro, Hugo Ramos, Inês Inocêncio, Telmo Gomes, Sérgio Nunes, Tiago Pedroso, Teresa Pimentel, Rita Noronha, miguel farracho, José Fangueiro, Zé, Margarida Correia-Neves, Bruno Pinto Vitorino, João Lopes, Joana Pereirinha, Gonçalo Baptista, Dario Rodrigues, tati lima, Pedro On The Road, Catarina Fonseca, JC Pacheco, Sofia Ferreira, Inês Ribeiro, Miguel Jacinto, Tiago Agostinho, Margarida Costa Almeida, Helena Pinheiro, Rui Martins, Fábio Videira Santos, Tomás Lucena, João Freitas, Ricardo Sousa, RJ, Francisco Seabra Guimarães, Carlos Branco, David Palhota, Carlos Castro, Alexandre Alves, Cláudia Gomes Batista, Ana Leal, Ricardo Trindade, Luís Machado, Andrzej Stuart-Thompson, Diego Goulart, Filipa Portela, Paulo Rafael, Paloma Nunes, Marta Mendonca, Teresa Painho, Duarte Cameirão, Rodrigo Silva, José Alberto Gomes, Joao Gama, Cristina Loureiro, Tiago Gama, Tiago Rodrigues, Miguel Duarte, Ana Cantanhede, Artur Castro Freire, Rui Passos Rocha, Pedro Costa Antunes, Sofia Almeida, Ricardo Andrade Guimarães, Daniel Pais, Miguel Bastos, Luís Santos _______________ Esta conversa foi editada por: Hugo Oliveira

Marty has a conversation about David Zindell's 'Neverness' with Mark Mac Lean, professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia.  We talk about the poetic and philosophical use of mathematics as the engine of faster-than-light travel in the Neverness universe, and contemplate the relationship of mathematics to truth, beauty, perfection, and physical reality.  Along the way we discuss the foundations of mathematics, Godel's incompleteness theorems, the Reimann hypothesis and the continuity theorem, both the real one and its fictional twin in the novel.  We also reflect on what a gift it is that David Zindell is able to convey the feeling of doing mathematics, and the almost mystical experience of connecting to this seemingly higher realm of reality.Mark Mac Lean:https://personal.math.ubc.ca/~maclean/maclean.htmlDavid Zindell:https://www.davidzindell.com/Buzzsprout (podcast host):https://thescienceinthefiction.buzzsprout.comEmail: thescienceinthefiction@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/743522660965257/Twitter:https://twitter.com/MartyK5463

YouTube link https://youtu.be/zMPnrNL3zsE Gregory Chaitin discusses algorithmic information theory, its relationship with Gödel incompleteness theorems, and the properties of Omega number.  Topics of discussion include algorithmic information theory, Gödel incompleteness theorems, and the Omega number. Listen now early and ad-free on Patreon https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal. Sponsors:  - Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal (early access to ad-free audio episodes!) - Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-with-curt-jaimungal/id1521758802 - Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything - TOE Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch LINKS MENTIONED: - Meta Math and the Quest for Omega (Gregory Chaitin): https://amzn.to/3stCFxH - Visual math episode on Chaitin's constant: https://youtu.be/WLASHxChXKM - Podcast w/ David Wolpert on TOE: https://youtu.be/qj_YUxg-qtY - A Mathematician's Apology (G. H. Hardy): https://amzn.to/3qOEbtL - The Physicalization of Metamathematics (Stephen Wolfram): https://amzn.to/3YUcGLL - Podcast w/ Neil deGrasse Tyson on TOE: https://youtu.be/HhWWlJFwTqs - Proving Darwin (Gregory Chaitin): https://amzn.to/3L0hSbs - What is Life? (Erwin Schrödinger): https://amzn.to/3YVk8Xm - "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" (Alan Turing): https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/T... - "The Major Transitions in Evolution" (John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry): https://amzn.to/3PdzYci - "The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language" (John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry): https://amzn.to/3PeKFeM - Podcast w/ Stephen Wolfram on TOE: https://youtu.be/1sXrRc3Bhrs - Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (Rebecca Goldstein): https://amzn.to/3Pf8Yt4 - Rebecca Goldstein on TOE on Godel's Incompleteness: https://youtu.be/VkL3BcKEB6Y - Gödel's Proof (Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman): https://amzn.to/3QX89q1 - Giant Brains, or Machines That Think (Edmund Callis Berkeley): https://amzn.to/3QXniYj - An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications (William Feller): https://amzn.to/44tWjXI TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 Introduction - 00:02:27 Chaitin's Unconventional Self-Taught Journey - 00:06:56 Chaitin's Incompleteness Theorem and Algorithmic Randomness - 00:12:00 The Infinite Calculation Paradox and Omega Number's Complexity (Halting Probability) - 00:27:38 God is a Mathematician: An Ontological Basis - 00:37:06 Emergence of Information as a Fundamental Substance - 00:53:10 Evolution and the Modern Synthesis (Physics-Based vs. Computational-Based Life) - 01:08:43 Turing's Less Known Masterpiece - 01:16:58 Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Epigenetics - 01:21:20 Renormalization and Tractability - 01:28:15 The Infinite Fitness Function - 01:42:03 Progress in Mathematics despite Incompleteness - 01:48:38 Unconventional Academic Approach - 01:50:35 Godel's Incompleteness, Mathematical Intuition, and the Platonic World - 02:06:01 The Enigma of Creativity in Mathematics - 02:15:37 Dark Matter: A More Stable Form of Hydrogen? (Hydrinos) - 02:23:33 Stigma and the "Reputation Trap" in Science - 02:28:43 Cold Fusion - 02:29:28 The Stagnation of Physics - 02:41:33 Defining Randomness: The Chaos of 0s and 1s - 02:52:01 The Struggles For Young Mathematicians and Physicists (Advice) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're pulling one of our best episodes from the vaults, featuring the brilliant Brian Christian. Recommend this show by sharing the link: pod.link/2Pages One thing I don't mention often is that the thesis I wrote for my law degree was an attempt to combine my interest in literature with a perspective on law. So I wrote about the phenomenon of plain English: that's trying to write law without the legalese. And I tried to write about it through the lens of literary theories of language. I honestly did not understand what I was trying to do. And also nobody in law school understood what I was trying to do. What I can see now, with the benefit of hindsight and some self-esteem and some marketing speak, is that I was a boundary rider. I've come to learn that the interesting things often take place on the edges, those intermediate areas where X meets Y and some sort of new life is born. Brian Christian is a boundary rider too. He's just way more successful and interesting than law school Micheal. He thinks deeply and writes about deep patterns of life through technology and AI and algorithms. He's the author of The Most Human Human, the Alignment Problem, and Algorithms to Live By. After the introduction I just gave you, you're probably going to guess that Brian isn't just a science guy. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/  Brian reads from Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. [Reading begins at 15:10] Hear us Discuss:  Metaphor can be one of the main mechanisms by which science happens. [6:20] | Rules that are delightful to break. [24:35] | “I have this deep conviction […] we are on to some philosophical paydirt here. There is a very real way in which we are building [AI] systems in our own image, and as a result they come to be a mirror for ourselves.” [28:40] | What is the heart of the human experience? [38:10] | “Humans are not so special.” [42.50]

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A Proof of Löb's Theorem using Computability Theory, published by Jessica Taylor on August 16, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum. Löb's Theorem states that, if PA⊢□PA(P)P, then PA⊢P. To explain the symbols here: PA is Peano arithmetic, a first-order logic system that can state things about the natural numbers. PA⊢A means there is a proof of the statement A in Peano arithmetic. □PA(P) is a Peano arithmetic statement saying that P is provable in Peano arithmetic. I'm not going to discuss the significance of Löb's theorem, since it has been discussed elsewhere; rather, I will prove it in a way that I find simpler and more intuitive than other available proofs. Translating Löb's theorem to be more like Godel's second incompleteness theorem First, let's compare Löb's theorem to Godel's second incompleteness theorem. This theorem states that, if PA⊢¬□PA(⊥), then PA⊢⊥, where ⊥ is a PA statement that is trivially false (such as A∧¬A), and from which anything can be proven. A system is called inconsistent if it proves ⊥; this theorem can be re-stated as saying that if PA proves its own consistency, it is inconsistent. We can re-write Löb's theorem to look like Godel's second incompleteness theorem as: if PA+¬P⊢¬□PA+¬P(⊥), then PA+¬P⊢⊥. Here, PA+¬P is PA with an additional axiom that ¬P, and □PA+¬P expresses provability in this system. First I'll argue that this re-statement is equivalent to the original Löb's theorem statement. Observe that PA⊢P if and only if PA+¬P⊢⊥; to go from the first to the second, we derive a contradiction from P and ¬P, and to go from the second to the first, we use the law of excluded middle in PA to derive P∨¬P, and observe that, since a contradiction follows from ¬P in PA, PA can prove P. Since all this reasoning can be done in PA, we have that □PA(P) and □PA+¬P(⊥) are equivalent PA statements. We immediately have that the conclusion of the modified statement equals the conclusion of the original statement. Now we can rewrite the pre-condition of Löb's theorem from PA⊢□PA(P)P. to PA⊢□PA+¬P(⊥)P. This is then equivalent to PA+¬P⊢¬□PA+¬P(⊥). In the forward direction, we simply derive ⊥ from P and ¬P. In the backward direction, we use the law of excluded middle in PA to derive P∨¬P, observe the statement is trivial in the P branch, and in the ¬P branch, we derive ¬□PA+¬P(⊥), which is stronger than □PA+¬P(⊥)P. So we have validly re-stated Löb's theorem, and the new statement is basically a statement that Godel's second incompleteness theorem holds for PA+¬P. Proving Godel's second incompleteness theorem using computability theory The following proof of a general version of Godel's second incompleteness theorem is essentially the same as Sebastian Oberhoff's in "Incompleteness Ex Machina". Let L be some first-order system that is at least as strong as PA (for example, PA+¬P). Since L is at least as strong as PA, it can express statements about Turing machines. Let Halts(M) be the PA statement that Turing machine M (represented by a number) halts. If this statement is true, then PA (and therefore L) can prove it; PA can expand out M's execution trace until its halting step. However, we have no guarantee that if the statement is false, then L can prove it false. In fact, L can't simultaneously prove this for all non-halting machines M while being consistent, or we could solve the halting problem by searching for proofs of Halts(M) and ¬Halts(M) in parallel. That isn't enough for us, though; we're trying to show that L can't simultaneously be consistent and prove its own consistency, not that it isn't simultaneously complete and sound on halting statements. Let's consider a machine Z(A) that searches over all L-proofs of ¬Halts(''⌈A⌉(⌈A⌉)") (where ''⌈A⌉(⌈A⌉)" is an encoding of a Turing machine that runs A on its own source code), and halts only when finding su...

Do history's greatest thinkers care about time management? In today's episode, Cal analyzes the system that the mathematician and philosopher, Kurt Godel, used to structure his days, weeks, and years to produce meaningful work over a long period of time.  Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here's the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo  Video from today's episode:  youtube.com/calnewportmedia  Today's Deep Question: How do geniuses structure their life? [8:00]  - How do I follow through on the projects I start? [34:33] - Is creating a deep environment one of the deep life buckets? [42:14] - How do I find examples of my ideal lifestyle? [48:24] - Should I switch jobs, I'm bored (but effective)? [59:20]  CAL REACTS: The ReMarkable 2 tablet. Is it worth it? [1:11:57]  Thanks to our Sponsors:  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/deepquestions and get on your way to being your best self drinklmnt.com/deep 80000hours.org/deep hensonshaving.com/cal  Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering. 

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Douglas Hoftstadter concerned about AI xrisk, published by Eli Rose on July 3, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Douglas Hofstadter is best known for authoring Godel, Escher, Bach, a book on artificial intelligence (among other things) which is sort of a cult classic. In a recent interview, he says he's terrified of recent AI progress and expresses beliefs similar to many people who focus on AI xrisk. Hoftstadter: The accelerating progress has been so unexpected that it has caught me off guard... not only myself, but many many people. There's a sense of terror akin to an oncoming tsunami that could catch all of humanity off guard. It's not clear whether this could mean the end of humanity in the sense of the systems we've created destroying us, it's not clear if that's the case but it's certainly conceivable. If not, it's also that it just renders humanity a small, almost insignificant phenomenon, compared to something that is far more intelligent and will become as incomprehensible to us as we are to cockroaches. Interviewer: That's an interesting thought. Hoftstadter: Well I don't think it's interesting. I think it's terrifying. I hate it. I think this is the first time he's publicly expressed this, and his views seem to have changed recently. Previously he published this which listed a bunch of silly questions GPT-3 gets wrong and concluded that There are no concepts behind the GPT-3 scenes; rather, there's just an unimaginably huge amount of absorbed text upon which it draws to produce answers though it ended with a gesture to the fast pace of change and inability to predict the future. I randomly tried some of his stumpers on GPT-4 and it gets them right (and I remember being convinced when this came out that GPT-3 could get them right too with a bit of prompt engineering, though I don't remember specifics). I find this a bit emotional because of how much I loved Godel, Escher, Bach in early college. It was my introduction to "real" math and STEM, which I'd previously disliked and been bad at; because of this book, I majored in computer science. It presented a lot of philosophical puzzles for and problems with AI, and gave beautiful, eye-opening answers to them. I think Hofstadter expected us to understand AI much better before we got to this level of capabilities; expected more of the type of understanding his parables and thought experiments could sometimes create. Now I work professionally on situations along the lines of what he describes in the interview (and feel a similar way about them) — it's a weird way to meet Hofstadter again. See also Gwern's post on LessWrong. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org

Episode 156 of the #AskAbhijit show: Ask me interesting questions, and I shall answer them.

Welcome to a special series on the acquisition talk podcast that gives you an audiobook tour of my research project titled, Programmed to Fail: The Rise of Central Planning in Defense Acquisition 1945 to 1975. I'm Eric Lofgren of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. You can find this book for free and over 1,300 blog posts on my website, https://AcquisitionTalk.com. In this chapter of Programmed to Fail, we dive into how complex order in the real world emerges from simple and iterative systems of nonlinear interactions. The umbrella term of complex adaptive systems is used to describe self-organizing systems of emergent order that adapt to an uncertain environment. While these properties are not in general desirable for weapon systems that humans use in the field, they are certainly desirable properties for the defense acquisition system as much as they are for market economies. In this chapter, we trace John Boyd's work from weapon systems design into complexity theory that leverages Godel's incompleteness theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and the second law of thermodynamics. We find that the only realistic way to generate a system that exhibits complex behaviors beyond the foresight of any individual is to build from the bottom-up according to simple rules. Tacit coordination based on local conditions can then give rise to emergent order, a process not appreciated by advocates of top-down planning and built into the foundations of the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System. While complexity theories have started to penetrate the philosophy of military operations, we are still at the early stages of appreciating these ideas in the world of defense acquisition. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

In this “Seat Yourself” we have lunch at Dairy Queen on 45th Street in Fargo, ND with KFGO board op, technical director for Fargo Public Schools, avid gamer and Neil Diamond UN-enthusiast…Phil Godel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode I try to explain my reasons for considering Catholicism and why I may stop podcasting altogether. Roy Schoeman's witness testimony: https://youtu.be/EWDevlijGUI Luke Thompson on consciousness: https://youtu.be/6B0D3QVYTas Chris Langan on Godel and self-reference: https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Common_CTMU_objections_and_replies#Russell.27s_paradox_and_Godel.27s_incompleteness_theorem_prove_that_the_CTMU_is_invalid.

Kal and Luke unite as a magnificent force in this intense, palm sweaty conversation that will have us all on the edge of our seats. Please go over to Luke's channel and like and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiteStoneName Other references below Roy Schoeman's conversion story: https://youtu.be/EWDevlijGUI Luke freestyling on consciousness: https://youtu.be/6B0D3QVYTas Chris Langan on Godel and self-reference: https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Common_CTMU_objections_and_replies#Russell.27s_paradox_and_Godel.27s_incompleteness_theorem_prove_that_the_CTMU_is_invalid.

Phil Godel has piles and stacks and closets full of board games. He is the resident KFGO expert on board games, party games, card games and more. We invite him into the studio to give some tips on holiday games for gifts or just to have a game night.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI Helps Ukraine - Charity Conference A charity conference on AI to raise funds for medical and humanitarian aid for Ukraine https://aihelpsukraine.cc/ YT version: https://youtu.be/LgwjcqhkOA4 Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst Dr. Joscha Bach (born 1973 in Weimar, Germany) is a German artificial intelligence researcher and cognitive scientist focusing on cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modelling, and multi-agent systems. http://bach.ai/ https://twitter.com/plinz TOC: [00:00:00] Ukraine Charity Conference and NeurIPS 2022 [00:03:40] Theory of computation, Godel, Penrose [00:11:44] Modelling physical reality [00:15:19] Is our universe infinite? [00:24:30] Large language models, and on DL / is Gary Marcus hitting a wall? [00:45:17] Generative models / Codex / Language of thought [00:58:46] Consciousness (with Friston references) References: Am I Self-Conscious? (Or Does Self-Organization Entail Self-Consciousness?) [Friston] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00579/full Impact of Pretraining Term Frequencies on Few-Shot Reasoning [Yasaman Razeghi] https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.07206 Deep Learning Is Hitting a Wall [Gary Marcus] https://nautil.us/deep-learning-is-hitting-a-wall-238440/ Turing machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine Lambda Calculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus Godel's incompletness theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems Oracle machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_machine

Jeremy is senior fellow at the Claremont institute, writer and builder in early silicon valley, contributor to many, many publications, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the Trump administration. We discuss early silicon valley, the dissident right, authoritarian regimes, rationalism, Covid policy, immigration, economies of scale, chesterton, and “Godel, Escher, Bach”. Jeremy on Web 1.0:https://return.life/2022/03/07/web-1-0/Jeremy's Twitter:https://twitter.com/https://twitter.com/jeremycarl4Curtis Yarvin on From the New World:Godel Escher Bach:https://www.amazon.ca/Godel-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567Power of the powerless:https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23Geoff Shullenberger and I on his podcast, Outsider TheoryCompact Endorsement of Trump:https://compactmag.com/article/he-s-still-the-one This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cactus.substack.com

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 8: Tao Lin's Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter's Labyrinth Today we discuss Tao Lin's recently publicized mandala art as an extension of his literary practice. Known for its simple language, circularity, and psychedelic aloofness – biting yet airy, kaleidoscopic yet concise, concrete yet polymorphic, polarizing yet irresistible – Lin's prose and poetry embody, to some, the fullest and most elegant form of human expression; infinite yet featherlight, redolent of a master's koan. In a 2016 interview with artist Dorothy Howard, the author paraphrases Jung, calling mandalas “psychological expressions of the totality of the self.” As texts and images created by computer-controlled “neural nets” proliferate, Lin's visual art and writing stand uniquely positioned to interrogate the role of human cognition in generating meaningful and aesthetically resonant patterns. What forces inform the unique character of  Lin's work – are they something personal and uniquely human, or a bio-agnostic expression of reality's latent structures, a universal compulsion to repeat certain forms in a certain sequence? To confront this issue, we have trained a neural net to "meow" in a sequence corresponding to Tao Lin's 8x8 = 64 method of mandala generation, converting the 8th sentence of every 8 paragraphs of Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter's seminal work on the primacy of human consciousness, to a correspondingly inflected and contextualized MEOW. The result is a provocative meditation on Tao Lin's work, the ontology of thought, and the sanctity of human reason. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To view and purchase prints of Tao Lin's Mandalas, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Twitter: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary  

The resident "lord" of KFGO, Phil Godel, shares his experience at the first ever North Dakota Renaissance Faire at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds. He attended the first week of a two weekend festival and has everything you need to know!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Kevin * https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ or http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/ * https://youtu.be/in6RZzdGki8 * https://youtu.be/lrY04VPDg8I * John Topics: * Reading the other headlines/articles on newspapers in films that flash on screen solely for the headline * http://www.chess-in-the-cinema.de/ * The Game Boy Camera/revisiting the PXL-2000 topic and other toy cameras/tech * Best Halloween candy: candy corn or pumpkin-shaped candy corn? * Icarus, by Edward Field * https://genius.com/Edward-field-icarus-annotated * Douglas Hofstadter Microtopics: * The James Webb Space Telescope. * The thing you get the most DMs about. * Recording a fan's answering machine message in the Mario Frustration voice. * The guy who "fixed" the NES triangle wave. * Bandlimiting your oscillators. * What the real Lordheads know. * Another place to shitpost. * 3D entertainment. * Deku momentum problems. * The analog stick mod for Mario 64 DS. * A remaster that is in direct conversation with what it's remastering. * The pros and cons of Mario 64 DS. * Abandoned let's-plays. * Waterworld for the Virtual Boy. * Wario Ware and Rhythm Heaven. * How to give Nintendo money in 2022. * Prodigy Child Wins Every Award Given. * Pausing movies to read the nonsense headlines that the prop designers didn't expect you to read. * Pausing the movie to complain about the nonsensical Scrabble game depicted. * A movie about people who don't know how to play Clue. * A mahjongg game that is a literary microcosm of the players' lives. * Leaning across the couch to your girlfriend and saying "that's Chappie's chess game." * Playing Super Mario Bros. with the Power Glove. * The Steam reviews for the 8-bit wrestling game that appears for three seconds in The Wrestler. * The only digital camera that was under $100 in the 90s. * How to get images off of the Game Boy Camera. * Hooking together a TV, VCR, SNES, Super Game Boy and Game Boy Camera and plugging it in with a very long extension cord so you can shoot a movie outdoors. * An in-your-face student film about what happens when computers can detect emotion. * Using your Game Boy Camera as a webcam on Twitch. * The Game Boy Camera's music sequencer. * The Game Boy Camera asking ROM hackers if they are feeling ok. * The Gold Zelda Camera. * The gold Breath of the Wild cartridge that tastes like the Master Sword. * The Cool Cam. * The Lefty RX. * Ranking candy by its volume to surface area ratio. * Getting sick of candy corn naysayers. * Wax Lips: Ya Gotta Eat 'Em! * A powder that's been glued into a little puck. * What the American Oil and Gas Historical Society has to say about wax lips. * The oleaginous history of wax lips. * Edible dinosaur bones. * Bananasaurus Rex-flavored string cheese. * The Genius of the Hero falling to the Middling Stature of the Merely Talented. * Looking back on your best work and knowing you'll probably never best it but still liking your life more now. * A short story with extra line breaks. * Turning any text into a poem by resizing the window so there are extra line breaks. * Robert Altman's follow-up to MASH. * A retelling of Icarus featuring the wicked witch saying a slur. * What it means to be conscious. * Godel, Escher, Bach: I am a Strange Loop except more confusing. * Writing a book for the general public and having to figure out how to make your ideas fun. * Searching YouTube for "Crab Cannon" and only finding music for weirdos and no cannons of any kind. * Martin Gardner's column about math games in Scientific American. * Metamagical Themas. * Using math to do fun space stuff. * Stream Frasier Online Free. * Rubik's Cube except spelled like an asshole.

One thing I don't mention often is that the thesis I wrote for my law degree was an attempt to combine my interest in literature with a perspective on law. So I wrote about the phenomenon of plain English: that's trying to write law without the legalese. And I tried to write about it through the lens of literary theories of language. I honestly did not understand what I was trying to do. And also nobody in law school understood what I was trying to do. What I can see now, with the benefit of hindsight and some self-esteem and some marketing speak, is that I was a boundary rider. I've come to learn that the interesting things often take place on the edges, those intermediate areas where X meets Y and some sort of new life is born. Brian Christian is a boundary rider too. He's just way more successful and interesting than law school Micheal. He thinks deeply and writes about deep patterns of life through technology and AI and algorithms. He's the author of The Most Human Human, the Alignment Problem, and Algorithms to Live By. After the introduction I just gave you, you're probably going to guess that Brian isn't just a science guy. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/  Brian reads from Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. [Reading begins at 15:10] Hear us Discuss:  Metaphor can be one of the main mechanisms by which science happens. [6:20] | Rules that are delightful to break. [24:35] | “I have this deep conviction […] we are on to some philosophical paydirt here. There is a very real way in which we are building [AI] systems in our own image, and as a result they come to be a mirror for ourselves.” [28:40] | What is the heart of the human experience? [38:10] | “Humans are not so special.” [42.50]

Why did Godel's Incompleteness Theorem become so famous outside of mathematics? The real question that should be asked is: why is it so famous within mathematics?   The post #112: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem / Logic or Math? appeared first on Sand Pebbles Podcast.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Intuitions about solving hard problems, published by Richard Ngo on April 25, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. Solving hard scientific problems usually requires compelling insights Here's a heuristic which plays an important role in my reasoning about solving hard scientific problems: that when you've made an important breakthrough, you should be able to explain the key insight(s) behind that breakthrough in an intuitively compelling way. By “intuitively compelling” I don't mean “listeners should be easily persuaded that the idea solves the problem”, but instead: “listeners should be easily persuaded that this is the type of idea which, if true, would constitute a big insight”. The best examples are probably from Einstein: time being relative, and gravity being equivalent to acceleration, are both insights in this category. The same for Malthus and Darwin and Godel; the same for Galileo and Newton and Shannon. Another angle on this heuristic comes from Scott Aaronson's list of signs that a claimed P≠NP proof is wrong. In particular, see: #6: the paper lacks a coherent overview, clearly explaining how and why it overcomes the barriers that foiled previous attempts. And #1: the author can't immediately explain why the proof fails for 2SAT, XOR-SAT, or other slight variants of NP-complete problems that are known to be in P. I read these as Aaronson claiming that a successful solution to this very hard problem is likely to contain big insights that can be clearly explained. Perhaps the best counterexample is the invention of Turing machines. Even after Turing explained the whole construction, it seems reasonable to still be uncertain whether there's actually something interesting there, or whether he's just presented you with a complicated mess. I think that uncertainty would be particularly reasonable if we imagine trying to understand the formalism before Turing figures out how to implement any nontrivial algorithm (like prime factorisation) on a Turing machine, or how to prove any theorems about universal Turing machines. Other counterexamples might include quantum mechanics, where quantization was originally seen as a hack to make the equations work; or formal logic, where I'm not sure if there were any big insights that could be grasped in advance of actually seeing the formalisms in action. Using the compelling insight heuristic to evaluate alignment research directions It's possible that alignment will in practice end up being more of an engineering problem than a scientific problem like the ones I described above. E.g. perhaps we're in a world where, with sufficient caution about scaling up existing algorithms, we'll produce aligned AIs capable of solving the full version of the problem for us. But suppose we're trying to produce a fully scalable solution ourselves; are there existing insights which might be sufficient for that? Here are some candidates, which I'll only discuss very briefly, and plan to discuss in more detail in a forthcoming post (I'd also welcome suggestions for any I've missed): “Trustworthy imitation of human external behavior would avert many default dooms as they manifest in external behavior unlike human behavior.” This is Eliezer's description of the core insight behind Paul's imitative amplification proposal. I find this somewhat compelling, but less so than I used to, since I've realized that the line between imitation learning and reinforcement learning is blurrier than I used to think (e.g. see this or this). Decomposing supervision of complex tasks allows better human oversight. Again, I've found this less compelling over time - in this case because I've realized that decomposition is the “default” approach we follow whenever we evaluate things, and so the real “work” of the insight needs to be in describing how we'll decompose tasks,...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Convince me that humanity is as doomed by AGI as Yudkowsky et al., seems to believe, published by Yitz on April 10, 2022 on LessWrong. I've been very heavily involved in the (online) rationalist community for a few months now, and like many others, I have found myself quite freaked out by the apparent despair/lack of hope that seems to be sweeping the community. When people who are smarter than you start getting scared, it seems wise to be concerned as well, even if you don't fully understand the danger. Nonetheless, it's important not to get swept up in the crowd. I've been trying to get a grasp on why so many seem so hopeless, and these are the assumptions I believe they are making (trivial assumptions included, for completeness; there may be some overlap in this list): AGI is possible to create. AGI will be created within the next century or so, possibly even within the next few years. If AGI is created by people who are not sufficiently educated (aka aware of a solution to the Alignment problem) and cautious, then it will almost certainly be unaligned. Unaligned AGI will try to do something horrible to humans (not out of maliciousness, necessarily, we could just be collateral damage), and will not display sufficiently convergent behavior to have anything resembling our values. We will not be able to effectively stop an unaligned AGI once it is created (due to the Corrigibility problem). We have not yet solved the Alignment problem (of which the Corrigibility problem is merely a subset), and there does not appear to be any likely avenues to success (or at least we should not expect success within the next few decades). Even if we solved the Alignment problem, if a non-aligned AGI arrives on the scene before we can implement ours, we are still doomed (due to first-mover advantage). Our arguments for all of the above are not convincing or compelling enough for most AI researchers to take the threat seriously. As such, unless some drastic action is taken soon, unaligned AGI will be created shortly, and that will be the end of the world as we know it. First of all, is my list of seemingly necessary assumptions correct? If so, it seems to me that most of these are far from proven statements of fact, and in fact are all heavily debated. Assumption 8 in particular seems to highlight this, as if a strong enough case could be made for each of the previous assumptions, it would be fairly easy to convince most intelligent researchers, which we don't seem to observe. A historical example which bears some similarities to the current situation may be Godel's resolution to Hilbert's program. He was able to show unarguably that no consistent finite system of axioms is capable of proving all truths, at which point the mathematical community was able to advance beyond the limitations of early formalism. As far as I am aware, no similarly strong argument exists for even one of the assumptions listed above. Given all of this, and the fact that there are so many uncertainties here, I don't understand why so many researchers (most prominently Eliezer Yudkowsky, but there are countless more) seem so certain that we are doomed. I find it hard to believe that all alignment ideas presented so far show no promise, considering I've yet to see a slam-dunk argument presented for why even a single modern alignment proposals can't work. (Yes, I've seen proofs against straw-man proposals, but not really any undertaken by a current expert in the field). This may very well be due to my own ignorance/ relative newness, however, and if so, please correct me! I'd like to hear the steelmanned argument for why alignment is hopeless, and Yudkowsky's announcement that “I've tried and couldn't solve it” without more details doesn't really impress me. My suspicion is I'm simply missing out on some crucial c...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Best non-textbooks on every subject, published by Yair Halberstadt on April 4, 2022 on LessWrong. The best way to learn a subject is undoubtedly by reading a textbook on it. But I find textbooks a drudgery, and tend to give up after a couple of chapters. On the other hand I don't need a deep broad formal knowledge in every subject. I often just want to know enough that I know what it's about, the broad questions in the topic, and how to learn more when I need to. On the other hand popular books are easy to read, but often teach you about the subject, without actually teaching any of the subject itself. They're full of anecdotes about the founders of the field, and metaphors for what some of the fields are like, but at the end you may end up more misguided than you went in. There are however the rare popular books that aim to actually give the reader useful knowledge, rather than the illusion of knowledge. For example Godel, Escher, Bach on logic and formal systems, Quantum Computing since Democritus on computer science and Who We Are and How We Got Here on ancient DNA.These examples vary hugely in how involved they are, their style, and how readable they are, but they all share one thing in common: none of them talk down to the reader - they all assume the reader is an intelligent person whose perfectly capable of understanding the topic, but might just be missing a lot of background knowledge.What other books do you know of like that?Ideally all answers should give the title of a single book, optionally with a brief description, and a set of bullet points describing what they liked and didn't like about the book. I'm more interested in physical sciences than social sciences, since it's common in the social sciences to introduce a thesis in book form, so it's easy to find good quality non-textbooks. Meanwhile in the physical sciences most original research is done in research papers, and most pedagogical work in textbooks, leaving much poorer pickings for non-textbooks. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

This week Randall sits down with bicycle industry pioneer, Craig Calfee. Craig has been an industry leader for decades with his work on the Calfee brand and many other collaborations throughout the industry. You cannot find someone more knowledgable about carbon (or bamboo) as a material. Calfee Designs Website Join The Ridership Support the Podcast Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Craig Calfee Randall [00:00:00] [00:00:04] Randall: Welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Randall Jacobs and our guest today is Craig Calfee. Craig is the founder of Calfee Design, the innovator behind the first full carbon frames to race in the tour de France, the originator of numerous technologies adopted throughout the cycling industry, and on a personal note has been a generous and consistent supporter of my own entrepreneurial journey. I am grateful to have him as a friend, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time. So with that, Craig, Calfee welcome to the podcast. [00:00:32] Craig Calfee: Oh, thank you. Nice to be here. [00:00:34] Randall: So, let's start with, what's your background, give your own story in your own words. [00:00:40] Craig Calfee: Well, I've always written bikes. I mean, as a kid, that's how I got around. And that's, as you become an older child, you, uh, find your independence with moving about the world. And a bicycle of course, is the most efficient way to do that. And later on, I was a bike messenger in New York when I went to college and that kind of got me into bike design as much for the, uh, desire to make a bike that can withstand a lot of abuse. And later on, I used a bike for commuting to work at a job, building carbon fiber racing boats. And during that time I crashed my bike and needed a new frame. So I thought I'd make a frame at a carbon fiber, uh, tubing that I had been making at my. [00:01:29] Randall: my job [00:01:30] Craig Calfee: So this is back in 1987, by the way. So there wasn't a, there were no YouTube videos on how to make your own carbon bike. So I pretty much had to invent a way to build the bike out of this tubing. And at the time there were aluminum lugged bikes, and I just, I knew already aluminum and carbon fiber don't get along very well. So you have to really do a lot of things to, to accommodate that. And the existing bikes at the time were, uh, I would say experimental in the fact that they were just trying to glue aluminum to carbon and it really wasn't working. [00:02:05] So I came up with my own way and built my first bike and it turned out really well. And a lot of friends and, and bike racers who checked out the bikes that I I really should keep going with it. So I felt like I discovered carbon fiber as a, as the perfect bicycle material before anyone else. Uh, and actually, uh, right at that time, Kestrel came out with their first bike, uh, the K 1000 or something. Um, anyway that was uh, that was in 87, 88. And, uh, I felt like I should really, you know give it a go. So I moved out to California and started a bike company. [00:02:48] Randall: So just to be clear, you were actually making the tubes, you weren't buying tubes. So you're making the tubes out of the raw carbon or some pre-printed carbon. then you came up with your own way of, uh, joining those tubes. [00:03:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I worked on a braiding machine, so it was actually a a hundred year old, uh, shoelace braider, uh, from back in Massachusetts. There's a lot of old textile machinery braiding is, uh, you know, your braided socks and, you know, nylon rope is braided. So this is a 72 carrier braider, which means 72 spools of carbon fiber. [00:03:25] Are winding in and out braiding this tube and you just run it back and forth through this braider a few times. And now you have a thick enough wall to, uh, I developed a and tape wrapping method at that job and came up with a pretty decent way to make a bicycle tube. So that was kind of the beginning of that. [00:03:47] Uh, and since then I've explored all kinds of methods for making tubing, mainly through subcontractors who specialize in things like filament winding and roll wrapping. And, uh, pultrusion, you know, all kinds of ways to make tubing. And that does relate to kind of an inspiration for me, where I realized that, uh, carbon fiber, you know, high performance composites are relatively young and new in the world of technology where metals are, you know, the metals have been around since the bronze age. [00:04:21] I mean, literally 5,000 years of development happened with metals, carbon fiber, uh, high-performance composites have only really been around since world war two. So that's a huge gap in development that hasn't happened with composites. So that to me felt like, oh, there's some job security for a guy who likes to invent things. So that was my, a kind of full force to get me to really focus on composite materials. [00:04:51] Randall: Were you that insightful in terms of the historical context at the time, or is that kind of a retro or retrospective reflection? [00:04:58] Craig Calfee: I think, I don't know. I think I may have read about that. Um, I a friend who had a library card at MIT and I pretty much lived there for a few weeks every, uh, master's thesis and PhD thesis on bicycles that they had in their library. And I think somewhere in there was a, uh, a topic on composites and comparing the technology of composites. [00:05:23] So. I probably that from some reading I did, or maybe I did invent that out of thin air. I don't remember, uh, nonetheless, uh, the fact of it is, you know, not, not a whole lot of mental energy has been put into coming up with ways of processing fiber and resin compared to metal. So to me that just opens up a wide world of, of innovation. [00:05:49] Randall: Um, and so the first frame was that, um, you're creating essentially uniform tubes and then mitering them, joining them, wrapping them as you do with your current bamboo frames or what was happening there. [00:06:02] Craig Calfee: Uh, it's more like the, uh, our, our carbon fiber frames were laminating carbon fabric in metal dyes, and those are not mitered tubes fitting into the dyes. And that's, that's a process. I got my first patent on. And it, uh, so in the process of compressing the carbon fabric against the tubes, you're you end up with these gussets in what is traditionally the parting line of a mold and rather than trim them off completely. [00:06:31] I, I use them as reinforcing ribs. [00:06:35] Randall: Yep. Okay. So that explains the, the, that distinctive element that continues with your, um, some of your, uh, to tube, uh, currently [00:06:48] Craig Calfee: them [00:06:49] the hand wrapping technique from that you currently see on the bamboo bikes came from developing a tandem frame, or basically a frame whose production numbers don't justify the tooling costs. Um, so that's hand wrapped. That's just literally lashed to. Yeah. And a point of note, there is I was a boy scout growing up and, uh, there's this merit badge called pioneering merit badge. [00:07:16] And I really enjoyed pioneering merit badge because it involved lashing row, uh, poles together with rope and the pro you had to do with this one project. And I did a tower and it was this enormous structure that went just straight up like a flagpole, but it was it involved a bunch of tetrahedrons, uh, stacked on top of each other and lashed together. [00:07:41] you know, culminating in a pole that went up. I don't remember how tall it was, but it was, it was really impressive. And everybody, you know, thought, wow, this is incredible of poles and some rope. And here we have this massive tower. So anyway, I was into things together since a young age. [00:08:00] And so I immediately came up with the, uh, the last tube concept. Which is where the, now the bamboo bikes are. course there's a specific pattern to the wrapping, but, um, the concept is basically using fiber to lash stuff together, [00:08:16] Randall: When it immediately brings to mind, what's possible with current generation of additive production techniques. Uh, whereas before you could make small components and then lash them together to create structures that otherwise aren't manufacturable. [00:08:31] Now you'd be able to say, print it out though. Those, you know, those printed out materials don't have the performance characteristics of a, you know, a uni directional carbon of the sword that you're working with currently. [00:08:42] Craig Calfee: right? [00:08:43] Randall: Um, so we've gone deep nerd here. We're going to, I'm going to pull us out and say, okay, uh, lots of time for this. [00:08:49] This is going to be a double episode. Uh, so next up, let's talk about those frames, uh, saw their big debut. [00:08:59] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So, um, we started making custom geometry for a. In 1989 and selling them and so big and tall, and that the idea of custom geometry frames was, uh, you know, pretty esoteric. And the pro racers were, we're using a lot of custom frames. So Greg Lamond, uh, was in search of a carbon fiber, uh, custom frame builder in, uh, 1990. [00:09:31] And, uh, no one really was doing it. We were literally the only company making custom carbon frame bikes. So he, uh, found out about us, uh, effectively discovered us, shall we say? And, uh, it didn't take long for him to order up 18 of them for his, his, uh, team Z, uh, teammates. He was sponsoring his own team with a Lamont brand. [00:09:56] So we didn't have to sponsor him. He basically paid for the frame. Put his name on them. And, and, uh, now we're now we're on the defending champions, a tour de France team. So that was a huge break obviously. And it was really a pleasure working with Greg and getting to know the demands of the pro Peloton, uh, you know, that really launched us. [00:10:21] So that was, uh, quite a splash. And, you know, it always is a great answer to the question. Oh, so who rides your bike kind of thing. you know, you have the, the full-on best one in the world at the time. So, so that was a fun thing. [00:10:39] Randall: And the name of the company at the time was, [00:10:41] Craig Calfee: Uh, carbon frames. [00:10:42] Randall: yeah. So anyone wanting [00:10:45] dig up the historical record, [00:10:47] Craig Calfee: is this too generic? You know, the other to what you're talking about, the adventure bikes. Yeah, we had to stop. I mean, carbon frames is a terrible name because everyone started talking about all carbon fiber frames as carbon frames. So we thought that was cool, you know, like Kleenex, you know, uh, and then we came up with the adventure bike, you know, with very early, uh, adventure bike. [00:11:11] And it was just, we called it the adventure bike. And now there's a classification called adventure bikes that, you know, so, um, I think we, we, we went too generic on how we named our models. [00:11:26] Randall: I've drawn from the rich tradition, a tradition of Greek, you know, uh, philosophy for naming my own companies in the like, [00:11:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:11:36] Randall: uh, um, and then next up, uh, so you've worked with Greg Lamond on those frames. Carbon frames is up and running and you're, you're producing custom geo frames and you're starting to get at some scale at this point and some notoriety. [00:11:52] next up you were working on your bamboo bikes. When we talk about that [00:11:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah, that was say, I'm kind of at the, at the time, it was just a way to get publicity. So at the Interbike trade show, you'd have a few creative people making some wacky bikes out of beer cans or, or other just weird things just to get attention, just, just to send the media over to your booth, to take a picture of some wacky thing that you're doing. [00:12:20] yeah, we got to do something like that to get, get some attention. And the, uh, so I was looking around for some PVC pipe. Maybe I was going to do a PVC pipe bike, and I wasn't really sure, but I knew that we could just wrap any tube. Make a bike out of literally anything. So, um, my dog was playing with some bamboo behind the shop. [00:12:42] Uh, she was a stick dog, so she loved to clamp onto a stick and you could swing her around by the, by the sticks. She's a pit bull and lab mix. Anyway, we ran out of sticks. Uh, cause we only had one little tree in the back, but we did have some bamboos. So she came up with a piece of bamboo and I was her around by it, expecting it to break off in her mouth because I just wasn't aware of how strong bamboo was, but it turned out it was really quite strong. [00:13:12] And I said, oh, let's make a bike out of this stuff. And sure enough, uh, the bike was, uh, quite a attention getter. It got the quarter page and bicycling magazine so that, you know mission accomplished on that front. And, but the bike itself rode really well. [00:13:29] Randall: well [00:13:30] Craig Calfee: Um, when I wrote my first carbon bike, uh, the very first ride on my very first carbon bike, I was struck by how smooth it was. [00:13:38] It had this vibration damping that was, you know, just super noticeable and, and that really kind of lit a fire under my butt thinking, wow, this is really cool. When I built my first bamboo bike, I had that same feeling again, how smooth It was It was amazing for its vibration damping. So, uh, I knew I was onto something at that point. [00:14:02] Uh, that first bike was a little too flexy, but, uh, the second bike I built was significantly stiffer and was an actual, real rideable bike. So, uh, from that point, uh, we just started building a few here and there and it was still a novelty item until about, uh, 1999, 2000. When a few people who had been riding them, or like, I want another one, I I want to know mountain bike this time. [00:14:29] So as it was just starting to get known and, uh, we started selling them through dealers. And I mean there's a lot of stories I can tell on how that evolved and how people started actually believing that a bamboo bike could actually exist in the world. So it took a while though. [00:14:49] Randall: I think there's a whole thread that we could tug on maybe in a subsequent episode where we focus just on the bamboo bike revolution. [00:14:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. That's um, there's a lot of, lot of stuff going on there. I'm actually writing my second book on history of the bamboo bike, because there's so many interesting angles to it, particularly in the. [00:15:10] Randall: in Africa [00:15:12] I'm struck by the juxtaposition of this bleeding edge. Uh, you know, high-tech material that you pioneered and then this going back to one of the most basic building materials, uh, that we have building bikes out of that. And in fact, um, on the one hand, there's this, this extreme, know, difference in terms of the technology ization of each material. [00:15:34] But on the other hand, there's a parallel the sense that like carbon, in tubes is best, uh, you know, generally, uh, when it's you need to write. Yeah, with maybe some cross fibers in order to prevent, prevent it from separating. And bamboo also has that characteristic of having, you know, you need directional fibers that are bonded together by some, uh, you know, some other material in, in the, in the bamboo [00:15:58] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, it's very, there's a lot of similarities. I mean, bamboo is amazing just because it grows out of the ground and tubular for. And it grows a new, huge variety of diameters and wealth thicknesses. So if you're looking for tubing, I mean, you don't have to go much further. It's amazing that it literally grows out of the ground that way. [00:16:20] Randall: paint [00:16:21] a picture for folks to, um, most of our listeners I'm guessing are in north America or, you know, other, uh, English-speaking parts of the world. I lived in China and as you've been, you see huge scaffolding, multi-story, you know, big buildings and the scaffolding isn't made out of metal. [00:16:37] It's made out of bamboo lashed together with zip ties and pieces of wire. So it really speaks to the, the structural, uh, strength of the material and reliability of the material. and you know, should instill confidence when descending down a mountain. [00:16:54] Craig Calfee: Oh yeah. No, it's, I, I remember seeing bamboo and scaffolding many, many years. And I thought, well, of course, and the other reason they use it in scaffolding is when a typhoon hits and it, it kind of messes up the scaffolding of a construction site. Um, it's, they're back to work on the bamboo construction sites, much faster than the metal scaffolding sites, they have to deal with bent and distorted metal scaffolding, um, to replace those and fix that takes a lot longer where bamboo, they just bend it back and lash it back together. [00:17:32] It's it's so much easier. [00:17:35] Randall: there's one more thing on this theme that I want to, uh, pull out before we move on, which is talk to me about the, the sustainability components of it. Um, starting with how it was done initially. [00:17:47] And then now with say like, uh, biodegradable resins or, or other materials I can, this frame can be current. [00:17:55] Craig Calfee: Uh, the short answer is yes, the frame can be composted. And the other cool thing is if you take care of it, it it'll never compost, meaning you can prevent it from being composted naturally. if you really want to, you know, uh, dispose of the frame, um, it will biodegrade much faster than any other material that bicycle frames are made of. [00:18:22] So yeah, the, the renewable aspect, the low energy content of it, it's, it's utterly the best you can imagine. And we're kind of waiting for the world to finally get serious about global warming and start to have some economic incentives for buying products that are in fact, uh, good for the environment. Uh, we haven't seen that yet, but we're kind of holding out and hoping that happens. [00:18:49] And then we'll see probably some significant growth in the bamboo adoption in the bicycling world. [00:18:57] Randall: I want to plant a seed that, that, uh, to germinate in my head, which is this idea of bamboos being the ideal material for kind of more mainstream, uh, utility bicycles and recreational bicycles. really it's a matter of the unit economics in economies of scale and consistency of material, which you could make uniform by having, uh, having controlled grow conditions and things like that. [00:19:23] Um, but it could be a very localized industry to anywhere where bamboo grows. this could be produced, which reduces transportation costs reduces, you know, issues of inventory carrying and all these things. Um, so let's, let's park that I want to ask you more about those, about the economics of bamboo in a side conversation to see if there's, you know, explore there. [00:19:45] Craig Calfee: well, there is. I mean, that's, that's what we did in Africa. Same concept is as why, why would bamboo work in Africa better than the imported bikes from China? So that was, that was the whole thing around that. [00:19:59] Randall: Ah, I love it. All right. So though, there will be a bamboo episode folks. Uh, we're going to, going to continue cause there's a lot of ground to cover here. so next steps you've done done the first carbon frame and the tour de France, uh, carbon frames is up and running. You've started getting into bamboo, what was next, [00:20:18] Craig Calfee: Um, then lots of smaller developments, which become really important to us from a business perspective, uh, fiber tandem, we built the first one of those. And then we went to a lateral list, tandem design, and it's pretty optimized at this point. So we're, I would say we are the leader in the tandem world in terms of the highest performance, tandem bikes, uh, and then re repairing of carbon frames. [00:20:47] That was a big one, uh, which we were kind of pushed into by customers. And other folks who heard that we could repair the Cathy frames and they would set a call up. And literally we had a, an in one inquiry per week, if not more, more often about like a colonoscopy that this guy wanted to repair and he heard we could do it on ours. [00:21:10] And we're like, well, by a Calfee don't, you know, I'm sorry, but we can't repair somebody else's frame. You'll have to buy one of ours. And then you'll know that you crash it, we can repair it for, he was trying to make that a, a a advantage for our brand, but we couldn't really, you know, do that. So, uh, we said, well, if we can't beat them, we'll repair them. [00:21:32] And we repaired a first and then some specialized, I think, after that. So we, we accepted repair jobs and pretty soon it became about a third of our, our business. And it's, uh, of course now lots of other people repair frames, but, uh, we started doing that in 2001 or something and, and we've been doing it ever since. [00:21:58] And it's, that part has been really interesting to see, because we get to literally see the inside of everyone else's frames and look at the weak points. You know, they often show up on, on people's frames and get asked to fix them or even redesign them at that point. So that's been really interesting to, to me as a technician, [00:22:21] Randall: and want to come back to this in a second, but before we lose it, what is a lateralis tandem design? [00:22:27] Craig Calfee: uh, that, so traditional tandems had a, a tube that went the head tube, usually straight back down towards the dropouts or or bottom bottom bracket. And it's, it's a way to stiffen up a frame. That's inherently not very stiffened torsion. But, uh, with composites, you can orient the fiber, uh, in torsion to make a tube significantly stiffer and torsion than say a metal tube of similar weight. [00:22:57] So we were able to go a little bit bigger diameter and more fiber in the helical angled orientation and make a tandem, uh, stiff enough and torsion and get rid of that tube. And for a carbon fiber frame, that it was really important because number of times you have to join the tube, the more expensive it is or the more labor content there is. So we were able to reduce our labor content, make the frame lighter and make it stiffer all at, in one design change. So that was a big, a big revelation. And now I most of them have copied that design. So it's, uh, it's, that's another time where we, we did something that, that, uh, now became the standard. [00:23:43] Randall: Yeah. One of many from what I've observed in a written the history. Uh, so around this time, or shortly after you started the repair business, you started doing some pretty, pretty wild frames in terms of pushing the limits of what was possible when we talk about that. [00:24:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We've done a lot of different types of frames, uh, mostly for show, but, um, like the north American handmade bike show is a great venue for just doing something way out of left field. Um, we did, uh, a bamboo bike made all out of small diameter, bamboo. Um, it's I only made one because it was a total pain in the ass to make. [00:24:26] Uh, and it was also kind of inspired by the, a request from a guy who was not only a fan of bamboo, but he was a fan of molten style bikes. Those are the trust style frames with small wheels. So we built one of those and. With the only small diameter bamboo, and we built another one that was, uh, a real art piece. [00:24:49] So just having fun with that from a, you know, completely artistic direction is a lot of fun for me because that's my formal training. I went to art school and learned about different materials and, and art and composition. Uh, and I was into the structure of materials and how they, they relate to each other. [00:25:12] And my art was more of a forum file form follows function, kind of inspiration. And, uh, so some bikes that I've made were, are not terribly practical, but just explore the, the limits of structure. So another bike I made, uh, we call it the spider web bike, which was literally a, a bike made of just carbon fiber strands. [00:25:36] No tubes. And it, it was kind of wild looking and a collector ended up buying it, which is really cool. But you look at this thing and you just couldn't imagine that it, it, you could actually ride it, but, uh, it actually does ride fairly well. It's a bit fragile if you crash it, it would be kind of dangerous, but you know, stuff like that. [00:25:55] I like to do that occasionally. [00:25:59] Randall: I think of, uh, like biomorphic design or like hyper optimized design that maybe doesn't have the resiliency, but very strict parameters will perform higher than anything else that you could, you could create. [00:26:12] Craig Calfee: absolutely. Yeah. Those are really fun. I'm really inspired by natural forms and, uh, you know, the, the, some of the new computer aided techniques we're designing are, uh, rattled in those lines. so, yeah, I follow that pretty closely. [00:26:28] Randall: a little sidebar. Um, I don't know if you've, uh, no of, uh, Nick Taylor, the guy who created the, Ibis Maximus in front of the mountain bike hall of fame. [00:26:40] Craig Calfee: Um, no, I don't think so. [00:26:43] Randall: I'll introduce you to his work at some point, but he's another one of these people who, very avid cyclist is not in the bike industry, but is. There's a lot of trail building and alike and isn't is a sculptor really focused on, the form of, uh, you know, biological shapes and materials and, and things of this sort. [00:27:02] Uh, I think that there's a lot, uh, I'm actually curious more into your, your non bike artistic work for a moment. Uh, and, and how that got infused into your work with the bike. [00:27:18] Craig Calfee: yeah, so I haven't done a lot of, you know, just pure, fine art sculpture in a long time. But when I was doing that, it was. a lot of things that would fool the eye or, um, some material and, and push it to its limit. So I was doing stuff that was, um, uh, you know, trying to create a, almost like a physical illusion, not just an optical illusion, but a, but a physical illusion or like, how could you possibly do that kind of thing? [00:27:54] And that was a theme of my sculpture shortly after Pratt. So for example, just take one example of a sculpture that I got a lot of credit for in classes at Pratt, it was a, a big block of Oak. It was a cutoff from a woodworking shop. It's about a foot in, let's say a foot cube of Oak. And I would, um, so I, I, uh, raised the grain on it with a wire brush and then I blocked printed on Oak tag page. [00:28:26] Um, some black ink on rolled onto the Oak block and made a river, basically a print off of each face of the, of the block. And then I carefully taped that paper together to simulate a paper block of the Oak chunk that I I had. now I had a super light paper version of the Oak block. And then I hung them on a balance beam, which I forged at a steel, but the hanging point was way close to the piece. [00:28:57] And if you looked at it from three feet away, just, your brain would, just hurting because you couldn't figure out how is this even possible? And because it really looked amazing, super hyper real. Anyway, it just looked amazing and it was fun to get the effect of how the hell did that. Did he do that? [00:29:18] What's what's the trick here. There's something going on. That's not real. Or it's. Uh it's not physically possible. And I kind of got that feeling with the carbon fiber bike. When we, when we built the first bike, everyone would pick it up and go, oh, that's just too light. It's not even a bike. It's a plastic bike it's going to break instantly. [00:29:39] So that was sort of a relation from, from those days to the, to the bike. [00:29:44] Randall: You ever come across Douglas Hofstadter's book, Godel, Escher Bach. [00:29:49] Craig Calfee: No, but I'd be interested to read it. [00:29:51] Randall: Definite short Lister. Um, uh, you've come across MC Escher, of Yeah. And are there any parallels or any inspiration there? [00:30:01] Craig Calfee: Um, not very direct, I'd say. Um, [00:30:08] Who [00:30:08] Randall: your, who your inspirations or what, what would you say your creative energy is most similar to? [00:30:14] Craig Calfee: I'd probably, I'd say say Buckminster fuller. [00:30:17] Randall: Mm, [00:30:17] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I mean, I studied his work in depth, you know, not only the geodesic dome stuff, but also his vehicles, the dime on vehicle the, yeah. So there's, there's a bunch of stuff that he was involved with that I'd say, I'm parallel with as far as my interest goes, [00:30:37] Randall: what books should I read? [00:30:39] Craig Calfee: all of them. [00:30:42] Randall: Where do I start? If I have limited [00:30:44] time [00:30:45] Craig Calfee: Yeah. It's a tough one. He's actually really difficult to read too. His writing is not that great. I pretty much look at his, uh, his design work more than His writing [00:30:56] Randall: Okay. So who's book whose book about Buckminster fuller. Should I read? [00:31:01] Craig Calfee: good question. I'll, I'll catch up with you on that later because there's few of them that they're worth. It's worth a look. [00:31:07] Randall: awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Um, let's talk about 2001. you're a dragon fly. [00:31:15] Craig Calfee: Yeah, the dragon fly was an interesting project. It was so Greg Lamanda had asked me, like, I want an even lighter bike. He was constantly pushing on the technology. And I said, well, there are some really expensive fibers that are starting to become available, but, um, you know, this would be a $10,000 bike frame and, you know, it's only going to be a half a pound lighter. [00:31:40] And he said, well, I don't care. I just, you know, I w I need it for racing. I mean, um, you know, when, when I'm climbing Alpe d'Huez with Miguel Indurain and if he's got a lighter bike than I do, then I'm just going to give up, you know, in terms of the effort. So he needs to have that technical advantage, or at least be on the same plane. [00:32:02] So the reason why he'd spend, you know, $5,000 for a half a pound, a weight savings was pretty, pretty real. So, but it took until about 2000, 2001 after he had long retired to, um, really make that happen. So the fibers I was talking about are really high modulus fiber that was very fragile, too brittle, really for any use. [00:32:29] So we came up with a way to integrate it with, um, boron fiber. Uh, it actually was a material we found, uh, special specialty composites out of, uh, out of Rhode Island. Uh, they, uh, do this co-mingled boron and carbon fiber, uh, hybrid material, which was, um, they were looking for a use cases for it and the bicycle was one of them. [00:32:58] So, uh, we built a prototype with their material and it turned out. To be not only really light and really strong, the, the boron made it really tough. So carbon fiber has, uh, the highest stiffness to weight ratio, intention of any material you can use. boron is the highest stiffness to weight ratio in compression as a, as a fibrous material that you can integrate into a composite. So when you mix them, you now have a combination of materials, that are unbeatable. [00:33:35] Randall: Like a concrete and rebar almost, or, quite. [00:33:40] Craig Calfee: I'd say that's a good, um, for composites in general, but now we're talking about the extreme edge of, of performance, where, um, looking at the, most high performance material certain conditions, versus tension. These, these are conditions that are existing in a bicycle tube all the time. [00:34:07] So one side of the tube is compressing while the other side is intention as you twist the bike, uh, and then it reverses on the, on the pedal stroke. So it has to do both now. Carbon fiber is quite good at that, but compression it suffers. And that's why you can't go very thin wall and make it, um, withstand any kind of impact because it's, it's got a weakness in it's, um, compressive. So, uh, it's, uh, it doesn't take a break very well either. So boron on, the other hand does take a break very well, and it's incredibly high compressive strength to weight ratio and compressive stiffness to weight ratio. are two different things by the way. So when you combine those into a tube, it's pretty amazing. [00:34:57] Uh, they're just really quite expensive. So we came up with the dragon fly, um, in 2001 and it was at the time the lightest production bike yet it also had the toughness of a normal frame. And that's that's right around when the Scott came out, which was a super thin wall, large diameter, uh, carbon frame that was really fragile. [00:35:23] Um, so that was sort of a similar weight, but not nearly as tough as, uh, the dragon fly. [00:35:34] Randall: For well, to go a little bit deeper on this. So what is the nature like? What is the nature of the boron? Is it a, like, is it a molecule? Is it a filament? So you have, you have carbon filaments is the boron, um, you know, is that, are you putting it into the resin? How is it? Co-mingled. [00:35:51] Craig Calfee: It's a, it's a filament, basically a super thin wire. [00:35:56] Randall: You're essentially co-mingling it in when you're creating the tubes and then using the same resin to bond the entire structure together. [00:36:04] Craig Calfee: That's right. [00:36:05] Randall: Got it. And this, so then this is, uh, if you were to add then say like to the resin separately, it would be a compounding effect. Um, I don't know if you have, uh, mean, I assume you've done some stuff with graphene. [00:36:19] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Graphing graphing is a really great material. It does improve the toughness of composites. Uh, it's again, also very expensive to use, uh, in a whole two. Usually it's used in smaller components, uh, not so much on the whole frame, uh, and it, and it's, um, it's best, uh, uses in preventing the of cracking. [00:36:46] So it stops the micro cracking that starts with a failure mode. And that that's a great, thing. But if your laminate is too thin to begin with that, all the graphing in the world, isn't going to help you. So for really minor wax it'll help, but for anything substantial, it's going to break anyway. [00:37:08] So you have to start out with a thick enough laminate get the toughness that you're looking for. Uh, graphene is really great for highly stressed areas, which might start cracking from, uh, fatigue or just the design flaw of a stress concentration. So it's got a number of purposes. Uh, it's great for, uh, like pinch clamp areas, you know, places where the mechanical, uh, stress is so high on a, on a very localized area. [00:37:37] Um, so yeah, graphene is wonderful. We didn't get into it too much because, um, it's just, it would just, wasn't practical for our applications and how we make the frames, but, uh, some companies have started using graphene and it's, it's pretty interesting stuff. [00:37:52] Randall: We did some experimentation with it early on in our looking at it for the future. my understanding is. You know, I haven't gone too deep into like the intermolecular physics, but it's essentially like you have a piece of paper and if you start tearing the paper that tear will propagate very easily. [00:38:09] then the graphene is almost like little tiny pieces of tape. Randomly distributed, evenly distributed across the material that makes it so that that fracture can no longer propagate in that direction. And it has to change direction where it bumps into another graphene molecule and the graphing, essentially when we tested it was doubling the bond strength of the resin. [00:38:30] So in terms of pulling apart different layers of laminate, then, um, increasing the toughness of say, uh, a rim made with the exact same laminate in the exact same resin with, 1% graphene per mass of resin increasing the toughness of that rim structure by 20%. [00:38:50] Which is pretty [00:38:50] Craig Calfee: That's correct. [00:38:51] Randall: The challenges that is that it lowers the temperature, uh, the, the glass suffocation points resin. so, you know, a rim is like, you know, there are, if you're gonna put it on the back of your car, you know, that's not a normal use case when you're riding, but, you know, it's, it's something that just makes it less resilient to those towards sorts of, you know, people put on the back of the car too close to the exhaust and they melt the rim. [00:39:17] So we're having to experiment with some high temperature residents that have other issues. [00:39:22] Craig Calfee: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's rims are a great place for graphing, just cause they're in a a place where you'll have some impacts, but yeah. Temperature management is an issue. Um, yeah, that's the high temperature residents are, are another area that, that, uh, we're experimenting in, uh, wrapping electric motor, uh, rotors with, with a high temperature resonant carbon wrap. [00:39:46] that's a whole nother area, but I'm familiar with that stuff. [00:39:49] Randall: Which we'll get into in a second, park park, that one. Cause that's a fun theme. yeah. And I'm just thinking about a rim structure. It seems like boron on the inside graphing on the outside, um, deal with high compressive forces between the spokes and then the high impact forces on the external, will [00:40:07] Craig Calfee: the material we use is called high bore. You can look that up. H Y B O R and there they're actually coming back with new marketing efforts there. They, I think the company got sold and then, um, the new buyers are, are re revisiting how to, to spread the use of it. So might be real interested in supporting a rim project. [00:40:30] Randall: mm. Uh, to be continued offline. Um, all right. So then we've got your carbon fiber repair surface. We talked about the dragon fly. Um, it's a great segue into engineering and design philosophy. let's talk about that [00:40:47] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, well it's, to me, it's all about form follows function and, uh, when something works so well, functionally, it's gonna look good. That's uh, that's why trees look great just by themselves, uh, that that's, you know, coming back to the natural world, you know, that's why we have a Nautilus shell for, uh, for our logo. [00:41:12] It's the form follows function. Aspect of that just makes it look beautiful. For some reason, you look at something from nature, you don't really know why is it beautiful? Well, the reason is the way it's structured, the way it's evolved over millions of years. Has resulted in the optimum structure. So for me, as a, as a human being artificially trying to recreate stuff, that's been evolved in nature. [00:41:39] Um, I look closely at how nature does it first and then I'll apply it to whatever I'm dealing with at the moment. And so that's how I, that's how I design stuff. [00:41:50] Randall: there's a, the Nautilus shell example, like, you know, the golden ratio and the way that, really complex systems tend to evolve towards very simple, fundamental, primitives of all design [00:42:04] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. There's some basic stuff that, that seemed to apply everywhere. [00:42:10] Randall: So with your carbon fiber repair service, so you started to see some of the problems with that were emerging with these, um, large tube thin wall designs that were being used to achieve a high strength or sorry, a high stiffness to weight, but then compromising in other areas. [00:42:28] So let's talk about that. [00:42:30] Craig Calfee: Yeah, it's um, you know, designing a carbon fiber bike is actually really quite difficult. There's so much going on. There's so many, uh, things you have to deal with high stress areas that you can't really get around. there's a lot of constraints to designing a good bicycle frame. Um, and then you're dealing with the tradition of, of how people clamp things on bikes, you know, stem, clamps, and seed post clamps, and, uh, you know, th that type of mentality. [00:43:04] It's still with us with the carbon, which is carbon doesn't do well with. So a lot of companies struggle with that and they'll come up with something on paper or in their CAD model. And their finite element analysis sort of works, but, and then they go into the real world and they have to deal with real situations that they couldn't predict in the, the computer. [00:43:29] And they get a problem with, uh, you know, a minor handlebar whacking, the top tube situation, which shouldn't really cause your bike to become dangerous. But in fact, that's what happens. So you've got, um, you know, uh, weak points or vulnerabilities in these really light frame. And if you're not expected to know what the vulnerability is as an end-user and you don't know that if you wack part of the bike and in a minor way that you normally wouldn't expect to cause the frame to become a weak, then the whole design is a question. So you have to consider all these things when you decide to bike. And a lot of companies have just depended on the computer and they are finite element analysis too, to come up with shapes and designs that, uh, are inherently weak. And, um, people get pretty disappointed when they're, when the minor is to of incidents causes a crack in the frame. [00:44:37] And if they keep riding the bike, the crack gets bigger. And then one day, you know, I mean, most people decide to have it fixed before it gets to be a catastrophic but, uh, you know, it gets expensive and, uh, You know, it's, sad. Actually, another motivation for getting into the repair business was to save the reputation of carbon fiber as a frame material. [00:45:03] You know, these types of things don't happen to thin wall titanium frames. You know, a thin wall titanium frame will actually withstand a whole lot more abuse than a thin wall carbon frame. So it's just hard to make diameter thin wall titanium frames that are stiff enough and not without problems of welding, you know, the heat affected zones. [00:45:26] So carbon fiber is, is a better material because it's so much easier to join and to, to mold. But if you, you have to design it properly to, to withstand normal abuse. And if you're not going to do that, then there should at least be a repair service available to keep those bikes from going to the landfill. [00:45:45] So frequent. And so that's what we do we, we offer that and we even train people how to carbon repair service. So that's, um, that's something we've done in order to keep bikes from just getting thrown away. [00:46:01] Randall: uh, I think I've shared with you, I'm in the midst of, uh, doing, uh, uh, a pretty radical ground up design, which is way off in the future. So I'll be picking your brain on that, but it immediately makes me think of the inherent. Compromises of current frame design and manufacturing techniques, including on our frame. [00:46:20] And in our case, the way we've addressed that is through not going with lower modulates carbon, you know, S T 700, maybe some T 800 in the frame, then overbuilding it order to have resiliency against impacts. But then also these sorts of, um, micro voids in other imperfections that are in inherent process of any, uh, manufacturing, uh, system that involves handling of materials in a complex, you know, eight, uh, sorry, 250 a piece, you know, layup like there's, this there's even that like human elements that you have to design a whole bunch of fudge factor into to make sure that when mistakes are made, not if, but when mistakes are made, that there's so much, uh, overbuilding that they don't end up in a catastrophic failure. [00:47:10] Craig Calfee: that's right. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have some safety margin. [00:47:15] Randall: And the Manderal spinning process that you were describing essentially eliminates a lot of that in you're starting to see, I mean, with rims, that's the direction that rims are going in, everything is going to be automated, is going to be knit like a sock and frames are a much more complex shape. Um, but you're starting to see, uh, actually probably know a lot more about the, the automation of frame design than I do. [00:47:35] Um, what do you see? Like as the, as the end point, at least with regards to the, um, like filament based carbon fiber material and frames, like where could it go with technology? [00:47:50] Craig Calfee: the, the, um, robotics are getting super advanced now and there's this technique called, um, uh, they just call it fiber placements or automated fiber placement, which is a fancy word for a robot arm, winding fiber, you know, on a mandrel or shape, uh, and then compressing that and, uh, know, molding that. [00:48:14] So it's, it's where your, a robot will orient a single filament of carbon fiber. Uh, continuously all around the, uh, the shape that you're trying to make. They do that in aerospace now for a really expensive rockets and satellite parts, but the technology is getting more accessible and, uh, so robotic trimmers are another one. [00:48:42] So we're, in fact, we're getting ready to build our own robotic arm tremor for a resin transfer, molded parts. That's where the edge of the part that you mold gets trimmed very carefully with a router. And, but imagine instead of just a router trimming an edge, you've got a robot arm with a spool of fiber on it, wrapping the fiber individually around the whole structure of the frame. [00:49:10] Uh, no, no people involved just, you know, someone to turn the machine on and then turn it off again. So that's kind of coming that that is a future. Uh, it hasn't arrived yet, certainly, maybe for simpler parts, but a frame is a very complex shape. So it'll take a while before they can get to that point. [00:49:30] Randall: It having to, yeah. Being able to Uh, spin a frame in one piece is, seems to be the ultimate end game. [00:49:43] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I think we need to, I think the, the, uh, genetically modified spiders would be a better way to [00:49:50] go [00:49:50] Randall: Yeah, they might, they might help us the design process. [00:49:56] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. Just give them some good incentives and they'll, they'll make you set a really incredibly strong, you know, spider wound. [00:50:05] Randall: Well, it does. It speaks to the, the, the biggest challenge I see with that, which is you have to go around shape. so if you're going through a frame, like it's essentially the triangle. And so you need some way to like hand off the, the S the filament carrier from one side to the other constantly. [00:50:27] you'd just be able to spin it. You know, it would be pretty straightforward. So maybe the frame comes in a couple of different sections that get bonded, but then those don't form a ring. And so you can, you know, you can move them around instead of the machine order [00:50:41] Craig Calfee: Well, there's these things called grippers. So the robot grip sit and then another arm grip know let's go and the other arm picks it up. And then there's like in weaving, there's this thing called the flying shuttle, which invented. That's where the shuttle that, the war [00:50:59] Randall: Your ancestors were involved with flying shuttle. [00:51:02] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:51:02] Randall: That's one of the, uh, all right. That's, that's a whole other conversation. [00:51:07] Craig Calfee: Yeah, a really interesting, I mean, it's the Draper corporation. If you want to look it up, [00:51:13] um [00:51:13] Randall: I [00:51:13] Craig Calfee: know [00:51:14] they were the manufacturing made the looms back in the industrial revolution in the Northeast [00:51:21] Randall: I'm sitting currently in Waltham, which was one of the first mill cities, um, not from Lowell. [00:51:28] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So all those mills were where our customers and they would buy the Draper looms. Um, and they were automated looms with a flying shuttle was a big deal Uh back then. And so they, they made a lot of, of those looms and, and that's basically what sent me to college with a trust fund. So [00:51:49] Randall: You're a trust fund, baby. [00:51:51] Craig Calfee: Yep. [00:51:51] Yep [00:51:53] From vendors. [00:51:55] Uh [00:51:56] but that's yeah, that's the world I, I came out of. And, so the, the idea of taking a spool of material and handing it off as you wrap around something is really not that difficult. [00:52:08] Randall: Okay. So then you can do it in a way that is resilient to probably 10,000 handoffs over the course of weaving a frame and you can expect that it's not going to fail once. [00:52:19] Craig Calfee: That's right Yeah [00:52:20] It [00:52:20] Randall: All then that, that's [00:52:22] Craig Calfee: the hard part, the hard part is dealing with the resin and the, and the, uh, forming and the getting a nice surface finish. That was where the harder. [00:52:31] Randall: Yeah. And, uh, uh, I'm thinking about, uh, space X's attempts to create a giant, uh, carbon fiber, uh, fuel tank. And they actually had to do the, um, the heating the resin at the point of, uh, depositing of the filaments. [00:52:52] And [00:52:52] you know, that's a really challenging process because you can't build an autoclave big enough to contain a fuel tank for a giant rocket bicycles don't have that issue, but [00:53:01] Craig Calfee: right. Yeah. The filament winding technique, which is how all those tanks are made is, is pretty amazing in the large scale of those, those big rockets is phenomenal. I mean, a couple of places in Utah that make those, and it's just seeing such a large things spinning and, uh, wrapping around it rapidly is quite inspiring. [00:53:26] Randall: Yeah. It's very, very cool stuff. And that's, again, a whole another thread about the, uh, the Utah based, uh, composites industry that got its start in aerospace, you know, advanced aerospace applications, which NV and others came out of. They used to be edge which you worked with. NBU designed their tubes early on. [00:53:43] Right. [00:53:44] Craig Calfee: W well, yeah, the poles history behind envy and quality composites back in late eighties, literally, uh, when I first came out to, uh, actually I was still, think I ordered them in Massachusetts and took delivery in California, but it was a quality composites and out of Utah, uh, Nancy Polish was the owner of that. [00:54:06] Also an MIT graduate who, um, who started a roll wrapping carbon fiber in tubular forum. And I'm pretty sure we were the first roll wrapped carbon tubes, uh, for bicycles that she made. And, um Uh, evolved to, uh, edge composites. So they, so quality composites became McClain quality composites, and then McLean, the guys who broke away from that went to start envy or edge, I guess, which became envy. [00:54:40] So yeah, those same guys brought that technology and we've been the customer ever since. And now there's yet another spinoff. The guys who were making the tubes at envy spun off and started their own company, uh, in a cooperative venture with envy. So let them go basically. And, uh, we're working with those guys. [00:55:01] So it's just following the, the top level of expertise. [00:55:06] Randall: very interesting stuff. Um, so, so where else do we go in terms of the, I mean, this is about as deep a composite deep nerdery, as we can get in, into composites and so on. And, uh, given that we're already here, we might as just, you know, dig ourselves deeper. [00:55:25] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, sir, just on the roll wrapping, the thing that, um, I remember one of the cool innovations that Nancy came up with was the double D section, um, tube where she would roll wrap two D shaped tubes, stick them together and do an outer wrap on the outside. So it was a efficient way to do a ribbed tube or a single ribs through the middle. She pretty much invented. [00:55:53] Uh, we started doing something with that, um, change days, uh, to get more stiffness out of a change day. But, um, I just, some reason that image flashed in my mind about some of the innovative stuff that been going on that people don't really see it's. And that's what I'm saying before where the, uh, technology of composites has, um it's got a long way to go and it's, there's all kinds of stuff going on that are, are, is brand new. [00:56:23] Uh, most people people don't see it cause it's all process oriented more than product oriented. But for guys like me, it's really fast. [00:56:34] Randall: Yeah, it reminds me of, um, a technology owned by a Taiwanese carbon frame manufacturing, pretty large-scale tier one that I'd spoken to where they're doing, uh, that bracing inside of the forks. don't think they're doing anything especially advanced in terms of how it's manufactured. [00:56:54] I think they just have a, uh, the, the inner, um, you know, whether it's a bag or it's a, you know, EPS insert. And then they're just bridging, uh, between the two walls of the, uh, of the tube of the, the fork leg, uh, with another piece of carbon that gives it more lateral structure zero, uh, impact on the, um, for AFT compliance, which is a really technique. [00:57:21] Craig Calfee: that sounds like Steve Lee at [00:57:24] Randall: Uh, this was YMA. [00:57:27] Craig Calfee: Oh, okay. [00:57:28] Randall: Yeah, the gigantic folks. I haven't, I don't know if I've interacted with them yet, but, um, but yeah, well, [00:57:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah, some amazing innovation coming out of Taiwan. They're there. They're so deep into it. It's, it's a fun place to go and, and see what they're up to. [00:57:47] Randall: this actually brings me back to, um, I, I did had a conversation with over with Russ at path, less pedaled, and was asking like, you know, tell me about the quality of stuff made, made over in Asia. And I was like, well, you know, it's generally best to work with their production engineers because they're so close to the actual manufacturing techniques and they're the ones innovating on those techniques. [00:58:10] And in fact, um, you know, even specialized up until recently did not do carbon fiber in. outsource that, you know, they, they do some of the work in house, but then the actual design for manufacture and all that is being done by the factories and rightfully so the factories know it better, being close to the ground though, dealing with someone with yourself, you're someone who could go into a factory and be like, okay, let's, let's innovate on this. [00:58:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:58:36] Yeah. [00:58:37] Randall: so then 2011, um, first production, gravel bike. [00:58:45] Craig Calfee: Uh, yeah. Yeah. We came up with the, uh, adventure bike, we call it, um, it was also the first one that did the, uh, six 50 B uh, tire size that can be used with a 700 by 42 or So mixing, know, going bigger tire on a slightly smaller rim on the same bike as you'd run a 700 C and, uh, 35 or 40 millimeter tire. Um, yeah, so the adventure bike has been. Uh, a real fun area for us as far as, uh, just developing a, do everything. Be everything, bike [00:59:24] Randall: it's. And the geometry of that was kind of an endurance road geometry, right [00:59:28] Craig Calfee: that's [00:59:29] right. It's a road bike effectively, but with a few, a few, uh, tweaks for riding off road. [00:59:36] Randall: So then this, this word, gravel bike is kind of muddled. [00:59:39] Um, I never liked it, frankly. Uh, it's a marketing term. I remember it specialized when we were doing the, the diverse, um, you know, it was still kind of honing in on what these bikes were. Uh, but you could argue that like, you know, you know, everyone's road bike was a gravel bike. When you just put the biggest tires that would fit and write it on dirt. [00:59:57] But this concept of a one bike, it seems to be what you've planted. But you can have a single bike that will be your road, bike, perform handle, give you that, that experience when you put road wheels on, but then you can put these big six fifties on there and have a, you know, an off-road crit machine that is highly competent in, in rough terrain. [01:00:16] And so, so yeah, that, and that's very much my design philosophy as you know, as well, you know, fewer bikes that do more things. [01:00:24] Craig Calfee: Yeah. We have this. Kind of a marketing phrase for, you know, how the end plus one concept where, you know, how many bikes do you even need? Well, one more than what you've got. Well, we do the N minus one concept with our mountain bike, which can also be a gravel by ache or a bike, but it's, uh, it allows you to change the head tube angle and, and use different, uh, fork travel suspension forks on, on the same frame. [01:00:55] Uh, and of course, swapping wheels out is, is always a thing. So yeah, the end minus one concept where we just need less stuff, you know, [01:01:04] Randall: So I reinvented that when I started thesis, he used to say like, and, minus three, it replaces road, bike, your gravel bike, your road, bike, your cross bike, your, um, light duty cross country bike, uh, your adventure bike actually as well, you know, load these things up. yeah, very much a philosophy that, uh, I think it's so good that the, its efforts to come up with new, subcategories, for example, by having gravel bikes now run oversize 700 wheels and extending the geo and going with these really slack head angles in order to accommodate that wheel size. [01:01:40] I actually think that the form, the form that things want to evolve towards is actually what you created in the first place, which is the one bike that does all the things and does them well. And depending on the wheels you put on them, um, we'll do we'll, we'll transform. Uh, and you know, we've, we've talked a little bit about geo changing, um, You know, and things like this, which you have a bike that, that does that. [01:02:03] And why don't we talk a bit about that in the technology behind it? [01:02:08] Craig Calfee: The SFL, you mean we use the geometry of the head tube and the bottom bracket to, uh, to accommodate what you're using it for? Yeah, the concept there is to, if you're on a long ride to be able to change the geometry of your bike mid ride. So with an Allen wrench, you, uh, basically swap these flip plates out on your head to varia. [01:02:32] And so you climb, you can climb with one geometry with another. And to me, that's, that's really fun because the climbing, you, if you're climbing up a a long steep climb on a bike that you're going to descend back down on, uh, you really don't want the same geometry it's, you're compromising and one or the other, either climate. [01:02:55] Or it descends great. It's rarely both, or really can't possibly be both. Cause they're just doing two different things. So if you can swap out these flip plates and change the head tube angle, which is really all you need at that point, um, you have a bike that climbs great and descends. Great. So for me, that was the goal of, uh, just making a better mountain bike. Um, you know, the fact that it can be converted into other bikes for different disciplines is a whole nother angle. Uh, and you can even do that perhaps you wouldn't do it the trail, but let's say you show up, say you're on a trip, an adventure, uh, maybe out to Utah, for example, where you're riding slick rock, but you're also going to go up, you know, into the mountains. [01:03:45] Um, you'll have you, you might want to have. Different fork travels or different for, uh, options. So you can bring a couple of different forks and swap out a fork, change your flip plates and have a bike. That's awesome for slick rock. And then another one that's awesome for, for the bike parks. So, you know, to me it would, but it's only one bike and you know, you don't need, you know, three bikes. So that, that just, uh, that's the design result of a bike where you can change the head tube angle on, [01:04:21] Randall: and the, in really how much head tube angle adjustment is there on there. [01:04:25] Craig Calfee: uh, it's a or minus four degrees [01:04:28] Randall: that's, that's substantial. [01:04:30] Craig Calfee: that's a lot. [01:04:31] Randall: Yeah. [01:04:31] I mean, that's transformative really. I work in increments of, you know, half a degree. [01:04:36] Craig Calfee: Yeah. These are half degree increments, um, right now, uh, one degree, but we can easily do half degree increments. find that one degree is, is really. Um, especially when you have the option of, of tweaking the same bike. So reason we focus on these half degree increments on a production bike is to dial in the best compromise between two, two ways that it's going to be used when you don't need to compromise, you can go a full degree in the other direction and not worry about fact that it's not going to perform as well, know, in super steep terrain because that flipped chip is not, uh, the right one for the super steep scenario. [01:05:22] Just change it out or flip it over a T when you approach the really steep stuff. So yeah. [01:05:29] Randall: applicable for mountain bikes, particularly because the, I mean, the slack, the long slack that, that have emerged in recent years make a ton of sense for mountain biking, especially descending, but when you're ascending, it ends up being so slack that you get wheel flop, you get the front end, lifting the bike naturally wants to tilt back. [01:05:49] You don't have that on a gravel bike currently. And if you don't, if you're not adding a huge suspension fork, you're never going to be descending terrain that is so technical that you need those slacked out angles. So it sounds like something that's very much could be applied to gravel bikes, but that, you know, for the mountain bike application is actually pretty game-changing. [01:06:06] Craig Calfee: Yeah, well on gravel bikes or adventure bikes, um, uh, it's actually helpful if you're, if you're, let's say you're a roadie and you're starting to go off road. And so you're driving these gravel trails and then you're starting to get into more interesting off-road excursions with that same bike, but your experience on steep terrain is limited because you're, you know, you're a roadie, you've your, all your muscle memory and all your bike handling memory comes from the road and a little bit of dirt road stuff. [01:06:39] Now you're kind of getting into serious off-road stuff and you want to try. a Uh, shortcut dissent, uh, you know, down something kind of crazy. Uh, let's say, uh, you're not very good at it in the beginning and you take your time and you, you don't have a bike that can go that fast down, such a trail, then you change it out. [01:07:00] As you get better at it, as you increase your skill level and your confidence level, might want to go a little faster. So you a bike that can go a little faster safely and go for that slack head angle, which is designed to get higher speed. So it's great for evolving skills and evolving terrain as you start exploring more radical stuff. [01:07:27] So that's the other reason to do it. [01:07:29] Randall: Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And in fact, any, you know, what I'm working on going forward very much as a, uh, one of the core, you know, is, uh, being able to tailor the geometry, um, as close to on the fly as possible. Uh, you know, if you want it to be on the fly, you're going to add a huge amount of added structure and complexity and weight, but having it be when you swap the wheels, there's very little to do, you know, this sort of thing. [01:07:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So yeah, the whole idea is to, is to be able to go and have really fun adventures after all I wrote the book on adventures, see, here's, uh, this is a, this is the commercial part of our, our, uh, [01:08:10] plug [01:08:12] is, uh, this book I wrote about a trip. I took back in the, in the mid early eighties. Uh it's it's a kind of a. [01:08:20] Randall: of a [01:08:21] Craig Calfee: It has nothing to do with bikes, except that there is a section in there where I made a canteen out of bamboo in the Congo, but it's a pretty crazy trip. And, uh, and I just called it adventures. It's on amp. anyone wants to buy it. [01:08:37] Randall: I will get a coffee. [01:08:39] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [01:08:42] Randall: Um, very, very cool. Um, we skipped over one, which is the manta, which is another interesting innovation [01:08:51] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Suspension on a road bike. I mean, that's a, I keep saying that's going to be the future and it hasn't happened yet, but I, I still believe that road bikes will be the main type of bike being written in the highest levels of racing. [01:09:08] interesting [01:09:08] Randall: So you think suspension versus say. Um, wide tubeless, aerodynamic, the optimized rims with a 30 mil tire run at lower pressures. You think the suspension has a sufficient benefit relative to that, to offset say the structural complexity or weight? [01:09:25] Craig Calfee: Yes. So, uh, the big tire thing, trend towards bigger tires is really a trend towards suspension. It's pneumatic suspension rather than mechanical suspension. [01:09:39] Randall: Well, as our regular listeners know, this is a topic that's very much near and dear to my heart. I talk often about the benefits of pneumatic suspension, so this will be an interesting place for us to stop and really

This week Randall sits down with bicycle industry pioneer, Craig Calfee. Craig has been an industry leader for decades with his work on the Calfee brand and many other collaborations throughout the industry. You cannot find someone more knowledgable about carbon (or bamboo) as a material. Calfee Designs Website Join The Ridership Support the Podcast Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Craig Calfee Randall [00:00:00] [00:00:04] Randall: Welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Randall Jacobs and our guest today is Craig Calfee. Craig is the founder of Calfee Design, the innovator behind the first full carbon frames to race in the tour de France, the originator of numerous technologies adopted throughout the cycling industry, and on a personal note has been a generous and consistent supporter of my own entrepreneurial journey. I am grateful to have him as a friend, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time. So with that, Craig, Calfee welcome to the podcast. [00:00:32] Craig Calfee: Oh, thank you. Nice to be here. [00:00:34] Randall: So, let's start with, what's your background, give your own story in your own words. [00:00:40] Craig Calfee: Well, I've always written bikes. I mean, as a kid, that's how I got around. And that's, as you become an older child, you, uh, find your independence with moving about the world. And a bicycle of course, is the most efficient way to do that. And later on, I was a bike messenger in New York when I went to college and that kind of got me into bike design as much for the, uh, desire to make a bike that can withstand a lot of abuse. And later on, I used a bike for commuting to work at a job, building carbon fiber racing boats. And during that time I crashed my bike and needed a new frame. So I thought I'd make a frame at a carbon fiber, uh, tubing that I had been making at my. [00:01:29] Randall: my job [00:01:30] Craig Calfee: So this is back in 1987, by the way. So there wasn't a, there were no YouTube videos on how to make your own carbon bike. So I pretty much had to invent a way to build the bike out of this tubing. And at the time there were aluminum lugged bikes, and I just, I knew already aluminum and carbon fiber don't get along very well. So you have to really do a lot of things to, to accommodate that. And the existing bikes at the time were, uh, I would say experimental in the fact that they were just trying to glue aluminum to carbon and it really wasn't working. [00:02:05] So I came up with my own way and built my first bike and it turned out really well. And a lot of friends and, and bike racers who checked out the bikes that I I really should keep going with it. So I felt like I discovered carbon fiber as a, as the perfect bicycle material before anyone else. Uh, and actually, uh, right at that time, Kestrel came out with their first bike, uh, the K 1000 or something. Um, anyway that was uh, that was in 87, 88. And, uh, I felt like I should really, you know give it a go. So I moved out to California and started a bike company. [00:02:48] Randall: So just to be clear, you were actually making the tubes, you weren't buying tubes. So you're making the tubes out of the raw carbon or some pre-printed carbon. then you came up with your own way of, uh, joining those tubes. [00:03:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I worked on a braiding machine, so it was actually a a hundred year old, uh, shoelace braider, uh, from back in Massachusetts. There's a lot of old textile machinery braiding is, uh, you know, your braided socks and, you know, nylon rope is braided. So this is a 72 carrier braider, which means 72 spools of carbon fiber. [00:03:25] Are winding in and out braiding this tube and you just run it back and forth through this braider a few times. And now you have a thick enough wall to, uh, I developed a and tape wrapping method at that job and came up with a pretty decent way to make a bicycle tube. So that was kind of the beginning of that. [00:03:47] Uh, and since then I've explored all kinds of methods for making tubing, mainly through subcontractors who specialize in things like filament winding and roll wrapping. And, uh, pultrusion, you know, all kinds of ways to make tubing. And that does relate to kind of an inspiration for me, where I realized that, uh, carbon fiber, you know, high performance composites are relatively young and new in the world of technology where metals are, you know, the metals have been around since the bronze age. [00:04:21] I mean, literally 5,000 years of development happened with metals, carbon fiber, uh, high-performance composites have only really been around since world war two. So that's a huge gap in development that hasn't happened with composites. So that to me felt like, oh, there's some job security for a guy who likes to invent things. So that was my, a kind of full force to get me to really focus on composite materials. [00:04:51] Randall: Were you that insightful in terms of the historical context at the time, or is that kind of a retro or retrospective reflection? [00:04:58] Craig Calfee: I think, I don't know. I think I may have read about that. Um, I a friend who had a library card at MIT and I pretty much lived there for a few weeks every, uh, master's thesis and PhD thesis on bicycles that they had in their library. And I think somewhere in there was a, uh, a topic on composites and comparing the technology of composites. [00:05:23] So. I probably that from some reading I did, or maybe I did invent that out of thin air. I don't remember, uh, nonetheless, uh, the fact of it is, you know, not, not a whole lot of mental energy has been put into coming up with ways of processing fiber and resin compared to metal. So to me that just opens up a wide world of, of innovation. [00:05:49] Randall: Um, and so the first frame was that, um, you're creating essentially uniform tubes and then mitering them, joining them, wrapping them as you do with your current bamboo frames or what was happening there. [00:06:02] Craig Calfee: Uh, it's more like the, uh, our, our carbon fiber frames were laminating carbon fabric in metal dyes, and those are not mitered tubes fitting into the dyes. And that's, that's a process. I got my first patent on. And it, uh, so in the process of compressing the carbon fabric against the tubes, you're you end up with these gussets in what is traditionally the parting line of a mold and rather than trim them off completely. [00:06:31] I, I use them as reinforcing ribs. [00:06:35] Randall: Yep. Okay. So that explains the, the, that distinctive element that continues with your, um, some of your, uh, to tube, uh, currently [00:06:48] Craig Calfee: them [00:06:49] the hand wrapping technique from that you currently see on the bamboo bikes came from developing a tandem frame, or basically a frame whose production numbers don't justify the tooling costs. Um, so that's hand wrapped. That's just literally lashed to. Yeah. And a point of note, there is I was a boy scout growing up and, uh, there's this merit badge called pioneering merit badge. [00:07:16] And I really enjoyed pioneering merit badge because it involved lashing row, uh, poles together with rope and the pro you had to do with this one project. And I did a tower and it was this enormous structure that went just straight up like a flagpole, but it was it involved a bunch of tetrahedrons, uh, stacked on top of each other and lashed together. [00:07:41] you know, culminating in a pole that went up. I don't remember how tall it was, but it was, it was really impressive. And everybody, you know, thought, wow, this is incredible of poles and some rope. And here we have this massive tower. So anyway, I was into things together since a young age. [00:08:00] And so I immediately came up with the, uh, the last tube concept. Which is where the, now the bamboo bikes are. course there's a specific pattern to the wrapping, but, um, the concept is basically using fiber to lash stuff together, [00:08:16] Randall: When it immediately brings to mind, what's possible with current generation of additive production techniques. Uh, whereas before you could make small components and then lash them together to create structures that otherwise aren't manufacturable. [00:08:31] Now you'd be able to say, print it out though. Those, you know, those printed out materials don't have the performance characteristics of a, you know, a uni directional carbon of the sword that you're working with currently. [00:08:42] Craig Calfee: right? [00:08:43] Randall: Um, so we've gone deep nerd here. We're going to, I'm going to pull us out and say, okay, uh, lots of time for this. [00:08:49] This is going to be a double episode. Uh, so next up, let's talk about those frames, uh, saw their big debut. [00:08:59] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So, um, we started making custom geometry for a. In 1989 and selling them and so big and tall, and that the idea of custom geometry frames was, uh, you know, pretty esoteric. And the pro racers were, we're using a lot of custom frames. So Greg Lamond, uh, was in search of a carbon fiber, uh, custom frame builder in, uh, 1990. [00:09:31] And, uh, no one really was doing it. We were literally the only company making custom carbon frame bikes. So he, uh, found out about us, uh, effectively discovered us, shall we say? And, uh, it didn't take long for him to order up 18 of them for his, his, uh, team Z, uh, teammates. He was sponsoring his own team with a Lamont brand. [00:09:56] So we didn't have to sponsor him. He basically paid for the frame. Put his name on them. And, and, uh, now we're now we're on the defending champions, a tour de France team. So that was a huge break obviously. And it was really a pleasure working with Greg and getting to know the demands of the pro Peloton, uh, you know, that really launched us. [00:10:21] So that was, uh, quite a splash. And, you know, it always is a great answer to the question. Oh, so who rides your bike kind of thing. you know, you have the, the full-on best one in the world at the time. So, so that was a fun thing. [00:10:39] Randall: And the name of the company at the time was, [00:10:41] Craig Calfee: Uh, carbon frames. [00:10:42] Randall: yeah. So anyone wanting [00:10:45] dig up the historical record, [00:10:47] Craig Calfee: is this too generic? You know, the other to what you're talking about, the adventure bikes. Yeah, we had to stop. I mean, carbon frames is a terrible name because everyone started talking about all carbon fiber frames as carbon frames. So we thought that was cool, you know, like Kleenex, you know, uh, and then we came up with the adventure bike, you know, with very early, uh, adventure bike. [00:11:11] And it was just, we called it the adventure bike. And now there's a classification called adventure bikes that, you know, so, um, I think we, we, we went too generic on how we named our models. [00:11:26] Randall: I've drawn from the rich tradition, a tradition of Greek, you know, uh, philosophy for naming my own companies in the like, [00:11:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:11:36] Randall: uh, um, and then next up, uh, so you've worked with Greg Lamond on those frames. Carbon frames is up and running and you're, you're producing custom geo frames and you're starting to get at some scale at this point and some notoriety. [00:11:52] next up you were working on your bamboo bikes. When we talk about that [00:11:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah, that was say, I'm kind of at the, at the time, it was just a way to get publicity. So at the Interbike trade show, you'd have a few creative people making some wacky bikes out of beer cans or, or other just weird things just to get attention, just, just to send the media over to your booth, to take a picture of some wacky thing that you're doing. [00:12:20] yeah, we got to do something like that to get, get some attention. And the, uh, so I was looking around for some PVC pipe. Maybe I was going to do a PVC pipe bike, and I wasn't really sure, but I knew that we could just wrap any tube. Make a bike out of literally anything. So, um, my dog was playing with some bamboo behind the shop. [00:12:42] Uh, she was a stick dog, so she loved to clamp onto a stick and you could swing her around by the, by the sticks. She's a pit bull and lab mix. Anyway, we ran out of sticks. Uh, cause we only had one little tree in the back, but we did have some bamboos. So she came up with a piece of bamboo and I was her around by it, expecting it to break off in her mouth because I just wasn't aware of how strong bamboo was, but it turned out it was really quite strong. [00:13:12] And I said, oh, let's make a bike out of this stuff. And sure enough, uh, the bike was, uh, quite a attention getter. It got the quarter page and bicycling magazine so that, you know mission accomplished on that front. And, but the bike itself rode really well. [00:13:29] Randall: well [00:13:30] Craig Calfee: Um, when I wrote my first carbon bike, uh, the very first ride on my very first carbon bike, I was struck by how smooth it was. [00:13:38] It had this vibration damping that was, you know, just super noticeable and, and that really kind of lit a fire under my butt thinking, wow, this is really cool. When I built my first bamboo bike, I had that same feeling again, how smooth It was It was amazing for its vibration damping. So, uh, I knew I was onto something at that point. [00:14:02] Uh, that first bike was a little too flexy, but, uh, the second bike I built was significantly stiffer and was an actual, real rideable bike. So, uh, from that point, uh, we just started building a few here and there and it was still a novelty item until about, uh, 1999, 2000. When a few people who had been riding them, or like, I want another one, I I want to know mountain bike this time. [00:14:29] So as it was just starting to get known and, uh, we started selling them through dealers. And I mean there's a lot of stories I can tell on how that evolved and how people started actually believing that a bamboo bike could actually exist in the world. So it took a while though. [00:14:49] Randall: I think there's a whole thread that we could tug on maybe in a subsequent episode where we focus just on the bamboo bike revolution. [00:14:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. That's um, there's a lot of, lot of stuff going on there. I'm actually writing my second book on history of the bamboo bike, because there's so many interesting angles to it, particularly in the. [00:15:10] Randall: in Africa [00:15:12] I'm struck by the juxtaposition of this bleeding edge. Uh, you know, high-tech material that you pioneered and then this going back to one of the most basic building materials, uh, that we have building bikes out of that. And in fact, um, on the one hand, there's this, this extreme, know, difference in terms of the technology ization of each material. [00:15:34] But on the other hand, there's a parallel the sense that like carbon, in tubes is best, uh, you know, generally, uh, when it's you need to write. Yeah, with maybe some cross fibers in order to prevent, prevent it from separating. And bamboo also has that characteristic of having, you know, you need directional fibers that are bonded together by some, uh, you know, some other material in, in the, in the bamboo [00:15:58] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, it's very, there's a lot of similarities. I mean, bamboo is amazing just because it grows out of the ground and tubular for. And it grows a new, huge variety of diameters and wealth thicknesses. So if you're looking for tubing, I mean, you don't have to go much further. It's amazing that it literally grows out of the ground that way. [00:16:20] Randall: paint [00:16:21] a picture for folks to, um, most of our listeners I'm guessing are in north America or, you know, other, uh, English-speaking parts of the world. I lived in China and as you've been, you see huge scaffolding, multi-story, you know, big buildings and the scaffolding isn't made out of metal. [00:16:37] It's made out of bamboo lashed together with zip ties and pieces of wire. So it really speaks to the, the structural, uh, strength of the material and reliability of the material. and you know, should instill confidence when descending down a mountain. [00:16:54] Craig Calfee: Oh yeah. No, it's, I, I remember seeing bamboo and scaffolding many, many years. And I thought, well, of course, and the other reason they use it in scaffolding is when a typhoon hits and it, it kind of messes up the scaffolding of a construction site. Um, it's, they're back to work on the bamboo construction sites, much faster than the metal scaffolding sites, they have to deal with bent and distorted metal scaffolding, um, to replace those and fix that takes a lot longer where bamboo, they just bend it back and lash it back together. [00:17:32] It's it's so much easier. [00:17:35] Randall: there's one more thing on this theme that I want to, uh, pull out before we move on, which is talk to me about the, the sustainability components of it. Um, starting with how it was done initially. [00:17:47] And then now with say like, uh, biodegradable resins or, or other materials I can, this frame can be current. [00:17:55] Craig Calfee: Uh, the short answer is yes, the frame can be composted. And the other cool thing is if you take care of it, it it'll never compost, meaning you can prevent it from being composted naturally. if you really want to, you know, uh, dispose of the frame, um, it will biodegrade much faster than any other material that bicycle frames are made of. [00:18:22] So yeah, the, the renewable aspect, the low energy content of it, it's, it's utterly the best you can imagine. And we're kind of waiting for the world to finally get serious about global warming and start to have some economic incentives for buying products that are in fact, uh, good for the environment. Uh, we haven't seen that yet, but we're kind of holding out and hoping that happens. [00:18:49] And then we'll see probably some significant growth in the bamboo adoption in the bicycling world. [00:18:57] Randall: I want to plant a seed that, that, uh, to germinate in my head, which is this idea of bamboos being the ideal material for kind of more mainstream, uh, utility bicycles and recreational bicycles. really it's a matter of the unit economics in economies of scale and consistency of material, which you could make uniform by having, uh, having controlled grow conditions and things like that. [00:19:23] Um, but it could be a very localized industry to anywhere where bamboo grows. this could be produced, which reduces transportation costs reduces, you know, issues of inventory carrying and all these things. Um, so let's, let's park that I want to ask you more about those, about the economics of bamboo in a side conversation to see if there's, you know, explore there. [00:19:45] Craig Calfee: well, there is. I mean, that's, that's what we did in Africa. Same concept is as why, why would bamboo work in Africa better than the imported bikes from China? So that was, that was the whole thing around that. [00:19:59] Randall: Ah, I love it. All right. So though, there will be a bamboo episode folks. Uh, we're going to, going to continue cause there's a lot of ground to cover here. so next steps you've done done the first carbon frame and the tour de France, uh, carbon frames is up and running. You've started getting into bamboo, what was next, [00:20:18] Craig Calfee: Um, then lots of smaller developments, which become really important to us from a business perspective, uh, fiber tandem, we built the first one of those. And then we went to a lateral list, tandem design, and it's pretty optimized at this point. So we're, I would say we are the leader in the tandem world in terms of the highest performance, tandem bikes, uh, and then re repairing of carbon frames. [00:20:47] That was a big one, uh, which we were kind of pushed into by customers. And other folks who heard that we could repair the Cathy frames and they would set a call up. And literally we had a, an in one inquiry per week, if not more, more often about like a colonoscopy that this guy wanted to repair and he heard we could do it on ours. [00:21:10] And we're like, well, by a Calfee don't, you know, I'm sorry, but we can't repair somebody else's frame. You'll have to buy one of ours. And then you'll know that you crash it, we can repair it for, he was trying to make that a, a a advantage for our brand, but we couldn't really, you know, do that. So, uh, we said, well, if we can't beat them, we'll repair them. [00:21:32] And we repaired a first and then some specialized, I think, after that. So we, we accepted repair jobs and pretty soon it became about a third of our, our business. And it's, uh, of course now lots of other people repair frames, but, uh, we started doing that in 2001 or something and, and we've been doing it ever since. [00:21:58] And it's, that part has been really interesting to see, because we get to literally see the inside of everyone else's frames and look at the weak points. You know, they often show up on, on people's frames and get asked to fix them or even redesign them at that point. So that's been really interesting to, to me as a technician, [00:22:21] Randall: and want to come back to this in a second, but before we lose it, what is a lateralis tandem design? [00:22:27] Craig Calfee: uh, that, so traditional tandems had a, a tube that went the head tube, usually straight back down towards the dropouts or or bottom bottom bracket. And it's, it's a way to stiffen up a frame. That's inherently not very stiffened torsion. But, uh, with composites, you can orient the fiber, uh, in torsion to make a tube significantly stiffer and torsion than say a metal tube of similar weight. [00:22:57] So we were able to go a little bit bigger diameter and more fiber in the helical angled orientation and make a tandem, uh, stiff enough and torsion and get rid of that tube. And for a carbon fiber frame, that it was really important because number of times you have to join the tube, the more expensive it is or the more labor content there is. So we were able to reduce our labor content, make the frame lighter and make it stiffer all at, in one design change. So that was a big, a big revelation. And now I most of them have copied that design. So it's, uh, it's, that's another time where we, we did something that, that, uh, now became the standard. [00:23:43] Randall: Yeah. One of many from what I've observed in a written the history. Uh, so around this time, or shortly after you started the repair business, you started doing some pretty, pretty wild frames in terms of pushing the limits of what was possible when we talk about that. [00:24:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We've done a lot of different types of frames, uh, mostly for show, but, um, like the north American handmade bike show is a great venue for just doing something way out of left field. Um, we did, uh, a bamboo bike made all out of small diameter, bamboo. Um, it's I only made one because it was a total pain in the ass to make. [00:24:26] Uh, and it was also kind of inspired by the, a request from a guy who was not only a fan of bamboo, but he was a fan of molten style bikes. Those are the trust style frames with small wheels. So we built one of those and. With the only small diameter bamboo, and we built another one that was, uh, a real art piece. [00:24:49] So just having fun with that from a, you know, completely artistic direction is a lot of fun for me because that's my formal training. I went to art school and learned about different materials and, and art and composition. Uh, and I was into the structure of materials and how they, they relate to each other. [00:25:12] And my art was more of a forum file form follows function, kind of inspiration. And, uh, so some bikes that I've made were, are not terribly practical, but just explore the, the limits of structure. So another bike I made, uh, we call it the spider web bike, which was literally a, a bike made of just carbon fiber strands. [00:25:36] No tubes. And it, it was kind of wild looking and a collector ended up buying it, which is really cool. But you look at this thing and you just couldn't imagine that it, it, you could actually ride it, but, uh, it actually does ride fairly well. It's a bit fragile if you crash it, it would be kind of dangerous, but you know, stuff like that. [00:25:55] I like to do that occasionally. [00:25:59] Randall: I think of, uh, like biomorphic design or like hyper optimized design that maybe doesn't have the resiliency, but very strict parameters will perform higher than anything else that you could, you could create. [00:26:12] Craig Calfee: absolutely. Yeah. Those are really fun. I'm really inspired by natural forms and, uh, you know, the, the, some of the new computer aided techniques we're designing are, uh, rattled in those lines. so, yeah, I follow that pretty closely. [00:26:28] Randall: a little sidebar. Um, I don't know if you've, uh, no of, uh, Nick Taylor, the guy who created the, Ibis Maximus in front of the mountain bike hall of fame. [00:26:40] Craig Calfee: Um, no, I don't think so. [00:26:43] Randall: I'll introduce you to his work at some point, but he's another one of these people who, very avid cyclist is not in the bike industry, but is. There's a lot of trail building and alike and isn't is a sculptor really focused on, the form of, uh, you know, biological shapes and materials and, and things of this sort. [00:27:02] Uh, I think that there's a lot, uh, I'm actually curious more into your, your non bike artistic work for a moment. Uh, and, and how that got infused into your work with the bike. [00:27:18] Craig Calfee: yeah, so I haven't done a lot of, you know, just pure, fine art sculpture in a long time. But when I was doing that, it was. a lot of things that would fool the eye or, um, some material and, and push it to its limit. So I was doing stuff that was, um, uh, you know, trying to create a, almost like a physical illusion, not just an optical illusion, but a, but a physical illusion or like, how could you possibly do that kind of thing? [00:27:54] And that was a theme of my sculpture shortly after Pratt. So for example, just take one example of a sculpture that I got a lot of credit for in classes at Pratt, it was a, a big block of Oak. It was a cutoff from a woodworking shop. It's about a foot in, let's say a foot cube of Oak. And I would, um, so I, I, uh, raised the grain on it with a wire brush and then I blocked printed on Oak tag page. [00:28:26] Um, some black ink on rolled onto the Oak block and made a river, basically a print off of each face of the, of the block. And then I carefully taped that paper together to simulate a paper block of the Oak chunk that I I had. now I had a super light paper version of the Oak block. And then I hung them on a balance beam, which I forged at a steel, but the hanging point was way close to the piece. [00:28:57] And if you looked at it from three feet away, just, your brain would, just hurting because you couldn't figure out how is this even possible? And because it really looked amazing, super hyper real. Anyway, it just looked amazing and it was fun to get the effect of how the hell did that. Did he do that? [00:29:18] What's what's the trick here. There's something going on. That's not real. Or it's. Uh it's not physically possible. And I kind of got that feeling with the carbon fiber bike. When we, when we built the first bike, everyone would pick it up and go, oh, that's just too light. It's not even a bike. It's a plastic bike it's going to break instantly. [00:29:39] So that was sort of a relation from, from those days to the, to the bike. [00:29:44] Randall: You ever come across Douglas Hofstadter's book, Godel, Escher Bach. [00:29:49] Craig Calfee: No, but I'd be interested to read it. [00:29:51] Randall: Definite short Lister. Um, uh, you've come across MC Escher, of Yeah. And are there any parallels or any inspiration there? [00:30:01] Craig Calfee: Um, not very direct, I'd say. Um, [00:30:08] Who [00:30:08] Randall: your, who your inspirations or what, what would you say your creative energy is most similar to? [00:30:14] Craig Calfee: I'd probably, I'd say say Buckminster fuller. [00:30:17] Randall: Mm, [00:30:17] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I mean, I studied his work in depth, you know, not only the geodesic dome stuff, but also his vehicles, the dime on vehicle the, yeah. So there's, there's a bunch of stuff that he was involved with that I'd say, I'm parallel with as far as my interest goes, [00:30:37] Randall: what books should I read? [00:30:39] Craig Calfee: all of them. [00:30:42] Randall: Where do I start? If I have limited [00:30:44] time [00:30:45] Craig Calfee: Yeah. It's a tough one. He's actually really difficult to read too. His writing is not that great. I pretty much look at his, uh, his design work more than His writing [00:30:56] Randall: Okay. So who's book whose book about Buckminster fuller. Should I read? [00:31:01] Craig Calfee: good question. I'll, I'll catch up with you on that later because there's few of them that they're worth. It's worth a look. [00:31:07] Randall: awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Um, let's talk about 2001. you're a dragon fly. [00:31:15] Craig Calfee: Yeah, the dragon fly was an interesting project. It was so Greg Lamanda had asked me, like, I want an even lighter bike. He was constantly pushing on the technology. And I said, well, there are some really expensive fibers that are starting to become available, but, um, you know, this would be a $10,000 bike frame and, you know, it's only going to be a half a pound lighter. [00:31:40] And he said, well, I don't care. I just, you know, I w I need it for racing. I mean, um, you know, when, when I'm climbing Alpe d'Huez with Miguel Indurain and if he's got a lighter bike than I do, then I'm just going to give up, you know, in terms of the effort. So he needs to have that technical advantage, or at least be on the same plane. [00:32:02] So the reason why he'd spend, you know, $5,000 for a half a pound, a weight savings was pretty, pretty real. So, but it took until about 2000, 2001 after he had long retired to, um, really make that happen. So the fibers I was talking about are really high modulus fiber that was very fragile, too brittle, really for any use. [00:32:29] So we came up with a way to integrate it with, um, boron fiber. Uh, it actually was a material we found, uh, special specialty composites out of, uh, out of Rhode Island. Uh, they, uh, do this co-mingled boron and carbon fiber, uh, hybrid material, which was, um, they were looking for a use cases for it and the bicycle was one of them. [00:32:58] So, uh, we built a prototype with their material and it turned out. To be not only really light and really strong, the, the boron made it really tough. So carbon fiber has, uh, the highest stiffness to weight ratio, intention of any material you can use. boron is the highest stiffness to weight ratio in compression as a, as a fibrous material that you can integrate into a composite. So when you mix them, you now have a combination of materials, that are unbeatable. [00:33:35] Randall: Like a concrete and rebar almost, or, quite. [00:33:40] Craig Calfee: I'd say that's a good, um, for composites in general, but now we're talking about the extreme edge of, of performance, where, um, looking at the, most high performance material certain conditions, versus tension. These, these are conditions that are existing in a bicycle tube all the time. [00:34:07] So one side of the tube is compressing while the other side is intention as you twist the bike, uh, and then it reverses on the, on the pedal stroke. So it has to do both now. Carbon fiber is quite good at that, but compression it suffers. And that's why you can't go very thin wall and make it, um, withstand any kind of impact because it's, it's got a weakness in it's, um, compressive. So, uh, it's, uh, it doesn't take a break very well either. So boron on, the other hand does take a break very well, and it's incredibly high compressive strength to weight ratio and compressive stiffness to weight ratio. are two different things by the way. So when you combine those into a tube, it's pretty amazing. [00:34:57] Uh, they're just really quite expensive. So we came up with the dragon fly, um, in 2001 and it was at the time the lightest production bike yet it also had the toughness of a normal frame. And that's that's right around when the Scott came out, which was a super thin wall, large diameter, uh, carbon frame that was really fragile. [00:35:23] Um, so that was sort of a similar weight, but not nearly as tough as, uh, the dragon fly. [00:35:34] Randall: For well, to go a little bit deeper on this. So what is the nature like? What is the nature of the boron? Is it a, like, is it a molecule? Is it a filament? So you have, you have carbon filaments is the boron, um, you know, is that, are you putting it into the resin? How is it? Co-mingled. [00:35:51] Craig Calfee: It's a, it's a filament, basically a super thin wire. [00:35:56] Randall: You're essentially co-mingling it in when you're creating the tubes and then using the same resin to bond the entire structure together. [00:36:04] Craig Calfee: That's right. [00:36:05] Randall: Got it. And this, so then this is, uh, if you were to add then say like to the resin separately, it would be a compounding effect. Um, I don't know if you have, uh, mean, I assume you've done some stuff with graphene. [00:36:19] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Graphing graphing is a really great material. It does improve the toughness of composites. Uh, it's again, also very expensive to use, uh, in a whole two. Usually it's used in smaller components, uh, not so much on the whole frame, uh, and it, and it's, um, it's best, uh, uses in preventing the of cracking. [00:36:46] So it stops the micro cracking that starts with a failure mode. And that that's a great, thing. But if your laminate is too thin to begin with that, all the graphing in the world, isn't going to help you. So for really minor wax it'll help, but for anything substantial, it's going to break anyway. [00:37:08] So you have to start out with a thick enough laminate get the toughness that you're looking for. Uh, graphene is really great for highly stressed areas, which might start cracking from, uh, fatigue or just the design flaw of a stress concentration. So it's got a number of purposes. Uh, it's great for, uh, like pinch clamp areas, you know, places where the mechanical, uh, stress is so high on a, on a very localized area. [00:37:37] Um, so yeah, graphene is wonderful. We didn't get into it too much because, um, it's just, it would just, wasn't practical for our applications and how we make the frames, but, uh, some companies have started using graphene and it's, it's pretty interesting stuff. [00:37:52] Randall: We did some experimentation with it early on in our looking at it for the future. my understanding is. You know, I haven't gone too deep into like the intermolecular physics, but it's essentially like you have a piece of paper and if you start tearing the paper that tear will propagate very easily. [00:38:09] then the graphene is almost like little tiny pieces of tape. Randomly distributed, evenly distributed across the material that makes it so that that fracture can no longer propagate in that direction. And it has to change direction where it bumps into another graphene molecule and the graphing, essentially when we tested it was doubling the bond strength of the resin. [00:38:30] So in terms of pulling apart different layers of laminate, then, um, increasing the toughness of say, uh, a rim made with the exact same laminate in the exact same resin with, 1% graphene per mass of resin increasing the toughness of that rim structure by 20%. [00:38:50] Which is pretty [00:38:50] Craig Calfee: That's correct. [00:38:51] Randall: The challenges that is that it lowers the temperature, uh, the, the glass suffocation points resin. so, you know, a rim is like, you know, there are, if you're gonna put it on the back of your car, you know, that's not a normal use case when you're riding, but, you know, it's, it's something that just makes it less resilient to those towards sorts of, you know, people put on the back of the car too close to the exhaust and they melt the rim. [00:39:17] So we're having to experiment with some high temperature residents that have other issues. [00:39:22] Craig Calfee: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's rims are a great place for graphing, just cause they're in a a place where you'll have some impacts, but yeah. Temperature management is an issue. Um, yeah, that's the high temperature residents are, are another area that, that, uh, we're experimenting in, uh, wrapping electric motor, uh, rotors with, with a high temperature resonant carbon wrap. [00:39:46] that's a whole nother area, but I'm familiar with that stuff. [00:39:49] Randall: Which we'll get into in a second, park park, that one. Cause that's a fun theme. yeah. And I'm just thinking about a rim structure. It seems like boron on the inside graphing on the outside, um, deal with high compressive forces between the spokes and then the high impact forces on the external, will [00:40:07] Craig Calfee: the material we use is called high bore. You can look that up. H Y B O R and there they're actually coming back with new marketing efforts there. They, I think the company got sold and then, um, the new buyers are, are re revisiting how to, to spread the use of it. So might be real interested in supporting a rim project. [00:40:30] Randall: mm. Uh, to be continued offline. Um, all right. So then we've got your carbon fiber repair surface. We talked about the dragon fly. Um, it's a great segue into engineering and design philosophy. let's talk about that [00:40:47] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, well it's, to me, it's all about form follows function and, uh, when something works so well, functionally, it's gonna look good. That's uh, that's why trees look great just by themselves, uh, that that's, you know, coming back to the natural world, you know, that's why we have a Nautilus shell for, uh, for our logo. [00:41:12] It's the form follows function. Aspect of that just makes it look beautiful. For some reason, you look at something from nature, you don't really know why is it beautiful? Well, the reason is the way it's structured, the way it's evolved over millions of years. Has resulted in the optimum structure. So for me, as a, as a human being artificially trying to recreate stuff, that's been evolved in nature. [00:41:39] Um, I look closely at how nature does it first and then I'll apply it to whatever I'm dealing with at the moment. And so that's how I, that's how I design stuff. [00:41:50] Randall: there's a, the Nautilus shell example, like, you know, the golden ratio and the way that, really complex systems tend to evolve towards very simple, fundamental, primitives of all design [00:42:04] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. There's some basic stuff that, that seemed to apply everywhere. [00:42:10] Randall: So with your carbon fiber repair service, so you started to see some of the problems with that were emerging with these, um, large tube thin wall designs that were being used to achieve a high strength or sorry, a high stiffness to weight, but then compromising in other areas. [00:42:28] So let's talk about that. [00:42:30] Craig Calfee: Yeah, it's um, you know, designing a carbon fiber bike is actually really quite difficult. There's so much going on. There's so many, uh, things you have to deal with high stress areas that you can't really get around. there's a lot of constraints to designing a good bicycle frame. Um, and then you're dealing with the tradition of, of how people clamp things on bikes, you know, stem, clamps, and seed post clamps, and, uh, you know, th that type of mentality. [00:43:04] It's still with us with the carbon, which is carbon doesn't do well with. So a lot of companies struggle with that and they'll come up with something on paper or in their CAD model. And their finite element analysis sort of works, but, and then they go into the real world and they have to deal with real situations that they couldn't predict in the, the computer. [00:43:29] And they get a problem with, uh, you know, a minor handlebar whacking, the top tube situation, which shouldn't really cause your bike to become dangerous. But in fact, that's what happens. So you've got, um, you know, uh, weak points or vulnerabilities in these really light frame. And if you're not expected to know what the vulnerability is as an end-user and you don't know that if you wack part of the bike and in a minor way that you normally wouldn't expect to cause the frame to become a weak, then the whole design is a question. So you have to consider all these things when you decide to bike. And a lot of companies have just depended on the computer and they are finite element analysis too, to come up with shapes and designs that, uh, are inherently weak. And, um, people get pretty disappointed when they're, when the minor is to of incidents causes a crack in the frame. [00:44:37] And if they keep riding the bike, the crack gets bigger. And then one day, you know, I mean, most people decide to have it fixed before it gets to be a catastrophic but, uh, you know, it gets expensive and, uh, You know, it's, sad. Actually, another motivation for getting into the repair business was to save the reputation of carbon fiber as a frame material. [00:45:03] You know, these types of things don't happen to thin wall titanium frames. You know, a thin wall titanium frame will actually withstand a whole lot more abuse than a thin wall carbon frame. So it's just hard to make diameter thin wall titanium frames that are stiff enough and not without problems of welding, you know, the heat affected zones. [00:45:26] So carbon fiber is, is a better material because it's so much easier to join and to, to mold. But if you, you have to design it properly to, to withstand normal abuse. And if you're not going to do that, then there should at least be a repair service available to keep those bikes from going to the landfill. [00:45:45] So frequent. And so that's what we do we, we offer that and we even train people how to carbon repair service. So that's, um, that's something we've done in order to keep bikes from just getting thrown away. [00:46:01] Randall: uh, I think I've shared with you, I'm in the midst of, uh, doing, uh, uh, a pretty radical ground up design, which is way off in the future. So I'll be picking your brain on that, but it immediately makes me think of the inherent. Compromises of current frame design and manufacturing techniques, including on our frame. [00:46:20] And in our case, the way we've addressed that is through not going with lower modulates carbon, you know, S T 700, maybe some T 800 in the frame, then overbuilding it order to have resiliency against impacts. But then also these sorts of, um, micro voids in other imperfections that are in inherent process of any, uh, manufacturing, uh, system that involves handling of materials in a complex, you know, eight, uh, sorry, 250 a piece, you know, layup like there's, this there's even that like human elements that you have to design a whole bunch of fudge factor into to make sure that when mistakes are made, not if, but when mistakes are made, that there's so much, uh, overbuilding that they don't end up in a catastrophic failure. [00:47:10] Craig Calfee: that's right. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have some safety margin. [00:47:15] Randall: And the Manderal spinning process that you were describing essentially eliminates a lot of that in you're starting to see, I mean, with rims, that's the direction that rims are going in, everything is going to be automated, is going to be knit like a sock and frames are a much more complex shape. Um, but you're starting to see, uh, actually probably know a lot more about the, the automation of frame design than I do. [00:47:35] Um, what do you see? Like as the, as the end point, at least with regards to the, um, like filament based carbon fiber material and frames, like where could it go with technology? [00:47:50] Craig Calfee: the, the, um, robotics are getting super advanced now and there's this technique called, um, uh, they just call it fiber placements or automated fiber placement, which is a fancy word for a robot arm, winding fiber, you know, on a mandrel or shape, uh, and then compressing that and, uh, know, molding that. [00:48:14] So it's, it's where your, a robot will orient a single filament of carbon fiber. Uh, continuously all around the, uh, the shape that you're trying to make. They do that in aerospace now for a really expensive rockets and satellite parts, but the technology is getting more accessible and, uh, so robotic trimmers are another one. [00:48:42] So we're, in fact, we're getting ready to build our own robotic arm tremor for a resin transfer, molded parts. That's where the edge of the part that you mold gets trimmed very carefully with a router. And, but imagine instead of just a router trimming an edge, you've got a robot arm with a spool of fiber on it, wrapping the fiber individually around the whole structure of the frame. [00:49:10] Uh, no, no people involved just, you know, someone to turn the machine on and then turn it off again. So that's kind of coming that that is a future. Uh, it hasn't arrived yet, certainly, maybe for simpler parts, but a frame is a very complex shape. So it'll take a while before they can get to that point. [00:49:30] Randall: It having to, yeah. Being able to Uh, spin a frame in one piece is, seems to be the ultimate end game. [00:49:43] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I think we need to, I think the, the, uh, genetically modified spiders would be a better way to [00:49:50] go [00:49:50] Randall: Yeah, they might, they might help us the design process. [00:49:56] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. Just give them some good incentives and they'll, they'll make you set a really incredibly strong, you know, spider wound. [00:50:05] Randall: Well, it does. It speaks to the, the, the biggest challenge I see with that, which is you have to go around shape. so if you're going through a frame, like it's essentially the triangle. And so you need some way to like hand off the, the S the filament carrier from one side to the other constantly. [00:50:27] you'd just be able to spin it. You know, it would be pretty straightforward. So maybe the frame comes in a couple of different sections that get bonded, but then those don't form a ring. And so you can, you know, you can move them around instead of the machine order [00:50:41] Craig Calfee: Well, there's these things called grippers. So the robot grip sit and then another arm grip know let's go and the other arm picks it up. And then there's like in weaving, there's this thing called the flying shuttle, which invented. That's where the shuttle that, the war [00:50:59] Randall: Your ancestors were involved with flying shuttle. [00:51:02] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:51:02] Randall: That's one of the, uh, all right. That's, that's a whole other conversation. [00:51:07] Craig Calfee: Yeah, a really interesting, I mean, it's the Draper corporation. If you want to look it up, [00:51:13] um [00:51:13] Randall: I [00:51:13] Craig Calfee: know [00:51:14] they were the manufacturing made the looms back in the industrial revolution in the Northeast [00:51:21] Randall: I'm sitting currently in Waltham, which was one of the first mill cities, um, not from Lowell. [00:51:28] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So all those mills were where our customers and they would buy the Draper looms. Um, and they were automated looms with a flying shuttle was a big deal Uh back then. And so they, they made a lot of, of those looms and, and that's basically what sent me to college with a trust fund. So [00:51:49] Randall: You're a trust fund, baby. [00:51:51] Craig Calfee: Yep. [00:51:51] Yep [00:51:53] From vendors. [00:51:55] Uh [00:51:56] but that's yeah, that's the world I, I came out of. And, so the, the idea of taking a spool of material and handing it off as you wrap around something is really not that difficult. [00:52:08] Randall: Okay. So then you can do it in a way that is resilient to probably 10,000 handoffs over the course of weaving a frame and you can expect that it's not going to fail once. [00:52:19] Craig Calfee: That's right Yeah [00:52:20] It [00:52:20] Randall: All then that, that's [00:52:22] Craig Calfee: the hard part, the hard part is dealing with the resin and the, and the, uh, forming and the getting a nice surface finish. That was where the harder. [00:52:31] Randall: Yeah. And, uh, uh, I'm thinking about, uh, space X's attempts to create a giant, uh, carbon fiber, uh, fuel tank. And they actually had to do the, um, the heating the resin at the point of, uh, depositing of the filaments. [00:52:52] And [00:52:52] you know, that's a really challenging process because you can't build an autoclave big enough to contain a fuel tank for a giant rocket bicycles don't have that issue, but [00:53:01] Craig Calfee: right. Yeah. The filament winding technique, which is how all those tanks are made is, is pretty amazing in the large scale of those, those big rockets is phenomenal. I mean, a couple of places in Utah that make those, and it's just seeing such a large things spinning and, uh, wrapping around it rapidly is quite inspiring. [00:53:26] Randall: Yeah. It's very, very cool stuff. And that's, again, a whole another thread about the, uh, the Utah based, uh, composites industry that got its start in aerospace, you know, advanced aerospace applications, which NV and others came out of. They used to be edge which you worked with. NBU designed their tubes early on. [00:53:43] Right. [00:53:44] Craig Calfee: W well, yeah, the poles history behind envy and quality composites back in late eighties, literally, uh, when I first came out to, uh, actually I was still, think I ordered them in Massachusetts and took delivery in California, but it was a quality composites and out of Utah, uh, Nancy Polish was the owner of that. [00:54:06] Also an MIT graduate who, um, who started a roll wrapping carbon fiber in tubular forum. And I'm pretty sure we were the first roll wrapped carbon tubes, uh, for bicycles that she made. And, um Uh, evolved to, uh, edge composites. So they, so quality composites became McClain quality composites, and then McLean, the guys who broke away from that went to start envy or edge, I guess, which became envy. [00:54:40] So yeah, those same guys brought that technology and we've been the customer ever since. And now there's yet another spinoff. The guys who were making the tubes at envy spun off and started their own company, uh, in a cooperative venture with envy. So let them go basically. And, uh, we're working with those guys. [00:55:01] So it's just following the, the top level of expertise. [00:55:06] Randall: very interesting stuff. Um, so, so where else do we go in terms of the, I mean, this is about as deep a composite deep nerdery, as we can get in, into composites and so on. And, uh, given that we're already here, we might as just, you know, dig ourselves deeper. [00:55:25] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, sir, just on the roll wrapping, the thing that, um, I remember one of the cool innovations that Nancy came up with was the double D section, um, tube where she would roll wrap two D shaped tubes, stick them together and do an outer wrap on the outside. So it was a efficient way to do a ribbed tube or a single ribs through the middle. She pretty much invented. [00:55:53] Uh, we started doing something with that, um, change days, uh, to get more stiffness out of a change day. But, um, I just, some reason that image flashed in my mind about some of the innovative stuff that been going on that people don't really see it's. And that's what I'm saying before where the, uh, technology of composites has, um it's got a long way to go and it's, there's all kinds of stuff going on that are, are, is brand new. [00:56:23] Uh, most people people don't see it cause it's all process oriented more than product oriented. But for guys like me, it's really fast. [00:56:34] Randall: Yeah, it reminds me of, um, a technology owned by a Taiwanese carbon frame manufacturing, pretty large-scale tier one that I'd spoken to where they're doing, uh, that bracing inside of the forks. don't think they're doing anything especially advanced in terms of how it's manufactured. [00:56:54] I think they just have a, uh, the, the inner, um, you know, whether it's a bag or it's a, you know, EPS insert. And then they're just bridging, uh, between the two walls of the, uh, of the tube of the, the fork leg, uh, with another piece of carbon that gives it more lateral structure zero, uh, impact on the, um, for AFT compliance, which is a really technique. [00:57:21] Craig Calfee: that sounds like Steve Lee at [00:57:24] Randall: Uh, this was YMA. [00:57:27] Craig Calfee: Oh, okay. [00:57:28] Randall: Yeah, the gigantic folks. I haven't, I don't know if I've interacted with them yet, but, um, but yeah, well, [00:57:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah, some amazing innovation coming out of Taiwan. They're there. They're so deep into it. It's, it's a fun place to go and, and see what they're up to. [00:57:47] Randall: this actually brings me back to, um, I, I did had a conversation with over with Russ at path, less pedaled, and was asking like, you know, tell me about the quality of stuff made, made over in Asia. And I was like, well, you know, it's generally best to work with their production engineers because they're so close to the actual manufacturing techniques and they're the ones innovating on those techniques. [00:58:10] And in fact, um, you know, even specialized up until recently did not do carbon fiber in. outsource that, you know, they, they do some of the work in house, but then the actual design for manufacture and all that is being done by the factories and rightfully so the factories know it better, being close to the ground though, dealing with someone with yourself, you're someone who could go into a factory and be like, okay, let's, let's innovate on this. [00:58:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:58:36] Yeah. [00:58:37] Randall: so then 2011, um, first production, gravel bike. [00:58:45] Craig Calfee: Uh, yeah. Yeah. We came up with the, uh, adventure bike, we call it, um, it was also the first one that did the, uh, six 50 B uh, tire size that can be used with a 700 by 42 or So mixing, know, going bigger tire on a slightly smaller rim on the same bike as you'd run a 700 C and, uh, 35 or 40 millimeter tire. Um, yeah, so the adventure bike has been. Uh, a real fun area for us as far as, uh, just developing a, do everything. Be everything, bike [00:59:24] Randall: it's. And the geometry of that was kind of an endurance road geometry, right [00:59:28] Craig Calfee: that's [00:59:29] right. It's a road bike effectively, but with a few, a few, uh, tweaks for riding off road. [00:59:36] Randall: So then this, this word, gravel bike is kind of muddled. [00:59:39] Um, I never liked it, frankly. Uh, it's a marketing term. I remember it specialized when we were doing the, the diverse, um, you know, it was still kind of honing in on what these bikes were. Uh, but you could argue that like, you know, you know, everyone's road bike was a gravel bike. When you just put the biggest tires that would fit and write it on dirt. [00:59:57] But this concept of a one bike, it seems to be what you've planted. But you can have a single bike that will be your road, bike, perform handle, give you that, that experience when you put road wheels on, but then you can put these big six fifties on there and have a, you know, an off-road crit machine that is highly competent in, in rough terrain. [01:00:16] And so, so yeah, that, and that's very much my design philosophy as you know, as well, you know, fewer bikes that do more things. [01:00:24] Craig Calfee: Yeah. We have this. Kind of a marketing phrase for, you know, how the end plus one concept where, you know, how many bikes do you even need? Well, one more than what you've got. Well, we do the N minus one concept with our mountain bike, which can also be a gravel by ache or a bike, but it's, uh, it allows you to change the head tube angle and, and use different, uh, fork travel suspension forks on, on the same frame. [01:00:55] Uh, and of course, swapping wheels out is, is always a thing. So yeah, the end minus one concept where we just need less stuff, you know, [01:01:04] Randall: So I reinvented that when I started thesis, he used to say like, and, minus three, it replaces road, bike, your gravel bike, your road, bike, your cross bike, your, um, light duty cross country bike, uh, your adventure bike actually as well, you know, load these things up. yeah, very much a philosophy that, uh, I think it's so good that the, its efforts to come up with new, subcategories, for example, by having gravel bikes now run oversize 700 wheels and extending the geo and going with these really slack head angles in order to accommodate that wheel size. [01:01:40] I actually think that the form, the form that things want to evolve towards is actually what you created in the first place, which is the one bike that does all the things and does them well. And depending on the wheels you put on them, um, we'll do we'll, we'll transform. Uh, and you know, we've, we've talked a little bit about geo changing, um, You know, and things like this, which you have a bike that, that does that. [01:02:03] And why don't we talk a bit about that in the technology behind it? [01:02:08] Craig Calfee: The SFL, you mean we use the geometry of the head tube and the bottom bracket to, uh, to accommodate what you're using it for? Yeah, the concept there is to, if you're on a long ride to be able to change the geometry of your bike mid ride. So with an Allen wrench, you, uh, basically swap these flip plates out on your head to varia. [01:02:32] And so you climb, you can climb with one geometry with another. And to me, that's, that's really fun because the climbing, you, if you're climbing up a a long steep climb on a bike that you're going to descend back down on, uh, you really don't want the same geometry it's, you're compromising and one or the other, either climate. [01:02:55] Or it descends great. It's rarely both, or really can't possibly be both. Cause they're just doing two different things. So if you can swap out these flip plates and change the head tube angle, which is really all you need at that point, um, you have a bike that climbs great and descends. Great. So for me, that was the goal of, uh, just making a better mountain bike. Um, you know, the fact that it can be converted into other bikes for different disciplines is a whole nother angle. Uh, and you can even do that perhaps you wouldn't do it the trail, but let's say you show up, say you're on a trip, an adventure, uh, maybe out to Utah, for example, where you're riding slick rock, but you're also going to go up, you know, into the mountains. [01:03:45] Um, you'll have you, you might want to have. Different fork travels or different for, uh, options. So you can bring a couple of different forks and swap out a fork, change your flip plates and have a bike. That's awesome for slick rock. And then another one that's awesome for, for the bike parks. So, you know, to me it would, but it's only one bike and you know, you don't need, you know, three bikes. So that, that just, uh, that's the design result of a bike where you can change the head tube angle on, [01:04:21] Randall: and the, in really how much head tube angle adjustment is there on there. [01:04:25] Craig Calfee: uh, it's a or minus four degrees [01:04:28] Randall: that's, that's substantial. [01:04:30] Craig Calfee: that's a lot. [01:04:31] Randall: Yeah. [01:04:31] I mean, that's transformative really. I work in increments of, you know, half a degree. [01:04:36] Craig Calfee: Yeah. These are half degree increments, um, right now, uh, one degree, but we can easily do half degree increments. find that one degree is, is really. Um, especially when you have the option of, of tweaking the same bike. So reason we focus on these half degree increments on a production bike is to dial in the best compromise between two, two ways that it's going to be used when you don't need to compromise, you can go a full degree in the other direction and not worry about fact that it's not going to perform as well, know, in super steep terrain because that flipped chip is not, uh, the right one for the super steep scenario. [01:05:22] Just change it out or flip it over a T when you approach the really steep stuff. So yeah. [01:05:29] Randall: applicable for mountain bikes, particularly because the, I mean, the slack, the long slack that, that have emerged in recent years make a ton of sense for mountain biking, especially descending, but when you're ascending, it ends up being so slack that you get wheel flop, you get the front end, lifting the bike naturally wants to tilt back. [01:05:49] You don't have that on a gravel bike currently. And if you don't, if you're not adding a huge suspension fork, you're never going to be descending terrain that is so technical that you need those slacked out angles. So it sounds like something that's very much could be applied to gravel bikes, but that, you know, for the mountain bike application is actually pretty game-changing. [01:06:06] Craig Calfee: Yeah, well on gravel bikes or adventure bikes, um, uh, it's actually helpful if you're, if you're, let's say you're a roadie and you're starting to go off road. And so you're driving these gravel trails and then you're starting to get into more interesting off-road excursions with that same bike, but your experience on steep terrain is limited because you're, you know, you're a roadie, you've your, all your muscle memory and all your bike handling memory comes from the road and a little bit of dirt road stuff. [01:06:39] Now you're kind of getting into serious off-road stuff and you want to try. a Uh, shortcut dissent, uh, you know, down something kind of crazy. Uh, let's say, uh, you're not very good at it in the beginning and you take your time and you, you don't have a bike that can go that fast down, such a trail, then you change it out. [01:07:00] As you get better at it, as you increase your skill level and your confidence level, might want to go a little faster. So you a bike that can go a little faster safely and go for that slack head angle, which is designed to get higher speed. So it's great for evolving skills and evolving terrain as you start exploring more radical stuff. [01:07:27] So that's the other reason to do it. [01:07:29] Randall: Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And in fact, any, you know, what I'm working on going forward very much as a, uh, one of the core, you know, is, uh, being able to tailor the geometry, um, as close to on the fly as possible. Uh, you know, if you want it to be on the fly, you're going to add a huge amount of added structure and complexity and weight, but having it be when you swap the wheels, there's very little to do, you know, this sort of thing. [01:07:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So yeah, the whole idea is to, is to be able to go and have really fun adventures after all I wrote the book on adventures, see, here's, uh, this is a, this is the commercial part of our, our, uh, [01:08:10] plug [01:08:12] is, uh, this book I wrote about a trip. I took back in the, in the mid early eighties. Uh it's it's a kind of a. [01:08:20] Randall: of a [01:08:21] Craig Calfee: It has nothing to do with bikes, except that there is a section in there where I made a canteen out of bamboo in the Congo, but it's a pretty crazy trip. And, uh, and I just called it adventures. It's on amp. anyone wants to buy it. [01:08:37] Randall: I will get a coffee. [01:08:39] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [01:08:42] Randall: Um, very, very cool. Um, we skipped over one, which is the manta, which is another interesting innovation [01:08:51] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Suspension on a road bike. I mean, that's a, I keep saying that's going to be the future and it hasn't happened yet, but I, I still believe that road bikes will be the main type of bike being written in the highest levels of racing. [01:09:08] interesting [01:09:08] Randall: So you think suspension versus say. Um, wide tubeless, aerodynamic, the optimized rims with a 30 mil tire run at lower pressures. You think the suspension has a sufficient benefit relative to that, to offset say the structural complexity or weight? [01:09:25] Craig Calfee: Yes. So, uh, the big tire thing, trend towards bigger tires is really a trend towards suspension. It's pneumatic suspension rather than mechanical suspension. [01:09:39] Randall: Well, as our regular listeners know, this is a topic that's very much near and dear to my heart. I talk often about the benefits of pneumatic suspension, so this will be an interesting place for us to stop and really

This week Randall sits down with bicycle industry pioneer, Craig Calfee. Craig has been an industry leader for decades with his work on the Calfee brand and many other collaborations throughout the industry. You cannot find someone more knowledgable about carbon (or bamboo) as a material. Calfee Designs Website Join The Ridership Support the Podcast Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Craig Calfee Randall [00:00:00] [00:00:04] Randall: Welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Randall Jacobs and our guest today is Craig Calfee. Craig is the founder of Calfee Design, the innovator behind the first full carbon frames to race in the tour de France, the originator of numerous technologies adopted throughout the cycling industry, and on a personal note has been a generous and consistent supporter of my own entrepreneurial journey. I am grateful to have him as a friend, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time. So with that, Craig, Calfee welcome to the podcast. [00:00:32] Craig Calfee: Oh, thank you. Nice to be here. [00:00:34] Randall: So, let's start with, what's your background, give your own story in your own words. [00:00:40] Craig Calfee: Well, I've always written bikes. I mean, as a kid, that's how I got around. And that's, as you become an older child, you, uh, find your independence with moving about the world. And a bicycle of course, is the most efficient way to do that. And later on, I was a bike messenger in New York when I went to college and that kind of got me into bike design as much for the, uh, desire to make a bike that can withstand a lot of abuse. And later on, I used a bike for commuting to work at a job, building carbon fiber racing boats. And during that time I crashed my bike and needed a new frame. So I thought I'd make a frame at a carbon fiber, uh, tubing that I had been making at my. [00:01:29] Randall: my job [00:01:30] Craig Calfee: So this is back in 1987, by the way. So there wasn't a, there were no YouTube videos on how to make your own carbon bike. So I pretty much had to invent a way to build the bike out of this tubing. And at the time there were aluminum lugged bikes, and I just, I knew already aluminum and carbon fiber don't get along very well. So you have to really do a lot of things to, to accommodate that. And the existing bikes at the time were, uh, I would say experimental in the fact that they were just trying to glue aluminum to carbon and it really wasn't working. [00:02:05] So I came up with my own way and built my first bike and it turned out really well. And a lot of friends and, and bike racers who checked out the bikes that I I really should keep going with it. So I felt like I discovered carbon fiber as a, as the perfect bicycle material before anyone else. Uh, and actually, uh, right at that time, Kestrel came out with their first bike, uh, the K 1000 or something. Um, anyway that was uh, that was in 87, 88. And, uh, I felt like I should really, you know give it a go. So I moved out to California and started a bike company. [00:02:48] Randall: So just to be clear, you were actually making the tubes, you weren't buying tubes. So you're making the tubes out of the raw carbon or some pre-printed carbon. then you came up with your own way of, uh, joining those tubes. [00:03:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I worked on a braiding machine, so it was actually a a hundred year old, uh, shoelace braider, uh, from back in Massachusetts. There's a lot of old textile machinery braiding is, uh, you know, your braided socks and, you know, nylon rope is braided. So this is a 72 carrier braider, which means 72 spools of carbon fiber. [00:03:25] Are winding in and out braiding this tube and you just run it back and forth through this braider a few times. And now you have a thick enough wall to, uh, I developed a and tape wrapping method at that job and came up with a pretty decent way to make a bicycle tube. So that was kind of the beginning of that. [00:03:47] Uh, and since then I've explored all kinds of methods for making tubing, mainly through subcontractors who specialize in things like filament winding and roll wrapping. And, uh, pultrusion, you know, all kinds of ways to make tubing. And that does relate to kind of an inspiration for me, where I realized that, uh, carbon fiber, you know, high performance composites are relatively young and new in the world of technology where metals are, you know, the metals have been around since the bronze age. [00:04:21] I mean, literally 5,000 years of development happened with metals, carbon fiber, uh, high-performance composites have only really been around since world war two. So that's a huge gap in development that hasn't happened with composites. So that to me felt like, oh, there's some job security for a guy who likes to invent things. So that was my, a kind of full force to get me to really focus on composite materials. [00:04:51] Randall: Were you that insightful in terms of the historical context at the time, or is that kind of a retro or retrospective reflection? [00:04:58] Craig Calfee: I think, I don't know. I think I may have read about that. Um, I a friend who had a library card at MIT and I pretty much lived there for a few weeks every, uh, master's thesis and PhD thesis on bicycles that they had in their library. And I think somewhere in there was a, uh, a topic on composites and comparing the technology of composites. [00:05:23] So. I probably that from some reading I did, or maybe I did invent that out of thin air. I don't remember, uh, nonetheless, uh, the fact of it is, you know, not, not a whole lot of mental energy has been put into coming up with ways of processing fiber and resin compared to metal. So to me that just opens up a wide world of, of innovation. [00:05:49] Randall: Um, and so the first frame was that, um, you're creating essentially uniform tubes and then mitering them, joining them, wrapping them as you do with your current bamboo frames or what was happening there. [00:06:02] Craig Calfee: Uh, it's more like the, uh, our, our carbon fiber frames were laminating carbon fabric in metal dyes, and those are not mitered tubes fitting into the dyes. And that's, that's a process. I got my first patent on. And it, uh, so in the process of compressing the carbon fabric against the tubes, you're you end up with these gussets in what is traditionally the parting line of a mold and rather than trim them off completely. [00:06:31] I, I use them as reinforcing ribs. [00:06:35] Randall: Yep. Okay. So that explains the, the, that distinctive element that continues with your, um, some of your, uh, to tube, uh, currently [00:06:48] Craig Calfee: them [00:06:49] the hand wrapping technique from that you currently see on the bamboo bikes came from developing a tandem frame, or basically a frame whose production numbers don't justify the tooling costs. Um, so that's hand wrapped. That's just literally lashed to. Yeah. And a point of note, there is I was a boy scout growing up and, uh, there's this merit badge called pioneering merit badge. [00:07:16] And I really enjoyed pioneering merit badge because it involved lashing row, uh, poles together with rope and the pro you had to do with this one project. And I did a tower and it was this enormous structure that went just straight up like a flagpole, but it was it involved a bunch of tetrahedrons, uh, stacked on top of each other and lashed together. [00:07:41] you know, culminating in a pole that went up. I don't remember how tall it was, but it was, it was really impressive. And everybody, you know, thought, wow, this is incredible of poles and some rope. And here we have this massive tower. So anyway, I was into things together since a young age. [00:08:00] And so I immediately came up with the, uh, the last tube concept. Which is where the, now the bamboo bikes are. course there's a specific pattern to the wrapping, but, um, the concept is basically using fiber to lash stuff together, [00:08:16] Randall: When it immediately brings to mind, what's possible with current generation of additive production techniques. Uh, whereas before you could make small components and then lash them together to create structures that otherwise aren't manufacturable. [00:08:31] Now you'd be able to say, print it out though. Those, you know, those printed out materials don't have the performance characteristics of a, you know, a uni directional carbon of the sword that you're working with currently. [00:08:42] Craig Calfee: right? [00:08:43] Randall: Um, so we've gone deep nerd here. We're going to, I'm going to pull us out and say, okay, uh, lots of time for this. [00:08:49] This is going to be a double episode. Uh, so next up, let's talk about those frames, uh, saw their big debut. [00:08:59] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So, um, we started making custom geometry for a. In 1989 and selling them and so big and tall, and that the idea of custom geometry frames was, uh, you know, pretty esoteric. And the pro racers were, we're using a lot of custom frames. So Greg Lamond, uh, was in search of a carbon fiber, uh, custom frame builder in, uh, 1990. [00:09:31] And, uh, no one really was doing it. We were literally the only company making custom carbon frame bikes. So he, uh, found out about us, uh, effectively discovered us, shall we say? And, uh, it didn't take long for him to order up 18 of them for his, his, uh, team Z, uh, teammates. He was sponsoring his own team with a Lamont brand. [00:09:56] So we didn't have to sponsor him. He basically paid for the frame. Put his name on them. And, and, uh, now we're now we're on the defending champions, a tour de France team. So that was a huge break obviously. And it was really a pleasure working with Greg and getting to know the demands of the pro Peloton, uh, you know, that really launched us. [00:10:21] So that was, uh, quite a splash. And, you know, it always is a great answer to the question. Oh, so who rides your bike kind of thing. you know, you have the, the full-on best one in the world at the time. So, so that was a fun thing. [00:10:39] Randall: And the name of the company at the time was, [00:10:41] Craig Calfee: Uh, carbon frames. [00:10:42] Randall: yeah. So anyone wanting [00:10:45] dig up the historical record, [00:10:47] Craig Calfee: is this too generic? You know, the other to what you're talking about, the adventure bikes. Yeah, we had to stop. I mean, carbon frames is a terrible name because everyone started talking about all carbon fiber frames as carbon frames. So we thought that was cool, you know, like Kleenex, you know, uh, and then we came up with the adventure bike, you know, with very early, uh, adventure bike. [00:11:11] And it was just, we called it the adventure bike. And now there's a classification called adventure bikes that, you know, so, um, I think we, we, we went too generic on how we named our models. [00:11:26] Randall: I've drawn from the rich tradition, a tradition of Greek, you know, uh, philosophy for naming my own companies in the like, [00:11:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:11:36] Randall: uh, um, and then next up, uh, so you've worked with Greg Lamond on those frames. Carbon frames is up and running and you're, you're producing custom geo frames and you're starting to get at some scale at this point and some notoriety. [00:11:52] next up you were working on your bamboo bikes. When we talk about that [00:11:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah, that was say, I'm kind of at the, at the time, it was just a way to get publicity. So at the Interbike trade show, you'd have a few creative people making some wacky bikes out of beer cans or, or other just weird things just to get attention, just, just to send the media over to your booth, to take a picture of some wacky thing that you're doing. [00:12:20] yeah, we got to do something like that to get, get some attention. And the, uh, so I was looking around for some PVC pipe. Maybe I was going to do a PVC pipe bike, and I wasn't really sure, but I knew that we could just wrap any tube. Make a bike out of literally anything. So, um, my dog was playing with some bamboo behind the shop. [00:12:42] Uh, she was a stick dog, so she loved to clamp onto a stick and you could swing her around by the, by the sticks. She's a pit bull and lab mix. Anyway, we ran out of sticks. Uh, cause we only had one little tree in the back, but we did have some bamboos. So she came up with a piece of bamboo and I was her around by it, expecting it to break off in her mouth because I just wasn't aware of how strong bamboo was, but it turned out it was really quite strong. [00:13:12] And I said, oh, let's make a bike out of this stuff. And sure enough, uh, the bike was, uh, quite a attention getter. It got the quarter page and bicycling magazine so that, you know mission accomplished on that front. And, but the bike itself rode really well. [00:13:29] Randall: well [00:13:30] Craig Calfee: Um, when I wrote my first carbon bike, uh, the very first ride on my very first carbon bike, I was struck by how smooth it was. [00:13:38] It had this vibration damping that was, you know, just super noticeable and, and that really kind of lit a fire under my butt thinking, wow, this is really cool. When I built my first bamboo bike, I had that same feeling again, how smooth It was It was amazing for its vibration damping. So, uh, I knew I was onto something at that point. [00:14:02] Uh, that first bike was a little too flexy, but, uh, the second bike I built was significantly stiffer and was an actual, real rideable bike. So, uh, from that point, uh, we just started building a few here and there and it was still a novelty item until about, uh, 1999, 2000. When a few people who had been riding them, or like, I want another one, I I want to know mountain bike this time. [00:14:29] So as it was just starting to get known and, uh, we started selling them through dealers. And I mean there's a lot of stories I can tell on how that evolved and how people started actually believing that a bamboo bike could actually exist in the world. So it took a while though. [00:14:49] Randall: I think there's a whole thread that we could tug on maybe in a subsequent episode where we focus just on the bamboo bike revolution. [00:14:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. That's um, there's a lot of, lot of stuff going on there. I'm actually writing my second book on history of the bamboo bike, because there's so many interesting angles to it, particularly in the. [00:15:10] Randall: in Africa [00:15:12] I'm struck by the juxtaposition of this bleeding edge. Uh, you know, high-tech material that you pioneered and then this going back to one of the most basic building materials, uh, that we have building bikes out of that. And in fact, um, on the one hand, there's this, this extreme, know, difference in terms of the technology ization of each material. [00:15:34] But on the other hand, there's a parallel the sense that like carbon, in tubes is best, uh, you know, generally, uh, when it's you need to write. Yeah, with maybe some cross fibers in order to prevent, prevent it from separating. And bamboo also has that characteristic of having, you know, you need directional fibers that are bonded together by some, uh, you know, some other material in, in the, in the bamboo [00:15:58] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, it's very, there's a lot of similarities. I mean, bamboo is amazing just because it grows out of the ground and tubular for. And it grows a new, huge variety of diameters and wealth thicknesses. So if you're looking for tubing, I mean, you don't have to go much further. It's amazing that it literally grows out of the ground that way. [00:16:20] Randall: paint [00:16:21] a picture for folks to, um, most of our listeners I'm guessing are in north America or, you know, other, uh, English-speaking parts of the world. I lived in China and as you've been, you see huge scaffolding, multi-story, you know, big buildings and the scaffolding isn't made out of metal. [00:16:37] It's made out of bamboo lashed together with zip ties and pieces of wire. So it really speaks to the, the structural, uh, strength of the material and reliability of the material. and you know, should instill confidence when descending down a mountain. [00:16:54] Craig Calfee: Oh yeah. No, it's, I, I remember seeing bamboo and scaffolding many, many years. And I thought, well, of course, and the other reason they use it in scaffolding is when a typhoon hits and it, it kind of messes up the scaffolding of a construction site. Um, it's, they're back to work on the bamboo construction sites, much faster than the metal scaffolding sites, they have to deal with bent and distorted metal scaffolding, um, to replace those and fix that takes a lot longer where bamboo, they just bend it back and lash it back together. [00:17:32] It's it's so much easier. [00:17:35] Randall: there's one more thing on this theme that I want to, uh, pull out before we move on, which is talk to me about the, the sustainability components of it. Um, starting with how it was done initially. [00:17:47] And then now with say like, uh, biodegradable resins or, or other materials I can, this frame can be current. [00:17:55] Craig Calfee: Uh, the short answer is yes, the frame can be composted. And the other cool thing is if you take care of it, it it'll never compost, meaning you can prevent it from being composted naturally. if you really want to, you know, uh, dispose of the frame, um, it will biodegrade much faster than any other material that bicycle frames are made of. [00:18:22] So yeah, the, the renewable aspect, the low energy content of it, it's, it's utterly the best you can imagine. And we're kind of waiting for the world to finally get serious about global warming and start to have some economic incentives for buying products that are in fact, uh, good for the environment. Uh, we haven't seen that yet, but we're kind of holding out and hoping that happens. [00:18:49] And then we'll see probably some significant growth in the bamboo adoption in the bicycling world. [00:18:57] Randall: I want to plant a seed that, that, uh, to germinate in my head, which is this idea of bamboos being the ideal material for kind of more mainstream, uh, utility bicycles and recreational bicycles. really it's a matter of the unit economics in economies of scale and consistency of material, which you could make uniform by having, uh, having controlled grow conditions and things like that. [00:19:23] Um, but it could be a very localized industry to anywhere where bamboo grows. this could be produced, which reduces transportation costs reduces, you know, issues of inventory carrying and all these things. Um, so let's, let's park that I want to ask you more about those, about the economics of bamboo in a side conversation to see if there's, you know, explore there. [00:19:45] Craig Calfee: well, there is. I mean, that's, that's what we did in Africa. Same concept is as why, why would bamboo work in Africa better than the imported bikes from China? So that was, that was the whole thing around that. [00:19:59] Randall: Ah, I love it. All right. So though, there will be a bamboo episode folks. Uh, we're going to, going to continue cause there's a lot of ground to cover here. so next steps you've done done the first carbon frame and the tour de France, uh, carbon frames is up and running. You've started getting into bamboo, what was next, [00:20:18] Craig Calfee: Um, then lots of smaller developments, which become really important to us from a business perspective, uh, fiber tandem, we built the first one of those. And then we went to a lateral list, tandem design, and it's pretty optimized at this point. So we're, I would say we are the leader in the tandem world in terms of the highest performance, tandem bikes, uh, and then re repairing of carbon frames. [00:20:47] That was a big one, uh, which we were kind of pushed into by customers. And other folks who heard that we could repair the Cathy frames and they would set a call up. And literally we had a, an in one inquiry per week, if not more, more often about like a colonoscopy that this guy wanted to repair and he heard we could do it on ours. [00:21:10] And we're like, well, by a Calfee don't, you know, I'm sorry, but we can't repair somebody else's frame. You'll have to buy one of ours. And then you'll know that you crash it, we can repair it for, he was trying to make that a, a a advantage for our brand, but we couldn't really, you know, do that. So, uh, we said, well, if we can't beat them, we'll repair them. [00:21:32] And we repaired a first and then some specialized, I think, after that. So we, we accepted repair jobs and pretty soon it became about a third of our, our business. And it's, uh, of course now lots of other people repair frames, but, uh, we started doing that in 2001 or something and, and we've been doing it ever since. [00:21:58] And it's, that part has been really interesting to see, because we get to literally see the inside of everyone else's frames and look at the weak points. You know, they often show up on, on people's frames and get asked to fix them or even redesign them at that point. So that's been really interesting to, to me as a technician, [00:22:21] Randall: and want to come back to this in a second, but before we lose it, what is a lateralis tandem design? [00:22:27] Craig Calfee: uh, that, so traditional tandems had a, a tube that went the head tube, usually straight back down towards the dropouts or or bottom bottom bracket. And it's, it's a way to stiffen up a frame. That's inherently not very stiffened torsion. But, uh, with composites, you can orient the fiber, uh, in torsion to make a tube significantly stiffer and torsion than say a metal tube of similar weight. [00:22:57] So we were able to go a little bit bigger diameter and more fiber in the helical angled orientation and make a tandem, uh, stiff enough and torsion and get rid of that tube. And for a carbon fiber frame, that it was really important because number of times you have to join the tube, the more expensive it is or the more labor content there is. So we were able to reduce our labor content, make the frame lighter and make it stiffer all at, in one design change. So that was a big, a big revelation. And now I most of them have copied that design. So it's, uh, it's, that's another time where we, we did something that, that, uh, now became the standard. [00:23:43] Randall: Yeah. One of many from what I've observed in a written the history. Uh, so around this time, or shortly after you started the repair business, you started doing some pretty, pretty wild frames in terms of pushing the limits of what was possible when we talk about that. [00:24:01] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We've done a lot of different types of frames, uh, mostly for show, but, um, like the north American handmade bike show is a great venue for just doing something way out of left field. Um, we did, uh, a bamboo bike made all out of small diameter, bamboo. Um, it's I only made one because it was a total pain in the ass to make. [00:24:26] Uh, and it was also kind of inspired by the, a request from a guy who was not only a fan of bamboo, but he was a fan of molten style bikes. Those are the trust style frames with small wheels. So we built one of those and. With the only small diameter bamboo, and we built another one that was, uh, a real art piece. [00:24:49] So just having fun with that from a, you know, completely artistic direction is a lot of fun for me because that's my formal training. I went to art school and learned about different materials and, and art and composition. Uh, and I was into the structure of materials and how they, they relate to each other. [00:25:12] And my art was more of a forum file form follows function, kind of inspiration. And, uh, so some bikes that I've made were, are not terribly practical, but just explore the, the limits of structure. So another bike I made, uh, we call it the spider web bike, which was literally a, a bike made of just carbon fiber strands. [00:25:36] No tubes. And it, it was kind of wild looking and a collector ended up buying it, which is really cool. But you look at this thing and you just couldn't imagine that it, it, you could actually ride it, but, uh, it actually does ride fairly well. It's a bit fragile if you crash it, it would be kind of dangerous, but you know, stuff like that. [00:25:55] I like to do that occasionally. [00:25:59] Randall: I think of, uh, like biomorphic design or like hyper optimized design that maybe doesn't have the resiliency, but very strict parameters will perform higher than anything else that you could, you could create. [00:26:12] Craig Calfee: absolutely. Yeah. Those are really fun. I'm really inspired by natural forms and, uh, you know, the, the, some of the new computer aided techniques we're designing are, uh, rattled in those lines. so, yeah, I follow that pretty closely. [00:26:28] Randall: a little sidebar. Um, I don't know if you've, uh, no of, uh, Nick Taylor, the guy who created the, Ibis Maximus in front of the mountain bike hall of fame. [00:26:40] Craig Calfee: Um, no, I don't think so. [00:26:43] Randall: I'll introduce you to his work at some point, but he's another one of these people who, very avid cyclist is not in the bike industry, but is. There's a lot of trail building and alike and isn't is a sculptor really focused on, the form of, uh, you know, biological shapes and materials and, and things of this sort. [00:27:02] Uh, I think that there's a lot, uh, I'm actually curious more into your, your non bike artistic work for a moment. Uh, and, and how that got infused into your work with the bike. [00:27:18] Craig Calfee: yeah, so I haven't done a lot of, you know, just pure, fine art sculpture in a long time. But when I was doing that, it was. a lot of things that would fool the eye or, um, some material and, and push it to its limit. So I was doing stuff that was, um, uh, you know, trying to create a, almost like a physical illusion, not just an optical illusion, but a, but a physical illusion or like, how could you possibly do that kind of thing? [00:27:54] And that was a theme of my sculpture shortly after Pratt. So for example, just take one example of a sculpture that I got a lot of credit for in classes at Pratt, it was a, a big block of Oak. It was a cutoff from a woodworking shop. It's about a foot in, let's say a foot cube of Oak. And I would, um, so I, I, uh, raised the grain on it with a wire brush and then I blocked printed on Oak tag page. [00:28:26] Um, some black ink on rolled onto the Oak block and made a river, basically a print off of each face of the, of the block. And then I carefully taped that paper together to simulate a paper block of the Oak chunk that I I had. now I had a super light paper version of the Oak block. And then I hung them on a balance beam, which I forged at a steel, but the hanging point was way close to the piece. [00:28:57] And if you looked at it from three feet away, just, your brain would, just hurting because you couldn't figure out how is this even possible? And because it really looked amazing, super hyper real. Anyway, it just looked amazing and it was fun to get the effect of how the hell did that. Did he do that? [00:29:18] What's what's the trick here. There's something going on. That's not real. Or it's. Uh it's not physically possible. And I kind of got that feeling with the carbon fiber bike. When we, when we built the first bike, everyone would pick it up and go, oh, that's just too light. It's not even a bike. It's a plastic bike it's going to break instantly. [00:29:39] So that was sort of a relation from, from those days to the, to the bike. [00:29:44] Randall: You ever come across Douglas Hofstadter's book, Godel, Escher Bach. [00:29:49] Craig Calfee: No, but I'd be interested to read it. [00:29:51] Randall: Definite short Lister. Um, uh, you've come across MC Escher, of Yeah. And are there any parallels or any inspiration there? [00:30:01] Craig Calfee: Um, not very direct, I'd say. Um, [00:30:08] Who [00:30:08] Randall: your, who your inspirations or what, what would you say your creative energy is most similar to? [00:30:14] Craig Calfee: I'd probably, I'd say say Buckminster fuller. [00:30:17] Randall: Mm, [00:30:17] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I mean, I studied his work in depth, you know, not only the geodesic dome stuff, but also his vehicles, the dime on vehicle the, yeah. So there's, there's a bunch of stuff that he was involved with that I'd say, I'm parallel with as far as my interest goes, [00:30:37] Randall: what books should I read? [00:30:39] Craig Calfee: all of them. [00:30:42] Randall: Where do I start? If I have limited [00:30:44] time [00:30:45] Craig Calfee: Yeah. It's a tough one. He's actually really difficult to read too. His writing is not that great. I pretty much look at his, uh, his design work more than His writing [00:30:56] Randall: Okay. So who's book whose book about Buckminster fuller. Should I read? [00:31:01] Craig Calfee: good question. I'll, I'll catch up with you on that later because there's few of them that they're worth. It's worth a look. [00:31:07] Randall: awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Um, let's talk about 2001. you're a dragon fly. [00:31:15] Craig Calfee: Yeah, the dragon fly was an interesting project. It was so Greg Lamanda had asked me, like, I want an even lighter bike. He was constantly pushing on the technology. And I said, well, there are some really expensive fibers that are starting to become available, but, um, you know, this would be a $10,000 bike frame and, you know, it's only going to be a half a pound lighter. [00:31:40] And he said, well, I don't care. I just, you know, I w I need it for racing. I mean, um, you know, when, when I'm climbing Alpe d'Huez with Miguel Indurain and if he's got a lighter bike than I do, then I'm just going to give up, you know, in terms of the effort. So he needs to have that technical advantage, or at least be on the same plane. [00:32:02] So the reason why he'd spend, you know, $5,000 for a half a pound, a weight savings was pretty, pretty real. So, but it took until about 2000, 2001 after he had long retired to, um, really make that happen. So the fibers I was talking about are really high modulus fiber that was very fragile, too brittle, really for any use. [00:32:29] So we came up with a way to integrate it with, um, boron fiber. Uh, it actually was a material we found, uh, special specialty composites out of, uh, out of Rhode Island. Uh, they, uh, do this co-mingled boron and carbon fiber, uh, hybrid material, which was, um, they were looking for a use cases for it and the bicycle was one of them. [00:32:58] So, uh, we built a prototype with their material and it turned out. To be not only really light and really strong, the, the boron made it really tough. So carbon fiber has, uh, the highest stiffness to weight ratio, intention of any material you can use. boron is the highest stiffness to weight ratio in compression as a, as a fibrous material that you can integrate into a composite. So when you mix them, you now have a combination of materials, that are unbeatable. [00:33:35] Randall: Like a concrete and rebar almost, or, quite. [00:33:40] Craig Calfee: I'd say that's a good, um, for composites in general, but now we're talking about the extreme edge of, of performance, where, um, looking at the, most high performance material certain conditions, versus tension. These, these are conditions that are existing in a bicycle tube all the time. [00:34:07] So one side of the tube is compressing while the other side is intention as you twist the bike, uh, and then it reverses on the, on the pedal stroke. So it has to do both now. Carbon fiber is quite good at that, but compression it suffers. And that's why you can't go very thin wall and make it, um, withstand any kind of impact because it's, it's got a weakness in it's, um, compressive. So, uh, it's, uh, it doesn't take a break very well either. So boron on, the other hand does take a break very well, and it's incredibly high compressive strength to weight ratio and compressive stiffness to weight ratio. are two different things by the way. So when you combine those into a tube, it's pretty amazing. [00:34:57] Uh, they're just really quite expensive. So we came up with the dragon fly, um, in 2001 and it was at the time the lightest production bike yet it also had the toughness of a normal frame. And that's that's right around when the Scott came out, which was a super thin wall, large diameter, uh, carbon frame that was really fragile. [00:35:23] Um, so that was sort of a similar weight, but not nearly as tough as, uh, the dragon fly. [00:35:34] Randall: For well, to go a little bit deeper on this. So what is the nature like? What is the nature of the boron? Is it a, like, is it a molecule? Is it a filament? So you have, you have carbon filaments is the boron, um, you know, is that, are you putting it into the resin? How is it? Co-mingled. [00:35:51] Craig Calfee: It's a, it's a filament, basically a super thin wire. [00:35:56] Randall: You're essentially co-mingling it in when you're creating the tubes and then using the same resin to bond the entire structure together. [00:36:04] Craig Calfee: That's right. [00:36:05] Randall: Got it. And this, so then this is, uh, if you were to add then say like to the resin separately, it would be a compounding effect. Um, I don't know if you have, uh, mean, I assume you've done some stuff with graphene. [00:36:19] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Graphing graphing is a really great material. It does improve the toughness of composites. Uh, it's again, also very expensive to use, uh, in a whole two. Usually it's used in smaller components, uh, not so much on the whole frame, uh, and it, and it's, um, it's best, uh, uses in preventing the of cracking. [00:36:46] So it stops the micro cracking that starts with a failure mode. And that that's a great, thing. But if your laminate is too thin to begin with that, all the graphing in the world, isn't going to help you. So for really minor wax it'll help, but for anything substantial, it's going to break anyway. [00:37:08] So you have to start out with a thick enough laminate get the toughness that you're looking for. Uh, graphene is really great for highly stressed areas, which might start cracking from, uh, fatigue or just the design flaw of a stress concentration. So it's got a number of purposes. Uh, it's great for, uh, like pinch clamp areas, you know, places where the mechanical, uh, stress is so high on a, on a very localized area. [00:37:37] Um, so yeah, graphene is wonderful. We didn't get into it too much because, um, it's just, it would just, wasn't practical for our applications and how we make the frames, but, uh, some companies have started using graphene and it's, it's pretty interesting stuff. [00:37:52] Randall: We did some experimentation with it early on in our looking at it for the future. my understanding is. You know, I haven't gone too deep into like the intermolecular physics, but it's essentially like you have a piece of paper and if you start tearing the paper that tear will propagate very easily. [00:38:09] then the graphene is almost like little tiny pieces of tape. Randomly distributed, evenly distributed across the material that makes it so that that fracture can no longer propagate in that direction. And it has to change direction where it bumps into another graphene molecule and the graphing, essentially when we tested it was doubling the bond strength of the resin. [00:38:30] So in terms of pulling apart different layers of laminate, then, um, increasing the toughness of say, uh, a rim made with the exact same laminate in the exact same resin with, 1% graphene per mass of resin increasing the toughness of that rim structure by 20%. [00:38:50] Which is pretty [00:38:50] Craig Calfee: That's correct. [00:38:51] Randall: The challenges that is that it lowers the temperature, uh, the, the glass suffocation points resin. so, you know, a rim is like, you know, there are, if you're gonna put it on the back of your car, you know, that's not a normal use case when you're riding, but, you know, it's, it's something that just makes it less resilient to those towards sorts of, you know, people put on the back of the car too close to the exhaust and they melt the rim. [00:39:17] So we're having to experiment with some high temperature residents that have other issues. [00:39:22] Craig Calfee: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's rims are a great place for graphing, just cause they're in a a place where you'll have some impacts, but yeah. Temperature management is an issue. Um, yeah, that's the high temperature residents are, are another area that, that, uh, we're experimenting in, uh, wrapping electric motor, uh, rotors with, with a high temperature resonant carbon wrap. [00:39:46] that's a whole nother area, but I'm familiar with that stuff. [00:39:49] Randall: Which we'll get into in a second, park park, that one. Cause that's a fun theme. yeah. And I'm just thinking about a rim structure. It seems like boron on the inside graphing on the outside, um, deal with high compressive forces between the spokes and then the high impact forces on the external, will [00:40:07] Craig Calfee: the material we use is called high bore. You can look that up. H Y B O R and there they're actually coming back with new marketing efforts there. They, I think the company got sold and then, um, the new buyers are, are re revisiting how to, to spread the use of it. So might be real interested in supporting a rim project. [00:40:30] Randall: mm. Uh, to be continued offline. Um, all right. So then we've got your carbon fiber repair surface. We talked about the dragon fly. Um, it's a great segue into engineering and design philosophy. let's talk about that [00:40:47] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, well it's, to me, it's all about form follows function and, uh, when something works so well, functionally, it's gonna look good. That's uh, that's why trees look great just by themselves, uh, that that's, you know, coming back to the natural world, you know, that's why we have a Nautilus shell for, uh, for our logo. [00:41:12] It's the form follows function. Aspect of that just makes it look beautiful. For some reason, you look at something from nature, you don't really know why is it beautiful? Well, the reason is the way it's structured, the way it's evolved over millions of years. Has resulted in the optimum structure. So for me, as a, as a human being artificially trying to recreate stuff, that's been evolved in nature. [00:41:39] Um, I look closely at how nature does it first and then I'll apply it to whatever I'm dealing with at the moment. And so that's how I, that's how I design stuff. [00:41:50] Randall: there's a, the Nautilus shell example, like, you know, the golden ratio and the way that, really complex systems tend to evolve towards very simple, fundamental, primitives of all design [00:42:04] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. There's some basic stuff that, that seemed to apply everywhere. [00:42:10] Randall: So with your carbon fiber repair service, so you started to see some of the problems with that were emerging with these, um, large tube thin wall designs that were being used to achieve a high strength or sorry, a high stiffness to weight, but then compromising in other areas. [00:42:28] So let's talk about that. [00:42:30] Craig Calfee: Yeah, it's um, you know, designing a carbon fiber bike is actually really quite difficult. There's so much going on. There's so many, uh, things you have to deal with high stress areas that you can't really get around. there's a lot of constraints to designing a good bicycle frame. Um, and then you're dealing with the tradition of, of how people clamp things on bikes, you know, stem, clamps, and seed post clamps, and, uh, you know, th that type of mentality. [00:43:04] It's still with us with the carbon, which is carbon doesn't do well with. So a lot of companies struggle with that and they'll come up with something on paper or in their CAD model. And their finite element analysis sort of works, but, and then they go into the real world and they have to deal with real situations that they couldn't predict in the, the computer. [00:43:29] And they get a problem with, uh, you know, a minor handlebar whacking, the top tube situation, which shouldn't really cause your bike to become dangerous. But in fact, that's what happens. So you've got, um, you know, uh, weak points or vulnerabilities in these really light frame. And if you're not expected to know what the vulnerability is as an end-user and you don't know that if you wack part of the bike and in a minor way that you normally wouldn't expect to cause the frame to become a weak, then the whole design is a question. So you have to consider all these things when you decide to bike. And a lot of companies have just depended on the computer and they are finite element analysis too, to come up with shapes and designs that, uh, are inherently weak. And, um, people get pretty disappointed when they're, when the minor is to of incidents causes a crack in the frame. [00:44:37] And if they keep riding the bike, the crack gets bigger. And then one day, you know, I mean, most people decide to have it fixed before it gets to be a catastrophic but, uh, you know, it gets expensive and, uh, You know, it's, sad. Actually, another motivation for getting into the repair business was to save the reputation of carbon fiber as a frame material. [00:45:03] You know, these types of things don't happen to thin wall titanium frames. You know, a thin wall titanium frame will actually withstand a whole lot more abuse than a thin wall carbon frame. So it's just hard to make diameter thin wall titanium frames that are stiff enough and not without problems of welding, you know, the heat affected zones. [00:45:26] So carbon fiber is, is a better material because it's so much easier to join and to, to mold. But if you, you have to design it properly to, to withstand normal abuse. And if you're not going to do that, then there should at least be a repair service available to keep those bikes from going to the landfill. [00:45:45] So frequent. And so that's what we do we, we offer that and we even train people how to carbon repair service. So that's, um, that's something we've done in order to keep bikes from just getting thrown away. [00:46:01] Randall: uh, I think I've shared with you, I'm in the midst of, uh, doing, uh, uh, a pretty radical ground up design, which is way off in the future. So I'll be picking your brain on that, but it immediately makes me think of the inherent. Compromises of current frame design and manufacturing techniques, including on our frame. [00:46:20] And in our case, the way we've addressed that is through not going with lower modulates carbon, you know, S T 700, maybe some T 800 in the frame, then overbuilding it order to have resiliency against impacts. But then also these sorts of, um, micro voids in other imperfections that are in inherent process of any, uh, manufacturing, uh, system that involves handling of materials in a complex, you know, eight, uh, sorry, 250 a piece, you know, layup like there's, this there's even that like human elements that you have to design a whole bunch of fudge factor into to make sure that when mistakes are made, not if, but when mistakes are made, that there's so much, uh, overbuilding that they don't end up in a catastrophic failure. [00:47:10] Craig Calfee: that's right. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have some safety margin. [00:47:15] Randall: And the Manderal spinning process that you were describing essentially eliminates a lot of that in you're starting to see, I mean, with rims, that's the direction that rims are going in, everything is going to be automated, is going to be knit like a sock and frames are a much more complex shape. Um, but you're starting to see, uh, actually probably know a lot more about the, the automation of frame design than I do. [00:47:35] Um, what do you see? Like as the, as the end point, at least with regards to the, um, like filament based carbon fiber material and frames, like where could it go with technology? [00:47:50] Craig Calfee: the, the, um, robotics are getting super advanced now and there's this technique called, um, uh, they just call it fiber placements or automated fiber placement, which is a fancy word for a robot arm, winding fiber, you know, on a mandrel or shape, uh, and then compressing that and, uh, know, molding that. [00:48:14] So it's, it's where your, a robot will orient a single filament of carbon fiber. Uh, continuously all around the, uh, the shape that you're trying to make. They do that in aerospace now for a really expensive rockets and satellite parts, but the technology is getting more accessible and, uh, so robotic trimmers are another one. [00:48:42] So we're, in fact, we're getting ready to build our own robotic arm tremor for a resin transfer, molded parts. That's where the edge of the part that you mold gets trimmed very carefully with a router. And, but imagine instead of just a router trimming an edge, you've got a robot arm with a spool of fiber on it, wrapping the fiber individually around the whole structure of the frame. [00:49:10] Uh, no, no people involved just, you know, someone to turn the machine on and then turn it off again. So that's kind of coming that that is a future. Uh, it hasn't arrived yet, certainly, maybe for simpler parts, but a frame is a very complex shape. So it'll take a while before they can get to that point. [00:49:30] Randall: It having to, yeah. Being able to Uh, spin a frame in one piece is, seems to be the ultimate end game. [00:49:43] Craig Calfee: Yeah. I think we need to, I think the, the, uh, genetically modified spiders would be a better way to [00:49:50] go [00:49:50] Randall: Yeah, they might, they might help us the design process. [00:49:56] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Yeah. Just give them some good incentives and they'll, they'll make you set a really incredibly strong, you know, spider wound. [00:50:05] Randall: Well, it does. It speaks to the, the, the biggest challenge I see with that, which is you have to go around shape. so if you're going through a frame, like it's essentially the triangle. And so you need some way to like hand off the, the S the filament carrier from one side to the other constantly. [00:50:27] you'd just be able to spin it. You know, it would be pretty straightforward. So maybe the frame comes in a couple of different sections that get bonded, but then those don't form a ring. And so you can, you know, you can move them around instead of the machine order [00:50:41] Craig Calfee: Well, there's these things called grippers. So the robot grip sit and then another arm grip know let's go and the other arm picks it up. And then there's like in weaving, there's this thing called the flying shuttle, which invented. That's where the shuttle that, the war [00:50:59] Randall: Your ancestors were involved with flying shuttle. [00:51:02] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:51:02] Randall: That's one of the, uh, all right. That's, that's a whole other conversation. [00:51:07] Craig Calfee: Yeah, a really interesting, I mean, it's the Draper corporation. If you want to look it up, [00:51:13] um [00:51:13] Randall: I [00:51:13] Craig Calfee: know [00:51:14] they were the manufacturing made the looms back in the industrial revolution in the Northeast [00:51:21] Randall: I'm sitting currently in Waltham, which was one of the first mill cities, um, not from Lowell. [00:51:28] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So all those mills were where our customers and they would buy the Draper looms. Um, and they were automated looms with a flying shuttle was a big deal Uh back then. And so they, they made a lot of, of those looms and, and that's basically what sent me to college with a trust fund. So [00:51:49] Randall: You're a trust fund, baby. [00:51:51] Craig Calfee: Yep. [00:51:51] Yep [00:51:53] From vendors. [00:51:55] Uh [00:51:56] but that's yeah, that's the world I, I came out of. And, so the, the idea of taking a spool of material and handing it off as you wrap around something is really not that difficult. [00:52:08] Randall: Okay. So then you can do it in a way that is resilient to probably 10,000 handoffs over the course of weaving a frame and you can expect that it's not going to fail once. [00:52:19] Craig Calfee: That's right Yeah [00:52:20] It [00:52:20] Randall: All then that, that's [00:52:22] Craig Calfee: the hard part, the hard part is dealing with the resin and the, and the, uh, forming and the getting a nice surface finish. That was where the harder. [00:52:31] Randall: Yeah. And, uh, uh, I'm thinking about, uh, space X's attempts to create a giant, uh, carbon fiber, uh, fuel tank. And they actually had to do the, um, the heating the resin at the point of, uh, depositing of the filaments. [00:52:52] And [00:52:52] you know, that's a really challenging process because you can't build an autoclave big enough to contain a fuel tank for a giant rocket bicycles don't have that issue, but [00:53:01] Craig Calfee: right. Yeah. The filament winding technique, which is how all those tanks are made is, is pretty amazing in the large scale of those, those big rockets is phenomenal. I mean, a couple of places in Utah that make those, and it's just seeing such a large things spinning and, uh, wrapping around it rapidly is quite inspiring. [00:53:26] Randall: Yeah. It's very, very cool stuff. And that's, again, a whole another thread about the, uh, the Utah based, uh, composites industry that got its start in aerospace, you know, advanced aerospace applications, which NV and others came out of. They used to be edge which you worked with. NBU designed their tubes early on. [00:53:43] Right. [00:53:44] Craig Calfee: W well, yeah, the poles history behind envy and quality composites back in late eighties, literally, uh, when I first came out to, uh, actually I was still, think I ordered them in Massachusetts and took delivery in California, but it was a quality composites and out of Utah, uh, Nancy Polish was the owner of that. [00:54:06] Also an MIT graduate who, um, who started a roll wrapping carbon fiber in tubular forum. And I'm pretty sure we were the first roll wrapped carbon tubes, uh, for bicycles that she made. And, um Uh, evolved to, uh, edge composites. So they, so quality composites became McClain quality composites, and then McLean, the guys who broke away from that went to start envy or edge, I guess, which became envy. [00:54:40] So yeah, those same guys brought that technology and we've been the customer ever since. And now there's yet another spinoff. The guys who were making the tubes at envy spun off and started their own company, uh, in a cooperative venture with envy. So let them go basically. And, uh, we're working with those guys. [00:55:01] So it's just following the, the top level of expertise. [00:55:06] Randall: very interesting stuff. Um, so, so where else do we go in terms of the, I mean, this is about as deep a composite deep nerdery, as we can get in, into composites and so on. And, uh, given that we're already here, we might as just, you know, dig ourselves deeper. [00:55:25] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Um, sir, just on the roll wrapping, the thing that, um, I remember one of the cool innovations that Nancy came up with was the double D section, um, tube where she would roll wrap two D shaped tubes, stick them together and do an outer wrap on the outside. So it was a efficient way to do a ribbed tube or a single ribs through the middle. She pretty much invented. [00:55:53] Uh, we started doing something with that, um, change days, uh, to get more stiffness out of a change day. But, um, I just, some reason that image flashed in my mind about some of the innovative stuff that been going on that people don't really see it's. And that's what I'm saying before where the, uh, technology of composites has, um it's got a long way to go and it's, there's all kinds of stuff going on that are, are, is brand new. [00:56:23] Uh, most people people don't see it cause it's all process oriented more than product oriented. But for guys like me, it's really fast. [00:56:34] Randall: Yeah, it reminds me of, um, a technology owned by a Taiwanese carbon frame manufacturing, pretty large-scale tier one that I'd spoken to where they're doing, uh, that bracing inside of the forks. don't think they're doing anything especially advanced in terms of how it's manufactured. [00:56:54] I think they just have a, uh, the, the inner, um, you know, whether it's a bag or it's a, you know, EPS insert. And then they're just bridging, uh, between the two walls of the, uh, of the tube of the, the fork leg, uh, with another piece of carbon that gives it more lateral structure zero, uh, impact on the, um, for AFT compliance, which is a really technique. [00:57:21] Craig Calfee: that sounds like Steve Lee at [00:57:24] Randall: Uh, this was YMA. [00:57:27] Craig Calfee: Oh, okay. [00:57:28] Randall: Yeah, the gigantic folks. I haven't, I don't know if I've interacted with them yet, but, um, but yeah, well, [00:57:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah, some amazing innovation coming out of Taiwan. They're there. They're so deep into it. It's, it's a fun place to go and, and see what they're up to. [00:57:47] Randall: this actually brings me back to, um, I, I did had a conversation with over with Russ at path, less pedaled, and was asking like, you know, tell me about the quality of stuff made, made over in Asia. And I was like, well, you know, it's generally best to work with their production engineers because they're so close to the actual manufacturing techniques and they're the ones innovating on those techniques. [00:58:10] And in fact, um, you know, even specialized up until recently did not do carbon fiber in. outsource that, you know, they, they do some of the work in house, but then the actual design for manufacture and all that is being done by the factories and rightfully so the factories know it better, being close to the ground though, dealing with someone with yourself, you're someone who could go into a factory and be like, okay, let's, let's innovate on this. [00:58:35] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [00:58:36] Yeah. [00:58:37] Randall: so then 2011, um, first production, gravel bike. [00:58:45] Craig Calfee: Uh, yeah. Yeah. We came up with the, uh, adventure bike, we call it, um, it was also the first one that did the, uh, six 50 B uh, tire size that can be used with a 700 by 42 or So mixing, know, going bigger tire on a slightly smaller rim on the same bike as you'd run a 700 C and, uh, 35 or 40 millimeter tire. Um, yeah, so the adventure bike has been. Uh, a real fun area for us as far as, uh, just developing a, do everything. Be everything, bike [00:59:24] Randall: it's. And the geometry of that was kind of an endurance road geometry, right [00:59:28] Craig Calfee: that's [00:59:29] right. It's a road bike effectively, but with a few, a few, uh, tweaks for riding off road. [00:59:36] Randall: So then this, this word, gravel bike is kind of muddled. [00:59:39] Um, I never liked it, frankly. Uh, it's a marketing term. I remember it specialized when we were doing the, the diverse, um, you know, it was still kind of honing in on what these bikes were. Uh, but you could argue that like, you know, you know, everyone's road bike was a gravel bike. When you just put the biggest tires that would fit and write it on dirt. [00:59:57] But this concept of a one bike, it seems to be what you've planted. But you can have a single bike that will be your road, bike, perform handle, give you that, that experience when you put road wheels on, but then you can put these big six fifties on there and have a, you know, an off-road crit machine that is highly competent in, in rough terrain. [01:00:16] And so, so yeah, that, and that's very much my design philosophy as you know, as well, you know, fewer bikes that do more things. [01:00:24] Craig Calfee: Yeah. We have this. Kind of a marketing phrase for, you know, how the end plus one concept where, you know, how many bikes do you even need? Well, one more than what you've got. Well, we do the N minus one concept with our mountain bike, which can also be a gravel by ache or a bike, but it's, uh, it allows you to change the head tube angle and, and use different, uh, fork travel suspension forks on, on the same frame. [01:00:55] Uh, and of course, swapping wheels out is, is always a thing. So yeah, the end minus one concept where we just need less stuff, you know, [01:01:04] Randall: So I reinvented that when I started thesis, he used to say like, and, minus three, it replaces road, bike, your gravel bike, your road, bike, your cross bike, your, um, light duty cross country bike, uh, your adventure bike actually as well, you know, load these things up. yeah, very much a philosophy that, uh, I think it's so good that the, its efforts to come up with new, subcategories, for example, by having gravel bikes now run oversize 700 wheels and extending the geo and going with these really slack head angles in order to accommodate that wheel size. [01:01:40] I actually think that the form, the form that things want to evolve towards is actually what you created in the first place, which is the one bike that does all the things and does them well. And depending on the wheels you put on them, um, we'll do we'll, we'll transform. Uh, and you know, we've, we've talked a little bit about geo changing, um, You know, and things like this, which you have a bike that, that does that. [01:02:03] And why don't we talk a bit about that in the technology behind it? [01:02:08] Craig Calfee: The SFL, you mean we use the geometry of the head tube and the bottom bracket to, uh, to accommodate what you're using it for? Yeah, the concept there is to, if you're on a long ride to be able to change the geometry of your bike mid ride. So with an Allen wrench, you, uh, basically swap these flip plates out on your head to varia. [01:02:32] And so you climb, you can climb with one geometry with another. And to me, that's, that's really fun because the climbing, you, if you're climbing up a a long steep climb on a bike that you're going to descend back down on, uh, you really don't want the same geometry it's, you're compromising and one or the other, either climate. [01:02:55] Or it descends great. It's rarely both, or really can't possibly be both. Cause they're just doing two different things. So if you can swap out these flip plates and change the head tube angle, which is really all you need at that point, um, you have a bike that climbs great and descends. Great. So for me, that was the goal of, uh, just making a better mountain bike. Um, you know, the fact that it can be converted into other bikes for different disciplines is a whole nother angle. Uh, and you can even do that perhaps you wouldn't do it the trail, but let's say you show up, say you're on a trip, an adventure, uh, maybe out to Utah, for example, where you're riding slick rock, but you're also going to go up, you know, into the mountains. [01:03:45] Um, you'll have you, you might want to have. Different fork travels or different for, uh, options. So you can bring a couple of different forks and swap out a fork, change your flip plates and have a bike. That's awesome for slick rock. And then another one that's awesome for, for the bike parks. So, you know, to me it would, but it's only one bike and you know, you don't need, you know, three bikes. So that, that just, uh, that's the design result of a bike where you can change the head tube angle on, [01:04:21] Randall: and the, in really how much head tube angle adjustment is there on there. [01:04:25] Craig Calfee: uh, it's a or minus four degrees [01:04:28] Randall: that's, that's substantial. [01:04:30] Craig Calfee: that's a lot. [01:04:31] Randall: Yeah. [01:04:31] I mean, that's transformative really. I work in increments of, you know, half a degree. [01:04:36] Craig Calfee: Yeah. These are half degree increments, um, right now, uh, one degree, but we can easily do half degree increments. find that one degree is, is really. Um, especially when you have the option of, of tweaking the same bike. So reason we focus on these half degree increments on a production bike is to dial in the best compromise between two, two ways that it's going to be used when you don't need to compromise, you can go a full degree in the other direction and not worry about fact that it's not going to perform as well, know, in super steep terrain because that flipped chip is not, uh, the right one for the super steep scenario. [01:05:22] Just change it out or flip it over a T when you approach the really steep stuff. So yeah. [01:05:29] Randall: applicable for mountain bikes, particularly because the, I mean, the slack, the long slack that, that have emerged in recent years make a ton of sense for mountain biking, especially descending, but when you're ascending, it ends up being so slack that you get wheel flop, you get the front end, lifting the bike naturally wants to tilt back. [01:05:49] You don't have that on a gravel bike currently. And if you don't, if you're not adding a huge suspension fork, you're never going to be descending terrain that is so technical that you need those slacked out angles. So it sounds like something that's very much could be applied to gravel bikes, but that, you know, for the mountain bike application is actually pretty game-changing. [01:06:06] Craig Calfee: Yeah, well on gravel bikes or adventure bikes, um, uh, it's actually helpful if you're, if you're, let's say you're a roadie and you're starting to go off road. And so you're driving these gravel trails and then you're starting to get into more interesting off-road excursions with that same bike, but your experience on steep terrain is limited because you're, you know, you're a roadie, you've your, all your muscle memory and all your bike handling memory comes from the road and a little bit of dirt road stuff. [01:06:39] Now you're kind of getting into serious off-road stuff and you want to try. a Uh, shortcut dissent, uh, you know, down something kind of crazy. Uh, let's say, uh, you're not very good at it in the beginning and you take your time and you, you don't have a bike that can go that fast down, such a trail, then you change it out. [01:07:00] As you get better at it, as you increase your skill level and your confidence level, might want to go a little faster. So you a bike that can go a little faster safely and go for that slack head angle, which is designed to get higher speed. So it's great for evolving skills and evolving terrain as you start exploring more radical stuff. [01:07:27] So that's the other reason to do it. [01:07:29] Randall: Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And in fact, any, you know, what I'm working on going forward very much as a, uh, one of the core, you know, is, uh, being able to tailor the geometry, um, as close to on the fly as possible. Uh, you know, if you want it to be on the fly, you're going to add a huge amount of added structure and complexity and weight, but having it be when you swap the wheels, there's very little to do, you know, this sort of thing. [01:07:57] Craig Calfee: Yeah. So yeah, the whole idea is to, is to be able to go and have really fun adventures after all I wrote the book on adventures, see, here's, uh, this is a, this is the commercial part of our, our, uh, [01:08:10] plug [01:08:12] is, uh, this book I wrote about a trip. I took back in the, in the mid early eighties. Uh it's it's a kind of a. [01:08:20] Randall: of a [01:08:21] Craig Calfee: It has nothing to do with bikes, except that there is a section in there where I made a canteen out of bamboo in the Congo, but it's a pretty crazy trip. And, uh, and I just called it adventures. It's on amp. anyone wants to buy it. [01:08:37] Randall: I will get a coffee. [01:08:39] Craig Calfee: Yeah. [01:08:42] Randall: Um, very, very cool. Um, we skipped over one, which is the manta, which is another interesting innovation [01:08:51] Craig Calfee: Yeah. Suspension on a road bike. I mean, that's a, I keep saying that's going to be the future and it hasn't happened yet, but I, I still believe that road bikes will be the main type of bike being written in the highest levels of racing. [01:09:08] interesting [01:09:08] Randall: So you think suspension versus say. Um, wide tubeless, aerodynamic, the optimized rims with a 30 mil tire run at lower pressures. You think the suspension has a sufficient benefit relative to that, to offset say the structural complexity or weight? [01:09:25] Craig Calfee: Yes. So, uh, the big tire thing, trend towards bigger tires is really a trend towards suspension. It's pneumatic suspension rather than mechanical suspension. [01:09:39] Randall: Well, as our regular listeners know, this is a topic that's very much near and dear to my heart. I talk often about the benefits of pneumatic suspension, so this will be an interesting place for us to stop and really