#6 Dave Weagle & Jens Staudt on MTB ride dynamics, misleading numbers and linkage forks – Part 1 of 2

This is a guest episode from www.TESTPILOT.bike

If you are somewhat interested in bikes, you are aware of the name Dave Weagle. His initials can be found on many frames from different brands. DW – a logo which stands for decades of tinkering about numbers. Numbers which describe somewhat the ride dynamics of a two wheeled vehicle: The bicycle. In this episode of the TESTPILOT Podcast, we dive head first into the rabbit hole of the science behind bikes. The complexity and flaws of models, which may or may not be able to describe what we feel on the trail.

You may have noticed that some bikes pedal better or easier up the mountain. Some wallow more, some less. Efficiency differs. Why is that? In mountain biking on full suspension bikes, we deal with kinematics and these affect the behavior of the bike on the trail. How we can put power in and how much we get out. Antisquat is the magic word, which describes a counterforce, which is generated via your chain and a specific placement of the pivot points of your bike's suspension design. Newtons laws may ring a bell. The internet is full of sites explaining the term. If this is news to you, you may want to spend some time first scratching the surface of it, before listening to this podcast. 

In this podcast, Dave and Jens talk about not only antisquat, but the overall ride dynamics of a full suspension mountain bike. While we humans love simple answers, we also easily get carried away with cramping these answers in numbers. But bikes are complex regarding what's going on the trail. There are no easy formulas to decide what is better, or just more or less of anything might be superior. Forces from 3 dimensions work not only the suspension. The frame material, tires, wheels, spokes … Everything is flexing and working together. Dave describes the design process of a bike as baking a cake, which is kind of a pretty darn good fitting analogy. 

There is some aftermath of hurricane Helene, which resulted in a blackout during our recording. There will be a second episode of this podcast. Make sure you subscribe to it, to not miss it. We will dive even deeper into the rabbit hole of wonderland.

www.testpilot.bike

CAUTION: This podcast may change your view on how you interpret numbers for kinematics and geometry of a bike. You may become a handful in after-ride-discussions with your buddies about which bike performs how and why. Welcome to the nerd side of bikes.

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Transcript

welcome to the test pilot podcast your source for indepth Bike Tech my name is

0:06

y Stout and in this episode I will speak with Dave wiggle we wanted an easy start

0:11

talk about his engineering background and things like antis squat but it escalated quickly and we took a deep

0:18

dive into the rabbit hole so we talked about the complexity of ride Dynamics

0:24

how misleading geometry tables are which problems linkage forx could solve and a

0:31

few things more so bike NS out there this podcast is for

0:37

you nice nice to have you uh on actually it's the first episode now I'm glad to

0:43

have you on this podcast because I think you're one of one of the more important

0:49

persons of the bike industry in regards of understanding the technical side of

0:55

things and having an approach towards mechanic Engineering in

1:01

bicycles which well that's very kind of you and thank you that's uh it's High

1:07

Praise I mean you know just just trying to put one foot in front of the other buddy you know learn every day so for

1:15

those who actually don't know you like how would you describe yourself in a

1:20

party with bikers what are you doing well I would say you know to start

1:27

off I have never felt like defined as a a mountain biker or like um you know I

1:34

Define bikes bikes don't Define me um I didn't grow up working in a bike shop I didn't grow up like wanting to you know

1:42

work in the bike industry my whole you know my career start a career in the bike indust I knew nothing about it you know I was into Motorsport um and that

1:49

was my focus that's what I wanted to do for my life and I kind of just fell into racing mountain bikes I fell into racing

1:56

steel swom and uh you know one thing kind of let to another you know there were just issues with the products I was

2:03

racing and just decided to fix them for myself and then one thing kind of led to another you know I mean I I'd say that

2:10

mountain biking is one thing among a large group of things that I'm interested in and do um and I I find it

2:17

incredible um you know upon reflection you know I find it quite incredible like the impact that the work that I've done

2:24

has had on the sport and on the industry and just how things have changed um but

2:30

it's never been necessarily premeditated it's just kind of happened organically so you you your wisdom is

2:37

not only coming from racing you have like education in that segment correct yes yeah I went to school for mechanical

2:43

engineering um you know just a bachelor's degree um but I was um focused my and my schooling on I wanted

2:50

to work in Formula 1 um and uh without without going into great detail on the

2:55

story ultimately I met my now wife of 20 something years and uh then decided I did not want to pursue

3:02

going to England and um you know following the path of being an F1 having done a bunch of due diligence on that

3:08

and so the only thing I was really qualified for was working for the for some Advanced R&D capacity so I got a

3:13

job working for the Department of Defense and then kind of one thing led to another from there um and uh

3:20

ultimately my buddies that I worked with were all into mountain bikes and got me into it and uh I I couldn't fit a I want

3:27

I would have put bought a motocross bike but I just couldn't have fit it in my apartment which was literally too large was on the fifth floor I couldn't get it

3:32

up the stairs there was no way so uh uh my first job my first you know real paycheck I got a bought a mountain bike

3:39

to go riding with my buddies and started racing and you know just kind of like I said that's the story just kind of went from there so yeah I've had that

3:46

mechanical engineering that an engineering approach but I would also say that I have really been driven like my whole

3:53

life to learn things that I don't understand and try to uh approach things from the um mindset that I don't

4:00

understand what's happening and I don't understand the problem fully and try to find the Nuance of the you know find the

4:07

Nuance of the problem and really get to the bottom of you know what's happening and for me that process is

4:12

simplification simplify everything as much as I can and then build it back up with the you know the understanding of

4:17

the more simple parts of it and uh you know it served me well so it's yeah I that's really how kind of

4:24

how I how I ended up in in the bike stuff you know just you somewhat it's kind of the Formula One but in cycling

4:31

because you you managed to gather a couple of titles over the years on like

4:37

Racers using your systems systems plural because it's not only one right how many

4:44

different suspension set setting um how many different suspension versions

4:50

kinematics you develop I think there's been five completely unique distinct

4:57

designs that I've put up that have been on World Cup podiums that I've developed which is crazy to think of but I think

5:02

that's the reality of it that's wild to consider

5:07

um but you know again I think it comes down to the process you know it comes down to the you

5:12

know I was for sure one of the very very first people in cycling to run any amount of data acquisition Built My Own

5:19

data acquisition systems back in the early 20 thou late 90s early 2000s you know and and started measuring from

5:25

there which was super helpful because you know being able to characterize a problem and keep in mind back then we

5:31

were talking about three rings on trail bikes you know triple Rings um and in

5:36

some ways that was a quite a tidy it sounds like it could be more complicated and in some ways it is but it actually is quite a tidy way to solve uh some

5:44

other problems that come up when you put a human on a you know on a bike and try to make him climb a hill and go down a hill and all on the same thing so you

5:51

know I learned a lot from those experiences early on and I was super lucky to work with some amazing amazing

5:56

Riders I mean just lucky to meet top level people right out of the gate right when I started working in bikes and be

6:03

able to talk to them and pick their brain and learn from them and you know like good example like I mean the first

6:11

the first like Top Flight Rider that I really worked with was Nathan reny and who was an absolute animal absolute

6:17

animal of a rider and especially like I mean there was he was almost Peerless in the time like in terms of how he rode

6:23

the bike I still remember watching him ride that ride his Yeti like and knowing that he was coming onto our team the

6:28

next year and just thinking like holy like how what are we going to like how are we going to do this what are we

6:34

going to do how do we keep the bike in one piece like what do we do here do do we need to put it in perspective he's 6

6:40

fo three and 220 pounds maybe of purely ripped just I mean just an absolute

6:47

monster like yeah I mean and yeah it was just I learned a

6:53

lot from you know I learned a lot from him and how he wrote and how he approached things and just kind of trying to not screw it up for him you

6:59

know basically it's really the bottom line I think like I was referencing his

7:06

weight mhm and waight now we're dipping right away into physics and you can't

7:13

trick those you got to work with them yeah means like if a 220 pound Rider is

7:19

hitting a burm or Landing a gap or overshooting a jump or whatever he's generating Force yeah and renie is like

7:29

or had been like a absolute Legend on on on hitting stuff hard oh yeah yeah for

7:36

sure yeah I mean I mean there's so I mean so many so many stories like that right of you know things that he

7:41

accomplished on bikes and things that he just stuff that he hits so hard that nobody thought you know could be done

7:47

would be done and just in the course of a race weekend let alone like in a you know off the race weekend so yeah it was

7:54

incredible I think like you know it's just dumb stuff like

8:00

there's so many things that like we did back then that are just completely lost to history like 1.5 you know oversized

8:06

headsets like that did not freaking exist before I got involved I literally

8:11

had to make headsets I remember one of the head guys at K Creek I won't I know

8:16

I love this dude I'm not going to name him by name but he told me he's like these will NE this will never take off like this is not even it's completely

8:22

stupid there's no reason we never need a 1.5 headset on a in integrated you know 1.5 headset on a tohill blik it's

8:28

ridiculous you never need this and I was like screw it I'm putting this I'm building a 1.5 headset on all the bikes

8:34

we build I don't even care literally built the first production 1.5 headset bike and that was only because the

8:39

previous prototype that we built I built had a basically an a super thick aluminum head tube with a steel

8:46

insert um and the steel and then the headset went did the steel insert just so we wouldn't ovize the head tubes and

8:51

then that was on the first gen the very first prototype evil Imperials and the we ovalized it I was

8:59

like oh and then like they and then somebody I think it was the manitu guys

9:05

or somebody had Point had yeah because they were building the 1.5 head tube and they

9:10

came up with this headset and it was only like a couple millimeters off and I'm like screw it I'm just going to bore this thing out and run it like whatever

9:16

it can't be worse you know and uh you know one thing kind of led to another but like you know stuff like that that

9:21

we just was almost a necessity for a guy like renie like I mean dudes are tearing

9:27

head tubes off all the time and the headset right out of it you think how many times you ovalized a head tube you

9:32

must have D you're huge dude you must have ovalized head tubes like crazy yeah ripping off and building cracks and

9:39

stuff it's it was part of the game but that's like yeah 24 years back yeah but as you

9:46

said just to as again if you have a 1.5 head tube what are the benefits from a

9:54

mechanical standpoint you have more overlap yeah just literally more area it's that it's so simple it's so simple

10:00

it's literally more area that's why I made the steel insert you know previous just literally just I mean this isn't

10:06

this isn't advanced mathematics like it's just straight up area like you want you you need the material has a finite

10:12

amount of stress that it can handle I mean the only way you get more strength out of it is add more contact area

10:18

pretty easy so so before we now maybe tag this forces and weight topics into

10:26

kinematics we need to understand one thing and uh correct me if I'm wrong but we could

10:32

say you somewhat named or found a a a a

10:37

name for principle which Newton's law in

10:43

which a mass will always want to stay at the rested position or if you move it it

10:52

wants to keep moving sure I'm referring to antis squat

10:57

so in a nutshell you could could could explain it like the mass is the rider

11:04

yep yeah rider in the some of the bike yeah and then you you put in force and

11:10

the bike is moving forward so could you explain in like try to simple terms for

11:17

the people who are not 100% aware of what Andy Squad is about sure yeah I

11:22

mean and anti squat is a pretty I would say an automotive car

11:29

anti-squat was one of those things that you know people you you learn about in in automotive suspension design you know

11:36

that which was my background that what I wanted to do and you know was really studied in that at that point in my

11:41

life um and it's a suspension force that is an internal chassis force that is I

11:47

would say was understood but not really not really used like to great

11:53

effect or to great um you know it's it's it's a bit harder to to to manipulate it in in automotive suspension just because

11:59

of the way that the suspensions work outside of a four bar a four link and drag racing and stuff where they did a did a good bit of that but all

12:05

empirically and for whatever reason like this is going to give a little bit

12:10

of I'm going to bring this to the simple part of it but like I just want to give a little bit of the history of this because it's kind of incredible to me

12:15

the way that it all worked out for whatever reason people decided that they uh in automotive they were

12:22

going to calculate this geometrically and what I mean is they were going to draw a bunch of lines you know geometric lines and they were going to kind of

12:28

figure out what the you know what the anti Squad was or what their uh role centers were when you're talking about cornering and stuff this has all been

12:34

completely debunked but 25 years ago that was the state-ofthe-art

12:40

um and I would say some of that geometric rooll Center stuff or geometric you know calculation does work

12:46

under a half a g um and get you a pretty good approximation of where you're at but when you start talking about race

12:51

cars especially cars like a Formula One car pulling 4GS or something like that 6GS you know I mean that stuff is

12:56

completely out the window like this does no longer characterizes the problem no longer characterizes the

13:02

solution to the problem I should say um so with that you know I saw that there

13:09

was a real opportunity um for me as I started kind of running doing the math on this I realized there was an

13:14

opportunity to not only understand it better for me but to apply it um so an

13:20

squats real simple if you think about like I can give you a good analogy so like you said every action every action

13:26

has an equal and opposite reaction a body and motion and stay in motion body at rest tends to stay at rest right so you're on your bike you got your center

13:32

of gravity you know you got your rear wheel here you move forward this thing doesn't want to move you're pushing forward there is and something's got to

13:38

happen something's got to give so if you think about it if you ride a wheelie weight transfer is like is the key the

13:44

key component here to understand if you're riding a wheelie you go from say I don't know 60% of your weight on the

13:50

rear wheel to 100% of your weight on the rear wheel right do an endo all that weight transfers to the front you're all

13:56

the way go from 100% on the rear to 100% on the front front right this happens whether you're riding

14:02

a hard tail a fully rigid bike a full suspension bike it doesn't matter so if you think about that same thing on a

14:07

hard tail when you ride a wheelie right well that weight transfer happens it just happens instantly basically happens

14:13

super quick well on a suspension bike when you the more travel more suspension travel you have the longer the delay

14:19

between when the when you're how much your mass like just literally in time how quickly that's going to load up the

14:26

load up the rear wheel um because you have compliance and the the the spring is taking up energy and it's your your

14:31

weight is Shifting rearward more slowly so all anex Squad is is an internal

14:36

chassis force that counteracts that weight transfer and I think people get you know

14:42

there's been a lot of Creative Marketing over the years where like people are trying to come up with you know ways

14:48

to uh Market against you know somehow Market against anti-squat or like say

14:54

you know we made a product that's so much better because our anti squat has like less pedal feedback or something like that's asinine none of that's

15:00

accurate none of that's true it like just completely made up contrived um it's just a simple internal chassis

15:07

Force when you balance it out if you balance it out perfectly which you never can because you know people are on the

15:12

it's a person they have a different center of gravity height our you know torso is a different length everything's freaking different but let's just say

15:19

somehow miraculously you are perfectly evened out then your suspension would be completely free to move the the most

15:27

compliant possible there's no better number than there's no nothing better than 100 granted it's impossible to

15:33

achieve you know you never get there but you know it's it's a it's so funny to read stuff like oh yeah no we reduce the

15:40

anti Squad amount so that we can get it to climb better like okay yeah that that's completely makes sense like it's

15:47

impossible it's just uh but I think sometimes these things like they're so simple that they become

15:54

difficult to understand and I mean it really is that

15:59

simple and I mean it it's so that's really it that's all it is

16:05

it's you know it's just a simple force one of many and it's not you know you know the whole I think of like building

16:10

a suspension or a bike or anything a product is like a bacon a cake you know you have all kinds of different ingredients and you can make a pretty

16:16

good cake with a 20 different ways you know and you can make a gluten-free cake that's pretty good you know I mean just

16:21

surprisingly you know you can make like doesn't on first order you'd think like man how the hell do you make a cake that

16:28

tastes any good how's even stay together it's got no gluten you could do it it's pretty good Adam so you know

16:35

whatever so so talking about balancing forces and we were talking already about reny but anti- Squad is maybe the thing

16:43

that you kind of discovered into bikes and figured out

16:49

a way to deal with it to produce the or control somewhat the counter Force to

16:55

actually make bikes not pedal like a send a bag bag of sand exactly and uh

17:04

going back to renie like at 220 pound or he would be potentially be heav heavier anyway but I

17:13

remember we had a call a couple of years back and I was stunned by the

17:19

performance of the back then robot bikes it's now Eon at a

17:24

dw6 and I was hitting corners on this bike and I was like dude this is just

17:31

it's not squatting under like one second of pressure under my weight in a BM

17:39

there got to be something with the shock it was back then a rock shocks Monarch plus

17:44

which wasn't a shock uh known for a lot of abilities to say so um it development

17:54

of shars got better but this Shar I would assume it has a a a special tune

18:00

it was packed with volume spacer neither of this was true no it was completely

18:06

empty it had a regular medium medium tune and still I could hit a burm and

18:12

the bike wouldn't bottom out even though I would run like 25% of sack while other

18:18

bikes you're setting up with the same amount of sack you would hit the burm that would squat way more so coming back

18:26

to forces how could you explain that how you

18:32

counter this force in the K well like I said you know I mean all the ingredients to make a cake you know you don't it's

18:37

not just anti squat you know it's not just me anti squat doesn't have the beauty let's back up to anti squat the

18:43

beauty of the mechanical solution for using antispot versus say using um an electronically controlled compression

18:49

valve like live valve or flight attendant or whatever you want to call them you know like as soon as you stop pedaling anex

18:55

spot's off it's gone it's no longer there the system is completely it only

19:01

balances out the acceleration the weight transfer forces when you're physically pushing on the

19:08

pedals that's it which is you know I mean you can't really do better than that you could equal it with some

19:13

electronic controls but you can't do better but that frees you up uh from and

19:19

I'll say like the talking about baking the cake you talk you know what you're doing with a leverage ratio what you're

19:24

doing with and and people I think become uh get

19:30

miss the point of what we're trying to achieve a lot of times with how we're manipulating that damper and how we're manipulating that spring you doing with

19:36

your chassis stiffness um that's very very prescribed um and and highly tested

19:43

and how they all work together and I mean not it's not just the back of the bike it's how the front of the bike flexes how everything fle how everything

19:48

moves together um you know I think it's really just the entirety of the package

19:54

you know and how it all and it's always a compromise you know like these

20:00

companies that are say oh yeah no we got no compromises you know this is the greatest thing ever it's impos it's the best in every way okay I mean come on

20:08

like everything's a freaking compromise like what you do go One Direction is going to hurt you somewhere else almost always so finding that kind of balance

20:15

that you know said makes the cake taste taste good right it's that's really it

20:21

um and i' say that's probably you know kind of going back to your earlier you know question or whatever

20:27

talking about putting different you know different designs on workup podiums like that same process you know you can yield

20:33

a similar result in different ways even though the way you're getting there is completely freaking different to to put it in simple words

20:40

and using the robot or eth example is like this the the the compromise the

20:46

cake you built on that bike was something that could manage forces

20:53

applied which are X in a BM would result

20:59

in a behavior of the bikee to this amount of squatting or like compression

21:05

into the bike and what I really find interesting is that you developed over the years different kinds of dis

21:12

suspension designs like dw4 dw6 split pivot Delta and having the opportunity

21:20

to have ridden pretty much all of them I could

21:26

say that all of them have they very specific characteristics

21:33

which helped to shape the bike how it's How the

21:39

character of the bike is and if you're writing a pivot or if you're writing an

21:44

evil or if you're writing an eon it it aims towards a specific kind of writing

21:51

style or wrer profile and this is this is something

21:56

it's not easy to EXP exp laain because if you go into a bike shop and say I

22:01

want a bike you maybe saw some video marketing

22:08

you saw some advertisement and you're down to buying a pivot or an evil or whatsoever um but it's so hard to

22:16

explain that the different suspension kinematics result in a different riding

22:23

and sometimes it's a match and sometimes it isn't correct I think think the real

22:29

like I've certainly developed products you know I mean there I have different levels of

22:38

control over you know the entire package for different brands that I work with right um and I would say that I have

22:45

certainly pushed all of the brands that I work with um in a direction of like the things that I like out of a product

22:51

and how they feel and what that certainly rewarding more aggressive riding I mean like I

22:56

don't I mean everybody anybody knows me and rides with me like I I'm not like a guy going out to earn my turns like I

23:02

don't really care about climbing up some huge hill like whatever that's irrelevant to me like I don't get it does nothing for me personally like I

23:09

just don't get the like endorphin rush from climbing some 7,000 Foot Hill like it just to me it just sucks and I don't

23:14

want to use a hard tail then if you're into that one fire I just want to go rip turns and hit jumps and stuff and pop

23:20

off aips on the side of the trail and find some stump to nose Bonk or whatever you know like that's the stuff that I

23:26

enjoy um so I have definitely like built you know gravitated towards and built

23:32

products to kind of be able to take on that type of you know that type of riding and I'll say that there are as

23:38

I've gotten older for sure I can't you know nearly ride the way that I used to just too old and too

23:44

broken um and I can appreciate that that the type of riding that I've enjoyed and

23:51

gravitated to is certainly not the most prevalent uh type of riding in the industry like for sure there are a lot

23:57

of people who like to sit in the saddle and pedal through everything and never get up out and you know just are going

24:03

to kind of plot along and probably want some you know would can benefit from or

24:08

enjoy some more mid mid-stroke less mid-stroke support like just kind of let it be a more of a like a noodle you know

24:16

but then when you go into a corner you've got nothing you got no support like you can't hit a corner like you're

24:22

just bike just gets choppered out you have no steering all of a sudden your front end's washing out you're way too far over the back of the bike and you

24:28

can't even get your your bars are too far back like you're completely set up in the wrong body position and I think

24:33

that's one of the really critical things I know for a fact that I look at bike

24:39

geometry very very differently than anybody I work with um and it is a constant discussion like I'm talking I'm

24:45

speaking in completely different metrics completely different a completely different language than anybody that I

24:51

actually work with would be an example for that everything head mechanical

24:57

Trail versus head angle not even ground trail and I mean look at Ground Trail is fine cool to look at but it changes it's

25:02

not a real metric you can can't really directly you can't Apples to Apples

25:08

change ground Trail it doesn't work that way mechanical Trail you can um I find

25:13

it laughable that the bike industry uses reach still I find it ridiculous that we talk about geometry completely unladen

25:20

like just literally the bike is standing off the ground levitated with its own weight suspended somehow by a magical

25:27

force and that's the bike geometry you're going to decide to purchase on and you're it's just the stuff it's

25:33

insane to me like uh none of that stuff's real that's

25:38

why when you ride two bikes that seem to have the same geometry and you put them on the trail and they're like completely

25:43

different product you're like what's going on I I use like a good example like I was working on um an ebike

25:50

recently uh a longer travel ebike you know and the bottom if you look at you know the the company that I'm working

25:56

with was like what's the bottom bracket height and I told them and they were like that seems way too high and I'm

26:02

like yeah I mean if you're looking at it like on on levitating off the ground

26:07

like yeah probably but when you put it on the ground like actually start measuring what's happening like when you're riding it like it might be

26:15

low it's just so funny like maybe the best example also for

26:21

that is like the seed angles in the last couple of years which became a thing and people now actually want to see a a de c

26:29

angle and even media is asking for that but they don't put into consideration

26:34

that maybe a trail bike with 120 M of travel versus a 180 or 160 whatsoever

26:42

dynamically wise it's a different story where you're actually sitting 100% And

26:48

seat angle is one of the most asinine measurements ever

26:53

conceived maybe second to Virtual top tubes but pretty darn close

26:59

like seat angles and virtual top tubes I mean I can see why they make sense for road bikes because they haven't changed

27:05

in 15 years and you know whatever humans haven't changed that much so yeah you could probably look at road bikes and be

27:12

like yeah okay here's my seat angle here's my head angle here's my virtual top tube and I can sort of fit a human to this thing with these numbers we're

27:18

talking about mountain bikes like you when you're talking about different forks forks that have different type different amounts of stition like that

27:25

have huge effects on what the bike is actually doing when you're riding it I back a couple of years back I built a

27:31

prototype bike with pushing the the limits of geometry I remember and uh the

27:37

the thing is to understand geometry better I was reducing the travel and not want to go overboard because the the

27:44

change if you put in a 62 Point whatever head angle and you compress the fork the

27:50

fork the the wheel is traveling backwards shortening your wheelbase a lot and then your rear end is coming

27:56

forward in the end the balance between the two axles or contact patches interacting with your

28:04

center of mass is highly Dynamic yep so if you want to understand geometry and

28:11

adapt to a geometry because this is what we're doing as humans we are adapting to a

28:16

tool and because we are learning how to ride a bike and

28:23

we're building muscle memory we're getting used to something which feels let's say normal or we are used to and

28:31

then eventually while bikes grew and geometry changed we had to adapt our

28:37

riding style yes and something that might be better suited on the

28:44

trail feels feels odd because our muscle memory is used to something else yes

28:51

it's real 100 I mean this was the this was one of the biggest challenges for the trust product was literally that

28:57

exact thing yeah so alien and so different and some people it's funny you know some people humans in general are

29:05

just wild wildly impressive you know and some humans can just instantly go and

29:10

you know whatever ride a backwards bike or you know shoot a basketball with a left hand versus a right hand in some

29:16

humans it's impossible it will never ever freaking happen like and I would

29:21

say by and large were in this the latter you know it's like the once you learn something it's so hard to break that

29:26

pattern for most people um and I I mean I've learned about myself you know as a for sure I'm in the

29:33

former category like I can I can switch my brain either way it doesn't matter I can you know somewhat ambidextrous like

29:39

I could throw a baseball pretty well both arms like stuff like that like can ride a backwards bike like but not

29:46

everybody can do that and it's boy it's so hard to change that muscle memory and really like in real time think about

29:53

what you're doing so hard also interesting is and and want to keep in

29:59

mind to to go to the trust Fork because it's a super interesting product but um

30:04

one thing that really baffled me over the years is when I tested bikes I I I

30:10

can switch bikes and I can talk to a different test rider maybe the same height maybe the same weight but

30:17

still I can change or switch my body with them this person so I'm stuck into

30:25

what this body this person myself knows about riding a bikee I'm dealing with a

30:32

certain way of how my my muscle function how my how I I I'm processing data AKA

30:40

Trail y on on what I'm writing and and interacting with and maybe some other

30:46

person can't see that good or has hasn't have the the quick reaction time or uh

30:52

is stressed out by a root a wet roote because they never wrote something like that before and they they they so

30:58

they're doing making a mistake because they're getting like distracted and then what we always do as

31:04

humans we're using language to explain what we feel but still it's just never the same

31:11

as we would experience if we would be able to switch our bodies and totally it's it's the same

31:18

with weight and if I'm a little bit lighter now but still like I'm I'm putting in

31:25

forces into the system into tires into Wheels in a complete system as you say

31:32

and I'm interacting with that system uh you mentioned cars earlier but a car is like I don't know two tons yeah it it

31:39

doesn't matter like what you're doing if you bounce up you can't bunny help a car right exactly no but uh you interacting

31:47

with something so now we're getting to complexity of a center of mass being

31:52

somewhere in the virtual room which is changing to A

31:58

system that is changing geometry and now we are deep down in the

32:04

rabbit hole of talking about the system and trying to explain to somebody how this bike is riding via a geometry

32:12

number table it's impossible that's impossible yeah I mean the thing is two right J it's changing in three

32:18

directions your center of gravity location right three axes and the bike is flexing

32:25

in three axes oh more than three axis a ton of it's flexing everywhere the front for I mean it's crazy like it's crazy to

32:31

consider the reality of how much telescopic front forks Flex like it's

32:36

stunning when you actually see the real when you actually measure the real numbers I mean 60 70 millimeters no big

32:42

deal pretty much normal you know you're talking about your contact patch moving around right like when you got Fork

32:48

moving back and forth this much I mean like that's pretty darn hard to deal with no matter who you

32:54

are yeah you came up with the trust Fork yeah

33:00

so in a nutshell this thing changes

33:06

Trail yep so the interesting part is that we again humans not only we we

33:13

getting used to muscle memory or stuff we understand and we say This is Our Truth this is the only truth and we

33:19

start to avoid any any change this is just human nature so if unless you are

33:25

curious and you're kind of a scientist yeah I would say by and large you're correct and I would say

33:31

also you know to to on top of that like and perhaps this is part of the the

33:38

marketing side of cycling and the how the people that it's brought in but let's say by and large people in mountain biking you know have bought are

33:45

are bought into and are interested in a lifestyle and like are you know are

33:51

maybe they see you know they see the the top the downhillers and the Enduro guys they see all that stuff and they're like

33:56

I want to do that I mean who doesn't it looks amazing right and it is amazing but how many people are really doing it dude you know that like we're out on the

34:03

I mean how many media launches have you gone to in your life like I mean guys are hardly even getting

34:08

down the hill let alone like being able to test the bike I like I find it like insanely laughable that people are

34:14

trying to test World Cup Downhill bikes and give an honest opinion like I can't ride that thing like there's like 20

34:20

dudes in the freaking world who can ride that thing like and you you it's there had been a um an episode thought what

34:28

was it called Top Gear where Hammond tried to R to drive a Formula 1 car yeah

34:34

yeah remember that yeah I do say and he started formula three four whatever

34:40

working himself up and he couldn't get it out of the Starting Gate exactly and

34:45

when he could get it out of the Starting Gate he wasn't going fast enough to produce enough down Force to make the

34:52

tires heat up to generate grip to go around the corner and he wouldn't break

34:57

hard enough to heat up the brakes so it was completely strugging struggling to

35:02

to actually make it function so just yeah Formula One in cycling talking

35:08

downhill bikes it's like we we're building a bike that is working for the

35:14

best Riders the best athletes and I had to underscore that because they are on

35:20

on the physical side of things they're on a completely different level 100% they're unbelievable every one of them

35:26

is yeah and they can make it work yes even though there are insanely

35:31

talented people out there and looking back 20 years ago like first back flip

35:36

on a mountain bike going faster you would be like mind blown and uh young

35:43

kids now going insanely fast but still like there's like a gap like in World

35:50

Cup the top 10 guys it's just different and if you have never seen those guys

35:57

riding it or and and and girls as well I mean that would kick my ass oh so every

36:03

one of them every single person it looks like a bell curve right that 99th percentile is just freaking straight up

36:09

you know like the difference between 99.1 and 99.8 is like you know it's

36:14

massive it's a giant giant Gap and if you had never had the chance to actually

36:20

St right next to a racetrack yeah exactly or I I had the

36:26

opportunity to ride with the and you're like you're going flat out

36:31

like flat out as fast as you can you're on the edge of crashing you don't think

36:36

that this can actually work and and Dan Aton or Rachel is behind you on an

36:42

Enduro bike and you hear the rattling and you you think I'm going so fast and

36:48

the these like they're just like writing onehanded taking a cruiser yeah they taking a cruise and it's it's so hard

36:55

for people to understand how the forces are that these people put into the product truth

37:03

truth yeah I mean they're just I mean r the Riders you know I mean it's just

37:10

constantly impressive and amazing to me what what humans can do I mean

37:15

especially people at the top level of any sport you know I mean it doesn't matter what you're doing water polo to

37:21

baseball the World Cup Downhill to World Rally you know like amazing amazing

37:26

amazing like just abilities it's I don't know it's it's amaz it's incredible to

37:33

celebrate and I think it's I love it I love you know I love just being able to work with athletes like that and help

37:39

them achieve their goals and you know it's and and everyone is kind of built differently so trying of helping them

37:45

helping them understand what they do well and where they need help and trying to help them in the places they need the

37:51

uh you know they need help right it's pretty darn cool but in the end it's up

37:57

to them you know you got you know it's 90% them but but circling back to the trust

38:04

Fork because I think this is a very special Beast of a product

38:09

because we we just said it's changing Trail and even and by this

38:15

characteristics and we got used to something like that looks like linear for but we could say linear Fork yeah

38:21

telescop yeah just but we have like kinematics as well at the rear end of

38:26

the bike and you put kinematics in the front of the bike and

38:32

by doing so you achieved the or you open up the

38:38

possibility to make the the suspension behave differently and even

38:45

for Average Joe Riders this was

38:50

noticeable yeah anybody can I mean I wish that we had that company had

38:56

gotten to the point where we could have found the right Rider to race World Enduro on that you know to race Enduro on that product because on a stopwatch

39:04

it was unbeatable like on a actual race I don't care about like you know you're talking about you know doing some 30

39:10

foot hu to Flat like okay that's quantifiable stuff that's different like that's just but I mean some of the times

39:18

like when we started actually testing just with the stopwatch I mean you don't believe the numbers when you get to the

39:25

bottom of the hill we're talking you know 20 seconds difference in a six-minute race you know a six-minute

39:31

segment like that's crazy but there's only a small group of people who could

39:36

really change themselves to go and do it and I would say like uh you know that

39:42

product was developed to do something very specific which was to increase and

39:47

normalize mechanical Trail in the front of the bike on top of that reduced flop Factor

39:52

so it had precise steering it didn't really have that flop and it had a bunch of Trail and it needed to bolt onto a

39:58

standard bike not just be some kind of super integrated thing and there are some reasons maret yes and it's hard to

40:05

it's it's easy to build a fully integrated system like that but it's hard to make them Flex the problem is we really screwed up the flex on that

40:10

product like those Forks did not we from a

40:16

composit design standpoint uh we had basically just before the company went out of business

40:22

we had just gotten to the point where we had a working laminate that was providing the flex that we wanted we

40:28

never and we knew what we wanted from the very beginning from 2015 on we knew where we wanted to be um we just never

40:35

could physically achieve it based on some I'll would just say some early mistakes that were made in

40:41

the laminate development that we couldn't overcome um and some major

40:46

major delays internally on just the structural side of things we just couldn't test couldn't test couldn't get

40:52

you know couldn't really do the work that we needed to and the bottom line is those Forks just did not have the fora Flex they needed to they were just way

40:58

too stiff and also if you would like land rear wheel heavy you could get some

41:03

vibration that's exactly the problem yeah we knew what we needed to do there just couldn't achieve it from a flex

41:10

standpoint people always you know you'll read the armchair engineers in the internet and they're like oh yeah no the axle's moving back like whatever I'm

41:15

like yeah dude it's irrelevant it's like half of the amount of it's like half the distance that the flex would happen like in in the zone that you feel it it's not

41:21

even you know if if a telescopic Fork is flex in 70 mm for raft for that same

41:27

look we Flex in five like it's just you know it's pretty simple problem

41:32

it's still working at that point it's not like you get some binding we had a lot of lot less stion so that makes a

41:38

big difference but when you on a telescopic Fork you know you have H if if you're talking like on your

41:46

low speed side of things maybe half of your Force is is low speed damping and half is s but un therefore yeah damping

41:55

and stion are like equal when you really measure it in reality which is incredible to think of because stion is just this variable freaking spiky Force

42:01

you know it's just kind of and know and on top of that you don't have a leverage ratio in a telescopic Fork they're not really as pressurized you know you have

42:08

a lot more hysteresis in the dampers um so you have you know you

42:13

have it's it's funny like people would always be like oh the trust work you know it has so much damping like it doesn't it has less damping it actually

42:20

has comparatively like if you're going equal one to one like it has less damping but it has so little hysteresis

42:26

that it had more often so like had it more often and so like it's incredible but in the end like the later stuff that

42:33

we're working on we were literally trying to introduce hysteresis into the damper which is crazy to think of and

42:39

like pains me to say that but we were like yeah we got to add hysteresis into this thing it's

42:45

incredible I was back then I was from from from riding and how controllable the fork was I was blown away yeah I was

42:52

really blown away and uh I think yeah

42:58

it we have Trends we have we're selling bikes on the color on the looks on the

43:03

industrial design uh even though you had industrial design on this product it was

43:09

like against mainstream so alien looking so alien yeah yeah and then uh this

43:15

maybe was a major turn down for some people but putting all this

43:21

aside would you say that the better Fork is a linkage Fork

43:28

I would say that it has its compromises I think that I believe I fully believe in the product in the potential for that

43:36

trust product I think that the biggest challenge is human nature and trying to

43:44

cater to that learned body memory in human nature itself and that's probably

43:49

the the biggest that's the hardest thing to make that product work

43:55

um I think like you know like hesus into the product had nothing to do with performance it just literally had to

44:00

making was going towards making it feel more like a telescopic Fork so it was a lower barrier to entry to for more

44:06

people to you know ride it like it it's you know it's there are

44:14

certainly compromises that go in a different direction but there there's certainly more potential but you know you got to keep in mind with the

44:19

telescopic Fork we have you know 50 years of learned experience as an an industry

44:26

Mountain bikes motorcycles you know that have really kind of refined these things you know there's been a lot of people

44:32

that have worked in the companies that have done this stuff and that knowledge has matriculated across the industries you know different companies Motorsport

44:38

to Bicycle to whatever you know there's a lot of brilliant people that have worked really hard to make those things

44:43

be able to even go up and down and if you think of like hell think of like a moped Fork back in the like early you

44:49

know 80s or 90s and riding that thing compared to what our mountain bike Forks are now it's like a world of difference right it writes like a bag of sand I

44:56

guess yeah exactly so I I think you know I I believe in that I believe in the

45:02

concept I believe it can be executed I don't know if people can truly I don't

45:07

know if the masses of the in the marketplace could truly wrap their brains around it fully

45:14

um but you know if given 20 years over time in a slow role and kind of bringing

45:19

people up to it and building that ground swell I think it could get there it's just a you know it's funny like and my

45:27

mind trust was never a mountain bike for company and certainly there were other things that we built and that we're you know working on that were what I viewed

45:34

the future of that company but early on I brought in so many mountain bikers that was really what

45:39

everybody cared about the most and um you know we kind of ended up probably

45:44

pushing that too hard um and you know not pushing in other areas soon enough

45:50

and that kind of you know that coupled with a couple other couple other issues just really made it made it hard bottom

45:57

line is with that company I mean it's so hard people don't understand how difficult it is to

46:03

build a suspension company like I think in people's minds it's like somehow equivalent to a bik company it's not

46:09

it's orders of magnitude more difficult the level of backend systems the level

46:15

of just the level of complexity you need on drawings prints quality control like

46:21

we had our own full Metrology lab like a full Lab like we needed it it wasn't like something we wanted and was oh

46:27

super cool because we have this Metrology lab like we couldn't build what we needed to build without it we had Tools in there that most bik

46:33

companies never even know exist you know every part of it it's just so much more difficult

46:41

it's until you do it it's hard to really appreciate the the level of challenge um

46:48

you know I think like those are the things we did really freaking well things that were things that we screwed

46:53

up were the easy ones the thing is in the end it's it's like you have a product nobody knows what's behind it

47:00

and how much effort it actually took to get to that point and then you have like product a and product B and you have a

47:07

product manager at a bicycle brand making a decision under reputation of

47:14

the product so what would you do if you would be in the walking in these shoes

47:20

like you either either you're going with the product a which is known in the market and people are meting

47:27

had positive revenues and it's well known for functioning maybe to let's say

47:33

80% and there's a different product looking different gaining 20% of

47:40

performance but you would go up against what is known or the status quo in the

47:47

media in the product management in the market so there's no way you're going to win unless and also let me add to that

47:57

the 20% of of performance gain would be achieved by a better R&D more cost as

48:05

you said you set up a complete lab and then this product wouldn't be as competitive

48:11

price-wise oh no on an OE level means you there's no brainer to go with a

48:18

traditional product you can't go against this even though you have the better product yeah I mean I think better is

48:25

better is subjective right I don't know that I think the telescopic Forks are very good and they they function really

48:30

well I would say on the price side we could have been and I had

48:35

intended on us being significantly almost half the price um but we got

48:40

really high our group of of leaders got really high on our own supply of how the

48:46

performance of those products out of the gate especially when we started measure measuring performance and measuring you know putting capable Riders on it and

48:51

measuring times and saying like holy it's literally freaking 10% faster like ridiculous like um and that caused

49:01

some pretty bold we you know we needed funding we needed Capital so you know going out of the gate with a higher

49:06

price than we initially intended I I think it supposed to $1,400 out of the gate which is more than a telescopic at the time but not that much more and we

49:13

ended up going selling for way higher than that until the so until we sold the first thousand and then we finally you

49:18

know reduced the price to where where are closer to where we wanted to be originally um but I'll say you know we

49:24

had some amazing amazing support from from members of the bike industry from product managers at different bike

49:29

companies you know there were so many that took a leap and tried it and you know some loved it and some you know some weren't able to get their heads

49:35

wrapped around it and you know I think that's that's human nature and that's fine you know I mean that's the same

49:42

thing like I I look at it's so funny like I just saw that you know that obviously the new you know

49:47

the four bar Santa Cruz bike right and I think it's funny like kind of

49:54

people there's a limit of what you can do with the with the VPP system like you

49:59

just there are certain leverage ratios that you just can't achieve like would love to you're never going to be able to do it can't do it like and they've

50:06

worked for years and years and years to try to get further away from that wallowy mid-stroke kind of you know dead

50:12

noodle kind of feel um and you know I think like it's the same kind of thing

50:18

like that there's a certain part of the marketplace that like you know you can

50:24

your product can kind of fit and you know there's a certain part that you know sometimes you just can't achieve and I think with a trust product it was

50:30

like that you know you just there there's a certain part of the marketplace that we were able to hit and you know reward and that loved it um and

50:37

I think there's a certain part of the marketplace that just kind of can't get there like can't make it feel like a telescopic Fork can't do

50:44

it just like you can't make a you really can't make a VPP feel like it's gonna

50:50

support you in the corner under you know when you're hammering through a BM like you just can't do it unless you're adding a of extra links

50:57

and you know but like under a standard four bar layout you just can't get there with that layout it's not a knock on the design it does some great

51:02

things and I learned a lot from riding those bikes and you know I mean I've certainly you know used things that I've

51:09

learned from riding those products to like change characteristics of products that I've worked on you know one way or another right but it's not not a KN it's

51:17

just reality is what it is so when when when companies we we dipped on that topic earlier uh when

51:23

companies approach you and say we want to build a bike um how do you decide the behavior of the

51:32

kinematics well first off like I'll say that for the last 10 years at maybe even

51:37

longer I've said no to everybody who's come largely out of respect for where pivot and ivis are

51:44

you know obviously Turner Bikes was the one of the three that when we started out Turner had the most momentum they

51:50

were certainly the largest the most established and for the first few years sold the most product by a lot um and uh

51:57

you know that was and obiously I had moved away from Iron Horse right when I

52:02

agreed to work with um you know those guys so I mean I've only just recently

52:07

started saying yes to new brands um in the last couple years um and for me it's simple I'll

52:15

ride with the people see how they ride try to understand what they're doing and what they like and then uh

52:23

oh oh there's some aftermath of Hurrican helan get cut off electricity

52:29

so this is the first part of this episode and we will record part two soon subscribe to this channel to not miss

52:35

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