Join us in wishing a warm welcome to Dane Higgins (Guru Bikes & Guru Suspension) who is joining Josh as the new co-host of the Mountain Cog Podcast.
In this episode, we welcome and learn more about Dane (his shop & suspension business, his bikes and riding style). In addition, the episode spends a good chunk of time on the state of the bike industry; past, present, and future.
We have lots of fun episodes planned this year. Stay tuned!
Guru Bikes (also home of: Guru Suspension & Vandruff Fit Solutions)
Web: https://www.facebook.com/people/Guru-Bikes/100090157836263/
Phone: 520-622-2453
Location: 2634 N. 1st Ave, Tucson, AZ.
Listen to Mountain Cog
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Other Podcast Sites
Socials
Instagram
Facebook
Email
mountaincog@gmail.com
Join us in wishing a warm welcome to Dane Higgins (Guru Bikes & Guru Suspension) who is joining Josh as the new co-host of the Mountain Cog Podcast.
In this episode, we welcome and learn more about Dane (his shop & suspension business, his bikes and riding style). In addition, the episode spends a good chunk of time on the state of the bike industry; past, present, and future.
We have lots of fun episodes planned this year. Stay tuned!
Guru Bikes (also home of: Guru Suspension & Vandruff Fit Solutions)
Web: https://www.facebook.com/people/Guru-Bikes/100090157836263/
Phone: 520-622-2453
Location: 2634 N. 1st Ave, Tucson, AZ.
Listen to Mountain Cog
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Other Podcast Sites
Socials
Instagram
Facebook
Email
mountaincog@gmail.com
Fish get high. Did you know that? No, they do.
Dane:I know this is a joke, but I cannot figure it out.
Josh:They get high on seaweed and you just saw how much time goes into us finding dad jokes.
Dane:I was at the restaurant with my son. We were doing a boys day and we got sushi.
Josh:It doesn't sound man, how old is your?
Dane:son. He's eight Eight and he goes for sushi. He loves it Really. That's unusual. It's putting me in the poor house.
Josh:You can't get the Safeway sushi for lunch. I have.
Dane:Both my kids like it. One time I took them to the mall and they have these little five dollar rolls at one of the kiosks in the mall and I just thought I hit the gold mine because it was five dollars it wasn't that great.
Dane:It didn't fool them for long, but anyway, we were at sushi and we had to wait and we're trying to figure out what to do. I'm trying not to be on my phone. I'm trying to be present. I'm trying to connect with my son. I am on my phone and I look up dad jokes. We sat there for ten minutes just laughing so hard on all of these just really crazy dad jokes, just silly, really silly ones. I can't even remember them.
Josh:I have to look them up. So in the last episode we introduced or we announced that Mike, our co-host from the Mountain Cog podcast, was going to retire, got a big promotion, times our most valuable asset and just as he stacks up all of his responsibilities and things that he needs to do for home, you know, with his physical fitness, with his family, with his job, everything, it was just he's like hey, it's not going to work for me long term. So we said okay, and we made the decision one night. And so we said what are we going to do now? And the spot was vacant. I don't know if you know this or not. The spot was vacant for 12 hours. Nice, we made a list. We basically went back through our old podcast and we said you know, who did we first connect with? Who do we think could bring value to the podcast that our listeners would like, that maybe could open up a different group of people, a different network? And we made that list and on the top of that list was you.
Josh:And so we said hey we're going to shoot for the stars and we'll reach out and see what this gentleman who's sitting next to me. We haven't announced who you are yet. Oh yeah, and you. So I emailed you, and you emailed me the next morning, which was notoriously. You said you're bad at email. I am usually yeah, but yeah, 12 hours. And not only did you. I loved your response because not only did you say yes, but you said hell, yes, I'm in.
Dane:Those are the first four words that I was like okay, that's the enthusiasm that we're looking for.
Josh:We knew that you were a listener. Every time I talked to you, you'd mentioned that you were listening to it.
Dane:Yes, I listen to every single episode. I really enjoy it. I really do.
Josh:Thanks, man. And so, and so you're going to be our new co-host. Nice yeah, and you are.
Dane:I am Dane Higgins, the suspension guru. Guru bikes dad. I've got all kinds of things that All kinds of titles, yeah, all kinds of. Yeah, you know there's ones. I can't say Well, I guess I can, we can cuss a little bit.
Josh:We can cuss, yeah, Okay. So I'm going to be doing a, I'm going to be doing a.
Dane:I'm going to be doing a explicit podcast trying to get to pornographic or anything like that. No, no, no, I have kids, so I've been toned down.
Josh:I've been conditioned. Yeah, me too, my oldest is 12.
Dane:So I've got 12 years of trying not to cuss. So I don't think I'll be doing it like crazy, like crazy.
Josh:But if it comes out, it's okay. And, um, and if you don't remember, dane, or don't remember the guru, go back. Uh, march 28th of 2023, we released episode 33. And that's where we first met you. Um and uh really enjoyed that. That episode, that podcast actually did really well for us. Um, we're recording in a different location now. We're actually in guru bikes here in Tucson.
Dane:Yeah, and it's uh in the comfy chairs.
Josh:It's in the comfy chairs, yeah, and it's super, super motivating to me because, uh, in my studio we have guitars surrounding us and in this studio we have bikes. Yes, like more bikes that I can think of. There's a smell when you walk into a show Like rubber and and uh like blue bin.
Dane:I don't notice as much cause I'm in it all the time, but uh, people tell me about it that they miss it. You know, I've met some people that were like shop guys back in the day in college or whatever, and then walk in 20 years later and they got kids and they're starting to ride again and they'll mention man, I miss this smell, you know, and it's it's definitely got a good smell. Sometimes it's got a bad smell.
Josh:Really. So what? Yeah, it depends on what.
Dane:Carlos had for lunch. That's just the smell of the humans that happened to be here. Yep.
Josh:Or the smell of it of a well maintained and this is a well maintained bike shop.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:As I look around, I mean every, every single tool is in, is in its right place. There's awesome like old vintage bikes, uh, with all different kinds of designs up on the walls. Um, yeah, it's. It is a pretty amazing place you got here, it's cool.
Dane:We I love hearing that stuff. It's it. We, we've been building this. We're almost at a year now, which is awesome, and this is something that uh, so Tyler is my partner in the shop, tyler of Andriff, and uh, we, we've been friends for so many years. Um, you know, we came up with this and definitely wanted to put our own personalities into it, and so there's a little bit of everything. Uh, tyler is a woodworker. He worked on boats, he loves boats, he's into wood and so he's starting to incorporate wood into the shop.
Josh:Kind of weird. To be into boats and live in Tucson it's really weird.
Dane:It's a little depressed sometimes but, um, and then I love metal. Uh, I like to metalwork, I've welled and loved to make metal art and so we put that in there. And, um, I have a little bit of design background and my degree was in retail science and so so there's some of the layout and then you know his fit area, the service center. We have a, uh, just a great team. That, uh, you know, bryant is one of our main mechanics and he really sets the standard for cleaning off the bench and keeping things organized. And I've been to other bike shops and they're just a hot mess.
Dane:Yeah, can be for sure. Yeah, and it's amazing, cause this one doesn't doesn't feel uncomfortable, but it's so organized it's really nice, and I'm just lucky cause we have just a good team.
Josh:There's something great.
Josh:So you've seen my little home shop and like I have it set up that way, where every tool has got a place, and there's something awesome and I haven't always been that way there's something awesome about like needing a tool and knowing exactly where it is at all times, not spending eight minutes trying to find some whatever specific you know T 25 torque wrench or whatever whatever it is that you need. There's something nice about it, and so I've disciplined myself and it makes my maintenance uh, in my bike builds so much more efficient, so much more fun, less stressful. Um, yeah, man, I can definitely see why you guys do it, yeah.
Dane:It's my, my garage at home is that definition of a hot mess? Not because I don't like organizing, but because of my time constraints. I'm not there as much and I don't get to do it and I shove so much into that thing and just finding spots for it. But some of my best days are I'll just take a day off and clean my work bench at home and get things put away. It's just the weird organizing and putting stuff into little canisters and stuff and organizing it is like so satisfying.
Josh:It's just really weird. The other thing is you have this too. I have kids and my I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old, and they like to come use my tools.
Dane:Oh, mine aren't allowed. Oh really, oh yeah.
Josh:Mine I haven't. I haven't put the full restriction on yet, but it makes it super nice because when they take something down I know immediately like where's my whatever?
Dane:Oh yeah, so I, you know again, mine's a hot mess, so I don't have. I haven't gotten to your level yet, but when I was a kid I would use my mom's tools and I would take stuff apart like crazy.
Josh:Yeah, you talked about taking about her drill in the first episode. Yes, oh yeah, and not being able to put that back.
Dane:Put it back together, yep, and I got into trouble so much because I didn't put stuff back. And so I got. My son likes to tinker and so I got him his own tools. Oh cool, so he gets to lose his own tools, not mine, maybe I needed to take a lesson from you there, brother. I find his tools in the backyard, you know he's digging holes for drivers and stuff.
Dane:But you know he's got a lot of potential. You know he's I think he was four or five when he's first started wanting to use tools. So, and we work on RC cars. Oh right, so he can take apart his own RC car.
Josh:Oh, I got to talk to you afterwards because I've got, I got one that I think's got a bad EC electronic speed control yeah. And I need to figure out what to do about it.
Dane:So I'm going to ask you yeah, I'm not an expert, I'll get you in touch. Yeah, tell us about it.
Josh:Well, what we thought we could do today before we start bringing guests on and I think one of the one of the one of the guests we want to bring on shortly is actually your partner, tyler, and one of the things we want to talk about so we just in the episode before Mike's retirement episode, we we published about Frank the Fitter at another shop over in Tucson here that we like a lot Ben's bikes and we really enjoyed Frank. We really enjoyed that. I got a fit. So Frank is a track triathlete, a iron man, and so really a road oriented kind of fit. He does mountain bike fits as well. Yeah, but I think Tyler is more in tune to mountain bike fits. Is that true?
Dane:Yeah. So Tyler raced down her bikes, race cross country, race, triathlon, like he's done everything.
Josh:He's done everything. He's track, track, track and ball trades yeah.
Dane:Track and high school raced boats. Like the guy's done so much, his, as he started to fit, his focus has been more on mountain, because our shop is a little more mountain bike. But he's a big, big fan of triathlon and so we've got a couple of good triathletes in the shop and so we are building that market. And then, of course, road as well. Yeah for sure, road fitting has always been kind of what people think of when they think of bike fits.
Dane:And Tyler, being a a downhiller and a cross country and trail bike rider, he really understands the difference and I've experienced, you know, as my many years in Tucson of being in bike shops, seeing some fits come from a road fitter on a mountain bike and they don't make sense and that road fitter is trying to put.
Josh:You know that rider what they know.
Dane:Well, yeah, they're using what they know and trying to apply it to, maybe not to the right, like right bike, and they're, they're not.
Josh:they're not looking at the nuances between the differences and I'm not at all suggesting that Frank would do that, because I haven't had a mountain bike fit from Frank, yeah. So it's a cool for you all to get to know Tyler and then also to to kind of focus in on like what is a mountain bike fit specifically?
Dane:look like yeah.
Josh:And maybe contrast that to like a road fit.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, that's perfect Cause, and what I like about Tyler is he can do both.
Josh:So, he's got a good perspective of both, which is nice so yeah, and you know, one of the things Frank talks about also also and I think we even did this in our little audiogram was that every fitter's got their own philosophy. There's some like baseline, you know concepts that most of them use, yep, but then from there they have their own lessons and philosophy, and so it's be cool to talk to a couple of different fitters and get a feel for, like what's how they do things differently.
Dane:Yeah, it's a personality and sometimes we'll see customers that just mesh with different personalities. But right, and that's as important as their skills of fitter. So there's no perfect fit, right, but there's a perfect fit for you and so so you find sometimes you, you do have to look for a different fitter. I there's. You can't, you can't just say there's the best fitter, because some people like different things. For Chevy, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh:So, yeah, personal preference comes into it. Well, for today, what we thought was we'll get to know Dane a little bit more, and I got a bunch of questions to ask you, and this will kind of just go where it goes. That sound okay to you? Yeah, absolutely All right. So so the first question I have for you here is we hear a lot about the state of the bike industry.
Josh:So, so, like COVID hit, we had supply chain issues that were created just based on the ability to, first and foremost, to just transport and manufacture based on COVID. But then there also was a huge increase in demand, as people were, like you know, stuck at home taking up new hobbies, and one of the things that you could do, where you couldn't do team sports as much, was go ride a bike, and so demand went through the roof, supply was constrained, and so that created some problems, and I'll just tell you my perception. You can jump in. I'd love to hear what your perspective is. But sure, but I believe like manufacturers ramped up when they were able to and the bike industry started to order based on the new demand, the demand started to kind of normalize after COVID, right, so we picked up new cyclists and some of them stayed with us, but not everybody stayed with us, and so now we have excess supply and not enough demand, and I see things like today I saw that Kona was offering like two for one bikes.
Josh:Right, yeah, of their process brand or whatever like that and you see a lot, a lot of like really, really screaming deals. You know, I even bought a bike from you. I bought a pivot with kind of like the non transmission and got a great deal on it through you because it was you know, I don't know, I would have got that a year ago or two years ago, yeah. So anyways, I want to hear what are your thoughts on, like, the state of the bike industry, right?
Dane:now. So it's crazy. We've seen a couple big companies go out of business.
Josh:Yeah, so like who? So I know I know chain reaction, chain reaction vitus and wiggle and those guys.
Dane:Yeah, and that's a shock because they're huge, they're operate on a lot of low margin and so when you have a business that's got operations on volume and low margin, small things affected a lot bigger. So, if you remember, there was a company in town called performance and performance was a very similar low margin business model business model.
Dane:Yes, exactly, and they would operate high volume, low margin and then if they make a big move, purchase a couple stores or something happens, you know, into the ecosystem, then it's hard to stay afloat. Yeah, it affects them really rapidly, you know, and they don't have that tried and true. You look at companies like Trek and specialized they're, they're, they're just their roots go deep.
Josh:Yeah, they're not getting yanked out easy.
Dane:So and so COVID hit. There was just a drought. There's a couple factors. There's small factors and big factors. The biggest ones are ones you mentioned. Right, just a lot of people couldn't go to the gym. They wanted to get outside, they wanted to. They're going stir crazy in their houses. Cycling was good exercise, something to do. Yeah, it's fun, exciting. You know people loved it and it's still do.
Josh:But and it's awesome. It is awesome.
Dane:Right before COVID hit the, the market was starting to see maybe a downturn.
Josh:Really.
Dane:And they. There was a lot of companies and this is stuff that I've gotten from my industry friends you know for sure, and so I can't cite any articles.
Josh:That's okay, we will do that. Your job is the listener to. Google this and definitely call me out. We're giving you homework now. Exactly that's one big change.
Dane:Yeah, but one of the factors is there was a bunch of companies that were canceling orders for bikes because they were seeing a downturn and they wanted to limit how many bikes they were going to have.
Josh:So they were, they were canceling them from the manufacturers, basically, yeah.
Dane:They were. They were just canceling purchase orders is what they call it. And and so that happened right before COVID, and so now these companies got out of line, so I got you. You know they basically gave up their spot in line. They're no longer in line with the manufacturers in Taiwan and. China COVID hit, and then you have factories like shutting down for weeks on end, and so that stops production. So the line gets longer, and so now you're even longer.
Dane:I think we sold pivot and I think pivot was 18 months at one point, Jesus, to wait for a bike, Wow. So so you had some companies canceling orders, some companies limiting orders because they were seeing an economic you know year that was going to be low Yep, and then the boom happened, which nobody nobody expected. Yeah, and it's funny. We can look back and go. Not so obvious, but nobody.
Josh:I mean even when it started like I mean we were six months in before we knew it was going to blow up, right you were like what's going on?
Dane:Like I was calling all my friends. Well, you know that old 26 inch bike in your garage. Get it out and sell it now. Now's the time I sold everything, like I was riding my old 26 inch bike, because I sold all my bikes you know, really we couldn't get them.
Dane:I should have done that Customers were coming in and we couldn't get them anything and you know we were just scrambling to keep going. We, you know we functioned pretty normal throughout all of that. We had our masks and we had our distancing, but we were open because we were deemed essential, which was nice. So we all had jobs. We didn't have to take a break. In fact there was times when I kind of hoped that I got COVID.
Dane:I hate to say that, but because I just wanted a break and I never got it. So you've never had it. No, wow, never had it. Yeah, and it's mainly because I'm Superman.
Josh:So other than that, I don't know why.
Dane:But the.
Josh:I've had it like four times.
Dane:So I have friends.
Josh:My family had it in the house in the house and you didn't get it and I didn't get it, so you even got the nice test.
Dane:You know you can get the home tester questionable and I got the good one the good one, yeah, and didn't have it. So it's it's kind of crazy. I I have no idea why.
Josh:So other than I'm from Wisconsin Good genes, so I think that's what we're gonna go down a rabbit hole real quick. I just ordered some. Did you get cheese? I got some big. I'll bring you one man, because I ordered four of them. I got some baked some oven baked Wisconsin cheese.
Dane:Do you? I told you I usually have it on me. Oh, that's all.
Josh:I had it for dinner last night. Lacey had me stop, my wife had me stop and get panned to express, and I'm not a big, I'm not eating a lot of carbs right now, just with alcohol. That's my only carbs, yeah, but, and so I was like I got a cabasa just like a smoked sausage. For those of you don't know, I got one of those for Christmas and I got some of that Wisconsin baked cheese and they all eat Panda Express and I ate the cabasa and the big cheese for dinner last night, it was awesome.
Dane:So we have a just just till we get back to it, but real quick, brick cheese.
Josh:Yeah, wisconsin brick cheese. We talked about that in episode 33.
Dane:Okay, my wife and I have a healthy discussion about this. Yeah, she thinks that she's gotten me brick cheese, but she says that any farm cheese is brick cheese.
Josh:It's not, it's not, it is absolutely not.
Dane:It's not, and I've never been able to find it outside of Wisconsin.
Josh:Yeah, so in the last episode we talked about this, but easy so. So Mike's buddy flew out for the 24 hour race and he flew out for Wisconsin and I had him bring me four bricks of brick cheese. Yeah, because I make Detroit style pizza. Yeah, and that's the kind of cheese that we use in. Detroit on Detroit style pizzas. This was constant brick cheese sounds amazing.
Dane:Yeah, I love. My mom does the same thing.
Josh:She flies out with two suitcases full of cheese, one inside the other comes back with two not inside each other One is full of cheese, so okay, so, so that's what it was, but what do you think about the industry today?
Dane:Okay, so you know now. So product life cycles for bikes and the way that manufacturers order them, because they're not being made in house, you know they order them, they have them built at a manufacturer that specializes in whatever they're doing mostly carbon fiber, but aluminum also and what they do. The process that they do it is they have to design the bike, yep, then they have to get prototypes, then they is it the same?
Josh:Is it the prototypes come from the same manufacturers or do they have other houses that make the prototypes Depends.
Dane:So like I have a prototype in the shop right now of a pivot and pivot made it themselves.
Josh:Okay, and it is, and do they make it like that? Is it going to be a carbon, but they make it an aluminum Because it's easy to manufacture aluminum in a machine shop.
Dane:And pivot right now is starting to experiment with rapid prototyping carbon too, and so they have a couple downhill bikes out that people have seen online.
Josh:that prototyping carbon. Yeah, how are they doing that without making the molds?
Dane:aluminum lugs Okay.
Josh:So they're just you, they're just doing the bars, and then they can. They can machine the lugs quickly, yep, and then the, the crossbars or whatever, are all made of carbon, yep, you, just, you just fit them together. Yeah, it sounds like what the Athertons are doing, kind of Atherton bikes, yeah, kind of, because you can they're, they're digitally printing.
Dane:Yep, they're their lugs. Yeah, they're additive, additive manufacturing yeah, yep, and the pivot process is a little more complicated just because they're getting into the layup and they're trying to mimic how the bike will ride. Okay so, they're actually. So the it's not just a standard tube, no, it's not like they just bought it at home to go and throw it together. It's they're actually making the carbon.
Josh:Yeah you don't have to. They don't need all of the forms that you would need if you're making a full frame. Not as much. Yeah, that's the cost.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, and the manufacturing gets really nasty. It's a lot of chemicals.
Josh:Yeah, for sure.
Dane:It's not that great. So back to back to the bike industry. One of the companies that went out is called Gorilla Gravity.
Josh:Yeah, I have a gorilla, grabby smash, yeah, and so Gorilla Gravity?
Dane:I want to know why. I heard rumors what?
Josh:have you heard.
Dane:Just, should we not joke, should we not? I heard their main backer pulled out, similar to what's going on and and with the wiggle and all those guys in Europe, and so I'm not sure, though, but it's just. I think there there's a cost, and if you have a dry spell, you start to run out of capital.
Josh:Yeah, especially if you're living hand to foot right or hand them off.
Josh:You know it's interesting because they do the thermal plastic carbon which I'm coming from a defense contractor. I'm like a huge fan of right and I think eventually most of the bike companies will go there. But it's a $200 million like retrofit of the factory to go to switch from thermal set to thermal plastic. I think it's just a better carbon product. Now someone, someone, come and tell me that I'm wrong. That's, that's great. But like I wanted to reach out to the Gorilla Gravity guys and try to find out. Like I know Canfield's running there, there's, there's, like like one of the guys from Gorilla Gravity went over to Canfield. Canfield's, another small bike company in Colorado, Make great bikes as far as I know, but they're doing like the I don't know if it's warranties, but they've got like all their excess product and so that you can still buy whatever is available through Canfield. But like I'm like, do they have any intellectual property? Like their manufacturing process? I'd really like to like see if they'd be willing to sell that. I'd be interested.
Dane:I heard there was an auction last week.
Josh:So we're a week too late, but see, this is why. This is why I want to get connected with you, yeah.
Dane:So back to what we were talking about, the state of the industry.
Dane:State of the industry. It's so, covid, big boom, yep, a lot of manufacturers lost out on a lot of sales because they had canceled orders or just didn't have enough bikes. So they didn't boom like like people expected. It emptied their warehouses, which sounds great, but in a business model, you want to continually it's cash flow. Yes, yeah, you want to keep that stock going. So if you have a, if you empty the warehouse, you're going to have a period of time, whatever period it takes to make that where there's nothing coming in and so that's affecting a lot of things.
Dane:And then, and my biggest peeve with the bike industry is that, exactly what you said, they forecast based on those numbers and they Loomed up their numbers because they expected to keep that that volume of bikes going. And that drives me insane, because most Economists, most people that follow this stuff, yeah would tell you that no, you're gonna see a slump, you're gonna see a decline, so don't order.
Dane:You know the average 10% above what you did last year yeah you know, back off a little bit, and so these companies, of course, did that, yeah, and so now they're way over stocked. Some of them are so overstocked they're literally giving bikes away, and but I can tell you that it's not been affecting bike shops like I thought it would. You know, there's some, some impact on bike shops, but that Rocky Road, that waves that we've been riding, has been crazy because it's up and down like crazy. One minute we can't get anything, the next there's a ton of it.
Dane:Yeah the next it's on sale, the next we can't get it.
Josh:I want to double-click on the on the bike shop thing, but first I want to. I want to give a plug for my profession, sure, which what I do is. I'm a corporate strategist for a major defense company, and part of my job is to predict what demand will be in the future, so that we can kind of from a hockey analogy skate to where the puck set you know, skate to where the puck's gonna be and and and.
Josh:So it's our job to, kind of, we do deep analytics, review all the stuff that's out there, and then we present our findings to our corporate leadership and say, hey, you know, the market's gonna do this, the market's gonna do that. Here's where you should do and, hopefully, if we're good at our jobs, we, you know the company is in the right position at the right time. And so if you don't, if you're, if you're an industry person, you're listening to this and you don't have a corporate strategy Organization, I urge you to to look into that and, if you want to, just send me a note and I can Point you in the right direction or introduce you to some people, or maybe even give you some.
Josh:If you're a small company, I'd be happy to give you some free advice or do some analysis for you anyway. So, but so bike shop, you said that this, like this yo-yo of Demands, there demands not there oversupply under supply. You thought it would impact bike shops more, but it's not so. What do you mean by that?
Dane:well, In our scenario. We started, so we're lucky. We just opened in January, so we're almost at our one year. Yeah, so you would kind of it like code was kind of over it was over and we weren't overstocked, so we don't have a ton of extra.
Dane:We don't have old bikes lying around. We didn't buy a bunch of bikes that were immediately, you know, replaced. One of the things that was weird is all of the 2021 and 2022 bikes were late, and then the 23s came out on time, and so a lot of bike companies ended up with excess stock because they had 21, 22 and 23.
Josh:Yeah, all kind of dump that this is close, exactly. Yeah, the product.
Dane:The product development cycle is about two to three years, depending from design to To like on the floor. Yep yeah okay, and two years is probably pretty safe.
Josh:Do you know how? If you break that two years up, like, how much of its design, how much if it's manufacturing, how about so?
Dane:that's not even a new product design. That's maybe just design as far as color schemes.
Josh:Oh, wow.
Dane:Okay, marketing plans, things like that. So when you're developing a whole new bike, you attack on years for that. That's why pivots working on their rapid development so they can speed that up. Yeah, they want to design bikes and have them in market within a year and that's really Ambitious. They're trying to get it down faster than that, so we're gonna go.
Josh:I stopped into the pivot factory up in Phoenix or just outside of Phoenix and Talked to them about about doing a tour and then coming back and doing an episode to talk about what we saw of the factory there or the assembly. I guess that's not really a factory, it's like an assembly, yeah, basically.
Dane:Yeah, that's kind of. If you think about the bike industry right now, for the most part Nobody makes their own stuff. There's, of course, small frame builders, there's gorilla yeah, you know I was one can feel.
Dane:They're smaller but specialized, and Trek Trek makes some of their own bikes a little bit, but they've been scaling that back for for years. Yeah, most of them develop, prototype and and basically Operate and then they hire the best people to make their stuff. Yeah, that's probably the best way to put it, because it's not a bad thing. They're just figuring out how to how to make the product the best, yeah, for the best price, and and the manufacturing companies are just trying to figure out how to manufacture it the best.
Josh:Yeah, they're, they're specializing.
Dane:So so these mostly Taiwan, if it's a lot of times I'm talking about carbon because we do a lot of carbon. Yeah so Taiwan is the center for that and Taiwan carbon is the best in the world.
Josh:Have you been to the Taipei bike show?
Dane:No, god, I would love to go sometime.
Josh:Yep, absolutely, yeah, yes.
Dane:Yeah, I just for the food.
Josh:Yeah, yeah. So get some boba tea, oh yeah.
Dane:So carbon fiber bikes have basically, they get developed, they get basically built on a computer, sent over, prototyped and built at Usually a Taiwan plant and sent back. Then they get ridden, they get tested, they get destroyed. You know to figure out where their fail points are.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And then that process can last a long time, depending on how many changes they have to make and how well, their engineer. Sometimes the smaller companies will just get what we call catalog bikes, and so you can go in and just kind of pick Yep, front end, rear end top tube this is what color put my name on yeah, and they don't even have to design it, which is right, crazy.
Josh:And those are easy, efficient way for small companies to start building frames, and I saw a lot of that when I went to inter bike a long time and they had a. You know I saw a lot about a lot of that there. You know, I've only been to inter bike, I haven't been to Eurobike, I haven't been to the Taipei show. Those are both things on my bucket list to go over and do those two things.
Dane:Yeah, I miss inter bike because because that was one of the things is you get to see the new stuff and you kind of get to See it in advance, but you get to see the weird stuff.
Josh:Yeah, there was all kinds of weird stuff. We talked last time about, about one of the shops you worked at previously, fairwill. Yeah, how they would have a booth there and that was.
Dane:That was like so and that was weird stuff, it was fun and you couldn't see that like nowadays, bike companies just have marketing plans. It just put stuff out on social media and they have release dates and they have non disclosures. I have to sign non disclosures all the time right here about a product and I can't talk about it and I don't think they'll ever come after me, but I'm who knows if I do it on the podcast.
Josh:Yeah, intellectual property or non disclosure agreement violation you actually. The last time we talked it was right before SRAM had announced.
Dane:Transmission and you mentioned.
Josh:You said, hey, they got something coming out. I can't tell you what it is, but the universal drill your hangers a big deal. Yeah, we're gonna be one of the first shops in Tucson to have one, yeah, I saw on your, on your Instagram, when, when, when you were able to yeah, you like, announced it, and then, of course, it went crazy.
Dane:It's still awesome, so so, so. So bike industry now is they're coming out of their glut. Yeah, they're starting to trim down their lines. They're Getting in. I think 2024 will be a lot easier for them. They've pretty much figured out demand. Yeah, they're thinning what the 22 and 23 bikes that they just had so many of right. And so this is a great time to buy a bike right now, because there's great deals. I don't think that's gonna last, and I just hope the consumers don't get upset when they don't see those deals anymore.
Dane:Yeah and that's something you know as a retail guy. We always have to think about. We call it. I don't know if I should say this. It sounds bad.
Josh:If you take this wrong.
Dane:I apologize, but we call it training the customer and it's educating the customer. Yeah, what we're doing is we're getting them used to what is the norm. Yeah, you know, and when I worked at performance, yeah, which I did in Supergo, they train Supergo, there's a name, oh yeah. I actually like Supergo, because they had nice stuff.
Josh:They did form, and so much.
Dane:But performance had a really bad habit of training the customer to wait for a sale. So we always had a saying if you bought something at full price at performance, you, you got ripped off because you just wait an hour and it'll go on sale. Yeah, and and it was always on sale, and there's bike companies that still do that that if you buy it at full price, you're paying too much because, they're always on sale and you're training your customers to wait for that sale.
Josh:So you think overall, you think 2024 is gonna come back. I think it's gonna smooth out, smooth out yeah and and we're probably gonna have some more consolidation in bankruptcy. It's just based on kind of what, what I'm reading.
Dane:Yeah, I've been. So, like you know, I've been testing the health of the brands that we carry. You know, whenever I see something on sale, we're a big Rocky dealer. Yeah, love Rocky. They've had some sales which they're not known for doing right and again, and I've kind of probed them a little bit and just just to check you know, hey, are you guys healthy? You know I don't want to hear about all of a sudden you're going the way of Vitas right no, and.
Dane:Or grill gravity or anything like that, because we love the brand. They make great bikes and and they're they're making smart decisions.
Josh:You gotta hear this my last two trail bikes Yep, it is my feet went on a business, real gravity smash. Yeah, I know business, I know gotta help you if I buy a new trail bike. Yeah, your company.
Dane:Well, you bought a pivot, luckily, luckily, lacey. Yeah, it's, you know. So, rocky. Sounds like they're being Smart and they're doing healthy whenever I see bikes out of stock at the manufacturer that we carry.
Josh:That's a good thing, as long as it's not for a prolonged no yeah.
Dane:But if they're running out, then then it's not an issue. Um, pivot is my favorite brand. I mean, I gotta tell you, you know, the Rocky guys are amazing and I don't want to say that I don't love Rocky, I do, I love them both. Yeah, but one of the things that pivot does that I just really admire from somebody who's in in the industry.
Dane:Yeah is they do a couple things that are really, really smart, and I've told them this. Not that that matters, but One of the things is when they have an excess of something, they don't put all of them on sale. So, for instance, the bike that Lacey got yeah, we got a better deal on that particular bike, it was a special buy. Yeah, because the parts were non-transmission and they were making a shift to transmission, yep. So, and they made it a special bike, it was a special addition that you couldn't just buy.
Dane:Yeah and, and that is brilliant to me because the way that they deal with that problem, that doesn't reduce the value of the other Bike? Yes, exactly, and so they won. They signal and make it real clear that these are limited, there's limited, limited versions of them and that they're a special thing that's gonna go away. Yeah, it helps the customers one take pride in if they bought the other version and paid more.
Josh:Yep.
Dane:It doesn't Devalue their bike right. You know, oh, you got that one, but that's a special addition, it's missing, these things, that I got, or I got this one, but I wanted the transmission. So, yeah, I paid more, but you got the latest and greatest. Yeah and so I I think that's brilliant from a marketing standpoint, because it's. It's very difficult for a company like pivot, who makes some of the best bikes in the world, to Devalue them, because they're not cheap bikes.
Josh:You know they're the way it's a Ferrari.
Dane:Yes, yeah, but it's a Ferrari for good reason and I'm excited for you to go see the plant. Yeah, because when you do the tour you see some of the things that they do to make those bikes so good. Yeah, and it is. It's pretty amazing. And you, when I took the tour, I got back and I just my brain just kind of lit up and realized how many warranties over the last 10 years of selling pivots that we've done, and I can count on one hand. Wow, and that's crazy. I worked at Trek and I could have counted on one hand each month.
Josh:Yeah, right, and it's 10 years. But it's a different product, different price point and you know, with Trek they got a good warranty and you expect things to go back and that's the price that you pay with pivot. If you buy it, you expect it to like warranty be rare.
Dane:Well there's. You know, people crash and you break your bike. That happens. That's not a warranty, that's a crashing but manufacturing defects. A defect, something that they just really didn't design well or make well, is so rare on a pivot and we see it on other bikes and I think it's the scale it's. You know, chris, at Pivot, chris Cook-Hallis is you know, a brilliant guy he's. I don't think he's an actual engineer. He's a person who should be an engineer.
Josh:He's had that before.
Dane:He probably maybe not one by training, but he is one Exactly yeah by experience and he's brilliant and you know he thinks that way, so when he designs something, he doesn't want it to break, you know. And then other companies that are more marketing focused are more worried about what it looks like and what colors are we doing this year, and things like that, and and so it depends on the focus of the leadership.
Josh:So, in addition to, like Chris, being in his, in his crew, being, you know, meticulous in their design, they must also be meticulous in their manufacturing standards and their quality control as well.
Dane:Yeah, that's the thing that you see on the tour. That's really cool, if they let you, is the laser alignment. And so they go in and they basically check these frames. And now, remember, pivot's not different, they're not making these frames in-house, they're having their partner make the frames. And then when they get the frames, they don't just slap parts on them and send them out the door.
Josh:They're checking to make sure they're in spec.
Dane:And so they, just today, talked with a manufacturer who I love won't mention who they are, because this isn't the best thing that I'm going to say Okay, brand Z. They partnered with one of these overseas Taiwanese companies. They were allowing that company to do their QC.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And that's always a question in manufacturing it was causing a lot of problems and we were seeing a lot of bad product and and I asked them about it today I said look, man, your, your reputation is having an issue. Your, your, your brand value is dropping because of this, these problems, what's going on? And he explained to me you know well, we were letting them do it. They were kind of letting stuff go and I'm like that's crazy, because their motivation is to get stuff out the door. It's not your motivation, which is to make sure it's good.
Dane:So, that company is making adjustment and moving and changing. That.
Josh:That's where they're bringing their quality control into the state side. Yeah.
Dane:Because your motivation, when you do your own quality control, is not to send out the you know like oh, it's pretty close.
Josh:Yeah, it's kind of good.
Dane:It'll work for most people. You're like. You don't want to do that. That's your reputation and your, your product is your livelihood. Your name stamped on the side of that and so but the manufacturer's goal is I made this already Right, I've already spent the money making it. I need to get money for it. If it's not at that level, then I'm not getting paid and they're going to have to scrap it or whatever Exactly.
Josh:And it's going to be a loss for them.
Dane:Yep, and so their motivation is to get their stuff out? Yeah, and so if you don't keep that in mind when you're manufacturing? So Chris learned that early on. He did a lot of manufacturing for other companies, building rear ends for for bike companies going for a suspension when he was at Titus, and, and so he, he knows that well, and so they check their own stuff and it's it's meticulous.
Josh:So probably we're saying though I don't know that it's a fair generalization to say that all like subcontractor supplier QC models fail and don't work. No but because in my in before I came to corporate strategy at the big defense company I worked for, I spent a decade in supply chain and I've probably been in a thousand factory. That's part of why I'm so excited to go see PIVX. I've been in a thousand different factories.
Josh:I've seen the best in the world. I mean literally clean room. You know billion dollar parts being made like crazy stuff all the way down to you know the lowest quality you can imagine. But I've seen supplier QC programs work really well and I've seen a lot of supplier QC programs work just as you explained it. So I just want to throw that out there. I don't know if it's fair to generalize for everyone.
Dane:It's not, you know, and and that's the thing is, my limited viewpoint is from one perspective.
Dane:I was in manufacturing I think I may have mentioned this and so I actually got to be a QC guy for a little while. So you know what it's like. It was fun, you know. But I was on the manufacturing side and when that product came back from our customers, our goal was to see if it was it was failures, to see why it failed. And you know, I would say our unwritten motivation was to make sure that it wasn't just them screwing it up, you know, and so our motivations are different. You know, and that vendor that we were dealing with there are our customer. Their motivation when sending stuff is to get their money back or a replacement, and so you have these opposing viewpoints.
Josh:And if you're not?
Dane:aware of those, then that can cause problems. So if you have a good partner, that's awesome. You know, and I think you're right, that happens a lot.
Josh:Right.
Dane:In this one case that I talked to a manufacturer today wasn't working out wasn't working out. And again, it wasn't malicious, it was just. Motivations are different.
Josh:Yeah, incentives like people's aligning incentives is super important. Yeah, if you can get that win-win, okay, so um oh yeah, rabbit hole, Bro.
Dane:We asked one question. We have these be stopped 45 minutes in. So one of the reasons I said hell yeah when you email me about this is because I like to talk, all right.
Josh:I have. I have, uh, one more question about the shop. I want to ask some specific questions about you. Okay, um, you guys do something different here that I don't think I've seen in any but one, maybe one other shop, and that's that you do a lot of consignments, yeah, and so I'm just curious, like like what, what, what drove you down Maybe to do that, and how's that working out for you?
Dane:Well, yeah, so that's mostly me. I'll say I pushed that um forever. As long as I've been selling bikes, which is decades Um I've noticed that one of the things as a salesperson I've filled every role in in a bike shop, so I've done everything, including the bathrooms I clean the bathroom.
Josh:Try still do scavially Um, oh yeah.
Dane:Um, but one of the roles is I was in sales a lot and when I was in sales, I always have to take what the customer needs, wants, into consideration. Try and get them what they need and want, uh, what they can afford, and I have to pry that out of them sometimes because they're not always realistic, uh, or they're not always honest.
Josh:you know, sometimes I want the $10,000 bike, but I only have five grand Sometimes. Yes, yeah.
Dane:Or you know, no, I don't want the $5,000 bike, I want the $2,000 bike, but they're like they're racing. Yeah, they're racing, um. So there's lots of you know maneuvering for me to help them figure out what they need. You know, and and that's one thing that I love doing I always tell people I have all my bikes, I have bikes, I don't need a bike. But what I love doing is buying and building and customizing bikes.
Josh:Yeah, so it's good to have your bike shop, yeah.
Dane:Well, so if I get to do it for you, I'm having a blast, you know, and I and I treat your bike like I would myself, and so I'm looking for the best deals. I'm looking for the best product uh, the ones that make the most difference, and so in sales, you're always trying to figure out what that person needs. One of the things that I noticed a lot is that they're concerned for what do they do with their old bike?
Josh:It was a big deal.
Dane:It was a big deal. And not only that, but uh, we would have customers that come in with a used bike or their bike and it goes in the stand and needs service, and it needs so much service. They're kind of contemplating a new bike, but they don't really want to do anything with their old bike because fixing it and having it sit in the garage doesn't make sense. Right, what do they do with it? So at one of my positions at a bike shop called R and R it's an old name I uh we developed a trade in program so we would do trade ins and that was great. Um, it wasn't super generous, but it gave somebody a place to get rid of them.
Josh:Yeah. Gave them some revenue for their they solved one of the problems that they were contemplating.
Dane:Yeah, in sales, you overcome objections. Yeah, that's, that's what you're taught to do. You know and um, and so what I noticed, though, is some of these bikes were nice, and I'm really into buying and selling bikes. I like to change my bikes every year. I'll sell used bikes. I'll go buy used bikes.
Josh:Uh.
Dane:I'm a fixture at the bike swap in town and I'll go out there and sell trade in forks or bikes I've built in my garage or my old bike or whatever, and so I I see that as a secondary market that people want to deal with, but they don't have a clue how to.
Dane:Yeah, they don't want to deal with meeting some guy at Safeway at 11 o'clock at night. You know, like um, trying to sell their bike online is not only intrusive but almost scary. Yeah, I can imagine the scammers are just insane. It's pain in the ass and so uh. But they don't want this bike, but they know it has value. So donating is frustrating because they're like, I feel like there's some I should get something out of this.
Dane:And so we can do that. We can help them and we can help them not have the uncomfortable texts back and forth with somebody who's trying to scam them. We can have them not have to meet some guy you know or woman or whoever uh, to show their bike and and try and answer questions that they don't even know. In most cases we can help them through all that and we take a percentage and so what is?
Josh:what is your model? Whether can you? Can you talk about that?
Dane:Yeah, so if you um, if you're purchasing a bike, or if you use it for in-store credit you know, uh, we take 20%, so if we're selling the bike for a thousand, we get 200. Gotcha. So, and then if you're just getting cash, like you're clearing out the garage and you're not buying anything, uh, and you're just we're going to write you a check, it's going to be 30%.
Josh:Okay, so and then, how do you guys agree on the price?
Dane:Yeah, so that's the the biggest and probably the hardest part, and probably why a lot of bike shops don't deal with it. Yeah, because you have to have a pretty good knowledge of what stuff's value is. What it's, what it's going for.
Josh:Yeah, and you use bicycle, bicycle blue book or anything like that.
Dane:Yeah, but talk about COVID really messing stuff up.
Josh:Yeah, Dude, the algorithm is not. Is it not recovered?
Dane:yet? No, it hasn't, and so, um, so that was really tough, so we just have to kind of wing it, and because I'm involved with that and I'm constantly doing it for myself, uh, it's pretty much a no-brainer for me.
Josh:Yeah, you have a good feel as we go on.
Dane:Yeah, and so people will come in and we'll give them a good idea of what it's valued. Um, we have kind of a standard fee that we charge Uh-huh. So just so that they they understand that there's work that goes into it, just to stick it on the floor.
Josh:Yeah and um, and then you know, so you have a fee to like get the bike in shape. Yeah, Put it up on so, so you know, up and over and above the 220%, or whatever, it's basic, it's 25 bucks. Oh Jesus.
Dane:That's not a sign. It's super low. Yeah, it's really just for the time and effort it takes to look through the bike kind of, maybe do small adjustments and then we may make recommendations. If you need a new chain and cassette, we're not going to sell it under a certain level. Um so it has to be in a in a salesable condition.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And so, and we work on that with the customer, and then we don't charge the customer for what we do the bike until it sells. That's cool, so it gives them a really low cost, easy way to get rid of something. Feel like they're getting value out of it. They're getting it to a good home.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And they're not dealing with all the BS.
Josh:and there's a lot of BS, so I see the value proposition to the customer and I see that I somewhat see the value proposition for you because you're solving one of their problems and that you know, you said 20% of store credit, so that that's obviously helping you with more sales, right? Because, um, but are they? Are they selling?
Dane:Yeah, so right now, I would say that it's not the best market. Um, so we were talking about COVID.
Josh:Yeah, we're talking about how the bike.
Dane:the use market has a lot of those bikes out there and there's a lot of them and this. Then you have the new bikes that are kind of on sale. Yeah, and they've been on sale for a year.
Josh:So you got to start bringing the prices down.
Dane:Well, yeah, so if you bought, a bike for seven grand and they're trying to sell it for five grand and you only wrote it for four months.
Dane:You're probably not going to get five grand for it it's tough and it's a great value for somebody, but it's really tough because that $7,000 bike may be on sale for 5,500. And one of the things and this is one thing, that about the podcast that I am excited about because I can help people understand some stuff from a retail standpoint um, when you buy a used bike, you do not get warranties, so your frame is not warrantied. Yeah, parts are not warrantied.
Josh:Is, that is, that all bikes are not transferable to the secondary owner.
Dane:Yeah, there is maybe a couple exceptions that I know of that. Um, that are just weird exceptions, Okay.
Josh:But the standard terms. Standard terms conditions are primary buyer, original buyer gets the warranty Once it moves on. There's no warranty?
Dane:Yeah, so once you buy that bike used, you may not know was it in a crash? What's the integrity?
Josh:especially with carbon.
Dane:And so that's something that you have to own. You know, when you buy used, I buy a lot of used stuff.
Josh:I do it all the time because I'm just playing with bikes, that's really what I like to do, but you're buying it in the shape that it's in and dealing with whatever comes is on you.
Dane:I bought a used fork at the bike swap Me. I was super excited. Got it back to the workshop, took it apart and it was ruined on the inside because I'm out there walking around. I can't look inside it and I I own that and you know there's nothing I could do about that. You know and I've done that. It's happened to me a couple of times.
Josh:Have you rehabbed that fork?
Dane:yet that one I couldn't. It was it was corroded so bad. It was in fact, I made a paper towel holder out of that. So yeah, At least you're upcycling some way.
Dane:So so you know, the used market and the consignment market spent a little stale. We've had a couple times where we've lowered the price of one of our consignments and, boom, they sold. So there's kind of a perfect point and we're trying to figure that out for customers. There's some bikes that have been here a while. We just had one picked up today and the guy that picked it up is awesome. He's a friend of the shop, he's a great guy and just sat here for a while and he just was like you know, it's not selling. I don't really want to come down anymore on the price.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And I got a new. I got a new dog and I want to take him running. You know, and this is the bike, I'm going to go running with the dog.
Josh:So he just picked up his bike and I'm like that's great. Yeah, no harm, no foul 25 bucks cost him to yeah exactly.
Dane:Yeah, no sirs, I just bought one of his consignment bikes because he was just getting impatient and kept lowering the price.
Josh:I'm like all right, it's so good that it was like I'll buy it now.
Dane:He's like can you just buy it so we can get it over with? And I'm like, well, here's what I'll buy it for. But it's really low. And he's like I'll take it. You know, I just want to get out from under it. You know I want. There's other bikes I want to buy.
Josh:I know what that feels like, and, and you know, what we, when we can we try and do that.
Dane:Yeah so sometimes you know, if you know we don't take, we don't take super low end bikes, we take marketable bikes. We usually focus on the higher end ones. Yeah, because 20% of a hundred bucks is usually not worth A salesperson. You know, working for a couple hours with somebody.
Josh:Yeah, so you have all high end bikes and yeah.
Dane:We tend to do higher end ones, the low end ones usually. You know if somebody's trying to sell them they try and do it on marketplace or something. Yeah, marketplace it's it sucks, but those are harder to sell. But they also sell faster because it's a closer to a throwaway amount.
Josh:Yeah, all right. So Few minutes left here. I thought good to maybe run through some questions about you and about your riding. Oh sure, and so. So first I'll tell you about me so that we, you and I can can level on this, just to make sure there's no Misconceptions so I'm like a blue trail plus, okay, black trail minus.
Josh:So like easy black trails I'm good with, okay, all the blue trails I love. I'm not that good. Okay, I'm like an intermediate rider. So when we go ever go ride, I just want to have that For you, because I have a feeling that you I actually already know this that you are like a black trail.
Dane:I doubled, a triple, sometimes red, yeah, if I can, but that's not true. So I just rode Milagrosa. It's a local trail in town. It's considered one of the chunkiest. Yeah, it's a couple hour ride. I think we did in 129.
Josh:Yeah, riding time that that trail scares me.
Dane:It's, it's an. It's a nasty trail and there's a couple spots I walked and so I will get off my bike and walk section. So I'm not like some badass, I I'm very.
Josh:I don't believe you, by the way, but I love the hot.
Dane:It's frustrating because my whole life I've been like this. I am not a I'm not a Spectacular rider. Yeah, I'm not a showy rider. I keep my wheels on the ground. Yeah, I don't do big air. I love to go fast and I can let go of the brakes more than a lot of people, so I tend to be faster than a lot of people. I'm currently still racing downhill, although I'm not sure how much my body is gonna be okay with that. So I do race downhill and I do fairly well for amateur racing. I did a lot of downhill racing in my life, nothing pro level but semi-pro and and now I would say I I ride all types. You know I complain riding honeybee because I get bored and my body hurts, you know. And so that's one of the drawbacks to the amount of downhilling is I have a lot of Knee issues and soreness and and body aches, and so I love adrenaline, so I push for that and then so going off a drop, doing big steep rolls, rock gardens, I love the faster the better so.
Dane:So yeah, when I, when we go ride, it'll be kind of weird because I'll let go of the brakes and be gone and then the next minute you'll see me walking down a section because I just don't feel like and and so, and you know, I ride with other people. I have a couple riding buddies that are just amazing you know, and we all go through that, you know.
Dane:But yes, when I travel I look for the nastiest stuff. So, like when I go to Hawes first trail, I want to hit his sunset and it has a huge billboard. Have you been there?
Josh:No, I've been to Hawes, but I have not really said that would be above my.
Dane:So Hawes trails for your international listeners Is in Phoenix. It's a trail network that is amazing, amazing Mesa east of Phoenix. Yeah, they've done a great job of building all these trails.
Josh:Sheen bill yeah, lots of yeah, it's all over the place. Yeah, just I mean yeah, all over the place, but the flow stuff is like yeah, amazing and there's one trail that has a big billboard that says this.
Dane:I can't remember the wording, but it's something like this could kill you. Yeah, this, this is this is for extreme riders. Turn back, you know. There's no, there's no go arounds, there's nothing. You have to ride this is your exposure is exposed, oh yeah, yeah, it's nasty and and there would be people that listen to this and they're like that's not that hard but it's hard, and my first time on it was at night.
Josh:Oh, jesus Christ, without a light, and we're riding behind someone that had a light.
Dane:We did a run of shuttles at South Mountain. Uh-huh and we heard about this trail and I'm like I gotta go ride that trail. So we had lunch and we didn't get to sunset trail until four and then you got like an hour climb.
Josh:Yeah, so we're not a e-bike.
Dane:I was oh, it's still an hour.
Josh:Yeah, e-bike, yeah yeah.
Dane:I was on an e-bike and I got to the top of the trail and the Sun was going down and one of my buddies had a light. The other one had a light that didn't work and I got three guys, one light yeah. I Got down it Okay.
Josh:We don't. We don't recommend this.
Dane:No, I got down, okay, but then I went back during the day and I cleaned everything and it is a nasty trail. There's one section that at the night ride I had to scoot down on my butt and hold my bike by the tire and just let it drag itself down the trail. It was that steep.
Josh:Yeah, I couldn't even walk it. There's a couple of angel fire that I did that last year.
Dane:Yeah so I did Moab and I went to Magnus since seven and ended at portal, and portal has signs on the say that dismount now because people have died and you, you could die, yeah, and so I do get a kick out of that.
Josh:All right. Well, so now that we just set the expectation, that's not me, my wife will do that with you. It's not me. Yeah, all right, let's run through your bikes real quick. So, like you, get a downhill bike. Oh yeah, what is it a?
Dane:pivot PIVX. Yeah it's custom DVO suspension and it's 275 rear 29 front, which they call it yeah, is it a, is it? A. What's it called? Yep, yeah, so yeah, that's the one that, as most of my racing, I do did a little at Angel fire and Big Bear, but mostly at Boulder City. It's called bootleg Canyon bootleg Canyon. Nevada and it's nasty. It's nasty terrain. It's like our star pass trail, which is really volcanic and jutting and sharp rocks, but steep.
Josh:Okay, yeah, it could start passes and very steep. No okay, so you got a enduro Travel trail bikes, yeah that's the rocky altitude.
Dane:Okay so, and that one is 170 in the front DVO. I'm a big DVO fan and DVO suspension. Yep, yeah, dvo suspension one 170 in the front, one 65, I think, in the rear and the DVO guys.
Josh:If I remember this correctly, they Were man. We're Marzokie us.
Dane:Yeah, back, and then back when Marzokie was amazing, like before 2009 so when Marzokie sold to the Taiwanese company at Teneco, I think it's called, they Made those changes. That was QC that we were talking about and they they did not put out a good product. And the guys in the US got so frustrated because they're fielding every angry rider, you know, with every click and blown fork and not working right and and they're dealing with all that and they just finally got up, fed up, and they just all left and basically partnered with the company in Taiwan and started DVO and Since then they've been pretty amazing. So it's probably one of the best suspension. I'll pull a Fox factory off my bike and put a DVO put a video on every single time Interesting except for my cross-country bike, because DVO focuses on bigger and supple, and they don't focus on lightweight.
Josh:So okay, so let's move down. So we talked about the 170. What's the next smaller suspension? So trail bike or a down country bike or something?
Dane:probably my SL. That's a pivot SL. Okay 120, 120.
Josh:I think it's, that's a cross-country bike. Yeah, yeah it's super light.
Dane:That's my flat land, like anything not on the mountain. Okay, that's what I like to ride. And then, and then I have e-bikes too. So, and the e-bikes kind of fill the gaps, I'll have one. That's an. I saw a race in Duro. Okay, bikes in Nevada. Yep, and that's a rocky mountain and that's got DVO powerplay or something yeah they're called a powerplay carbon fiber. It's. It's pretty amazing bike.
Josh:Yeah, and there's there, using the horse link, I think. If you yeah, yep.
Dane:They use the horse link and then they they have the most power. Okay out, there Was it like 325 or something. It's 109 newtometers, but somebody's gonna correct me, but it's around 100 newton meters for the motor. Okay and so there's all kinds of different.
Josh:Yeah, you're gonna have to convert that. Yeah, you just got an e-bike so you'll kind of, I'm still slowly learning, start learning.
Dane:People judge them on different aspects, like the battery size, power, and then you know watts, whatever. So it's my big bike, it's full battery, full power bike, and then I have a pivot SL shuttle which is 36 pounds.
Josh:That's pretty light for an e-bike.
Dane:It's insanely light and I every time I'm out riding, I have people lift it up just so that they can understand how light this bike is that's?
Josh:is that's? That's about what my trail bike?
Dane:Yeah, yeah it's probably the same way as your gorilla real close, yeah, and it is Becoming my favorite bike because it rides like a normal bike, but it gets me the top of the hill. Okay, so it's, I don't have to drive a car to shuttle, I can use it, I can do laps. It's pretty amazing. So it's built off of the 429 trail.
Josh:Okay, so it's a. It's an electric 429, yeah, and.
Dane:I've endurode it out, so it's got a 164 and I think it's like 120 in the back, but it's quite a 60 120.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:Yeah, I think that's right, and but it's a coil, dvl coil in the back and then okay. Dvo suspension and it is so capable I've taken it to some bike parks, it can jump it. You know, I've had a couple friends who are like it's not enough travel, it's just not enough travel in it. I'm just like look man, if it can handle Angel fire, if it can handle purgatory, if it can handle big bear, it's fine. It's fine it's totally, if you need more.
Dane:Maybe you know, unless you're racing enduro, I don't think you need more.
Josh:Okay, any smaller than the 120?
Dane:I have a my single speed.
Josh:So yeah, that's a hard tail, right? Yep, Hard tail, it's a Ventana. So sure would, sure would Gibson yeah.
Dane:So I was excited to hear hear him and yeah, you know, because I have two Ventanas. They were both frames from one of our local legends who passed away this year and and I got some of his old bikes and I have two of them. I'm proud to have two of them. We have a little memorial on the wall With his old Titus that he won some races on, so that's really cool and then do you want to mention who he? Is I Do, but because I didn't know him personally.
Josh:I want to get his name wrong.
Dane:Let's, let's see, I was like Tom Barrett is what I think. I'm gonna say okay, and I'm pretty sure yeah correct.
Josh:Correct us if we're right.
Dane:Yeah, and, and I can always fix that I can give you the name for sure he One of the founders of Samba. Samba yeah and so, and he passed away in January, and so I was proud to get some of his bikes and one of them One of our local friends has and he loves it, and then I have his two Ventanas, which I love cool.
Josh:So so, single speed, you got a front. You got a front, fork on it, or yeah?
Dane:yeah, I wrote it rigid for years and not years. I got it two years okay, and it was my kids bike, so it was what I rode with my kids right on and they're getting faster and so I needed and so now it's got a suspension fork, and they're still getting faster, so it's not getting ridden as much in the SL more with them. So, and then?
Josh:I'm trying to think grab a bike.
Dane:Yes, I have two of them. I have an argon 18 Gravel which is awesome. That's a Bike company that we sell in the shop. They make amazing bikes, carbon fiber, super comfortable, just is it more race oriented or no, it's kind of an all-day rider. Okay, so People can't see what we're looking at but we're looking at one in the shop.
Dane:It's right across from us, and what you notice on argons is they have kind of this weird head tube. Yeah, it's a two-tone and at the top of it is a different color. Some of them are painted to match, but that top section comes in different heights and so you change in the stack. So you're changing the stack and the head tube height so you can change the bike from kind of a road race. You know set up. Yeah, drop down yeah pop it up and you don't have to change out that.
Josh:Oh wow, yeah, have adjustable stack.
Dane:Yeah, so sometimes you'll see them built like this one next to it where it's round, and sometimes they're integrated into the frame.
Josh:That's pretty cool little more flowy.
Dane:Mine, one of mine. I have an e-gravel also and it's an argon 18 also.
Josh:Jesus Christ, how many bikes you got there? Well, the whole shop, yeah. Well, at least half of them, yeah right.
Dane:So but the e-gravel I got a couple years ago because I wanted to do more and I don't have much time, and so I thought, well, this will get me motivated. It was just coming out and the company who makes the e-gravel system was the same company that did the controller on my Rocky Mountain, so I was kind of in love with them. Yeah, kind of felt like, hey, I just want to try this out. Right same company makes the e-bike systems for like Pinarello and for Bianchi and for all the high-end Road bikes, and so my, my argon gravel has that and it's a nice bike. It's very dusty, doesn't get ridden much.
Josh:I wish it did.
Dane:If I have time to ride, I go ride the mountain bikes, yeah, and then if I have extra time I'll probably get out on the gravel bike whenever I can. My new argon is not an e-bike and I'm excited about that one, because one of the drawbacks to my argon e-bike is it's hub motor and it's 650 bees. Okay so they're wider tires and it's great, I ride honeybee on it all the time.
Dane:Okay, or when I do, and the drawback is I want to ride as a road bike and I want 700s, but because the motors and the hub it's not easy to switch.
Josh:Yeah, you gotta rebuild the wheel, yeah, yeah.
Dane:And so I decided I was just gonna get a regular gravel bike and use that as my on off road and kind of replace my road bike. And my road bike is the last bike that I have, that is, it's a Merx is that right yeah, Merx 575. It's the prettiest bike I've ever seen.
Josh:A custom paint job here, showing it to me earlier.
Dane:Yeah, I wish I was the one who actually paid for it. Actually, I'm glad I didn't pay for the paint job. I didn't pay for the paint job, but I love it. I got it from a customer who had a custom painted for him and he raced it for a couple seasons and then was getting rid of it. And I always joked around that any time I worked on his bikes and rode them around they fit me like a glove. So he was selling it and I'm like, all right, you know, and we just struck a deal and I got to build it.
Josh:Oh, that's awesome.
Dane:Yeah, I put access force on it and rode it like four times.
Josh:And it's up on the wall, it sure looks pretty.
Dane:Yeah, everybody can come visit it, so it is a good looking bike. But yeah, I mean, that doesn't count the vintage bikes, that doesn't count the bikes in progress.
Josh:You should see my garage.
Dane:It's full of stuff, and that's the thing is. I love this, I love building new things. You have a deep, deep passion for it. I've kind of burned out my time on mine, and my wife is definitely tired of building my bikes, and so one of the.
Josh:Now you can feed your passion here and make money doing it.
Dane:Yep, and that's probably I think people that experience this shop will come away with that experience that when they come here they're going to feel like we are just so excited to get them something awesome. And it's just the best feeling in the world when you get to help them go through that process. You get to smooth out those road bumps and trying to figure out what's going to work with what and what won't. Will this work? Can I afford this? Is this a good product? Is this just something I heard about online that they're pushing that, or is it a real thing? That's good.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And having somebody in your corner to do that is it's a big deal. It's really important and that's what people, I think, really, really cherish about their local bike shop.
Josh:LBS. Yeah Well, brother, I came here literally worried that we weren't going to have enough content. And yeah, I had 50 questions and we covered three.
Dane:Now we got more nights to do.
Josh:We got tons of content, so I'm really excited about this. I'm super glad you're joining us.
Dane:I am too. I'm going to miss Mike because I loved.
Josh:Like I said, I'm a huge fan.
Dane:I've been listening to every single episode. I haven't heard Franks yet, but that's because I've been Christmas.
Josh:Yeah. And it just came out like two days ago, man, yeah, it's okay, yeah.
Dane:But I'm going to miss Mike, but I'm so excited and it's something I'm really looking forward to doing, so I hope that people enjoy this banter.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And, you know, I hope we can give them just a little bit of glimpse into what we do. Yeah, for sure what the bike industry is and kind of get them jazzed.
Josh:For sure, man. Well, hey, I really appreciate your brother. Little fist bump there and with that I think we'll send you out. And Next time cheese, next time cheese. Yeah, we'll bring cheese.
Dane:We should have cheese.
Josh:We should have cheese like every episode. Absolutely, it sounds good. Take care, guys.
Dane:It's weird to hear that Mike's going in and out. Is that going in and out? On the recording it is. It's just, you'll see me get real close. Yeah, so you notice like. I'm like right up on top of it.
Josh:Yeah, you'll get used to that, yeah.
Dane:And I had some times to tell you I just do this piece. I talk a lot. Oh, I know what I was going to ask you. Is there a way for me to give this?
Josh:Yeah, how does that work?