Design is led by Tim Southall of Australia. With a passion for innovation in design and manufacturing techniques, and an insatiable mission to optimize every aspect of our products, Tim now spends the majority of time in India working with our team doing exactly that. His core values include a desire for the good treatment of people and the environment. Our location gives us access to the world’s largest educated youth population with an enviable bias toward engineering and manufacturing. Product Lab testing is conducted in Germany. Our test riding and racing program is centered in the mountain biking paradise of New Zealand.
What makes your products different?
Complete system optimization, innovative design, and time intensive precision fabrication: The majority of bike products are something of a mess. Checked how many different brake pad heights there are lately? Tried getting accurate information on this? Or searched for the exact bearing width stance on your frame/BB combo so you know what spacers you will need for the new crankset you ordered? It’s a disaster for bike shops and consumers alike. What’s worse it much of it is designed to be this way. We do things differently. Our products are designed with specific qualities in mind, and we provide accurate information on all our products dimensions and properties so you know exactly what you are getting to optimize your own bike. For an example of this in action, check out our cockpit page.
About Us
Time, Accessibility, and Independence.
Carbon fiber is an incredible product but its properties are only fully realized when laid with extreme care and precision. Draping zero-degree carbon around a curved surface (such as the bend in a handlebar) without disorienting the fiber angle is a skillful and time consuming art. A crimp in the carbon which results in just 20-degrees distortion of angle results in around 33% loss of strength. A 45-degree crimp results in 76% loss of strength! The extra time and care invested in fiber layup perfection sets our products apart.
Complete factory access at all stages of development and manufacturing, to work alongside and with our manufacturing partners is a pre-requisite to achieving innovative processes and products. It’s an advantage we make full use of in refining and perfecting all that we create.
Freedom and independence from the usual Asian cycling mega factories is another outstanding attribute. It’s a huge advantage for innovating and gives us autonomy in manufacturing and control over our quality and lead times.
What materials do you use?
Our composite products such as handlebars use a combination of Toray aerospace grade fibers. Fibers with exceptional in-plane shear strength and higher modulus are used to control the torsional flex, and resist fiber buckling under compression, while fibers with the highest elongation and tensile strength give our bars their exceptional strength and vertical compliance. Understanding and optimizing the placement and selection of fibers is what leads to our composite products outstanding properties.
Our pre-preg resin systems are supplied by a European manufacturer and used extensively in Formula 1. The matrix (epoxy resin system in this instance) is the major contributor to the compressive strength of a composite part and we rely on the highest quality formulations for this purpose.
And Racing….
Our products are designed to be fast!
