Podcasts about qbp

Finding period-correct tires has become next to impossible or prohibitively expensive when restoring vintage mountain bikes. Bike industry veteran and vintage bike enthusiast, Wakeman Massie, recognized this void and founded House of Looptail to fill it. Wakeman has painstakingly recreated some of the most iconic tires in mountain bike and BMX history.In today's Bikes and Big Ideas conversation, Wakeman talks about some of the other well-known products he designed before getting into vintage tires, like the Travel Agent, Tooth Fairy, 1x1 Blowerdrive, Surly Singleator, and the legendary Surly 1x1 frame. Wakeman and Simon discuss the challenges of recreating tires when the drawings and molds no longer exist, why the new tires are better than the old ones, why vintage mountain bikes deserve to be ridden and not thrown in the landfill, and a whole lot more. RELATED LINKS:BLISTER+ MembershipThis Week's Gear GiveawayHouse of LooptailTOPICS & TIMES:Starting out in Bike Shops (2:31)Industrial Design Degree and Working for QBP (4:11)Earning Trust with the Travel Agent (8:52)Designing the Surly 1x1 (11:18)Starting House of Looptail (23:53)The Snake Belly Tire (30:53)Working with Panaracer (34:40)The New Tires are Better (37:56)The Ritchey Megabite Z-Max (45:04)How to Remake a Tire with No Drawings or Molds (48:53)What's Next (52:24)What Wakeman is Riding (55:33)CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Blister CinematicOff The CouchGEAR:30Blister PodcastCRAFTED Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ryan is back with us after some travel, but he's not done yet! There are a few more trade shows and industry gatherings on the horizon, and he'll be presenting at most of them. We talk about those shows and the state of the bicycle industry, and the vibe and attitude of the dealers Ryan is meeting at shows like CABDA.CABDA MidwestSplit, dealers looking to diversity with ecommerce growthDealers looking for foot trafficUniversal interest in Google advertisingLot of POS conversationsLot of praise for our customer service team Seminars for CABDA and with suppliers like Specialized, QBP, and J&BCABDA WestDay early for the NBDA retailer summitHeather and her team host important conversations2 days of CABDA connecting with largely western dealersVibe from Chicago was optimisticHoping for the same thingBicycle Leadership Conference next weekPeopleForBikesSenior management from suppliersWeighty topics like finance, forecasting, and government policySustainability, ridership, and health benefits of cyclingOn a panel discussion reviewing 2024 data and looking aheadReal discussions will happen off the stageExpect to learn a lot about sentiment and expectationsOnline salesLast year online sales on Workstand outpaced the overall IBD space2025 is off to a good startUp 7% through the end of FebruaryLargely driven by twice as many electric bikes sold online YTDSite traffic is -12% suggesting a drop in shopping activityElectric bikes are driving up average order size and revenue per sessionMake sure you're actively marketing your electric bikes onlineConsumers are buyingOptimism for the springOverall economy and consumers are uncertainBike shops on the whole are running business leanGotta keep energy levels up to keep staff motivatedBe ready to be busyDo the work to get busyRamp up marketing to get foot traffic and try to get some momentumLean into the categories that are movingElectric bikesClass 2Class 3 road and mountainAluminum drop bar bikesMarket your service department starting nowBe sure to email your questions to podcast@workstand.com. We read all emails sent and we look forward to hearing from you.If you're a Workstand client with questions about your subscription, email support@workstand.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a Workstand client with questions about how our programs work, email info@workstand.com.Find Us on LinkedInRyan Atkinson, President + Co-OwnerSuzie Livingston, Marketing + CommunicationsMark Still, Business DevelopmentWe also publish Around the Workstand on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Around the Workstand playlist.If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Around the Workstand or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@works...

State Bicycles partner link: https://alnk.to/9Ifw9exKevin's YouTube video: https://youtu.be/fZHpVskOzwc?si=Q5eATLueA3XHyi_GBrad's history video: https://youtu.be/JMZbU6on43kUCI Gravel Worlds Turmoil: https://www.bicycleretailer.com/retail-news/2025/03/04/specialized-retail-stores-offer-chain-waxing-silca-partnershipConversations from Casa Verde: Adventures in Terlingua and Affordable Gravel BikesIn this episode, the hosts discuss their recent activities, including a trip to Terlingua, Texas, for a photo shoot with Shimano and a deep dive into cooking and cycling in the desert. They highlight the excellent food prepared for the crew, the beautiful landscape, and memorable cycling rides in the area. The conversation moves to the accessibility of gravel biking, featuring a detailed overview of the new State Bicycle Co. 4130 All-Road bike, its affordability, components, and potential as a gateway for new riders into the gravel scene. The dialogue also delves into technical aspects of bike maintenance, the pros and cons of electronic shifting, and recent updates from the cycling industry, including Silca's collaboration with Specialized and Intense Cycle's new program with QBP for custom bike builds.00:00 Technical Difficulties and Introductions00:50 Windy Weather Woes01:10 Tree Trimming Tales03:25 Cycling Conversations11:18 Shimano vs. SRAM Debate17:07 Cheating in Cycling23:56 Nicolas Cage Movie Talk26:04 Chain Waxing and Bike Maintenance35:57 Intense Cycles and QBP Partnership41:04 REI and People for Bikes Initiative45:40 Bikepacking and Terlingua Reflections46:32 Finding the Perfect Cabin47:18 Exploring the Surroundings48:31 A Culinary Adventure51:17 Desert Delicacies57:25 Cycling Through Terlingua01:00:17 The State Bicycle Review01:14:27 Gravel Worlds and Gear Talk01:20:02 Electronic Shifting Insights01:29:28 Final Thoughts and Wrap-Uphttps://www.bicycleretailer.com/announcements/2025/03/04/intense-cycles-works-solve-ibd-challenges

Reach out and touch us: shfitlesslive@gmail.com In this solo episode of Shiftless, Kevin discusses the latest in the world of gravel cycling, including the success of the 2025 Texas Chain Ring Massacre and the inaugural Privateer Invitational Gravel Grinder, which saw over 550 participants and a $5,000 cash payout. Kevin also touches on industry news such as QBP's recent layoffs and the release of new bikes from Surly and State. He emphasizes the importance of local bike shops and the challenges facing the cycling industry. Kevin highlights the value of Club Spinistry memberships, collaborative efforts with other events, and thanks to corporate supporters like Mad Duck Cyclery, Pickle Juice, and Kantu Cycling Wheels. He concludes with a call for Jim Cummins' induction into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame, stressing his significant impact on the sport. 00:00 Introduction and Show Setup 01:32 Texas Chain Ring Massacre Recap 04:18 QBP Layoffs and Industry Concerns 07:58 Surly vs. State Bicycles 11:30 Supporting Local Bike Shops 16:35 Collaborating with Other Events 20:49 Gravel Camp and Rattlesnake Gravel Grind Collaboration 22:07 Vermejo Charcoal Burner Event Details 23:55 Building the Cycling Community 24:18 Club Spinistry Membership Benefits 32:39 Corporate Supporters and Collaborations 40:20 Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame Commentary 43:22 Conclusion and Future Plans

QBP'ers! The best Cleveland Browns recap & preview podcast in the world is back to help get you through the pains of week 6 against the Eagles. Hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon help make sense of the whole thing, compare the game watching experience to real life situations, sneak into the locker room for the halftime speech, come up with game taunts and more!

Send us a text34! 69! 420! Hut, hut, hike! The Dipperz put on a clinic this week and bring you Quarterback Princess, the 1983 made-for-TV movie featuring a young Helen Hunt. She's a lil' Canadian lady with a big dream...to move to America for one year to play high school football AND be the homecoming princess! Gals, you really can have it all! In the wake of the Title IX Education Amendment in 1972, schools receiving federal funds could no longer discriminate on the basis of gender, and had to offer equal opportunity to all students. This went over as well as can be expected, and QBP tackles what it was like to break the gender barrier as a earnest, hardworking, fresh-faced blonde who's incredibly supportive father is an award-winning moose hunter. Surely she'd rather be a cheerleader?! It isn't natural! Hit the showers with Sarah and Lauren as they pop on their crop tops to challenge traditional gender roles and uptight people! It's also a great reminder that local leadership and politics matter. Bonus: Tall-ass Tim Robbins. Email us: dipperzpod@gmail.comSupport the pod! www.patreon.com/dipperzInstagram: @dipperz_podcast

Send us a text34! 69! 420! Hut, hut, hike! The Dipperz put on a clinic this week and bring you Quarterback Princess, the 1983 made-for-TV movie featuring a young Helen Hunt. She's a lil' Canadian lady with a big dream...to move to America for one year to play high school football AND be the homecoming princess! Gals, you really can have it all! In the wake of the Title IX Education Amendment in 1972, schools receiving federal funds could no longer discriminate on the basis of gender, and had to offer equal opportunity to all students. This went over as well as can be expected, and QBP tackles what it was like to break the gender barrier as a earnest, hardworking, fresh-faced blonde who's incredibly supportive father is an award-winning moose hunter. Surely she'd rather be a cheerleader?! It isn't natural! Hit the showers with Sarah and Lauren as they pop on their crop tops to challenge traditional gender roles and uptight people! It's also a great reminder that local leadership and politics matter. Bonus: Tall-ass Tim Robbins. Email us: dipperzpod@gmail.comSupport the pod! www.patreon.com/dipperzInstagram: @dipperz_podcast

QBP'ers! We lost but it didn't matter! Hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon recap the game( the little bit we watched) and preview the 1st round of the playoffs(we feel pretty good). We give ut awards, compare the game to a line jumper and a good night on the horizon. Go Browns!

For our fourth episode, we're tackling COVID. We hear from three folks who tried to find themselves a new bike during the great bike buy-up of 2020. Todd Cravens of QBP talks to us about the collapse in the bike part supply chain, and a bike shop manager details how both of these changes – a heavy increase in demand coupled with a collapse in supply – impacted the shop's ability to serve its community. Featured in this episode: Lena Tibebe, Alex Strickland, Cat Weichmann, Brian Bonham, Hannah Simon, and Todd CravensFor show notes, visit frictionshift.org.

QBP'ers! We are in again! Playoff bound! Hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon are back to recap the biggest win in 3 years! We also grade the coaching, preview the Bengals, compare this game to a driving test and talk upcoming QB controversy! Go Browns!

QBP'ers! It's victory Christmas Monday! Your hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon recap the game and get the rest of your week started right! We grade the coaching, give out performance "gifts", compare the game to being a substitute teacher at a private school and preview the Jets game. Go Browns!

QBP'ers! What a game! And we won! Victory Monday! Hometown heroes Jake Solomon and Yusuf Ali help recap the wildest game of the year, compare it to a vegan burger and a house party, grade the play calling and preview the Texan game. Go Browns!

QBP'ers! What a win! Your favorite hometown heroes(broadcasting from Los Angeles) Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon are back to recap this win, hand out performance awards, compare the game watching experience to a toothy BJ and a spry old dancer and look forward to next week! go browns!

QBP'ers! This week we lost to Denver and your favorite hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon are here to walk you through it and help you have a good week! We hand out game balls, berate Stefanski's play calling, compare the game to watching a Tyler Perry movie and hiring a inexperienced limo driver and more! Go Browns!

QBP'ers! What a win and what a game! Your hometown heroes Jake Solomon and Yusuf Ali recap a great win, hand out game balls, look ahead to next week and compare watching the game to moving into a dangerous neighborhood! And more Browns vs Ravens related conversation. Go Browns!

Show #224 - From the PodcastMKE.org studio at the Nut Factory in Riverwest, it's Sven, JK and Tony doing the Full Spectrum Cycling thing! Check out the show notes for what they blabber about this week. Talkin' Schmack Stop Making Sense Esker Hayduke LVS (Long Wheelbase) - https://eskercycles.com/pages/hayduke-lvs Nut Factory Open House Biketoberfest 2023 - Oct 13th - Blackbird Bar Bay View Milwaukee, WI Fatoberfest Osage, IA tomorrow and Sunday First it was the All City Brand “with no new product development beyond model year 2024” and now QBP is killing the Surly Cross Check? It is no more?? - https://bikepacking.com/news/farewell-surly-cross-check/ State Bicycles Gravel Suspension Fork (440 a/c) might make nice for city bike! - https://www.statebicycle.com/products/state-bicycle-co-all-road-suspension-gravel-fork-40mm Less serious State Bicycles Collaboration with RipNDip including the F You Klunker! - https://www.statebicycle.com/collections/state-bicycle-co-x-ripndip Oh! In case you are wondering who RIPNDIP are: RIPNDIP is a Los Angeles-based streetwear brand known for its irreverent and fun-loving style. With its iconic cat mascot and bold graphics, RIPNDIP has taken the fashion world by storm and is now bringing its unique vibe to the world of cycling. In WMSE news a spooky Von Munz T-shirt is coming soon just in time for Halloween! More T-Shirt News - AHTBM Pre-order for the Hessian Obsession Shirt is now open. - https://allhailtheblackmarket.com/store/hessian-obsession-shirt-pre-order/ Volcon Grunt - https://www.autoevolution.com/news/fat-tire-volcon-grunt-evo-electric-bike-ready-for-off-road-has-texas-written-all-over-it-222071.html  Fezzari - https://fezzari.com/pages/explorer-peak-pre-launch  Please like our Page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FullSpectrumCyclingdotcom Esker Heyduke LVS Nut Factory Open House Show Beer - Hopefully - Riverwest Backyard Hops 2023 Wet Hopped American Pale Ale This year's wet hopped harvest ale is built on a malty, midwest pale ale base beer, but still allows the local hop flavor to take center stage. Over 180 pounds of fresh, whole cone hops were contributed by over 65 neighbors from the local area. This diverse mix of hops were steeped in the whirlpool after the boil to extract all the unique flavors and aromas that come only from using freshly picked hops. The majority of hops were Cascade and Centennial, imparting classic American hop flavors of citrus, floral, and a touch of pine. (2023) Brewed with Magnum & Fresh Whole Cone Hops (Nugget, Centennial, Cascade, Teamaker, Willamette, Golden, Saaz, Zeus, Mt. Hood, Columbia, Hallertau, Chinook, Cluster, Simcoe, Perle, Santiam, Comet) 5.4% ABV 75 IBU State Bicycles RIPNDIP Collaboration Call-in to 717-727-2453 and leave us a message about how cycling is making your life better! Shit Worth Doin' October 7th - Osage, IA - Fatober Fest - https://www.facebook.com/events/245710595005844  October 13th - Biketoberfest 2023 - 6:30pm - Blackbird Bar Bay View, Milwaukee, WI Oct 29th - Appleton Beer Factory - The Goddamn Gallows - https://www.thegoddamngallows.com  Saturday Nov 4th - Kern Park Kross - Riverwest Milwaukee WI - https://facebook.com/events/s/kern-park-kross-2023-a-cyclocr/847084966982352/  Nov 5th - Daylight Saving Time Ends Bikes! Small Surly Ice Cream Truck Surly Wednesday Fatbike Custom Build - Large - Shangri-La Green Large Schlick Cycles APe for aggressive fatbiking - Purple. Possibly the last APe! Definitely the last Teesdale-built APe! Large Schlick Cycles 29+ Custom Build - Black Medium Schlick Cycles 29+ Custom Build - Orange Wu-Tang Singlespeed from State Bicycles Large Schlick Cycles Tatanka, Orange. Wyatt Medium Fatbike - Custom Powdercoat  Schlick Fatbikes A bunch of Schlick Growler (Zen Bicycle Fabrications AR 45) frames for custom builds.

QBP'ers! The 2023-24 season has officially begun and the best Cleveland Browns podcast in the world is back! Week 1 vs Cincinnatti. Yusuf & Jake break it down, hand out awards, introduce a new segment, drop some knowledge and then wrap it up. Go Browns!

QBP'ers! The best Cleveland Browns podcast in the world is back! Hometown heroes (and current L.A. residents)Jake Solomon & Yusuf Ali give one last opinion on the pre-season(with one game left) and look forward to week 1 against Cincinnati. DTR & Felton look like a solid backups and the defense is stacked. QBP'ers! Go Browns!

QBPers! The best Cleveland Browns podcast in the world is back. QBP hosts (hometown heroes) Yusuf Ali and Jake Solomon talk about the latest news coming out of mini-camp, Perrion Winfrey update, more Deshaun news, what should we do about Kareem Hunt, celebrity expectations and more Browns tidbits.

This week, the brand-level sales trend continues with new and existing sales being extended. We've got assets for many of these events so, if you haven't opt-in yet, check in the library (Content > Page Editor > Page Library) or let our Client Success team know you need a hand. There's more too! Big sales continue - QBP brands et alAn emerging issue - more email providers such as Google, Apple/iCloud, are beginning to require domain verification records to be included in DNS settings. Tech Tip: Supplier Promotional PricingOnly affects Supplier Sync items that aren't already mapped to your POS dataMerchants should update their POS pricing for sale itemsGeneral sale prices reminder - use the price resources your POS vendor providesIf you're a current SmartEtailing website client with questions about your website, reach out to support@smartetailing.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a SmartEtaililng website client with questions about how our programs work, email info@smartetailing.com and we'll gladly show you around.Find Us on LinkedInRyan Atkinson, President + Co-OwnerSuzie Livingston, Marketing + CommunicationsMark Still, Business DevelopmentWe also publish Up Next on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Up Next playlist.If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Up Next or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@smartetailing.com.#email marketing #marketing #bikeshopwebsites #merchandising

This week on the podcast we dive into the origin story of Wilde Bicycle Co with founder, Jeffrey Frane. As a child, Jeffrey found the bike and along the way found freedom, adventure, and ultimately, a calling. Jeffrey has spend over twenty years in the bike industry finding himself at QBP managing the All City Brand since its earliest days. His experience and passion has led to the founding of Wilde Bicycle Co. Wilde Bicycle Co. website  Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use THEGRAVELRIDE for free HRM) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00]Craig Dalton (Host): Hey Jeff, welcome to the show. [00:00:04]Jeff Frane: Uh, hey Craig. It's great to be here. [00:00:06]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited to learn more about you and more about the Wild Bicycle brand. So let's, let's start off by where, where'd you grow up and how'd you discover the bike? [00:00:16]Jeff Frane: All right, so, uh, for the listeners joining us, uh, my name is Jeffrey Frame and I am from, I grew up in the North Woods of Wisconsin. In a small logging slash milltown called Rhinelander, Wisconsin. A shout out to the Hoda. Um, so I grew up small town Wisconsin and luckily there were a bunch of mountain bikers around and we had, you know, several mountain bike races like twice a year. And, um, all these woods to explore. And got hooked on bikes as a kid because it was the only way I could leave my neighborhood. I lived outside of town where most of my friends lived in town, so I had to get there somehow. And my parents had jobs, so it was ride the bike and I just never stopped. You know, when I was 16, when most people, you know, kind of put down the bike. I was really afraid of killing somebody. I was, I was immature. I'm, you know, I, I, up until like my 40th birthday, I was pretty immature. Um, but I was afraid of hurting somebody with, you know, the power of an automobile scared the crap out of me. So I just like never got my license and I just kept riding. I did eventually get my license, you know, when I was 20 years old, but, so I just never stopped. [00:01:34]Craig Dalton (Host): and was it just sort of pleasure riding back then, or you'd mentioned there was a couple [00:01:37]Jeff Frane: Yeah. [00:01:38]Craig Dalton (Host): Did you get drawn into the race scene at all? [00:01:40]Jeff Frane: did. Um, and it was, it was wonderful. My parents were always incredibly, uh, supportive of my sporting endeavors. And, um, in Wisconsin, we're really blessed to have the Wars series, uh, the Wisconsin Off-Road series, which is one of the largest and longest running, I think, state series in the country. And, uh, they would take me to the races. I started racing in junior high, uh, in the local stuff on my Little Trek eight 30. And, uh, that was wonderful and then kind of progressed. And then in high school we started racing full war circuits and my parents were awesome enough to take the time off of work and to kinda lug me around so that I could get, you know, fifth place in a sport class or whatever. [00:02:20]Craig Dalton (Host): I love it. And was there, was there a high school mountain bike scene back then, or was, were you a little bit of a, an outcast? [00:02:26]Jeff Frane: yeah, I was the only, I had some friends kind of coming up or growing up who raced with me, but once we got to high school, it was largely me. You know, we didn't have Nica or anything like that. In fact, I remember I played hockey as well, that um, I got a local sponsorship from Schwinn and like it was this big kerfuffle cuz like, they didn't know if I was still eligible for hockey and all these people were really upset about it and, you know, whatever. Um, I was, it turned out I was eligible for hockey, but, [00:02:55]Craig Dalton (Host): Some, someone just need to explain to the hockey world that bicycle sponsorship is not exactly making a living. [00:03:00]Jeff Frane: no, and you know, there was no money. But, uh, so, you know, I, I just, I just kept racing and mountain bikes were my first love and it was just a way of exploring, you know, the area around me. And we had a cool local shop, Mel's trading post, and they were super rad to me and put me on the little bike team. And then we got, that team got sponsored by Schwinn and, um, you know, it all, all just kind of held together until I went to the university and. As a poor college student, I really couldn't afford to race, but I was able to still ride my bike all the time. [00:03:32]Craig Dalton (Host): Were you still in Wisconsin at that point? [00:03:34]Jeff Frane: Yeah. I went to the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, [00:03:37]Craig Dalton (Host): Okay. [00:03:37]Jeff Frane: um, which is like a, a rivertown and, you know, a couple trail systems, but found, started finding like the bigger community, you know, there were a bunch of really fast racers and I learned so much by chasing these people around, you know, eventually got to. I still raced a little bit in college and was able to race expert where I got my butt absolutely handed to me. Um, and then after, after college, I spent a couple years living in my van, uh, 1992 Dodge Caravan. [00:04:05]Craig Dalton (Host): out Dodge Caravan. [00:04:07]Jeff Frane: I was gonna, I was like, I can't shout out too many things, but yeah, the Dodge Caravan was a, was a workhorse. Really good car. Went through transmissions like he wouldn't believe though. Uh, so lived in that for a while. And then, um, I got tired of, of living on people's couches and just being broke and there was a, a person I wanted to date. So I came back here and now I live in Minneapolis. I've been here since 2005. And like that's really kind of when I think things really took off for me in terms of bicycles as a lifestyle. You know, that was the height of the fixed gear. Boom. And, you know, so I, I moved to the, I moved to city, the city with like a single speed Magna Mountain bike that I had cut the bars down. I had like my little Dickies Messenger bag and I was like, oh, you know, like in the big, I'm gonna cut traffic. And cuz I had grown up like seeing bike messengers and like MTV sports and stuff [00:04:57]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:04:58]Jeff Frane: and uh, you know, got a job at a bike shop, started wrenching. And, um, started my little company Bike Jerks. So if you find me on Instagram, my handle is bike jerks, uh, which was a dumb inside joke at the shop. And it seemed like a real funny thing to call my, my little company, uh, when I was 25. Now I'm 43. Not as funny, but I'm stuck with it. Um, and the reason that started is like I needed a, I always needed a creative outlet and I really wanted to participate in the community. I wanted to organize, I wanted to throw races. So I needed a platform to do that. So I invented this thing, bike Jerks, which was the little, um, you know, platform for me to throw Alley Cats and Bandit Cross and, and other events. [00:05:41]Craig Dalton (Host): gotcha. Yeah, it seems like that Minneapolis bike scene is, has always been so creative and spanned so many different disciplines of the B of the sport, including disciplines that no one knows even exists, like tall bikes and random cobbled together bikes. [00:05:58]Jeff Frane: Yeah, it's, it's weird being here cuz we're a straight flyover country. You know, anything that gets media attention or national renowned is pretty much coastal. Um, so we, it's awesome to hear people say that. And, you know, people know that we're a bike city, but like, nobody comes visits Minneapolis, you know, um, we're kind of forgotten about. But we have this really, really special and unique culture. And, you know, there was Gene Ober, pillar and Hur ever stone. And Paul Ziegel and you know, the surly bikes and there's all these pretty amazing contributions that have been made. You know, single speed mountain biking. It wasn't invented here by any means, but I think it took on like its bigger cultural relevance. There was a huge push for that here, especially with, you know, surly bikes coming on outta the scene. Um, so we're standing on the shoulders of giants. There is an amazing, amazing culture that goes back generations, uh, here in the Twin Cities. [00:06:53]Craig Dalton (Host): And then I'm not sure exactly when quality bike parts came to be, but qbp is this cornerstone sort of backbone of the bicycle industry. Maybe you can describe who they are and what they do. [00:07:05]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so q uh, so the first shop I worked at here in Minneapolis was FreeWheel Bike. It was originally a co-op. By the time I got there, it was no longer a co-op. Uh, but, uh, what Steve Flagg, the owner of qbp, was one of the owners of the co-op, and they were, Essentially frustrated not being able to get small repair parts from Europe. And so he started bringing in repair parts and boom, that's how Quality Bicycles products got started. Him and his wife Mary, and you know, now it's the largest bicycle distributor distribution business in North America. They own Surly, they own Salsa, they own All City. They own whiskey. They own 45 North. Um, you know, it's a, it's a massive, massive operation. [00:07:48]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. I never, I never knew that backstory, but I've, I've certainly known Q BP my entire cycling life, it seems like. And you've ultimately, you've found your way [00:07:58]Jeff Frane: to Q. Yeah. So you know, there Qbp was always like the, you know, like the beacon on the hill kind of thing. It was like all the shop rats were like trying to get to Q and uh, I was lucky enough to get hired there, so I worked like part-time seasonal at FreeWheel bike my first year in Minneapolis. Got laid off for the winter, uh, took a bunch of weird random jobs and eventually, um, QVP was hiring for warehouse people. And so I started there. I think in, it would've been 2006, uh, as part-time seasonal picking, packing, labeling, like literally the bottom rung on the totem pole. You know, it doesn't get much lower. Um, you know, in terms of. I mean, it's a fine job. I don't mean to say that the job was low, but you know, as far as the ranking goes, you're a part-time seasonal employee. [00:08:52]Craig Dalton (Host): it's the entry point. The very [00:08:53]Jeff Frane: Yeah, it's the entry entry point for sure. Um, so I got a job there and you know, by that time I was already kind of getting a reputation as like the fixed gear guy and I was already active in the community here in Minneapolis, organizing events. And they recognized that love and that passion that I had. And so, um, a few years in, I was able to start suggesting some product to Lisa Snyder, um, who was the brand manager of Dimension at the time. So there was the Dimension brand and they had like some track things and you know, kind of the whole thing was I was like, Yo, I'm really into track bikes and you have nothing I wanna buy. Like I'm buying all my stuff from Mary Sales and from these other distributors, Euro, Asia, imports, et cetera. Like, what's going on? Like, you're freaking qbp. Like, y'all need to do better. And so I started suggesting some product to her and she brought them in under the dimension label, and they did well. And then I was able to suggest more products. And then those did well. And eventually, um, I kind of got the, I was talking to Lisa about doing some other stuff. It just didn't go anywhere. And eventually I kind of got the guts up to say, oh, screw it. I'm going right to the top. And I drafted this, like, you know, at the time I thought it was really like rock solid, but it's ridiculously amateurish, like little business proposal for a brand that I was calling All City. Um, and the reason I needed a name change was I was like, I wanna do nicer stuff and people don't wanna buy nice stuff from dimension like that is repair level parts. So, I wanted a track crank, um, because there was a shortage at that time of 1 44 bolt, circle, diameter, you know, track cranks. And um, so I was like, let's call it All City. So All City Championships was the name of my alley cat that I was throwing every year. So the name comes from, uh, graffiti, uh, in New York City. Um, There's a term called being All City. And what that meant was that you had a piece on, on a train in all five boroughs. You were all city. So my race went to every part of the city, so that's why it was the All City Championships. And I just thought that would be a slick name for, you know, an urban track bike brand. And so, [00:11:14]Craig Dalton (Host): such a cool origin story of the name All City. I'd never heard that before. [00:11:20]Jeff Frane: Yeah, well, there's not many people, many. There's no one left to tell the story, like, I'm it, I'm the dinosaur. Um, [00:11:27]Craig Dalton (Host): So you started out All City and and didn't know this also All City started out with a basic concept of more premium track. Track componentry. [00:11:37]Jeff Frane: to make nicer stuff and I didn't think anybody would buy nicer stuff with the dimension label. Um, you know, it was kind of a weird deal cuz I like nice stuff. I've always been in a vintage bicycles and so like we had to kind of Trojan horse some of the ideas in, so like, I was like, okay, cool, now we have these parts. I wanna do a track bike and I wanna do a Minneapolis track bike. And we have winners in Minneapolis, which means, and fixed gears are like, are the best thing for winter commuters because, Maintaining a geared bike is just, that's way too much work. You know, I want the simplest bike I possibly can for these salty, crappy, slushy wind, you know, weather we have. Um, so I want our track bike that's a real track bike with real track geometry, but I wanna be able to fit a bigger tire. And, you know, at that time, like $500 complete fixed gears we're like dominating the market. And so I'm like, yeah, we're gonna do a $500, you know, uh, track bike just to like get the project rolling. Knowing damn well I don't wanna ride a $500 track bike. Like, no way. I wanna, I like nice stuff. Um, so then it was, you know, we kick off the project and I'm like, you know, I've done some market research and I really think that that price point is saturated. Like what we really need to do is do a thousand dollars track bike. Uh, no one's there, like no one's in that market space and we can put all our own parts on it and we don't have to use this cheap stuff. And that's how the big block was born. That's why it's a nice bike. Uh, because I convinced them that the $500 price point, price point, there was too much competition and we could never win that game. So we need to go upmarket. [00:13:10]Craig Dalton (Host): And at that point had QBP acquired or started any other, uh, full bike brand [00:13:15]Jeff Frane: Yeah. So Surly started, um, in like 1999. They changed their name to Surly in 98. So 1998 was when the Surly, or was when the one by one. Which was the precursor name to Surly Rat Ride came out and they had done some parts before that. Uh, sh I'm gonna do another shout out to Wakeman Massey, uh, founder of Surly Bikes. He, um, freaking visionary surly bikes, in my opinion, is the most influential bike brand of the last, you know, 30 years. Um, the steel Renaissance fat tire clearance. Every modern gravel bike is a crosscheck. Like I know they're, they didn't invent that stuff. Um, you know, big tire clearances, blah, blah, blah. But they popularized it and democratized it, and I think brought it to the forefront of the culture. [00:14:03]Craig Dalton (Host): Certainly democratized it. I would, I would double click on that one. And yes, double shout out to Wakeman. He may, he definitely doesn't remember this, but I met him back when I was at Dean Bicycles. I think he rolled in his first, Ever framed that he welded himself at university, a 24 inch dirt jumper that was ratty as hell, but he was super enthusiastic and passionate, and I think we even tried to hire him, but he wanted to go move somewhere else other than Boulder. [00:14:30]Jeff Frane: Yeah. Um, you know, and the fat bikes and 29 ERs and blah, blah, blah. Like surly, you know, they've done some really special things for sure. Um, and you know, QBP had already bought salsa, um, prior to that. So they had salsa and qbp, or I'm sorry, salsa and surly they had Sylvia at that time. Um, [00:14:51]Craig Dalton (Host): had, you started to kind of understand what a supply chain for a full bicycle looked like at that point when you brought the idea of the track bike to them. [00:14:59]Jeff Frane: I mean, kind of, you know, so like I, again, like with it was all baby steps, right? Um, You know, I was at first when All City started in 2008. It was 15 hours a week, and I was the sales and marketing coordinator, and then I made it to 20 hours a week, and then I made it to 30 hours a week. Well, you know, I was still doing warehouse stuff and all this, you know, and eventually it got to be a full-time position for me. Um, with Lisa still, like with Lisa still in charge. Like Lisa was awesome. She was the operations person and she had a really strong product background. [00:15:37]Craig Dalton (Host): yeah. [00:15:38]Jeff Frane: Um, and I was able to contribute, you know, my ideas and passion for the urban, you know, what we used then called urban cycling, um, for that. And, you know, we were a really, really great team. [00:15:50]Craig Dalton (Host): So that was probably the urban cycling angle for all cities, probably where my knowledge intersected with the existence of all cities. I started seeing these steel bikes underneath who were clearly passionate commuters in San Francisco. So how, how quickly did it kind of go from track bike? It's a commuter bike. And when did you start to see, hey, people are using these to ride on dirt? [00:16:14]Jeff Frane: Um, I mean, so right away the big block cleared a 32 seat tire, which in 2009 was like a pretty good sized tire. And you know, we were, before track lacrosse was track lacrosse, we were riding our fixes, you know, in the dirt, uh, doing that kind of stuff. Um, I had gotten interested in cycl lacrosse. We put out the Nature Boy, which is a single speed cross bike. You know, all city's evolution was always, there were always constraints for all city. We had surly on one side of us, we had salsa on the other. And it was like, how are we going to be different and offer something actually unique and not just, um, you know, compete with our sister brand. So, you know, the Nature Boy was a dedicated single speed, which didn't exist in the QBP for portfolio, you know, and when people came up, they're like, oh, that's just a stop and crosscheck like, what are you idiot kids doing? It's like, well, you know, ride the thing like, Um, you know, the nature boy, all the canal cities, I think have, have aged really well and become kind of culty classic bikes. Um, so, you know, I think, I think that came out well. We, we put out a bunch of fixie freestyle bikes if people remember fixed gear freestyle, which were also super fun to ride on dirt cuz they had big tire clearance. Uh, then we did the Nature Boy. Um, I think the bike after that was we went geared with the, with the macho man. And the Mr. Pink and the Space Horse and the Space horse was like the bike that really unlocked all cities potential. And you know, we've always been, I've always been interested in all facets of cycling and, you know, we saw what was happening with the crosscheck and it was like, well let's, if we make a bike like that, we're gonna sell a bunch. And that was the Space Horse, and it was our own spin on things. It was as sporty of a light touring bike as we could possibly make. Um, You know, that was Anna Schwinn's design and she absolutely crushed it with that. And that's the one that like started really opening doors and opening a lot of outside eyes to the brand because it was just a really good looking, functional and practical bike. [00:18:17]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, yeah. And and clearly quite versatile. I think if you talk to anybody who's been around gravel for a while, as people were getting those first generation gravel bikes, you were seeing people on that bike, on the trails. [00:18:29]Jeff Frane: For sure. [00:18:30]Craig Dalton (Host): I already have the first generation. It's been underneath my legs for a few years. [00:18:34]Jeff Frane: Well, and you know, the Mr. Pink cleared 30 twos, so that was my, uh, I, I raced gravel on that for a number of seasons. You know, um, the, the, the Minnesota gravel at that time was strictly like gravel roads. Like we weren't doing like, necessarily a much of like minimum maintenance stuff or double track. It was gravel, gravel. The El Manzo 100 and you could ride a 28 C in that race. Uh, Mr. Pink Fit 32. So that was my gravel race bike at that time. I eventually moved over to the space horse because it had longer chain stays in a lower bottom bracket, which as you know, our awesome for descending fast on gravel. Um, you just, it's just significantly more stable and more planted in, I think, confidence inspiring. And so then, then the space horse. And my big regret with the space horse is that so many people got them and just put racks and fenders and they became these beasts of burden. But if you build built a light space horse canny, it was a ripper of a gravel racer. Um, it was fast and it was fun, and it really came alive under power. [00:19:41]Craig Dalton (Host): And you know, looking at the other Q BP brands was all city, and I know, I believe Surly is the same way. All City was always focused on steel as the frame material. [00:19:51]Jeff Frane: Yeah, I mean steel was definitely our focus. Uh, we did have an aluminum track bike because aluminum in, in track, velodrome racing is an incredibly relevant material. But yeah, it was always steel. And you know, as I was saying, we were always trying to find that niche and there were all these guardrails. Well, you know, how am I gonna make a steel bike that's different than surly. Well, I love ornateness in bikes. You know, I love those classic details. And so it was, let's design our own fancy pants dropouts. Uh, let's do the reinforcement stars on the bottle bosses. Let's design our own braised on seat collar. And you know, my whole, the whole concept there was if you stripped the frame of all of its paint, could you still tell it wasn't all city and nothing else? And that was what we were going for, was, you know, unique detailers and details and bringing. Back kind of beauty into a production bicycle. Cause like a surly is a pretty utilitarian, stripped down thing. And so we wanted, uh, and, and you know, the salsas were kind of, of that ilk too. And so we wanted a little more embellishments, a little more, um, call out to the, you know, the, the, the frame building, uh, heritage of the sixties and seventies and eighties, you know, internal top tube cable routing. You know, those kind of details became an important signifier of the brand. [00:21:03]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Gotcha. I wanted to spend a few minutes on your QBP experience, cuz I just think it goes to underscore how much time you've thought about bikes, bicycle frames. [00:21:14]Jeff Frane: adult life, like this is it. Um, you know, and, um, so I, I became the brand manager and the leader of All City, officially, uh, Lisa was needed elsewhere in the company. And they were like, okay, dude, like, you're ready. I, I wasn't ready, turns out. But they were like, all right, so in 2013, I became the brand manager and kind of started assembling a bigger team because the brand was growing and you know, we put out a lot of bikes that I'm really proud of. Uh, you know, the cosmic stallion I think was a pretty, a pretty special and cool, uh, steel gravel racer, you know, and that was really the first gravel race bike that we, that we put out. You know, prior to that it was, we were using our cross bikes. Um, for these things, and now it was, okay, this is like, this is what a dedicated gravel bike should be. [00:22:07]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Yeah. So obviously working within an organization like Q bp, you've gotta advocate, you've gotta create the business case, but they've got the capital to bring an idea to market, and they've got the infrastructure to get it out. You've subsequently left qbp and you decided to go on your own journey and create your own brand in wild. What was, what was that journey like and. Why? Why are you doing wild? [00:22:36]Jeff Frane: Um, so in 2019, I left qbp, um, after being with them for, what, 13, 14 years. And, you know, I, I had a really, really wonderful experience. I, I learned so much at QBP that it was really time for me to move on. I'm kind of a weird dude. And, you know, in a corporate environment, any kind of nonconformity will only be tolerated for a finite period of time. And we were starting to reach that point. And so I left in 2019 and, uh, you know, I never intended to start a bike company again. Um, you know, this is the thing I know how to do. I know how I have, I'm really good at having a vision and driving towards it. Obviously I know how to run a bike company cuz I had been doing it at Q P P for, you know, quite some time. Um, but kind of a random encounter with Paul Crick, uh, who owns Donkey Label here in Minneapolis. Donkey label's a clothing company. He was starting up a fab shop, uh, for the brand Stomper here. And, um, we ran into each other kind of on the massage table. Um, cuz he has like a fit studio and a sports masseuse and stuff, um, in his building here in Minneapolis. And he was like, oh, you can write work on bikes. Like, I need a mechanic. And so I was like, all right, cool. Um, started with Paul part-time and then he found out about my background and what I could do. And so I started taking over some of the operations, um, here in Minneapolis for Stomper. Um, and it was a pretty casual arrangement. Um, and so this is 2019, right? And so 2020 comes around and I have the opportunity. So my background is in marketing. Um, that was my, um, comparative studies in religion and marketing with a re I got at Eau Claire, which is why I ended up in a bike shop in Minneapolis. Like those things, uh, wasn't super employable at the time, so, Um, marketing came knocking and I had the opportunity to move to Portland to work with, uh, Billy Siford and his team at Echoes Communication. And I was really excited about that. Um, you know, I, I enjoy marketing. I was really excited to work with their portfolio of brands And I [00:24:59]Craig Dalton (Host): is a, echos a marketing PR agency that works with a bunch of different brands in the bike [00:25:05]Jeff Frane: Yeah. And they're the ones doing the maid show, so the maid, hand-built bike show that's happening in Portland this fall. Um, it's an echoes thing, so I had the opportunity to do that and I was like, all right, yeah, of course. Like I'm, I'm there, you know, Billy's been a friend of mine for a long time. He calls, I answer like, no problem. And so I was, uh, I quit my thing at Stomper and I was gonna go be, you know, a marketing dude in Portland, Oregon. Um, pandemic hits. I'm one week away from moving to Oregon and everything just freaking shuts down. So, you know, he is like, you know, don't come dude. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I was like, that sounds really reasonable. I'm not gonna come. No worries my friend. You know? And so I'm here in Minneapolis and while I was working with Paul, working on his operations, um, was one I learned how to paint, which was amazing. Painting bicycles, super fun. Uh, but I had developed an American supply chain and there was nobody really using that supply chain. And some people hit me up when they were like, Sorry, I'm ahead of myself. So while I was working at Stomper, I built what is a, what was the first Earthship? I built this personal bike for me and Paul was in the process of potentially changing the name of the company. There wasn't a solid name and I was like, you should call it wild. Like that's a good name for a bike company. Naming bike companies is hard and I think this is solid. So I painted wild on the side of, of my titanium bike. Um, and then shortly after left, and so I had this bike wild that people were seeing on my Instagram and people started reaching out to me and they're like, yo, I see you got this bike. Like, what's up with that? Can I get one? And I was like, yes, actually, yeah, yes, you can get one. Like, let's, let's, let's freaking go. And so started kind of doing onesie twosies there. Um, building, you know, in Oregon, uh, was simple. And then at Waterford, um, so using a couple different fabricators and started making a few, few bikes on my own. Um, it was going really great. But, [00:27:12]Craig Dalton (Host): And were you just following where the customer was taking you at that point? Like if they wanted a, a gravel bike, you were building a gravel bike. Road bike. A road [00:27:20]Jeff Frane: a absolutely, you know, one of my biggest pleasures is working with a customer to co-create the bike of their dreams. So I don't ever try, I have a vision for these things and I've been riding bikes and testing bikes and evaluating bikes my entire professional career now. Um, so I have a pretty good idea when they describe how they want a bike to handle what we have to do to get it there. And, you know, I have a strong vision, but it's really about facilitating their, what they want. Um, you know, and some people are like, I want this hedge two bangle and this C two bangle. And I'm like, bet. Like that's cool. And then some people are just like, describe a feeling they want or the best bike ride they've ever been on, or tell me about the bikes they've rid the past that they've really liked. Um, so at qbp, I was leading the team, uh, that created these bikes, but I wasn't, I wasn't the engineer. [00:28:12]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:28:12]Jeff Frane: Um, and I wasn't the product manager. Like I was authoring the briefs and then leading the team of the engineers and the product manager to the, you know, to the finished product. But now, I got to learn all the things. Uh, I got to learn how to do everything. And it, it is been amazing. Um, I consider myself to be pretty darn good at bike geometry now. Um, you know, I'm the one drafting all the bikes. I'm the one doing the mo doing, doing geo. Um, I was doing a lot of the tubing choosing, but I'm finding out that there's significantly more knowledge than I have in that regard. And so I'm always all about turning over those things to the best people, you know, who, who, who will get me the best outcome. And so, you know, we're working with our fabrication partners on that part of it now, but I get to be significantly more involved with product than I ever was at Q, which has been really, really super fun for me. [00:29:08]Craig Dalton (Host): I bet. So it sounds like, you know, people were coming to you, they were interested in the bike that you were riding and, and showing on your Instagram feed, et cetera. Was there, was there a moment that you sort of decided, Hey, I've made six or 10 for people I know I need to really kind of build some infrastructure around this brand, put up a website, get a little bit more structure so I can build a little bit more scale to this business? [00:29:31]Jeff Frane: well, you know, um, building bikes in the US is really challenging. Um, there's capacity issues in terms of how many frames we can get made. You can't really scale up a ton, um, or at least at the level I was at. And more importantly, one of the driving factors for me is working with my friends at the bike shops. So many of my best friends, uh, own shops and. The US stuff is, is awesome, but it's hard for them to make margin on it. And so I knew that I wanted to be in business with my friends and I knew that the best way to secure financial stability for my company was going to be to use my connections in Taiwan to have frames made. And luckily I was able to partner up with, um, Leche International Amazing Trading agent. Um, I could name off a bunch of brands that they work with, but I don't know if that would be polite, cuz I don't know if people want that information out there. Um, and we partnered up with them, right? I knew I wanted to do these Taiwanese frames, but I didn't have the resources to do it and nobody was gonna give me a loan for the money I needed. But luckily, Because I like to work with my friends, I was able to reach out to my buddy Josh at the Angry Catfish, Josh, uh, and Andy Co-Own Angry Catfish, which is a pretty well known bike shop here in Minneapolis. And they were into it, you know, they were having was pandemic time, so they were having all these issues with their supply chain and they wanted to, they, they, they didn't really feel like they could depend on anyone in the bike industry. To supply them. So they were like, hell yeah. What we wanna do is to take more of our future into our own hands as well. And so by owning a bike company, we can make sure that our bike shop has frames to sell, has bikes to sell. And so they were all about it. And that gave me the financial, uh, horsepower to be able to afford to do our first batches of frames in Taiwan. And we partnered up with the Max Way factory. Max Way is one of the best. One of the, one of the best places to make a bike. Um, their knowledge and depth in the industry is, is just incredible. The quality of their bikes are superb. Um, they're not the cheapest by any means, but they are really, really great bicycles. And so now we have this Taiwanese product that we're able to sell to our dealers at a decent margin where they can make a living and partner, partner with us. And I don't know, it's just really cool that our small business. Supports their small business. And it's the same thing when we work with our fabrication partners here in the US and we work with, um, you know, our designers and we work with our bag makers. We try to make as much stuff locally as we possibly can. It's our small business supporting the community, supporting their small business, keeping the money in the wealth in the community, among the culture creators. And that's become really kind of a rai and detra for us is, um, building, building strong community, and. Trying to keep as much of the wealth as we possibly can inside this kind of network of friends. [00:32:36]Craig Dalton (Host): Amazing. So if I'm understanding you correctly, if a customer comes to your website and they're interested in the bike, they've got two paths they can go down. One is kind of working with you on a custom US made frame. Second is either buying from you or from one of your bike shop partners, a production frame that you've designed. [00:32:55]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so we do custom uh, and production here in the us you know, and there's all shapes to that. Like somebody might say, Hey, I like the custom geo, but I want this and this, this paint job. You know? Um, I'm in the business of saying yes. Like, if you wanna do some stuff, you wanna try something And we haven't done it. Like I'm game. Like this is how we ex expand and grow our capability. And so, yeah, pretty much everything's on the table. Yeah, we have the Taiwan stuff. Um, it's cool because I feel like we can serve a customer at all levels of their kind of journey through bikes. Um, where they, where they don't, I mean, they can leave us if they want. Like you can buy whatever you want, but they weren't gonna outgrow us. Cause it's like, okay, you're gonna get in with a $2,300 complete Taiwanese bike. Awesome. And then maybe a few years down the line you're like, you know, I really want, have this idea that I wanna see come to life. And then you order a custom, uh, you know, steel bike from us, uh, that we make here in the USA to your specifications. And maybe a little later you're like, oh, you know, I also need, um, you know, a titanium mountain bike. Like, let's go wild. Like, can you make that? And then the answer is, hell yeah, we can, like nothing would give us the greatest pleasure. So it's cool cause I'm hoping that customers kind of get in. They, they love their bikes and then they continue growing with us. [00:34:14]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Gotcha. I love that vision. So on that $2,300 price point, which I think is so amazing, I mean, it's so often that. We get people on the podcast and the, the bicycles they're talking about are just unattainable by the majority of the population and you need to start somewhere. So the reason I was asking the question about kind of custom versus production line, the Taiwan Taiwanese lineup, you had to make some decisions there because it wasn't a customer coming to you saying, I want 50 millimeter tire clearance, or I want this head two bangle. Tell me about the design of that bike. What's, who's the rider that you designed for, and what are some of the attributes of that, of that model? [00:34:56]Jeff Frane: Yeah, so if we're talking about the Rambler, which is our Taiwanese made gravel platform, we sell it in two versions with a carbon fork. We call that the SL super light. And then we have the steel fork version that we just call Rambler. Um, that is kind of based on the earth ship as, um, it kind, it borrows heavily from the earth ship. So in my lineage, as I progressed through the industry, we had the Space Horse, then we had the Cosmic Stallion, and then I created the Earth ship, which was an iter iteration of those works, an evolution of those works. And now we have the Rambler. And so when I, things I like in gravel bikes. I believe that an endurance bike comfortable is fast. Um, I love a tall, I have a bad back, uh, as we talked about before the podcast. Um, so I like Tall Stack and I'm super stoked that the industry trend is going more and more towards tall stacks because, you know, high-end bikes serving elite athletes, professional racers is freaking ridiculous. Um, you know, most of us who ride even. Those of us who ride, you know, 10,000 miles a year, we still don't hold like that riding position for a long period of time. Um, the way a professional can, um, so you know, comfortable is fast. So taller stacks. I like to design our gravel bikes with a relatively quick handling front end. I try to keep the trail number in the low sixties because I want it to be really agile. Um, I like bottom bracket heights. That are just slightly, they're slightly lower than a road bike. Um, you know, traditionally, like a touring bike was an 80 mil bottom bracket drop. Uh, with a space horse, we have that cuz we want it to be sportier at 75. Uh, I think the cosmic stallion is 73 and the Rambler hits at 72 with the carbon fork on it. And I really think that's a good, uh, position for it to be in. Um, for, you know, keeping it stable on those gravel descents, having it be very confident, inspiring. Uh, we spec a big tire and with big tires come longer, chains stays. Our chains stays are 4 38, uh, which I kind of think is a magic number in terms of still being agile, but giving you a little bit of cush from that rear end. Um, kind of interesting with the rambler is that the steel fork and the carbon fork have a little bit different geometry. The steel fork needed to be a little longer to clear that big tire. And I'm actually really excited about the change because it makes the, that version of the bike really slick for gnarlier double tracks. Um, some, you know, single track more, more aggressive off-road terrain as well as it makes it really good for six 50 B conversions. When that conversion, it's, it's designed for it. So a six 50 B set up, [00:37:43]Craig Dalton (Host): And what is, what is for 700 C? What kind of tire clearance were you able to achieve? [00:37:48]Jeff Frane: uh, a 50 in the rear, and then the fork clears a two, one. [00:37:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Okay. [00:37:52]Jeff Frane: You know, I, I mean, to me that's gravel standard now. Like if you're not clearing a 50, like you're off the back. [00:37:57]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, totally agree. It's been interesting, like the journey over the last, at least for me, the last five years to come to that point and see the industry come along and you know, when I first got into it, it was like you had to have two sets of wheels because. If you wanted to get big tires, you had to go down to six 50 B and now not the case. Right. I can run 700 by 55 on my current bike and that's, that's ample, right? [00:38:21]Jeff Frane: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love that. Um, like every once in a while, like a, like something that's really popular, like, I'm gonna use the example like blood stones are really popular the last couple years, right. And I just so happen to be amazingly comfortable. Awesome shoes, like gravel bikes are super popular and they're also the most versatile, most practical bike you can freaking buy. Like, it's spectacular when. The really good, smart thing also becomes the popular thing, cuz that's not always the case. [00:38:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Yep. Yeah. The, the idea that we have this one bike in our quiver that can do so many different things and have so many different personalities depending on where we wanna ride, is absolutely what's drawn me to the sport. There's no question about it. [00:39:05]Jeff Frane: Totally. And you know, um, so I designed the Rambler so that it can also flex into bike packing if you want. It'll fit a, a, a two two or 2 3 6 50 B. And, um, like on the Earthship, which is a, a dedicated gravel race product, um, I have just bottle mounts in the main triangle and a bottle mount underneath the down tube. Uh, but on the rambler we have three pack mounts on the top of the bottom of the down tubes. A little more versatility there. I don't have rack mounts on the earth ship because it's a gravel race bike. But the rambler being, because it's a little more of an all arounder, will have your rack mounts. Um, you know, all of our bikes have three-pack mounts on them because I think that's standard internal dynamo routing, you know, um, all the features that I think should, should be on a, on a, on a current modern gravel bike. [00:39:57]Craig Dalton (Host): All great stuff, Jeff. So if people are interested in finding out more about the brand or ultimately purchasing one of these bicycles, how, where are you encouraging them to go? I know you wanna work with local bike shops whenever possible, but what? Yeah. Tell me about your vision for how you interact with customers. [00:40:15]Jeff Frane: well, um, you know, we're working to expand our dealer network. Uh, we're trying to keep it, we were trying to keep it significantly tighter. Um, but now we're ready, now that we have a decent amount of inventory from Taiwan, like we're ready to expand. The reason I wanted to keep it tighter is because I don't wanna be a crappy supplier. I don't wanna open up all these dealers and then not have the product to serve them well. [00:40:37]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah, [00:40:38]Jeff Frane: So we're starting to expand a little bit. It's tough because people are like, oh, I saw this on your Instagram. Is there a place where I can go try it in my area? And for most of the people right now, the answer is no. There, there, there isn't really. Um, you know, I think we have 20 dealers around the country at this point, and then we have some in Canada and Japan as well. So, So it's a little tough, you know, here in Minneapolis, like Angry Catfish has all of our stuff on the floor and that's been a really awesome resource for it. I feel a lot of conversations, uh, you know, of emails and such from, from customers asking about the product, um, it's kind of handy cuz in a lot of cases I can be like, well, do you, can you write a space horse? Is there somewhere you can go check out a space horse or a cosmic stallion? Um, our bike is not the same geometry as that, but if that feels good to you, This was my previous, this was the previous work. Check out the new iteration. I dunno if that sounded like a d Was that a jerky thing to say? I hope not much love to, to all this stuff that, you know, we've done in the past and much love to all city. [00:41:43]Craig Dalton (Host): So are you guys holding inventory? Like if someone came to you today and said, I need a rambler, [00:41:48]Jeff Frane: absolutely, absolutely. Um, you know, the struggle that we're having a little bit is, uh, we're offering complete bikes. Which is important and we're offering complete bike shop bikes to our dealers. Um, cuz you know, it's one thing to sell a frame to a dealer, but chances are that frame's just gonna sit there. Like, people need to, like to need, people need to be able to test ride it and, and see it and touch it. Um, so we're selling our shops complete bikes as well, and it's proving a little bit of challenging to put together kits sometimes, but we're doing, uh, as good of a job as we possibly can. [00:42:20]Craig Dalton (Host): And then on the custom side, if someone came to you and said, Hey, I want you to build this dream bike for me. What does that timeline look like and what's sort of the process they go through? [00:42:27]Jeff Frane: Well, uh, I didn't answer the first part of your question, which is do we have inventory? Oh, yeah. We, we absolutely do. We have ramblers in stock. We have our bike packing bike Super Tramp. I have earth ships, US made gravel racers in stock ready to jam. Um, those are really interesting because it's some of the last stuff to come outta Waterford before Waterford closes its doors. And so if you wanted something from that historic, um, historic place, Um, we've got earth ships for you and every time I kind of sell one I'm like, Ooh, there's one less Waterford, Mike, like, we're getting down to the end. [00:43:00]Craig Dalton (Host): I hope the people who are buying them know that that's where they were fabricated cuz that is a meaningful origin of that bike. [00:43:07]Jeff Frane: absolutely. I mean, Waterford is American cycling to me, uh, Richard and his crew there. It's a legendary place with legendary people. You know, I was fortunate enough to work with his daughter Anna, at All City, uh, who I mentioned earlier. And, um, it's a huge, huge loss culturally to us and to the American bicycle industry, um, that they're closing shop, but at the same time, Richard, that's a freaking well earned retirement and what a legacy he li leaves behind. So many happy riders, so many great bikes. [00:43:40]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. If you, if for the listener, if you haven't heard of Waterford, just do a little Googling and you'll see what we're talking about. [00:43:46]Jeff Frane: Um, to answer your question about timeline, usually takes us about three to four months for a steel or titanium, uh, frame set for a custom. Uh, some of that, you know, we've got a pretty good handle on production time. Uh, some of the variability comes with finishing. Uh, you know, we use a number of people depending on if you want a saraco or if you want powder coat, or if you want. Or if you want really, really, really fancy ano, like those are all kind of different vendors to get us that. [00:44:16]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. [00:44:16]Jeff Frane: so there's a little bit of variability, but typically four months, [00:44:20]Craig Dalton (Host): Nice. Nice. Anything else that we didn't cover about the brands that you'd like to share, [00:44:27]Jeff Frane: man, Craig, um, you know, I, I, I couldn't be happier with where we are. Um, I get to continue to contribute to the, to the cycling world in some small way. And, you know, I'm super excited about that. Um, I do have something to say though, um, which is this brother. Um, when I trying to figure out how to, how to like, segue into this with, I'm just gonna say it, um, to all the people listening out there, the thing that. Um, has really changed for me in my career and that has really helped me develop as a human being is this, um, you know, we live in a a, we live in the United States of America. We live in a capitalist society and we all have to work and we all have to hustle, uh, to make, to make life work. And, um, you know, one of the big things that, that, that happened to me, Was that I was so, I loved all city, I loved Q bp. I was so emotionally connect, interconnected with this thing. And you know, I was Jeff from All City. Like, that was my identity. My work, my job was such a huge part of my identity that when it was time to leave, that it was like this huge crushing, I mean, it ended up being the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, um, because I was able to develop, um, into the human being. I am, I am today, which is a much healthier. But I had conflated that my work with my value and my identity, right? And, um, so what I want everyone to just to know and to reiterate, like, you're not your job. You're not your output. You aren't how many freaking widgets you made in a day. Um, you're a beautiful special human being who deserves love. And you know, for me, part of that deserving love is deserving to ride my bike every day. Because that's when I feel at, at most, at peace with the world, at most, at peace with myself. Like, that's what bikes are. Bikes are fucking, bikes are salvation. Pardon of my language. Um, and so I just, I don't know, like this is like the message that I wanna just tell everyone is that, um, you're amazing just the way you are. You don't have to make anything. You don't have to produce anything. You don't have to do anything. Just you being you, um, brings a big, big, big, big, big light into this world and. That I love you so much for everyone out there and, uh, yeah, [00:46:51]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Thanks brother. I appreciate the sentiment and I appreciate all the, all the good energy you've put into the world, into the bike community. I mean, I think we all realize this, that, you know, we're, we're. It's a luxury to be able to ride these great bikes that we ride. It's a luxury to have the time. It's a luxury to have the community and the environment to get out there and do what we do. And for people like you who are putting it out there in good energy and creating brands like wild, I wish you all the success in the world. [00:47:19]Jeff Frane: Yeah. Well, and thank you so much again for the opportunity to be here. It's, um, you know, it takes a village. Um, we're a little brand just trying to make our way in the world. You know, the, the biggest thing for us is like, people just, it's not that people aren't willing to choose us. It's like that people don't even know we're an option. And it's really hard to build an audience with, like, the way the algorithms are set up. These days. So, you know, opportunities like this to be on the Gravel Ride podcast are, are freaking huge for us. [00:47:47]Craig Dalton (Host): Yeah. Well, awesome. I appreciate the conversation, Jeff, and it was great to get to know you and we'll make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you guys. [00:47:54]Jeff Frane: Yeah. If, if y'all are looking for, you know, if y'all are looking for bikes, we got 'em. And, uh, I think they're real nice. [00:48:01]Craig Dalton (Host): I love it. Thanks, Jeff. [00:48:03]Jeff Frane: Thank you Craig.    

QBP'ers!! the best all Cleveland Browns podcast in the world and on the internet is back to kick off the 2023-24 season. Broadcasting from Los Angeles your hometown heroes Jake Solomon and Yusuf Ali will review and preview the schedule, the draft, the free agency additions and the new coaching staff. After that we talk about the new logo design, try to get Angelenos to try stadium mustard a few more "Xtra Brownsy Activities" enjoy the episode and Go Browns!

HLC opens a new distribution center in Texas which is now available as an option in your site manager settings - Settings > Suppliers > Supplier SyncOur Supplier Fulfillment/drop-ship partners are up to 5 US suppliers - Trek, Specialized, QBP,  J&B, and HLC and 2 Canadian suppliers, Live to Play Sports and HLC. Are you taking advantage of those?We got quite a few responses to our electric bike survey, thank you! We'll be taking action on many topics in the coming months. Consistent marketing matters over time. Even when sales are strong, consistent marketing ensures your business gets its share of the pie and minimizes the eventual downward swings in markets, seasonal or otherwise. Keep your website dialed and consider Email Automations to stay top of mind with your customers.Cake or cupcakes? Frosting ratios and more.If you're a current SmartEtailing website client with questions about your website, reach out to support@smartetailing.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a SmartEtaililng website client with questions about how our programs work, email info@smartetailing.com and we'll gladly show you around.Find Us on LinkedInRyan Atkinson, President + Co-OwnerSuzie Livingston, Marketing + CommunicationsMark Still, Business DevelopmentWe also publish Up Next on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Up Next playlist.If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Up Next or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@smartetailing.com.#email marketing #marketing #bikeshopwebsites #merchandising

There was an issue with WePay payment processing yesterday. It's been resolved but it brought up a thought about having a backup option available.As suppliers have more inventory in their warehouses, drop shipping, what we call Supplier Fulfillment becomes an even more valuable feature. If you work with Trek, Specialized, HLC, or QBP in the US or LTP Sports or HLC in Canada, and aren't already using this feature, consider setting it up on your Professional level website. If you aren't using our Pro website, consider that as a way to leverage every possible sale you might capture.We also talk about Supplier Promo pricing and shop dogs. Let us know what you'd like to know more about for an upcoming Tuesday.If you're a current SmartEtailing website client with questions about your website, reach out to support@smartetailing.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a SmartEtaililng website client with questions about how our programs work, email info@smartetailing.com and we'll gladly show you around.Find Us on LinkedInRyan Atkinson, President + Co-OwnerSuzie Livingston, Marketing + CommunicationsMark Still, Business DevelopmentWe also publish Up Next on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Up Next playlist.If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Up Next or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@smartetailing.com.#email marketing #marketing #bikeshopwebsites #merchandising

The QBP is back for the final game of the season! This week versus the Pittsburgh Steelers! Hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon recap key moments of the game, hand out awards (most surprising and most disappointing) compare the game watching experience to something from daily life(metaphor of the week) and the final "Is Joe Woods still our DC" and final thoughts on the 2022 season. as always f*****g Go Browns!

QBP'ers! The best Cleveland Browns podcast is back for week 13 against the Houston Texans. Hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon recap the game, discuss the most disappointing and surprising players of the game, the metaphor of the week, hopes & previews for week 14 and our newest segment, " Is Joe Woods still our DC and other things"

QBP'ers! What a game! The best Cleveland Browns podcast in the world is back to break it down! Listen to hometown heroes Yusuf Ali & Jake Solomon discuss this latest Browns win against Tom Brady and the Bucs! Njoku made the catch of the year! JB held it down for 11 games! Myles got a game winning sack! Nick went over a thousand! We review the game, give out awards, Metaphor of the week and Joe Woods still has a job! Week 12 was a good one!

The QBP boys are back with the best Browns podcast in the whole world! Yusuf & Jake help get you through another tough loss, this time to the Bills. we give out surprise/disappointing players, hope & preview the Bucs game and compare the game watching experience to cake and Uber.

The best Cleveland Browns podcast in the world is back! QBP week 8 vs the Bengals. Listen to hosts Yusuf Ali and Jake Solomon give you the best review and post game discussion from a couple of hometown heroes. Other segments include surprise and disappointing player of the week, game metaphor of the week, hopes & preview for the next game and the new "Is Joe Woods Still Our DC And Other Things" segment. enjoy and go Browns!

The QBP is back with the best Browns recap in the world. this week against the Atlanta Falcons.

In this episode, Craig has Randall back in the guest chair to explore wheel design and development along with the philosophy and design principles behind Lōgōs and its new Omnium wheel collection. From engagement systems and materials to profile design and assembly and everything in between, this episode will leave you with a broad understanding of the wheel landscape and equip you with the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision about your next set of wheels regardless of brand. Episode sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use promo code: thegravelride for a free heart rate monitor) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Logos Components [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. Today on the podcast. I'm welcoming Randall Jacobs to the show for an interview. You may very well know him for his efforts in the, in the dirt episodes, as my technical sidekick, as well as an increasing number of standalone interview episodes that he's handling on behalf of the podcast. I very much appreciate his technical orientation and his passion about the gravel cycling community. But today I wanted to get him on the show to talk about his new efforts with his company logos components. He's introducing three new wheels this month to the gravel cycling community. We wanted to do an episode obviously touching on the new company, but also as something that's standalone for anybody who's interested in upgrading their wheels or purchasing a wheel set for their gravel or mountain bike. I think there's a lot of nuance in the hubs, spokes, and rims that you can learn from this show that you can take across any decision you're making with any of the. RI and wheel manufacturers out there in the world. So with that, before we jump in, I need to thank this week's sponsor hammerhead and the hammerhead car two bicycle computer. The hammerhead car two is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today with industry leading mapping navigation and routing capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options, free global maps with points of interest included like cafes and campsite means you can explore with confidence and on the go flexibility, I've talked about how I've been appreciating the hammerhead and how increasingly I've taken the time. To customize each screen. My latest way of geeking out was with rival access componentry. You can actually track the number of shift. In any given ride, obviously not mission critical information, but I just thought it was kind of interesting because as you think about it, uh, you know, you do shift more or less depending on the ation of the terrain out there. I very much appreciate. Hammerheads biweekly software updates. I always look forward to it. Sometimes it's things that are like no brainers. Like they've been improving their points of interest along the way. And other times it's deep tech that, you know, I perhaps don't have a need for today, but I very much appreciate the fact that they update it constantly because it's just something that gives me confidence that I've always got the most up to date. Technology on my bicycle computer recently, I think I mentioned I've been doing some exploring in my hometown. I love and appreciate that return to home feature. I was out on a route, um, actually when I was traveling and I wasn't exactly sure how I was gonna get home and I was pretty beat and I just navigated to return to start. And it gave me the most bike appropriate route home, which was very much appreciated as I was cracking in the heavy Tucson heat. For a limited time, our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of a hammerhead Cari, simply visit hammerhead.io right now, and use the promo code, the gravel ride at checkout to get yours today. This is an exclusive limited time offer for a podcast listener. So don't forget to use the promo code, the gravel ride. Add that free heart rate monitor into your cart. And when you purchase the car two, you'll get that heart rate monitor for. Go to hammerhead.io, add both carts and the promo code, the gravel ride with that said, let's jump right into my conversation with Randall. [00:03:56] Craig: Randall welcome to the show. [00:03:58] Randall: Great to be back on Craig, been looking forward to this conversation. [00:04:01] Craig: I feel like I owed you a more specific welcome because unlike our, in the dirt episodes, this one's a little different, we're gonna go deeper. And I think it's important. Many people who listen to in the dirt are where you're my sidekick. You're someone who's got, you know, a little bit more technical knowledge about the bike industry and bike components, et cetera than I do. And we're just a good muse for each other on our journey in this sport. But in today's episode, we're gonna go a little deeper about you and your companies. [00:04:30] Randall: Yeah, it's a bit of, a bit of a throwback. It reminds me of I think it was June 2018 when I first came on the pod, which is when you and I first got acquainted as well in this friendship. That's blossom from that. So, it'll be fun to have another, another such conversation. [00:04:45] Craig: Yeah, it's super early days. And I remember, you know, part of that journey was me ending up selecting a thesis spike in part, because I just found you to be very thoughtful as a product designer. And I would love for the listener today who may be coming at it, having not listened to that original episode, to just understand a little bit more about your background in the bike industry and your philosophy around creating bicycles and componentry. [00:05:11] Randall: Sure. There's a deeper dive that we did in that aforementioned episode, but long on the short I've been riding, as many of us have been riding, since I was a kid really got serious into it. Around age 18, started racing was working in a bike shop here in the Boston area. Then later on, I got to pack fodder pro status on the cross country circuit for a couple of years, which was a lot of fun dirt bagging out of the back of my Honda element around the country. And from there did some supply chain work outside of the bike industry in China lived there for some years picked up Mandarin, [00:05:44] Craig: Hang on Randall. So how. Did, how did you get into supply chain? [00:05:49] Randall: So let's see. I was 21 and getting ready to finish college and decided to go and do a study abroad. I was at Zhongshan university in Guangzhou and met a man who became a good friend and a mentor who hired me to work for his trading and manufacturing company. It was a Chinese company Chinese own Chinese management. So I was the only non-Chinese on the team. And I was charged with first business development. But later on, got deep into product development, I was brought into all the, the key meetings with our big vendors and learned the ropes of how it works at that very deep level. And at the same time was picking up a lot of the. Not just the technical language and understanding of how things are made across a, a broad range of sectors, including, technologies that apply to bike. But then also the cultural elements of successfully architecting a supply chain. That was a pretty formative period for me. [00:06:46] Craig: I bet. Yeah, it's so huge. And one of those things that it's easy, if you've never got into the manufacturing world to, to not think about, but really understanding the culture and particularly in your case, understanding the language and developing a fluency of communication in the native tongue. It's just so immensely helpful in greasing the manufacturing wheels, so to speak. [00:07:06] Randall: Oh, absolutely. Frankly, none of what, the companies I've been involved with do, would be possible without, having learned the language and later did a graduate degree in us China relations. So learning, not just the culture from a firsthand perspective, but also a lot of the history, a lot of the philosophies reading some original texts, very slowly with the dictionary, but reading them nonetheless. It all makes a big difference when you're trying to build a, a deep trust based relationship with a party who has a very different background. [00:07:39] Craig: A hundred percent. Now, was the bike still part of your life during this period? Or had you shelved it, pursuing your professional vocation? [00:07:46] Randall: So I was riding a bit, not a ton but I was good friends with the owner of the biggest bike shop in Juhi a couple hours outside of Guang Jo, where I had lived when I first went to China was teaching English for a period. He's still a good friend. We've actually done some bike packing together. And it was, it was interesting. He was someone who, doesn't speak much English at all. So I've only ever spoken Mandarin with him. And this is saying in Chinese, it's like a duck talking to a chicken. And that was our relationship at first, but we are unified by this love of the bicycle. And over, over time, I, I, you know, obviously learned to communicate and we had a lot of shared experiences, so, [00:08:22] Craig: And then did you, did you find yourself drifting back with interest into the bicycle industry? Proper at some. [00:08:29] Randall: That kind of came later. I got to a point in my career where I graduated from grad school, going through a lot of, of life change, life transition, and. Was just thinking to myself, well, what, what is that kind of nexus of things that I'm good at that I'm knowledgeable about? That I care about that resonate with me in, in my lifestyle and that I can, I can get paid to do. And working in the bike industry made a lot of sense because I had the experiences as a racer. I had some relationships, obviously Mandarin was, very useful from a supply chain management standpoint. And also I ended up doing some market development stuff when I was at specialized, but mostly supply chain. And so it really, it's kind of the, the same way that my decision to go to China you know, was made it was okay. Well, you know, here are a bunch of different factors that I can weigh in order to, to make a decision. And ultimately, bike was like, okay, this makes sense I can do this and I can probably do it well, and I can, I can learn this. I can Excel at this. If I put my mind to it, [00:09:32] Craig: So you mentioned that you ended up at specialized bicycles out in Morgan hill. Can you just talk about what your role was there and some of the things you've learned, obviously you had supply chain experience. You had the experience over in China, but transitioning to a bicycle specific supply chain. What were some of the takeaways from that experience and, and maybe what were some of the projects of note that you worked. [00:09:54] Randall: Sure. So as you make clear, I wasn't there very long around a year some places are a good fit. Some places are not for each of us. But specialize in a lot of ways is, is arguably one of, if the not most innovative big brand also a marketing powerhouse and marketing is a substantial part of it, but there was a lot of very smart people in the room. And working for a company like specialized. We were a major account. So even though I was not an executive in the company I was working with the leadership of the factories that we were buying from on the projects that I was helping to manage. So that was, again, another one of these serendipitous experiences that made it, such that when I started my own thing, those relationships were already established in terms of projects. So the one that probably people know know most would be the diverge. And I was one of the team members on that. I shouldn't overstate my role. And it was an interesting project. I remember riding around on, prototypes of that bike. And just the concept of a gravel bike, making a ton of sense and being really excited about it. It didn't realize the vision the way that I would liked it to have. I think the biggest compromise I saw was there was a different tariff code for frames that can fit bigger than a 35 millimeter tire. So it was like 7% more expensive. And so we constrained the tire size to a maximum 35 millimeter in order to stay under the tariff, cuz otherwise it's a mountain bike and there was some protectionist policies around mountain bikes at some point. And then there are various other things that I did on my own bikes later on. I didn't have those constraints. [00:11:27] Craig: Yeah, that's so interesting. I, I remember in our earlier conversation back in, in June of 2018, when you first came on to talk about thesis and you talked about your history there, and I remember walking away from that conversation, just finding it, very interesting, the business decisions that get thrown on top of a product designer's vision that end up creating constraints, whether it's the time of year it has to launch or the, the tariffs that it may incur because it has larger than a 35 millimeter wheel tire size. It's super fascinating and interesting, and I can see why knowing you as well as I do that. You know, you don't want to be constrained by those criteria. You ultimately, your heart is in creating the best product. [00:12:10] Randall: Yeah. And there, of course there are constraints in what I do too. Right. I, I'm not gonna make a, like, I didn't make a $10,000 bicycle. I made a bicycle that did everything that I think a bicycle needs in order to, not. Really be dreaming about the $10,000 bicycle at night. Right. So, there's different constraints when you have to have a complete line and you have to have good, better, best, and you need to have a 3.2 to 3.5 X markup relatives cost a good sold in order for your business model to be viable because all these different things that when you are a small company with less overhead when you're mostly word of mouth and so on that, you can do things a little bit differently. [00:12:49] Craig: Yep. Yeah. So I'm gonna fast forward a bunch here, but at, at you decided to create a brand called thesis bicycle. And when did that come into the world? Was it 2018? [00:13:01] Randall: Early 2018. I flew over to Asia, did a whirlwind several week tour, three factories a day in mainland China in Taiwan to set up the supply chain, decide who we were gonna work with, build to build the materials, came back with a suitcase full of parts and built up a prototype. And then was actually you'll probably recall I had that, that raw black frame that I had a decal cutter that I cut decals for. And then I had all the parts and then I was loaning this bike out and asking people, would you buy it? And enough people said yes. And I said, okay, well here's the website. And enough people actually put their dollars down where it made sense to start a company around it. [00:13:38] Craig: And people keep saying yes to the thesis bike. I mean, it's, it's one of them that's in my quiver, in my garage that I, I still enjoy to this day. I mean, it's super well executed. And I think my opinion of the bike has been well documented. One of the thing along things along the way, you know, you decided it was gonna be a direct consumer brand. You sourced a bunch of components primarily to make sure that every rider could get the precise fit that they want. I know you're a big advocate of differing, the crank length size. For example, handlebars are an obvious one, but crank length is, I think is one that often gets overlooked and you get, you know, incredibly short riders still riding 1 72, 5 cranks. In addition to those components, you also developed a thesis wheel line. And I wanted to, to sort of talk about that a little bit, because obviously as we go into what's next, you have a history making wheels. So when you made that thesis wheels thesis wheel set, what, what were you going for at the time? And as you embark on this new brand, that will mention very shortly, we can talk about what your goals are for that. [00:14:45] Randall: Sure. Well, actually my, my wheel building history goes back a little bit further. I built my first wheels when I was 18 for myself not knowing anything. So, literally ordering parts outta QBP and I had some XT hubs and a magic rim and researched each component. And I built a set of wheels that held up. Later on it specialized, I was charged with revamping the access line, which I don't know if it's still this way, but at that time it was basically their non-real house brand for all their more entry to mid-level stuff. And was able to talk to the wheel engineers at that time and really learned a lot from them. I read a pretty well known book called the bicycle wheel by jobs Brandt amongst others and kind of learned a lot of the physics of wheels at that time. The cost structure around them. And then with thesis, those wheels I just kind of incorporated all the best practices in terms of component selection and engineering and so on. And in fact, if you look at what we did for thesis, you see a lot of that DNA in logos logos takes it a step further, but it's, a lot of the same principles. [00:15:49] Craig: Interesting. Yeah. So I think it's a great opportunity to introduce your new brand. Why don't you just give us a little bit of an overview of the brand and what it means to you? [00:15:59] Randall: Sure. So the brand is logos L O G O S, which is a bit of a play there. Right? Bike industries notorious for just slapping some logos on things and throwing a bunch of marketing at things. But logos is the concept of logos it's a Greek philosophical concept implying a reason or, or discourse, especially a reason to discourse. And even deeper than that, the underlying principle of order or knowledge that underpins reality. The idea for logos actually came from Sam Jackson, our head of brand who's been with us almost since the beginning. And it really deserves a lot of the credit for the brand identity and voice and a lot of the vision for the brand. I can't say enough how, how pleased I am with the work that he's done. But this idea of logos being, first principles based which very much aligns with thesis as well. There was a strong point of view again, itself built on first principles. And it ties into other concepts that are very much aligned with how I see the world is ties to Daoism and Zen that this word logos is imbued with. [00:17:01] Craig: That's exciting. And congratulations on the recent launch. I know you to be very meticulous and I know for the listener, you're passionate about sharing knowledge. So I think it's, it'll be great to just talk about what makes a great wheel. To begin with, because whether they're buying a logos wheel or some something else, the listener needs to know, how do they need to think about the wheels that are underneath? [00:17:28] Randall: Sure. The reality is that wheels arguably more than any other component in the bike industry. There's a, a huge number of brands. There's a ton of marketing, a lot of a lot of storytelling that may or may not be based in, in reality or in science. And so, of course what we do reflects my pH. Reflects our team's philosophy, but I think that a lot of these principles are fairly universal, so I'll try to keep it at a higher level. So, we look at it in terms of performance, strength, reliability, and serviceability. And we're calling the wheels we're launching with the Omni collection. And omnium has this concept of a high degree of versatility, right. Excelling at a wide variety of disciplines. So there are three different wheels a 700, a six 50 and a two nine. We'll talk about the specifics in a moment. But we can go into components. You wanna start with hubs. [00:18:17] Craig: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, and, and I don't want your, your comments to be lost on the listener. I think wheels, God, I feel. Ever since I started in the sport of cycling wheels have always been regarded as like something that if you invest a little bit more in, you get a lot more out of it. So it's, it's interesting to think a lot of us, when we buy bikes from a bike shop, you're just gonna get the wheels that come to it. And it takes a while before you start to think about getting a replacement set of wheels or a second set of wheels. One of the interesting things I've always found about gravel cycling is a lot of us come into the sport thinking I'm gonna get two sets of wheels right off the bat. So I, I, I do think for, and I can speak for my personal experience. Like I've thought more about wheels than I ever have historically, in any other sector of the sport, primarily because when I got my first proper gravel bike, I was all in on getting two different wheel size. [00:19:12] Randall: Yeah, and in fact, one of our core thesis, if you will, when we started thesis, was that you could have one bike that does nearly everything. And two wheels recorded that. And we, we saw, I mean, we still see about a 50% adoption rate on two wheel set amongst our riders. And we encourage people before they, start looking at an entirely new bike. Well, consider two wheel sets as a way, as long as you have the tire clearance of a way of getting more utility outta the same bike, instead of having a road bike and a cross bike and a gravel bike and, and all these other bikes that if, if thoughtfully designed and thoughtfully curated from a spec standpoint can actually, serve all of those purposes really well. It's really an omnium bicycle. [00:19:54] Craig: Yeah. So for starting at the hub, I mean, for many of the uninitiated, the hub is a bit of a black box, right? As long as it's working and the bike is rolling forward. The bike you're buying off the shelf. You're not thinking too much about it, but what, what should people be thinking about with respect to hub? [00:20:13] Randall: Well, hubs are a major point of failure and there is a lot that goes into making a good hub and there are certain designs that are better than others in certain designs that have inherent trade offs. I mean, every design has inherent trade offs. Some of those trade offs are well, we'll, we'll talk about like, if you want reliability, you want strength to weight. You want something that's serviceable. You want something that performs well, well, there are certain designs that, really aren't necessarily amenable to that. And then other designs that are but they have other constraints. So, there are Paul based systems. These are systems that have spring loaded poles that press against an outer ring that has teeth in it to engage when they're turning. And this is a very common hub design you see them on the very entry level. You also see some higher end versions of them that are out there and that, tend to hold up better, but they all inherently have the same issue of if you have three Pauls, one of them doesn't engage properly. Or, or maybe there's a little bit of wear some contamination. Well then all the load is going to, potentially just one of those poles. And so instead of having three poles to spread that load over, now, you just have one and that's when they tend to, detonate, they tend to fall apart. And then additionally, a three Paul design doesn't have the same peak load strength, nevermind the, resiliency against MIS clocking or contamination of the next one, which I'll talk about, which is a ratchet system. So the most famous ratchet is the star ratchet. This was patented by Hugi in the nineties and then popularized by DT Swiss. Folks here will have heard of the DT three 50, which we used on our thesis wheels. And then the more expensive DT, two 40, which achieves a lighter weight by using higher end materials. But otherwise is, functionally identical. And the original design, which I would argue is, superior to, newer iterations has two ratchets that are independently sprung, such that when they are rotating, if one of them were to get jammed or misaligned, the other one can still adapt to fully interface with the one that's not perfectly aligned. So you get full engagement and it's very unlikely where you have a situation where all the teeth are not engaged. So you with me so far, [00:22:26] Craig: Yeah, I am. And I, and I'm having a little bit of a smile on my face, cuz I do remember the hige hub back in the, in the nineties. I may have actually had one and I remember it was the loudest hub of anybody I knew. Which I took a little bit of pride on, on my mountain bike, but it was, it was always regarded as something that was the design was, you can't say failure proof, but very, very reliable. [00:22:52] Randall: Well, and two things about that. One newer iterations are not as loud unless you have the 54 tooth versions. And then secondly, there's a very good chance that that hub is still on the road. James Huang over at cycling tips called hubs with this design, the world's most reliable hubs and they have a reputation for that for very good reasons. What we just discussed. They're very resilience against all the sorts of failure modes that you might see with other types of systems. Now, the patent for that expired a few years ago. And this was one of the reasons why we saw an opportunity to, start a company because on their higher end stuff. Companies like DT and others have migrated towards a single sprung mechanism. And there were some issues with that. They actually had a not a recall, but a a service bullet put out because, when you have only one side sprung, if that one sprung ratchet gets jammed or is not properly aligned with the fixed ratchet, with the fixed interface the teeth won't engage and you'll get wear, or, non-engagement. [00:23:53] Craig: is the decision to go that route a, a cost savings. [00:23:56] Randall: not cost savings. I think it's twofold. I think the primary driver honestly, is probably that you need to have something new and if your thing goes off patent, then, being able to point to something and say, this new thing is better is, useful. And there, there are some advantages to the what's called EXP system. I think they were able to shave a little bit of weight. They were able to push the, main bearing outboards, slightly to distribute, forces a, little bit better on the axle. But at the expense of this, gold standard reliability and part of it is tolerances. So you need to have much higher tolerances on a product like that , because you only have one ratchet that's moving. So if it ever gets jammed that fails versus with dual sprung, if one of them gets jammed as, we said, the other one can, slide to meet it. It's just something inherent about that design that, will always be true. And there's a bunch of different iterations of it. And if it's executed, well, it can, hold up. It can perform well over time. But one of the things that we believe in is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There wasn't a problem with the dual sprung mechanism. And in fact it has some advantages. So that's, your single sprung mechanisms. And then the other one is spray clutches. So this is a hub like Onyx, you're familiar with them. [00:25:09] Craig: I'm not familiar with. [00:25:10] Randall: So without going into the details of how a spray clutch works the big advantage of a spray clutch is you get instant engagement. Now that instant engagement is something that a certain subset of like trials riders and some mountain bikers seem to swear by I think that for, at least from my perspective, the obsession with, instant engagement is a little bit overblown and there can be some downsides with kickback on certain suspension designs. Plus they tend to be heavier a little bit more draggy, a lot more complicated. There's a lot more parts in a, hub like that. But if you need something for that application, that's not a bad way to accomplish it. Now I've put the dual sprung star ratchet on this pedestal as is what I think is the best. Right. But these other ones have advantages, too. So instant engagement with the spray clutch. With a Paul based system. There's ways in which you can design that, where you can get effectively instant engagement as well. And so if instant engagement is really critical for you, well, with a star ratchet design, we use a 36 tooth star ratchet, which 36 tooth, 360 degrees of rotation divided by a 36 that's 10 degrees of engagement. We find that that's kind of the sweet spot, where you get, a high degree of strength and reliability and long term durability together. Engagement. That's plenty quick. But if you want instantaneous engagement, you're probably looking at Paul based or spray clutches, and then just accepting the compromises of, more complexity, less reliability, more weight, more drag. [00:26:38] Craig: Yeah, it's always interesting from a business perspective, when you, when you layer in that patented technology component of it, that was on lock until, as you said, I think it was last year that that patent expired and allowed other people to build in that way. Cuz until that point, if you were building a wheel and you wanted to, you know, do something similar or not pay those licensing fees, you had to go through these efforts to kind of design something new that inherent with everything is gonna have compromises and, and positive things and negative things about it. So it is interesting. It'll be interesting to see going forward if some of those companies that invested a lot in these other technologies. Actually just adopted a dual SPR floating star ratchet because it's off patent and they can do so. [00:27:20] Randall: I mean, there are a few others that are out there. Execution matters, tolerances matter. The quality of the material, the quality of the machining, the quality of the heat treatment process. So the design of it is only one part that goes into making a great hub. One of the other things that I wanna call out that I really like about this dual SPR star ratchet is because it's been out there so long and because it's so established, I mean, these have been used in Roal wheels and bond tracker wheels , N be used spec DT hubs with this design. There's tons of parts out there and they're serviceable without tools. So. some riders may already have parts that are compatible with our new hub set in their toolboxes because they already have, a set of DT three 50 S the, free hub mechanism, the end caps, the star ratchets and Springs. All of these parts are interchangeable. So, this gets into some of our philosophy of around open standards and this is effectively an open standard and arguably the best open standard. And, I would argue further the best standard period for hubs, for the vast majority of riders. [00:28:25] Craig: So we've gone nerd deep on the inside of this hub. And if you're interested, like, I think you, you have to either look at the hub on your bike or on the logos components website. They've got a, sort of a blown out diagram of the different components that, that are inside there. I do think it's interesting to, to have in your back pocket to understand, and maybe even think about what you're riding today, but there's other parts of the, the hub that we should probably talk about. So outside of that mechanism is the, the hub shell. So what do you, how are you building these hub shells? [00:28:56] Randall: Yeah. So, one of the big things with a hub shell is, well, one there's the material, and then there's two, how you process it. So, a lot of hubs use 60 61 which is a, pretty standard, still a high grade aluminum. But it's cheaper to buy cheaper to work with. So if you look in the specs of some of your components, these are numbers that you'll see, and this is just relating to the, formulation of the alloy. We use in our hub shell a material called 60 82 T six. And this is stronger and lighter, but also more expensive to purchase and to process. And that T six refers to the heat treatment process. You start with ability of this material. You cold forge it. So these like giant forging machines, to forge this form. And then you heat treat that, and then you put it on a lathe to machine out, all the circular parts on the internals and external of the hub. And then you use a multi-axis mill to mill out all the features and that's, the main differentiator, for example, between the, DT three 50 and the two 40. Is that material and the fact that because it's stronger, you can machine away more of it and still get the same strength. And because we're making them, in-house now we're able to use the, higher end material, but still put it into a product that is, in this case, a grant, [00:30:12] Craig: Got it. And then the final component of that, that hub is, is obviously the bearings and bearings get a lot of attention in the bike industry. Why don't you talk about your choices there and what, what should, what should riders be thinking about with respect to bearings? [00:30:25] Randall: honestly, any good brand name stainless steel bearing with good seals and so on is, is going to work well. I'm actually gonna take a step back from answering this one, because I'm going to have someone on the pod to go deep nerd on bearings in the future. We did look at ceramic and found that there's not really any advantage to ceramic for, the vast majority of riders who don't have sponsorship and a team mechanic because you get a, trivial performance benefit and that performance benefit turns into a deficit pretty quickly, cuz they wear so quickly for reasons that I'll, hold off until that, in-depth bearing interview. [00:31:00] Craig: That makes sense and funny, you know, on my, my bottom bracket from my recent build, I was sort of enamored by the notion of doing a ceramic bottom bracket. But in talking to the experts, I ended up with a stainless steel bearing bottom bracket as well, [00:31:13] Randall: Yeah. I, I made the mistake in my racing days of spending a lot of money on ceramic bearings and not having reviewed the science. And so tend to be a lot more disciplined these days. [00:31:23] Craig: better than my racing days, where people were spending money, replacing all of their steel bolts with titanium, bolts, and spending ungodly amounts of money to save a few grams here and there. [00:31:32] Randall: Well, I guess you pay more attention when you're buying many thousands of bearings than when you're buying one bicycle's worth [00:31:38] Craig: Yeah. [00:31:39] Randall: Yeah. [00:31:39] Craig: exactly well, it's it's coming out from the hub. We've got spokes and nipples to talk about and then really definitely wanna get into rims. Cause I think there's a lot of kind of takeaways that people need to revisit regarding rim technology that I want to get into. [00:31:52] Randall: Sure. Let's start with spokes. So we use pillar wing 20 spokes, which is a, bladed actually more of a diamond wing shape spoke. And we use these not because they're arrow though. That is a benefit, but because the same process that generates that aerodynamic shape is a cold forging process effectively. It's a cold rolling process that helps to orient the grain structure of the metal in the spoke to improve its elasticity and thus its fatigue life. That spoke also has some, complex strain relieving at both ends by the threads and by the head. And these are the areas where the, spoke tends to fail. And with a lightweight spoke, they wanna wind up. So if you're using a lightweight round spoke, as you're building it, you're gonna essentially twist the spoke. But if you have ablated spoke, you have something to grab onto and a reference point to be able to see, okay, this spoke is oriented straight. And any twisting in that spoke is, again, these are stresses that are going to result in increased fatigue and failure over the life of the spoke. So that's why we went with these ones and pillar, they make a great spoke out of the same, high end Swedish, sand Vic material. 3 0 2 plus is the particular wire that they start with, which is what a lot of the top end spoke start with. And it just makes for a spoke that's really lightweight really easy to build with, and that has outstanding durability, [00:33:17] Craig: and you're lacing those to brass nipples. Am I correct? [00:33:22] Randall: Exposed brass nipples. Yeah. We have essentially a zero tolerance policy towards aluminum nipples or hidden nipples. The reason being that well, first aluminum ones they tend to see split and fail. And for a wheel to perform at its best for a long period of time, there are some basic maintenance that needs to be done part of which is, checking the tension and truing it and retentioning as needed. We'll talk in a moment about how you can reduce the maintenance that's required, but with an aluminum nipple well, two things, one you tend to get oxidization that results in the nipple seizing in the interface with that stainless steel spoke. So now you have an oxidization process, a chemical process where it's making it. So it's sticking and yeah, you can put, spoke prep on there, so it doesn't stick. But eventually that oxidization is gonna take place. And then it's a much softer material than brass, so brass won't oxidize in the same way. And it's harder. So, why would you lose use aluminum then? Well, it's lighter. Well, how much lighter? Well, with a 24 spoke wheel. So 48 spokes, total 48 nipples. It's like 36 grams. So for 36 grams, you're gonna take a wheel that could last a really long time and you're gonna make it so that there's a good chance, especially if you ride in rain or any sort of wet conditions that the moment you try to true this, wheel or, retention the wheel you're gonna have to rebuild it from scratch with new spokes gets real expensive, real quick. [00:34:46] Craig: that makes sense. And I, I will make a point on exposed nipples. I'm definitely a big fan of that. The, the one, a couple wheels I've ever had that have broke. I've been fortunate not to break a lot of spokes in my life, but I did break one on a hidden nipple wheel. And it was the most frustrating experience in my life trying to fix that wheel. [00:35:03] Randall: Yeah, well, and, that's a, more extreme, but still common scenario. But again, being able to just tension the wheel, right? If I have a hidden nipple, I need to remove my tires. I might be wasting the sealant that's in there, cuz everything is too going tubeless. Now I have to remove the, valve stem and the rim tape. Right. And then I need to go in and, access the, back of the nipple from, from. And then when the wheel is all trued, well, then I gotta clean up the rim. So I have a nice clean surface and then I have to retape it. I gotta put the valve stems in. I need to put the tire back on and I need to put sealant in and then reinflate it. And so you're, it's harder to true there's no arrow benefit. This has been shown. The one tiny benefit is that you can have a slightly smaller spoke hole, but you can make up for that with just having a tiny bit more carbon reinforcement. And the added weight is on the order of single grams. [00:35:56] Craig: Yeah. [00:35:56] Randall: And so I'll add those single grams every day. [00:35:58] Craig: So now we're, now we're out to the rim. Let's talk about the rims. You, you mentioned op opening up that from a size perspective, you're doing 6 5700 C and a 20 Niner, but let's talk a little bit more specifically about the material you're using and what you're going for with these particular rims. [00:36:16] Randall: Well, I wanna start with something off the bat, before going into materials, which is be hooks. So this is another one of those things together with nipples that we take a strong stance on. We believe that any rim that is designed and marketed to be used with a road tubeless tire should have a bead. There's a trend in the industry towards going hook list for these rims and there's still tires that are blowing off of rims. And, I don't believe that having compatibility charts. So like our rims are only compatible with these tires is a good solution. [00:36:49] Craig: So to be spec, to be specific Randall, just so, just so the listener's clear. So you're saying on your 700 sea rim, which may take a higher pressure road size tire. So not talking about your 40 C gravel tires, but if someone's running a high pressure, 32 C tire, you think that Beed hooks are a safety require. [00:37:11] Randall: Absolutely. And in fact, we're not talking that higher pressure either. It's interesting. Up until recently the pressure charts would go up linearly with weight and then they would taper off and have the same weight for a bunch of higher weights. And it's because of concerns about blowoffs. If you have a system tires, rim, and rim tape that are all within tolerance, then a hopeless system can be safe, can secure the tire properly. The problem is. There are too many variables. There's the particular manufacturer. There's the production batch. You can't check every tire. You do check every rim. So the, tolerances there tend to be a lot more stable, but then let's say you have a tire that is within spec and a rim that's within spec. And even the tape is in spec, but then you have to replace the tape and you replace it with a slightly thicker or thinner tape, or you don't apply it properly or something like that. Now you have a blow off risk, right? So I think that relying on different manufacturers to stay within a very high tolerance for a part that has a very high consequence in the events that something goes wrong is just not a good approach. speeds have advantages. Up until recently they were a lot lighter and they were cheaper to manufacture because you had a lower scrap rate because the way that the hooks were formed you were machining or you were having an insert in there. So on fortunately we have what we're calling a high impact bead hook that adds a trivial amount of mass per rim. It's on the order of five grams and it's molded in. So you can have that high impact resistance. You can have the tire retention, you can have the weight more or less on par and the cost is slightly higher because of how it's produced. But we think that it's absolutely worth it. [00:38:55] Craig: Beyond these safety concerns? What am I experiencing differently when I'm installing a tire on a, a, a bead hook versus a hook list rim. [00:39:04] Randall: If it's designed properly, nothing because when you're installing the tire you have that, trough in the middle of the rim and on today's wider rims, that trough is generally pretty big and plenty deep. So you just drop the bead into there and then it pops out and sits on the bead seat, retained by a bead lock, which we also do on our rims. And then the hook is again, helping to prevent blow offs, which can be catastrophic. [00:39:29] Craig: Okay. Gotcha. Cause I'm, I'm sure I've, I've set up tires on both bead hooks and hook list and haven't really noticed the difference [00:39:36] Randall: yeah. Any difference that you would notice would be a consequence of something other than the hooks. [00:39:40] Craig: Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. So good. An interesting data point for people to research, particularly, and specifically on 700 C rims and high pressure tires. So taking that. At that point aside, let's talk about the rims. These are carbon rims. You're making what's the talk about the carbon rims in general. [00:40:02] Randall: sure. You have the carbon, you have the resin and then you have how it's processed, how it's formed. Right? So we're using Tory 700, 800 carbon, very common material throughout the bike industry. We're using high grade residents that again, very common throughout the industry on the higher end. We have access to the same materials as all the other brands and vice versa. So the magic is not there per se. There is some cool things you can do at resins. That's a whole nother conversation. But the processing is really a big difference. So we have a really high precision molding process where the rim comes out of the mold free of any imperfections in the surface such that there's no coatings required. So that's 20, 30 grams a rim easily of coatings just to deal with cosmetic imperfections that our rims come out without. And then you save it an additional little bit of weight as a result of this the precision of the process and the way in which it removes. As much excess resin as possible, cuz the resin is not what's giving the rims, their strength. It is the carbon. And then the resin is bonding the layers of carbon together to give it that structure. So any excess resin , you can remove and maintain the same strength. Right? So any excess resin is not contributing to the structural integrity of the structure. [00:41:19] Craig: Right, [00:41:20] Randall: So that's on the material side other things I mentioned Beadlock asymmetry. So this is another thing that we do across our line and we'll always do across our line. The, rim is basically it's kind of biased to one side. [00:41:31] Craig: Yep. [00:41:32] Randall: and what this does is your hubs are not symmetrical, right? So up front, you have a disc on one side, no disc on the other. In the back, you have a disc on one side and you have a much bigger, much wider cassette and free hub body on the other side. So by going with an asymmetrical rim, it helps to balance out the spoke angles and thus the spoke tensions, which means that you have a wheel that has higher average tension and total tension with the same number of spoke. And you have a reduction in the change intention with each revolution or each impact. And these two things together make a stronger wheel. That's more durable with the same number of spokes and the, the impact is actually quite, quite substantial. So we do that across the board and think that we can't see any reason with the exception of a wheel that is designed purely for arrow, and even then we would still do an asymmetric rim. [00:42:28] Craig: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we've gone into a lot of detail as to the component tree and the quality of what you guys are putting together, but at a certain point, these things need to get assembled. And I know historically like that, that is a challenge from a process perspective. It's like, how do you build these wheels up from these quality components? Because if they're not built well, you'll end up with a shit wheel. [00:42:50] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. So there's exactly right. There's the curation in manufacturing the, of the components and how they're put together is no less important. You can have the best components in the world. If they're not assembled properly, it's not gonna hold up. You're not gonna get the performance outta the box, nevermind over time. So this is basic things like, prepping the spokes. So you have a, material that helps to lubricate the interface between the threads and the N. And this is, something that's basic needs to be done. In our case, we have essentially hand laced machine built for a first pass. So a machine will go through and adjust and get the wheel round and true. And then we'll have a skilled person finished the wheel and this bring. It from round and true to where the tension around the wheel one is as high as it can be. And again, this results in a stronger wheel that also has less change in tension as it turns. But then also the spokes are as close intention to each other as possible. And this part is actually hard to achieve. It requires a lot of skill and it takes more time and money. And then how do you validate that while you machine check it? So you check the tension in every single spoke and then put it through the true and the roundest check again before going out the door. [00:44:02] Craig: Yeah, that makes sense. So I think we've, we've dug in pretty deep on wheel technology [00:44:06] Randall: Yeah. [00:44:07] Craig: a lot to think about I'm sure people are gonna be interested in, in these wheels. We've talked about, you know, all three, all three sizes are gonna have asymmetric rims. The 700 C is gonna have a, a high impact bead hook for the reasons you mentioned, the other two are gonna be hopeless. The one thing we haven't talked about. It's just been the, the width. And I, I have found that in other conversations with other wheel manufacturers, that that's an interesting area to talk about and just kind of nail home, you know, why we're seeing some of the gravel wheels go wider in the width of the rim than, you know, historically was part of, you know, road and road plus bikes. [00:44:49] Randall: Sure. I mean this is a trend across the board. And in fact, it's, it's been taken a little bit too far in some cases, there is a, Goldilock spot. [00:44:56] Craig: I think is great. Like, I, I, I mean, I think that's one of the great things about gravel is like we've been and component manufacturers, like they've been pushing the extremes to figure out where the sweet spot is. [00:45:07] Randall: To figure out what the sweet spot is, but then also to, meet what, what the market is telling them to make and not really sticking to first principles is like, oh, people have a perception that wider is better, so let's keep going wider. Right. Just like lighter is better. Let's keep shedding weight and then a year down the road let them worry about it. But in terms of widths, the sweet spot I would argue for a 700 sea wheel is 23 to 25 millimeters. Right. And you see a lot of wheels coming out in that range. Ours are 24. And again, with these bead hooks, and you can run down to a 28 millimeter tire with a 24 internal width. And it'll be secure and it'll be properly supported. And a 28 or a 30 will be aerodynamically. Well matched to that rim, which will have an external width of 32 in our case. Which by the way, we we'll talk about arrow in a second. And also being able to support the, the higher end of the range. So in the case of narrower tires, you want it to be aerodynamically matched on the case of bigger tires. You just want it to be wide enough to support that tire at low pressures, without tire squirm, and to give the tire a good shape, as opposed to a light bulb shape, that you're engaging the side knobs of the tire, maybe a little bit early and so on. And tire design has had to evolve together with rim with but as a system it's definitely an improvement in the sweet spot is really in this 23 to 25 millimeter internal range [00:46:34] Craig: Yeah. [00:46:34] Randall: for a 700 C rim. [00:46:36] Craig: I think that light bulb shape of the tire is kind of interesting. It was an interesting visual for me to initially get introdu juice to and how the wider rims have kind of, made that shape less pronounced. And you do get more performance out of the tire. I've found. [00:46:50] Randall: and this has enabled substantially or it's required with the lower pressures that tub bliss is allowing. So remember the original et RTO standards the European standards body for narrower rims came out at a time when everyone was running clinchers with tubes and you had to run higher pressures because otherwise you would pinch flat. Well, now you have tubeless tires, so you can push the limits of pressure. But once you drop below a certain pressure, if you're not properly supported by a wide rim, that thing's just gonna score 'em around. So that's what kind of force this issue. [00:47:25] Craig: Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. And I was, you know, when you mentioned your new efforts around logos components and you mentioned you were adding yet a third wheel size, I was actually a little bit surprised. So can you talk about adding the 29 ER, wheel into your lineup? [00:47:42] Randall: Sure before I do, I wanna close out one thought on the 700 CS because it's relevant, which is aerodynamics. And this kind of applies across the board, but especially seven hundreds. There's the rule of a hundred, 5%. And this rule essentially states that your rim has to be a hundred, 5%, the width of the seated tire, not what's stamped on the side, but the tire as it's actually measured on the rim when it's seated in order for there to be any significant aerodynamic benefit, which is to say, let's say you have a 50, 60 millimeter deep rim. And you're like, oh, it looks so air. It looks cool, but it's really narrow and you run a 28 mill tire and your rim is only 28 or 27 millimeter wide. Most of the air dynamic benefit you're losing because the airflow is becoming detached before it even gets to the rim. It's detaching as it goes around the tire. And this is even more so for gravel, fortunately we're seeing less of this, but arrow gravel rims is just marketing. In fact, if anything, it's just giving you more turbulence in a cross. So the rule of one oh 5% that's says physics and everything else is marketing. Unless you're adhering to that the two nine, so we built wheels with thesis specifically for our bikes. And when we did this program, we wanted to have a three wheel quiver that covers the, the full range of experiences. And so the two nine wheel it's built to a trail standard, it's a 31 internal versus the 24 of the 700 C is designed to take tires anywhere from 2.1, 2.2 on the smaller end, all the way to 2.6. And again, it's gonna be wide enough to support that range of tires at a wide range of pressures. It's light, but not super light. It's 1,565 grams which is on the heavier end of cross country in the intermediate lighter end of trail. But we wanted something that would just be bombproof it's light enough to race, but we'll hold up for all your training. And when you're underbid and you hit something sketchy, it's gonna gonna hold up as well. [00:49:43] Craig: Yeah. So they obviously there's some gravel bikes, like the cut through it that run a 29 or wheel, but just so I'm clear. So this is a, this is a proper, in addition to servicing that market, this is a proper mountain bike wheel. [00:49:55] Randall: Oh, yeah. So when you think about the types of gravel bikes that are using a two nine wheel, they're generally more expedition type bikes, otherwise you'd be better off on our 700 sea podge. So the Uday 29 is very much a wheel that if you were going and doing a, an expedition this is a great wheel to bring, because even though it's on the lighter side compared to some wheels in that segment, you have the asymmetry, the weight is being saved through materials and precision engineering and manufacturer rather than compromising on structural integrity. And one thing that's true about all these wheels by the way is each wheel set uses a single length of spoke, which we include a spare with it. So, if you ever did have an issue being able to change a spoke in the field is, about as simple as, it could be . [00:50:40] Craig: Gotcha. Super interesting. Well, we've, we've gone deep on wheels. I, I, there's a few more things I wanted to cover, but I think we're running a bit long on time. Is there anything else in, in parting? You know, this is a, a big week probably when you listeners hearing this a week behind us, but you've got logos components off the ground. We'll certainly put a link in the show notes. Is there anything else about the brand or the ethos that you wanted to share with the listener before we sign off for today? [00:51:08] Randall: The long and the short is, you have to have a reason for existing. And in our case, we saw an opportunity to make something that fit our perspective on what the ideal wheel would be, and to pull it off at a price point that is affordable to a much bigger audience and to provide some, education at the same time. So if you're curious about any of the concepts that, that we discussed here on the pod, I know we went pretty deep nerd here. Logos components.com hop in there. We've created some materials there to make it easy to get one's head around these things and, it applies to wheels more generally. The last thing is, I really want to thank all the stakeholders who helped to make this happen. This is particularly Sam Jackson, our head of brand, who I mentioned before, as well as Angela Chang, our head of operations. This is our vendors. This is various industry experts. Who've provided their 2 cents. This is the ridership community. Many of whom I assume are listening who contributed their thoughts when I first posted the idea for this project some months ago and got a lot of positive feedback. And in fact, quite a few presales. So can't thank you enough. And then Greg. The first conversation that we had was really the tipping point with thesis in terms of providing an opportunity for people to get to know us and to see our philosophy and how we approach things. And it's been immensely gratifying to be on this journey with you first as a guest and then now as someone who gets to do episodes, not just with you, but then explore ideas with guests that I bring on myself. So a lot of appreciation we would not be here if not for the support of those parties. And we feel excited about what the future holds. [00:52:46] Craig: Well, cool. I mean, best luck to you and the team. It's always great to see. I I've always enjoyed your philosophy around the transparency of what you're doing and your openness to have discussions with people. I think you've whether it's the thesis brand and I'm sure the logo brand, you have an openness for discussion with people who are considering the, the products and whether or not they choose your particular product. I think they'll understand your point of view and your commitment to providing and creating the product that you've arrived at in your mind. So kudos and congratulations. I look forward to continuing the journey with you. Obviously we'll have you back on the, for the listener, you'll be back on here for, into dared episodes in the future, and also doing deep technical dives around both bicycle componentry, but also the philosophies of community and, and general philosophy of what cycling brings to our collective lives. So good to talk to you as always Randall. I wasn't surprised that we went a little bit longer today, but hopefully the listener can give us a little a little bit of room there for enjoying our conversations together. [00:53:52] Randall: Yeah. And if anyone has any questions or comments please jump in the ridership in the logos channel or drop us an email. [00:53:59] Craig: Cool. Thanks Randall. [00:54:01] Randall: All right. Thanks Greg. [00:54:03] Craig Dalton: That's gonna do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you learned a little bit more about Randall's background and are excited to check out logo's components. I know you can learn a lot just simply from visiting the website. As I mentioned, they've got. Breakdown diagram of the hub, which I found very interesting. If you're curious about what a, a star ratchet looks like inside big thanks to our friends at hammerhead and the Caru two computer. Remember use the code, the gravel ride to get that free heart rate monitor with the purchase of your crew to computer. If you're interested in connecting with me or Randall to ask questions about this podcast or otherwise best way to do it is simply join the ridership. It's a free global cycling community. It's at www.theridership.com. You can interact with the two of us, but also more importantly, thousands of other athletes around the world to answer your questions and share your joy and share roots from around the world. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, you can visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride where ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated until next time here's defining some dirt under your wheels.

On this special spring episode of the QBP we give you our thoughts on the Deshaun Watson deal, the Baker era and our picks for the worst draft picks and free agent signings ever. Jake shares a tragic sports memory from the past and Yusuf gets offended by some tweets. And we give Baker a fair farewell by the end of it. We know y'all will enjoy this special episode. f*****g go Browns!

In a recording on July 27, 2021, NBDA President Heather Mason sat down with Aaron Stehly, Director of Education at Quality Bicycle Products, and Jeff Donaldson, Barnett Bicycle Institute School Director and leader of all technical training at U of Q and QBP centered around service departments and profitability, to talk about the topic of the bicycle retail service center. Topics covered include staffing, turnaround, pricing, e-specific repairs, paper verse paperless, and more. Addressing retailers' concerns over rapidly changing environments, Aaron and Jeff offer candid guidance and support while answering several questions submitted via NBDA members in this special event.Support the show (https://www.nbda.com/donate)

Specializing in bicycle industry insurance programs.   Bike Shops, Product Liability for manufacturers/suppliers, professional trail building contractors, advocacy groups, and everything in between, Scott is an athlete who lives in the same hometown as the American Birkebeiner Ski Race. He started the Fat Bike Birke, as well as helped to launch a 55-mile fat bike trail system. He was a 12-year board member for the Birke and is co-author of the Economic Impact of Trails/ Silent Sports. His current work is endorsed by NBDA, PBMA, Bike Cooperative, QBP, and others. Meet Scott Chapin.  Support the show (https://www.nbda.com/donate)

Adam interviews Jason Boucher from QBP. Jason is the VP that oversees all of Q’s numerous brands like Salsa, Surly, All-City, Civia, Problem Solvers, etc, etc. Jason’s an avid cyclist and photographer in addition to being the man that helped take QBP’s bicycle brands where they are today. Links Quality Bicycle ProductsWorld of Bikes – […]

This week, Dave DeKeyser, Business Consultant for the NBDA, returns to interview Todd Cravens, Vice President of Business Development at Quality Bicycle Products. Dave and Todd talk about trends and best practices that they have observed for running a profitable bike shop. In his position at QBP, Todd works with many bike shops at all levels and it has given him great insights into the hard numbers that he shares with us today.Support the show (https://www.nbda.com/articles/donation-form-pg511.htm#!form/Donate)

Ross Schafer founded and built Salsa Cycles in 1982. Ross ran the company for 15 years and built it into a fun and important cycling brand before selling it to QBP in 1997. We talk about what made Salsa unique and successful and some of the stories from back in the day. Since then he has done a variety of things in metalwork and beyond that we discuss. Lately Ross works for Sierra Steels making pedal steel guitars. Fricking cool.Check out the Sierra Steels website, Youtube channel and follow Ross on Instagram.

What a feast of a festival is in store for Cork across 4 days, as Quarter Block Party kicks off its 6th year on Thursday Feb 6th. Ruairi O Donovan came in to studio to chat with Elmarie about some of the theatre and installation events taking place this week. For the full lineup of bands and performances find QBP on your social platforms. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Salsa Cutthroat has been THE gravel bike for the bikepacking set. If you look at the sport on a spectrum from 'road +' to 'bikepacking', the 2020 model is squarely on the 'bikepacking' side of the spectrum. In this episode, we hear from Salsa engineer and product manager's, Peter Hall and Joe Meiser about everything that went into the Cutthroat. Salsa Website Salsa Instagram    Automated transcription (please excuses the errors). Good day everyone and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week on the podcast I've got two guests from salsa cycles and QBP talking about the 2020 salsa cutthroat. We've got Peter Hall and Joe Meiser from the team that have been intimately involved in the design and manufacturing of the salsa cutthroat. It's a really interesting bike for this podcast as we've sort of tended towards middle of the road gravel bikes. In terms of tire width, we've touched on some gravel plus, excuse me, some road plus bikes, but we've never really danced on the other end of this category, which is where the salsa cutthroat clearly occupies with 29 inch wheels, 2.4 tire inch tire capabilities. It's a pretty massive departure from sort of the more road oriented gravel bikes. So I was really excited to talk to them about this bike and the intention behind the design. It was really heavily influenced by the 2,700 mile tore divide route and those ultra distance events that we've talked about a little bit on this podcast. So with that, let's jump right in. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. It's always a good place for us to get started. To learn a little bit more about your backgrounds as cyclist and since we're going to be talking about a very specific product, maybe you guys can also talk about what your roles are over there at salsa professionally. Sure. Yeah. So I'm Pete hall. I'm one of the design engineers here at salsa. Ah, I, I think the best way to describe what kind of cyclists dimes I'm at. At my core, I'm a mountain biker. Certainly don't discriminate against the like gravel or pavement and absolutely love them. Love both, especially gravel. But you know, I think single track will for me always be the best. I don't know how many years I've been in the bike industry now have, I've never held drop outside the bike industry. I know that like shops [inaudible] Yeah. So my name is Joe Meiser. I'm the senior product manager here at salsa cycles. I was a lead product manager on the new 20, 20 cutthroat. You know, I've been at QBP for 15 years. I've held roles as an industrial designer. I've led product development across our brands and I've led product in salsa full time for the last four years. I came into the brand at the time when the first Cutthroat was being launched and had the opportunity to work on the second generation, which has been pretty cool. My background as a cyclist is pretty wide ranging. Like P I would say I'm a mountain biker with a drop bar problem and I think that's probably reflected in a lot of our drop bar bikes. I started racing gravel in two and seven. The first gravel race I ever did was the trans Iowa and it sorta quickly Korean from there. You know, the vernacular here is gravel roads and rural roads. And so I was racing events like Ragnar rock 100 in Redwing in the Driftless region in Minnesota. I was racing the on Monzo in 2008 and about that time and decided that I would go out and do the tour divide and we as a brand team had kind of started to see this niche of gravel and started designing bikes, kind of led that direction with big tire fit, just breaks, so on. And so I actually raised the tour divide in 2009 and was able to do that on the Fargo, which was really the predecessor to the cutthroat. And and then got to be part of the team when we launched the first gen cutthroat and now this one. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm actually really excited to talk to you guys because as I mentioned offline, I think on this podcast, you know, we've certainly covered road plus bikes and then bikes that are sort of in the sort of sweet spot of gravel of 700 by 40 or six four, six 50 by 47. And the cutthroat and salsa as a brand has always kind of occupied this more extreme and pending towards bike packing and ultra distance events. And you're really the first company that we've had on board to talk about that. When we think about the design of the cutthroat, can you go through some of those key elements that make it sort of more closely related potentially to a mountain bike than a road bike? Yeah, sure. I think the really the biggest place to start there is it actually uses mountain bike tires. You know, it fits up to a 29 by two four inch tire designed around a hundred mil suspension fork as well. The geometry is definitely more influenced on the 2020 cutthroat from mountain bikes. Slacker head tube angles, a little bit to deeper seat tubes. You know, we slacked this one out to 69 degrees for more of that stability of for mountain biking. When you're careening down a single track or you know, if two are divided, you've got a lot of gravel roads, nasty gravel roads, two tracks, mountain passes, that kind of stuff. So the stability is really prized there. I think part where this thing of the cutthroat is influenced by more of the roadside then would be obviously the drop bars. But the big one I would say would be the drive train we put on this. It's a boost mountain bike spacing, but we worked with a race facing Easton to put chain rings on it so you can get road gravel chain rings like a 46 thirties, what we spec it with. So you have a two by road your drive train. I'm on a mountain bike platform, so you can really get a really wide range of daring for the really wide range of experiences of the cutthroat can do. Interesting. And how, you know, you sort of referenced the kind of tore divide type writing that has really kind of infused the design philosophy or this bike. What are the elements of that particular ride that kind of demand this type of bike versus kind of a narrow retired gravel bike? You know, for us, this goes back to the original Fargo and designing that bike. You know, when, when I started to plan for the tour divide one of the things that I really recognized was that the biggest issue that writers were having was hand and wrist issues and they're almost all riding XC mountain bikes at the time with flat bars. Some riders had started to put arrow bars on for different positioning, some comfort and maybe a little bit of an Aero advantage. And I looked at that event and I looked at the information that was out at the time in 2005, six, seven, just as blogs were starting to kind of bow out. And I thought, you know, this is really ultimately just the longest gravel race in the world and the road that it's on while it's billed as a mountain bike route. It's rural gravel roads and it's stuff that we're riding these bikes on today. And so we as a team built that Fargo around a dirt drop, right experience. I mean, in a sense influencer, I would say absolutely influenced by, you know, bikes like some of the Cunninghams from, you know, the early nineties and late eighties. I've got pictures of, of Cunningham's on my, still on my board at my desk from that time frame. And so we looked at it, we said give riders multiple hand positions, give them option to be more comfortable and give them that choice. And that's where Fargo came from. And that's ultimately where cut throat comes from, is looking at that experience and designing for that experience. Then on the tour divide route, are you getting into technical single track that sort of puts it a drop bar bike rider in a more challenging position than a straight bar. You know, there, there are I think roughly 30 to 40 miles of single track on that route. Coming off the backside of the pass after you come out of Breckenridge, there's an option. And then as you get down into a silver city, New Mexico and you're in the healing mountains North of there, there's a section of the continental divide trail that's open to bikes. It's used and you know, it is technical, single track. But if you look at the overall mileage, you know, roughly 30 to 40 miles of 2,750 miles is single track. And so the bike is fully capable of riding single track and there are a few die hard there dropped single track riders that they use it that way. But really it's about riding those rockier rougher mountain passes where you know, you're just sending through rocks that are, you know, the size of softballs and basketballs and that sort of situation versus you know, the really buff single or a buff gravel that we experienced and gravel races on rural farm roads. Yeah, I've got to imagine also the volume of the tires that you selected for this model play an important role when you're adding a lot of weight in terms of bags and gear you're needing for a multi day event. Ultimately that's the case. You know, you're riding those big roads and you might be able to get away with less tire, but less tire means, you know, less load support. It leans a little bit less comfort. It means you got to pay a little bit more attention to tire pressures. You know, you may be more prone to flat on high-speed descents when you're coming across a water guard or a cattle guard at the descent bottom until most people just tend to trend towards the 2.1 2.2 on that tour divides specific experience. Yeah, I was getting that feedback. A colleague of mine who actually see it shares the same bike as I do was riding the trans Northern California on six 50 B by 47 and he said to me, you know, nothing I encountered challenged that tire width but the weight on the bike had me laying around with air pressure so much that when it was comfortable I was bottoming out and flatting and if I was pumping it up too hard, it was just super uncomfortable. So it left me thinking like the bike I have, but is by no means really what I'd want for something like the tour divide for exactly the reasons you just described. I think that's fair to say Is speaking of handling, you know, you obviously guys have spent a lot of times thinking about the types of loads and even built features in to help the port bags and different caring configurations that you might have in some of these long distance events. And you talk about some of those elements of the frame and fork design. Yeah, of course. I think we, you know, we've, we consider probably your best place to carry most of your gear is in the frame bag. It's down low, it's secure. It's in line with the center plan of the bike. It's really stable there. You obviously have your seat bag for a lot of stuff, but most of your weight really should be kept down low for handling and stability. So on the 2020 cutthroat, they actually increased the front triangle space and designed a new bag that has a little thumbscrews that mounted onto them. So there's a whole bunch of [inaudible] rib nuts on the inside of that front triangle. So it's, it's a really clean frame bag integration on not a bunch of Velcro straps to wear at your paint and that kind of stuff. And then on the fork, on both sides of the fork, we have three pack mounts that can take a water bottle or something like or anything. KJ HD and bag she can carry up to, I believe it's eight pounds per side in the anything cage. The handling was it's better to put extra weight, let small extra weight on your fork really helps to slow down the steering. And the mechanical trail we designed the bike around really plays nicely with that extra weight on your handlebars from a say like in anything cradle and then the anything cage having things on your fork. Okay. So your thought about sort of slowing down the steering by the fact that, you know, it's likely there might be some weight put on there. Yeah. Interesting. And I think I read that the bike is also suspension adjusted so you can put a suspension fork on there as well if that's your jam. Yeah, it certainly is. Yeah. We can fit up to like a 29 inch, 29 inch wield a hundred mil travel fork. You know, we see that you lose a mounting point, but you gain a lot of comfort for particularly rough, particularly rugged routes then. Yeah. Did you find Joe on your own tour divide experience that that comfort was a challenge? Were you on a rigid fork? I assume? I, I, when I wrote I was on a field bike and you know, the steel bike really did help damp vibration on the route. And I think that's, you know, something we really saw an opportunity to do with the first gen cutthroat. We added that class five feature into the back end of our frame. So we have that technology in all of our carbon, all road bikes, and that's really building an inherent damping into the frame as well as tuning the layup of each frame to handle vibration coming the road and really isolate the rider. You know, and that's not uncommon with, you know, after market accessories now and seed posts and stems and that sort of thing. As well as what other brands are doing. And we did that on a new bike as well with with its fork, we added a feature similar to class five where we added some for AFT flex to that frame and engineered that fork to compliment the frame while you're riding it. Now from my perspective, I really like a suspension fork on the cutthroat. I, my current cutthroat bill, my favorite build now is a RockShox RS one on the front of it and a dropper post on that bike. And it's a lot of fun to ride that way and I hope to see more gravel bikes kind of come in to the ability to handle a suspension and suspension product for gravel in a lot of ways I would say for, you know, shorter events. I had the opportunity to go do grander O Japan as a launch of that. That set up was amazing. It was super fun to ride that course in Japan on the cutthroat for events like the tour divide. I wouldn't say I'd throw it out, but I would certainly do a lot more evaluation to make sure that my fork was going to hold up to that distance. So it's, you know, it's a weight factor, but it's also a performance, you know, is that forking I need service. Am I going to have bushing issues or seal issues during the event? And there are some recorded examples of time during the tour divide where forks have needed to be rebuilt in Steamboat or silver city before hitting the finish line because of seal issues and heat buildup and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I gotta imagine with the extra weight on the front of your bike, the suspension is taking a little bit more abuse than it might do under your average body weight size. Certainly that, and I think the higher speeds and the smaller vibration that suspension forks see during that type of activity versus off-road mountain biking where we, we tend to have higher impact Is speaking of, of, of tuning the carbon. Since you're, you've got a bike that's potentially used in its home environment with just the rider weight, but you've also clearly built a bike that's going to carry load around it. Are you, are you having to kind of up the stiffness of it thinking that, you know, an average 170 pound rider on a 56 centimeter frame is actually going to be 200 pounds with the additional weight they may be carrying? We do a little bit the rider gear is a percentage wise, quite as quite a small amount compared to the actual rider weight. So we do tune the stiffness of the bike to be a little stiffer than like say if this was designed specifically to be an unloaded like a single long day, kind of like a Warbird. This is definitely stiffer and pedaling and torsion in the handling for the front end. But honestly about the same, we tuned the VRS to be about the same. The chain stays and and fork flexibility to be pretty close because they undergo relatively similar loads. The weight is generally further forward in the frame and not really affecting say how the seat stays or flexing. If we had one to two specifically designed weight to be used on a rear pannier that something that's designed to, to bolt around that rear end, then we would definitely need to consider that more. But honestly the, the, the Rider-Waite makes such a larger difference than the gear you're carrying unless you're carrying like led spoons or something. Yeah, I imagine so. It's interesting to me, you know, as the sport on the racing side of the sport, you've obviously got a spectrum of events from the, you know, the ultra distance stuff like tour divide and, and multi-day events, you know, across the Midwest and, and Iowa and different places. But you also have things like dirty Kanza with the DK 200 and I can't help but think, you know, for the average rider having a little bit of suspension via the bigger tires or even pure suspension on the bike starts to yield a lot of, a lot of benefits. You have the tradeoff of the weight, but you know, being able to stay comfortable all day long I think is going to help a lot of average writers get across those big finish lines. Absolutely. I mean, we've Talked about this a lot as the tour divide bike, right? So we're talking about a bike that salsa designed for an event that annually roughly 150 riders start For some perspective. And that's, you know, that's something that we chose to do as a brand because we thought it was important, but that product wouldn't be around if only 150 riders annually purchased it. But you certainly see it as the primary bicycle at the start of the tour divide. Annually. We very quickly found that riders in gravel events, particularly dirty Kanza did want a bike like the cutthroat and we saw it quickly spill over into those spaces. You talked earlier about the big sugar gravel event that the founders of dirty Kanza and lifetime are starting in Arkansas. Well, Jim commons, a good friend of ours, someone who we've been involved with for a number of years with dirty Kanza, he rides a cutthroat in the gravel in Kansas and that Surface down there, that base chert rock that they have, how rough those roads are. When you get out onto the open range, he really appreciates the big volume tires. And he talks about how he's been on group rides with other riders in Emporia and they're on graveling and having to hold that, that line of the two track, and he'll ride up on the Ridge between the two track because he's got two on tires and a bike that's really incredibly stable. So it's much more capable in that environment. And then the other part is the fit of it. It's a much more upright bike naturally because of the longer the axle, the crown on the fork, because it is suspension corrected. Your front ends a little bit higher. And so writers who want to be a little bit more upright have that comfort level writers that want those bigger tires for the rough roads, Creek crossings want that. And so we quickly realized that the bike was seeing that secondary use case. And that was part of our intentionality with this. This current agenda has just launched to the market, particularly around the drive train, the P hall talked to earlier. I've worked at booths at dirty Kanza for a number of years during the expo. And I can pretty much tell you that on the hour I'm going to have a cutthroat rider come by from a version one cut throat and say, how do I get more gears on this? Can I put to buy on this? How do I make this bike more capable of gravel? And that's where that partnership with race, face Easton comes in to play it for salsa and new drive train options like GRX from Shimano. Make it much easier for us to design this bike with big volume tires, 29 inch wheels, and to buy a drive train. And I think that's pretty fantastic that we're able to get all that to work together to create a really awesome experience. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I can add on that, I [inaudible] Personally, I used my Warbird at dirty Kanza this year, but the year I picked A cutthroat from Michigan's coast to coast gravel race purely because of the comfort of the bike. And then Michigan is just the Sandy place. So those larger volume tires help you float through it. Whereas in Kansas, you're floating through gravel and chunky gravel. In Michigan, you're floating through just the sand. The cutthroat while you, you get more comfort out of it, comfort often equals speed for a lot of people. Especially if you maybe aren't at the pointy end of the race. Trying to win being more comfortable over a 10, 14 plus hour a day makes a big, big difference. Yeah, absolutely. Could you describe the Warbird a little bit for us? So Warbird is salsa is gravel race bike. A Warbird was the first gravel race bike to exist in the industry. We started that product from around, I think we had to nail it down. I think we'd say we launched the first one right around 2014. It seems like forever ago for us, but it's actually, it's not that long ago. And it's now on its fourth generation. We launched that last year in 2019 and you'll see a lot of the same features shared between control and Warbird. And so you'll see a bike that's designed for up to a 700 by 45 tire or six 50 by 47, but you'll see that the shorter axle, the crown, you'll see to see that lower stack, that ability to get into that more, you know, road or gravel race position. Okay. So at a, at a simple level, like we're talking different wheel size and different tire with capabilities up to the cutthroat being sort of maxing out at one 89 by 2.4. Correct? That's absolutely correct, yes. Yeah. Got ya. I, you know, I think it's interesting in the conversations I have and just anecdotally with the writers I interact with, you know, there's loads of gravel athletes who are coming from the road side. They're, the jump to the cutthroat just seems absolutely massive to them when they're just thinking, Oh, I'm riding a road bike off road. But I do think, and I have seen over the last or years or so that people are embracing more and more mountain bike style bikes and mountain bike technologies on the gravel scene because they're, they're just seeing, they can simply go faster and be more comfortable. Absolutely. I think you guys are ahead of the curve there actually, And appreciate that. You know, I'm not, I'll take a second to, you know, we recognize that you talked about road racers road riders coming off of a more traditional road bike where it's, it's quick, it's snappy, it's death. For salsa, we see an opportunity to really meet riders with how they're coming into the sport and make a product for them wherever they may be at. So, you know, cut. One of the jokes for us in the cutthroat is it's the mountain bikers gravel bike, right? It's not a big leap for someone who's been riding mountain bikes to go, well, this, sure. Big fat tires. Why wouldn't I want to do that? Warbirds really kind of that more dead center gravel race bike you know, there's a lot of competition in that space over the last several years with other brands coming into gravel. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have our war road, which is our endurance road bike. But even as a road bike, it's fits up to a 700 by 35 or six 50 by 47. And that bike, if you look at it in the purest form and the geometry and tire fit and handling switch pretty closely into the endurance road space, but with some additional capability to haul gear, hallowed do an occasional gravel race that's not incredibly aggressive. And so if you have that rider that is coming off the road and they're like, man, all these gravel bikes are really kind of slow and they're really long and I want something snappy, or that war road is kind of that choice for them. And so we have three performance carbon gravel bike for riders across the board. Yeah, I think that's super important to note. And I, I'm a, I'm a big fan of a gravel bike and a couple of different sets of wheels and riding that on the road. So I love one, it sounds like in your, in your, in your suite it would probably be the, the Warbird where it would fit my fancy super off-road capable, but slap of a select set of road wheels on there and you're not really feeling like you're missing a beat. Yeah, I would tend to agree with that. It's that you know, best all around her ultimately for a rider who's gonna have their gravel bike. Yeah. And in talking to you guys, I mean listeners know here in Marin County, I feel like I'm squarely in in mountain bike territory in terms of what I consider a gravel riding and I like something aggressive with a big volume tire. I feel like I'm probably a pretty good cut throat customer and maybe even as I think Joe was mentioning, a suspended cut throat would be a hell of a lot of fun here in Marin County. I think that's the case. You know, maybe in a lot of places where, and Marines, this kind of place where you have a lot of of back roads. But then you have like those single track cut throughs and that sort of thing. And I think that's one of the things that make cut, makes cutthroat fun as you can, you know, pop along the Creek for us or pop along the river and ride some single track pop back out, you know, hit the pavement, hit a alley, cut through whatever the case might be. And in a variety of situations. Have a good time. Yeah. Joseph is driving his commute home right there, pretty much. I love it. I love it. Well, yeah, I know it's an exciting time to be in the industry and an exciting time to be a consumer. I think one of the drivers for me starting this podcast was really my personal journey to figuring out what bike is right for me and every day I don't think I'm actually getting any closer to it because there's just so many. And the key is to just find a bike that has the level of versatility that you're looking for and figure out the right wheelhouse you're in. So if you're, you know, a big off-road rider, rabbit cutthroat, it'll still work fine on the road, but it's not going to be the fastest thing on your group ride. If being the fastest on your group rides your jam, then it sounds like the Warbird road and get some knobbies to take you on, on gentle off-road trails. Might be the way to go For sure. I think that's a good understanding. Yeah. Well I appreciate the time you guys, I know it's a Friday afternoon and it sounds like Joe's got an enviable commute on the way home, so I don't want to keep you any, any longer. Anything else you want to reveal about 2020 for salsa and where you see this market going? That's a big question. I certainly have a crystal ball of where I think the market is going. You know, I think to echo your statement, there's a myriad of awesome options available to riders out there. And you know, for salsa we wanna like I said, meet that rider where they're at and how they're coming into gravel because there are a huge number of riders still coming into gravel as a discipline and as a, as a sport. I think we'll see a lot more technical advance advancements along the way here without giving too much away. Like I said, I think suspension is going to be interesting and see if we see, you know, forks like the Fox really kind of take off and come into the sport and influence it more so full suspension, gravel bikes, you know, we're starting to see little things like that. There's that intersection of mountain and road going on that's interesting and exciting and it's fun for us to be a part of it as well. Definitely. I think it's interesting to see as what will happen in the next couple of years in the gravel scene as American domestic road racing. The traditional road racing, you know, starts to die out unfortunately. And more and more of that, that group goes to gravel to see how that changes gravel. Look cause I think it's mostly been a lot of influence from mountain bike so far. But it'll be interesting to see how gravel evolves in the next couple of years. You know, world tour pros, retiring to win DK. Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. I think it's going to be fascinating to see how gravel race organizers are able to keep it dirty, if you will. Meaning keep it weird, keep it fun. I think evidence has shown that a great world tour pro cannot just know the line and expect to win any one of these races. The terrain dictates a lot of how they're going to be successful or whether their traditional road tactics will have any advantages whatsoever. I also think it's going to be interesting as the prize purses and the sponsorship dollars continue to increase in gravel. Will we see some of road pros adopt some of this suspension technology or other things that we've already seen the light bulbs come on about because it's purely gonna make them go faster. To your point about Bentonville, you know there's only certain number of lines that you can go down comfortably on some of those roads and being able to peek out and slam through some river beds and bigger sized rocks. It could be an advantage in some of these races that have those technical elements in the terrain. Yeah, definitely. As a gentleman, I really appreciate the time. I love learning more about the cut throat. It's a a category of bike that's always intrigued me and I'm a huge fan of the tour divide so I appreciate you guys supporting those athletes and giving that perspective in addition to the other elements of the sport that you guys have been focused on. Well thank you. We appreciate your time as well and the ability to kind of share our story and our product. Big thanks to Peter and Joe for joining the podcast this week. It was fun for me geeking out around the tour divide and this type of bike. I don't know about you guys, but every June I am a. Dot watcher. I love watching the tour divide. I love looking at all the rigs, and it was interesting talking to them about the different kind of performance requirements of riding a bike that distance. I have to say, you walk away from a conversation like that. Really thinking about the fun factor of riding these drop our bikes and the cutthroat with those large tires would likely be a hell of a lot of fun, particularly here in Marin County and quite versatile. When you think about the type of off-road adventures you can do with it, fully loaded kind of expedition style out there in the woods. So that's it for this week's podcast. As always, I welcome your feedback. You can hit me craig@thegravelride.bike or on Instagram or Facebook. As always, it's a big help if you can rate or review and definitely share this podcast with friends. Helping with discovery is one of our biggest challenges here at the gravel ride. Until next time, here's defining some dirt under your wheels.

QuickBrainPower - Jeffin Vegas introduction and QBP uses https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn504ZxGxUDTrZ-gwDGpiHw

November 13, 2019 New England Dirt Show Page ABOUT THE EPISODE MTB Ben spent some time out at a Salsa Cycles demo in Massachusetts earlier this fall. First he sits down with Austin Stephenson, New England Sales Rep, and Mark McCormack, Outside Sales Rep for QBP. They discuss Salsa, as well as some of the other QBP brands, the New England area, recent events and more. Thanks to Papa Wheelies for supporting this episode! --------- RELATED SHOW LINKS Vietnam Trails – https://www.nemba.org/trails/massachusetts/vietnam Salsa Cycles – https://salsacycles.com/ --------- MOUNTAIN BIKE RADIO LINKS You can support this content by becoming a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mtnbikeradio Go to the Mountain Bike Radio Store: https://shopmbr.com/Become a Mountain Bike Radio Member: http://mountainbikeradio.bigcartel.com/category/mbr-memberships Mountain Bike Radio Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MountainBikeRadio Mountain Bike Radio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MtnBikeRadioMountain Bike Radio on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mtnbikeradio/Mountain Bike Radio on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYE6EAkjP_dmm94_HbKya0Q Music by Addison Chase Check out his band Dressed For The Occasion: www.dftomusic.com On Instagram @dftomusic

Had a great quick conversation with Mike, the Social Media Manager for QBP.

QuickBrainPower - intro to QBP https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn504ZxGxUDTrZ-gwDGpiHw

Giacomo Zito is one of the most well known voices in Italy. His voice has been featured on TV/Radio for brands such as Infiniti, Powerade, Nivea and is the official voice of the Discovery Channel in Italy. In 2010 he founded a show titled "Crossed Destinies" which aired over 600 episodes on live radio, and eventually lead to Giacomo winning the Ennio Flaiano award for best cultural program of the year. He Co-founded Gli Ascoltabili ('The Listenable') which is an italian platform for the best Italian narration and information podcasts. Don't forget to follow us on instagram @The_QBPC and Gli Ascoltabili @Gli.Ascoltabili & @GiacomoZito

JdaGr8 is a hip hop artist based in Houston Texas who has been through his fare share of ups and downs but has managed to push through and build on his career even through these obstacles. We sit down for a quick talk at SXSW and give you a nice introduction of JdaGr8 and his career. Make sure to stay tuned to the Questionable Behavior as you will definitely be seeing him back on the show, next time he visits New York! Don't forget to follow us on instagram @The_QBPC and JdaGr8 on all social media @iamJdaGr8

One of my favorite events of the year, the Next Generation Jam. This was the 6th annual NGJ and it was awesome. Not only did the Halahans, the Wheel Mill crew and the Potocznys put on another great event and the sponsors were awesome. I have to imagine that each 16 and under rider went home with something. On the sponsor level, Subrosa and Shadow were represented by the man himself, Ronnie Bonner! His involvement and concept are talked about in this podcast and it is cool! Vans also sponsored big along with G-Form as the other title sponsors as well as Jaunt, Kink, FBM, Square One, Joyride 150, S&M, Profile, Inkdivision, QBP, Woodward, Fit, Morpheus, One Feather Press, Pro Bike Run, Over The Bar cafe, and Cinema. Anyhow, enjoy the sound of the future, things are looking good!

Arleigh Greenwald has been in the bicycle industry a long time as an employee, former QBP rep, blogger and critic.  She has taken the next big step to open up her own shop and apply the things she has learned over the years. Find out how she hopes to do things differently. Bike Shop Girl: https://www.bikeshopgirl.com PATREON: http://www.patreon.com/pathlesspedaled Supple Shirts: http://pathlesspedaled.spreadshirt.com Support via PayPal: http://paypal.me/pathlesspedaled

Like most kids growing up in middle America, Jeff loved to ride his bike. But unlike some, it’s a love affair that's never waned. When he was old enough to drive a car, he chose to keep riding bicycles instead. Jeff is a bike guy and gearhead through and through, and you could say that his lifelong passion borders on the obsessive — although that would be selling his story short.  Jeff isn’t an entrepreneur the way they’re often idolized. Rather, he’s the once-plucky kid from the warehouse with an idea and an email, who was given a green light to go build something. That something was his dream job, and would evolve into All-City — a bicycle brand under the QBP banner and named after the All-City Championship bike race Jeff founded in his bike-friendly city of Minneapolis.  Jeff takes us on an unvarnished ride that holds nothing back about the steep valleys (getting laid off from his bike shop job, living in van and being flat broke) that sometimes need to be traveled before reaching the peak.   His story is a street-smart testament to grit and determination, building community and fostering culture, and believing that dreams are meant to be fulfilled if you have the tenacity to power through the trials head-on.

A special episode as we talk with Matt Moore, General Counsel at QBP, to understand the new US tariffs and what the bike industry can do.

May 22, 2018 Sea Otter Show Page Mike Riemer – Salsa Cycles Mike Riemer has been with QBP for over 20 years. His wealth of knowledge and experience ensures that he is never short on stories. Mike and Ben sat down and chatted about a variety of topics, including Mike’s background, industry trends, “Adventure by Bike,” fatbikes, plus tires, “the average person,” and plenty more. -------- THANKS TO THIS SHOW’S SPONSOR Health IQ: reward your healthy lifestyle with life insurance that makes sense & never overpay again! To learn more and get a free quote, go to HealthIQ.com/MBR or mention the promo code MBR when you talk to a Health IQ agent. -------- RELATED SHOW LINKS QBP: https://qbp.com/ Salsa Cycles: http://salsacycles.com/ Salsa Cycles on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Salsa-Cycles-150815291701/ Salsa Cycles on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salsacycles/ Salsa Cycles on Twitter: https://twitter.com/salsacycles Salsa Cycles on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/salsaamigos Salsa Cycles on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/salsacycles ---------- ABOUT THE SEA OTTER 2018 SERIES Ben headed out to Sea Otter near Monterey, California to meet new people and bring something different to you. He met up with several people throughout the industry to gather some audio for you. Scroll through below and have a listen and be sure to check out more information about Sea Otter. If you appreciate the feature and bringing you something different, please CLICK HERE to find out how you can support Mountain Bike Radio and help make future things like this possible! Thank you.

Rich Tauer is the President of Quality Bicycle Products or as we call it in the bike industry QBP. Over the last 30 years QBP has grown into the largest parts distributor in the US, the parent company of other successful brands like Salsa Cycles, and a leader in green building with their LEED certified distributions centers.   What we really admire about QBP is their commitment to supporting local bike shops, getting more butts on bikes, taking a lead in the development of healthy sustainable bike communities everywhere, AND the personal development of their employees. Over his 26 year career Rich ascended from a front line customer service agent to recently taking over for the company’s founder as president. Rich was a fantastic guest and I hope you enjoy his story. This interview was recorded Live from the Buddy Pegs Media booth at the 2018 Sea Otter Classic in Monterey CA. We built this interview series from the title of our newest children’s picture book Taking The Lead that follows our animal characters along a journey to open a local bike shop and inspire their town to ride. We hope you enjoy these personal stories from bike industry executives, non-profit leaders, pro athletes, and families just like yours who are celebrating kids on bikes and inspiring families to get off the couch... and out for a ride. --- Purchase our books, and download the World of Buddy Pegs podcast so you can share the love of bicycling with the kids in your life. Visit your local bike shop, or visit us at BuddyPegs.com. Remember it’s the little moments that create big memories.

Kicking off our Bridging the Gap series to achieve gender balance in cycling sponsored by QBP.    Eillie Anzilotti wrote the viral piece, "What Will It Take To Close The Gender Gap In Urban Cycling?". We discuss with her the barriers for women in urban cycling, what is working to overcome this gap and what the bike industry needs to do to help more women feel comfortable riding on our city streets.   See links and show notes at ShiftUpPodcast.com

QBP recently announced a community grant program to help support their bike dealers. This was a very fitting episode to record after the Vista Outdoors episode as it is very much focused on brands, dealers, and a distributor focused on paying it forward and putting their money back into getting more people on bikes. The deadline is March 12th so make sure to listen to this episode to hear learn the details and visit https://qbp.com/community-grant to apply.

How can IT balance a focus on stability while still being innovative?On today’s show I’m talking to Adam Clarke, Vice President of IT at Quality Bicycle Products. The largest distributor of bicycle parts and accessories in the industry.Adam and I talk about how internal hack-a-thon’s and small team experiments have grown the QBP IT department into an agile group that is a strategic part of how they do business.

May 31, 2014 - Mike Riemer, the Marketing Manager of Salsa Cycles, joins the show to discuss a variety of topics. He shares stories of his journey from picker and packer on the shipment line in his early days at QBP through the many levels to land the position he has been successfully holding for years.    Mike is full of stories of the early days of mountain biking in which he gathered many vintage photographs he took while honing his photography skills in his younger days. He has seen the progression of the cycling world and shares some great insight and the thoughts behind Salsa's slogan, "Adventure by Bike." Mike even hints at a future contest to win a trip to Italy.   Related Show Links: Salsa Cycles Salsa Cycles on Facebook Salsa Cycles on Twitter Salsa Cycles on Instagram QBP Petervarys to Benchmark Liguria MTB Divide Mike's Entries on the Salsa Culture Blog Contact Ben Save $$$, Get great stuff, and Support MBR by becoming a member