Mountain Cog
Mountain bike podcast that will make you laugh and learn. Featuring a wide range of passionate guests. Available everywhere (Apple, Spotify etc).
Mountain Cog
107 - 25 Years of Stan's (NoTubes): President Mike Bush on Innovation & Sustainability
Discover the engineering and chemistry behind tubeless technology and more with Stan's (NoTubes) President Mike Bush, whose industrial manufacturing background shaped ~25 years of cycling innovation. Bush explains the technical details of bead seat geometry, the science of sealant particulate systems, and how CT scans of mounted tires revealed the "bead float" phenomenon that caused early tubeless failures. Learn about the development of ExoCor valves designed to address sealant compatibility issues with traditional Presta valves, the chemical reaction that makes Dart puncture plugs work instantly with Stan's sealant, and the biodegradable formulation using natural latex that sets Stan's apart from petroleum-based competitors.
The technical discussion extends to the WPL product line, featuring USDA-certified bio-based lubricants derived from food science research, suspension oils meeting marine industry standards, and innovative dry chain lubes using ethanol solvents and specialized esters for clean operation. Bush shares insights into third-party testing protocols, manufacturing tolerances critical for tubeless success, and the engineering challenges of creating products that work reliably across diverse riding conditions. Whether you're a suspension technician, bike mechanic, or technically-minded cyclist, this episode delivers the deep technical knowledge behind the products that revolutionized mountain biking.
Link: https://stans.com/
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dude, you totally just made your it was not as good as like when I do it.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's kind of like an awful the mic. The mic's not picking it up, it's not.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah so what a wonderful like time that we live in right now yeah we have been through, like so many different revolutionary times from technology you know, know, the internet. Now we've got the AI revolution. Oh my God, yeah, and I was kind of thinking back to like those, those, uh Sasquatch videos.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh my God, those Sasquatch videos are so funny.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh my God. Um, where are you going with this? But, uh, of the last hundred years, I was trying to figure out, like, what is the last hundred years? I was trying to figure out, like, what is the what's like the best invention that we have, you know, been able to integrate into our lives?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Mountain bike.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, mountain bike, that's. That's a good one for a mountain bike podcast. I like it but no, I think it's the dry erase board.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:What I use, that so.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It has to be the most remarkable.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Joke's still bad, but your delivery was pretty damn good, I got to say that's pretty good, I was. I was pulled in. I was definitely pulled in.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So right on. Well, uh, let's see, it is Wednesday night, which I think we all were trying to figure out what day it was. All three of us at one point today today, asked what day it was here on the MCP, and we are here. If you didn't know, and, mike, you correct me if I got my facts wrong here, but in 2022, I believe Stan and Cindy sold Stans.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, that's correct. Deal closed May 31st 2022. Wow 2022.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And I think you are still CEO and president of Stans. Do I have that right?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, I go by president, but it really doesn't matter.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So Stans, no tubes. Yeah, how are you doing today, sir? Yeah.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Good, good, yeah, back from Eurobike and ready to chat it up here yeah, it's uh a long flight.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:You know I I'm sure you're a little fuzzy, but man, I I'm envious because I'd love to go see all that stuff. I really want to go. I miss interbike. You know, I miss seeing all the new stuff because everybody puts it out online right away, yeah, but uh, you still don't. You don't get to go see those little nuggets of new stuff. You know that, doesn't they don't get to go see those little nuggets of new stuff.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You know that, doesn't they don't make it out onto whoever's review yeah, it's different to like hold it in your hand, yeah, than it is to like see it in a video and some of the crazy, some of the outfits I remember interbike, the outfits of people you know reading their shirts, you know what their shirts said.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah I remember for a little time at interbike, uh, the um, all the pro dirt jumpers and stuff would would rent rascals and drive around with rascals uh around the trade show instead of actually walking. You know that's funny.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So but so how was eurobike this year?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:it was, it was still a good show for us, so a number of brands elected not to attend, and quite a few distributors chose not to attend as well, including our German distributor.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, wow.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So we were boothless this year for the first time and I think I've been to 18 or 19 Euro bikes. Oh my gosh. Yeah, different experience. But a lot of meetings, a lot of good interaction, just less brands to visit on the floor 18 or 19 Euro bikes.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Jeez Mike, what's your background? What's your history? How'd you get into the bike industry?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, I guess go back to the early days. I don't have the story of being the grom sweeping the floor. I shouldn't even tell you this I've never worked bicycle retail. Oh wow, oh my gosh.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You might be the first person we've talked to in the industry that didn't work in retail I know Well, except for the trail builders.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, so I got an engineering degree from Penn State and moved to New York State right after and I'd been riding all along and met Stan and Cindy pretty much as soon as I moved there they had just started no Tubes at the time went by no Tubes then and started helping them out, kind of on the side side projects for me, but supported them. There was only the two of them really in the beginning and then I worked real jobs in subway car manufacturing and then in aircraft manufacturing with Schweitzer and Sikorsky.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So I played with helicopters and things of that nature prior to getting fully involved in bikes. But I would take vacation from those jobs and go to Interbike and help them out and go to Pedro's Fest and nights and weekends in my kitchen doing design work for Stan and so on. And then at some point they said we need you full time. And I told the guys at Schweitzer and one of the people that was in charge there, one of the Schweitzer family, said I like bikes, you should go do it and if it doesn't work you can come back. Oh, that's cool, that's super cool. So he's where I'm at right now.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Right. So I work for Raytheon, right, and I'm like, okay, I want to stop doing this and go do stuff with bikes.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, as long as you're independently wealthy, it'll work out. Yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Best way to make money. I was young and dumb, Mike. Were you a mechanical engineer?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:No industrial manufacturing. Okay, right on. So I've done a bit of design work and some extra mechanical courses.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, so he said the word, so industrial engineer.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Go ahead.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, because we talked to Faction and they were talking about industrial designer Different. So what's the difference? The engineer figures out how to make it work.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering is really the processes and methods to make things okay. That's uh that's where it came from so you're figuring out people lean more towards, like operations, research and ergonomics studies and things of that nature, and I I was more into the actual manufacturing and um design work and design for manufacturing.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So that's cool, do you? Did you do anything like designing the machines, that like do some of the manufacturing?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I uh yeah, we worked on machine automation. We did. Uh, you know, if there was a particular widget we needed quickly or my extra background came in and we didn't want to run to design engineering they were too busy. I could just draw it up and have somebody make the prototype, and if it worked, we never bothered design engineering with it and we just made it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, yeah, I, we had some machines when I was in manufacturing that were amazing. Like you know. They take a piece of metal and bend it like three different ways, automatically, you know, and then cut it off and then just drop it in a bin and then another one would shoot right out and just to see that stuff is pretty cool so we need to go to taiwan yeah, yeah I need to take you through some fact, yeah just watching how it's made on whatever channel it's on discovery channel.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, whatever it was, it was just great just seeing those machines and like seeing how they work. You know, watching a spring being made is pretty cool, so so, mike, you've been with noTubes since the very beginning.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, I missed about six months of them figuring it out early on, but I've been around ever since. So about four years of what I call consulting for lack of a better term and then end of I don't know. First of June was 20 years on the payroll.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Wow, that's amazing. I remember when Stans came around. I remember everything. Right at the beginning, pretty much day one, yeah, and seeing them pop on the radar at the bike shop.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:This is our 25th year.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Wow, isn't that crazy.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Have we been running tubeless for 25 years?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Hopefully Hard to believe. Huh, it is hard to believe, right.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It's true. It seems like it wasn't that long ago that we were putting tubes and dealing with that crap.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, in stands, I feel like really the two companies that I attribute to tubeless are Mavic, because they have the UST and stands. Those were, that's it. They are the two that basically that's why we have tubeless, those two companies. So, and Mavic standard kind of fell away because it kind of it was really precise Stance was like we'll make anything work. You know, basically, you know you didn't have to buy a special rim and a special tire All of a sudden.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Gorilla tape and Stance and you're good.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, it wasn't. Don't say gorilla tape.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, I was going to say oh, is that bad? Yeah, oh yeah, it's bad, okay, okay, wait, no, no, Mike, why not say Gorilla Tape?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's a bad word in bikes right now. The principle's okay, right. So our very first version of conversion was two different types of tape. It was a 3M strapping tape and electrical tape over top. And we started to figure out which designs that worked better with and which ones didn't, and then came up with a rubber rim strip system to make that easier for folks and then again looked at that and said why does this one work better than that one? We had special contours to the shape, the profile of the rubber strips and eventually designed rims that didn't need it. So that moved us completely from converting standard tube type into what we basically know today as tubeless ready, kind of bypassed the UST pieces.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It was so limited on tires and rims at the time. But Gorilla Tape applied into a rim that's intended to have something thin, like our yellow tape you're probably familiar with now. One is thicker and our tolerances are much tighter than that difference in thickness. So it can affect how you mount and inflate tires. But fundamentally Gorilla Tape is porous, so it is not airtight like the tapes we use for tubeless radio, I would call it. Then, as the moisture from the sealant gets in through that non-airtight membrane on the outside of Gorilla Tape.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:it saturates the adhesive and becomes an absolute nightmare to remove or deal with. I don't think it actually gets loose. It gets like. It's like bubble, it's nasty, yeah. So we always say if you use gorilla, you will use gorilla for the rest of your life, the rest of that, rest of that rims life, you know, because cleaning it off is just horrible it's impossible.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, yeah, all right. So we won't mention gorilla tape again on this episode no, yeah, like it's.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's crazy, but one of the things that they did that was really revolutionary. Like he said, they changed the rims, they raised the bead seat is that, did I say that correctly? Uh up to keep the tire from not being able to basically push off when it was aired up, and so that was one of the biggest things that changed tubeless, and now all the wheels are built, all the rims, whether their stands or not, are built that way. So it's pretty cool.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I won't take the next hour and a half and explain to you how those dimensions all worked, but that's that's the basics, right there. The bc is, in fact, larger than what was the defined standard at the time. Yeah, and that's what made tires fit, and we've we've gone to great lengths to prove that point. As cRTO and ISO standards were revised, I pulled back the curtain on all the. We did a lot of CT scans of tires mounted and inflated on different rims and just demonstrated what we call bead float how much that bead would lift off of the rim.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And that's why tires burped and so forth.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I had an early one blow off. Yeah, I remember that happened actually rather frequently to folks.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, yeah, we would air them up on the other side of this little door in the corral, in the in the shop corral.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:You'd put the the wheel on the other side and you would air it up so it wouldn't blow off and you had to 40, I think was the max psi so and it took a, it took a I don't know. Remember that was a couple years of it being like that and then they came out with their uh, bead seat height difference and then we were still doing that because we're gun shy for another year or so before we realized none of them had a problem you don't need to do it anymore and then, yeah, now it's like you air them up in your hand, you know so which back then higher beads have improved greatly construction's better, quality control's better, yeah, you're less likely to damage a bead on install, etc.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So much safer than uh when things started out. Yeah, it's crazy.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So, and all they were doing was sealant, really at the beginning, sealant and tape.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So so, so, mike, one of the things we were interested in talking about we got we had a lot of things to cover, but um, uh, you know, dane being a suspension tech and having a suspension specific company along with his bike shop and me being a corporate strategist, uh, dealing with mergers, acquisitions, all that kind of stuff on our radar screen, and we haven't heard a lot about it. It was kind of just like a sub note and so I'd love to hear, like, how that came about and and what you guys's plans are, if you could tell us a little bit about the, the marriage between stands and wpl yeah, I guess go back a little ways.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You know sealant obviously I said how he's got started and has become, you know, pretty important part of a lot of the service areas of shops, whether they're using a competitor or not. A lot of times the term stands is used generically to uh yeah it's a good and a bad thing.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Right, it's. It gets used all over the place, but not necessarily, um, to our benefit in some cases. But uh, you know, my my piece of it is that service is critical across the board. We're seeing more mobile service-only type operations or service-only workshops. Bikes become more complicated I'll have to explain this to you guys. Between diagnostics of motors and hydraulic systems, suspension, et cetera, et cetera, I see the local shop and the train mechanic as being hypercritical for cycling here forward and whether it's a well-skilled home mechanic or the professional, we're going to continue to lean into service.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So we've had this on the product roadmap for a long time. We're quite good at all the sealant ever made for Stens. It's been made in our own facility. We blend it, we bottle it, we QC it, et cetera, ship it around the world. So we ship a lot of New York water around the world. I like to joke, but yeah, it's made in our own facility and we've done quite well at moving liquids, which is not an easy thing to do logistically. So we knew liquids was a space we wanted to be involved with and we don't have chemists on board and so on.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Sealant was developed in-house. We've not used outsiders for that, but you know that's kind of our expertise stops. So you always have the option and you're going to be familiar with this, josh is build it or buy it right. And for us we want differentiated products. You know I can get super nerdy on sealant and rims and all kinds of other things and how we can differentiate and even if it's nuanced stuff it makes a difference. So in looking for a buy-it option, effectively we knew WPL was on the market, it had been out there and we said you know it wasn't the right time for us initially and it came back around again and we got to meet the founders, isaac and Alejandro, and what they had done with the brand and where they'd set it up. Products were well received by the market, et cetera. They just had a hard time getting distribution, which is not unusual.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yep, but you guys had those distribution channels right.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, we're sold in over 60 countries. That's something we built over 25 years. So we're sold in over 60 countries. That's something we've built over 25 years. So we had those channels. We're well-established in the service component and everything just kind of aligned. The timing was good. They were ready to move on to some other projects. That said, alejandro is still working with us and, yeah, just kind of all came together. So that was make sure I get the dates right December of 23.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, December 23. And they had a good bit of inventory and so on. We're all coming out of COVID and so on and so forth and so we wanted to maintain the WPL name. We didn't want to really lose that because it was well-established, smaller but well-established. So we had to work through inventory work, through bottling work, through supply chain changes, kind of streamlining that a little bit. So that took a good portion of 24, but we started talking about stands with these new products at Eurobike last year. So didn't make a big splash or a big deal out of it necessarily, but it was kind of the transition point, Started moving into that.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So here we are now, a year later. All the products are in. We've ironed out most of the supply chain challenges. It's getting out into the world through our channels. We're about to put some new POP displays out into the world and, you know, stake our claim in the retail space etc. But that, in a nutshell, is how it came to be part of the Stans family and now you know podcasts like this and other things. We need to start pushing that word a bit more, that it's available and it's us and we stand behind it. But it's still basically a fully Canadian supply chain. And Alejandro, the father in the equation there, is a very skilled chemist and continues to work with us on maintaining quality of what they were doing but also developing some new products.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so WPL is Whistler Performance Lubricants. Is that right?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yes, they changed the name to Whistler Performance Labs at one point, but all the same, people know it as WPL. Its largest market was, of course, canada.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I used quite a bit of it. I've still got some in the shop, so it always made me salad hungry. Want to know a salad. It's vegetable-based, I guess, or bio-based is a better way to say it Bio-based product, but it had a distinct smell that smelled like you know, uh cooking oil yeah, so and uh, and the big thing was, it's much better for the earth. It's not a synthetic oil, it's not a you know it's. If you drop it on the ground, nobody's panicking.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So yeah, so that's part of the differentiated.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Sorry no go ahead.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:That's part of the differentiated product for us. So stan sealant has always been biodegradable. Again, if we don, sometimes we're not good about telling our own story. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's biodegradable, and it was only last year that we actually did the OECD 301B biodegradability test to get the stamp of approval and be able to talk about it more. But biodegradable sealant because we use natural latex and so on and the additives are are natural as well, and then the bio-based factor of wpl products coming into the line so that's a usda certified bio preferred program has to go through third-party evaluation. I think the lowest percentage we have is 97 bio bio-based across the product range. Oh wow.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Hey, do you have any tricks for getting stands out of your clothes?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I don't Believe me. It's ruined a lot of stuff in my life.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh yeah, it's tenacious.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:The best thing to do is cold water quickly. Yeah, cold water quickly, that's really the best thing. Cold water quickly, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So, staying on WPLpl, I'm just looking at your website right now and I'm seeing six products that are at least on your website right now under the bicycle care bio-based bicycle care. I don't know if there's more, but maybe could you take us through the the products that you guys have um in this line true, and our product manager would know the SKU count better than I would.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I think we're at 13 SKUs right now, but there's a couple of variants in there. So we do a wet chain lube, a dry chain lube and then the fork boost in kind of the lubricant category although we can talk more about fork boost and its lubricant properties and then we do a bio-based bike wash, a grease in two different sizes and suspension oil in five different weights. So that's kind of the basis of it right now. There will be a new product coming, like I said in September. Timeframe for a drivetrain cleaner.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, okay, On your dry lube. What's the elevator pitch on the dry lube?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Because we do a lot of dry lube in the desert.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We like dry lube.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, so the solvent, basically that flashes off is ethanol, so that's bio-based, of course, but if you dig into the science behind it, alejandro could explain this a million times better than I can. Basically, it's going to run clean because of these esters that he works with. He comes from a food science background, so that's how we got here. That's interesting. It's something. Yeah, I think if you haven't tried it, we have to get it to you. So there's no Teflons and so on, and uh, it's just crazy. It's in film. That runs clean. It's unbelievably clean, actually.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So it's appealing to me because I like. I don't one, I don't like cleaning my bike just because we're in the desert and you're lazy and I'm lazy and we don't need to. We don't get the mud. You know like, uh, you know when you? I just looked at one of the world cup races and I don't know the hot, hot shot downheller kid who like weighs nothing, I saw.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Jackson Goldstone yeah, I saw his bike and it's just covered and you know you have to clean, that you have to take a hose to that. We're so lucky.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:The bike that's like six size size is too big for him.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yep, yeah, and the kid weighs like 80 pounds and just dances over everything. Yeah, he's riding in those conditions and europe, that gets that. Pacific northwest, they get that. You know, I went through a puddle, uh, at whistler, that was about it, so like it was so dry up there. Um, so we're, we're just lucky. But the dry lubes are just great because they they tend to just not attract anything, just flake off dirt and then keep your drive train running and maybe you have to put it on more often, and that's pretty normal, you know.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Right, Right. We've. We've even had experiences using it in some wet conditions here in the East coast. We get a a real mixed bag and, uh, even with some exposure to water it holds up really well oh, that's good to hear too.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So, and then the suspension oil I've used. It's been great. Uh, I gotta tell you it doesn't smell as bad as some of them. So and that's no joke, you know, like when you're working all day and covering yourself pretty much in it. I haven't tried the grease or, or the bike wash or anything nope, so make sure you get a chance to try these out.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:But the wet lube is a popular product. The fork boost has been the most popular product through the years. Suspension oil is, I think, something that people will become more familiar with over time and there's maybe some skepticism around the suspension oils. But if you look at the ocean freight industry and shipping industries in general, they have to use bio-based oils and lubricants. So these products are done by a vendor for us in Canada that produces a lot of material for those industries and for automotive industries. It's top quality stuff and we're doing some third-party testing now to kind of show where it stacks up.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, that we can see. I'd like to see that.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Tell us a little bit about the fork boost.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:He said that's been your most most popular product yeah, it was the most popular product coming out of wpl's ownership. We just, you know, rebranded and updated the bottles to the ocean plastic and things like that. But uh, it's, it's not and probably very important for someone that works on a lot of suspension, this does not replace regular service.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah he was gonna say that, anyways, your basic service, do the full service.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You know when you're supposed to by the hours. Uh, it does not do that. It can. It helps clean the uh, the stanchions a bit and uh can remove and pull some of the grit and grime and get stuck just behind that. First you know the top portion of the seal so you can get especially you guys probably get the dust and light dirt found inside there. So you just apply fork boost in a ring around the stanchion very lightly above the seal, cycle the suspension a few times and wipe it all off again. And when you cycle it a few times you'll see it just captures some dust and dirt and pulls it up out of there. So it's not left between the two lips of the seal to kind of wear away the stanchion coatings. Um, it's just something you'd use every few rides as needed. No, no need to. You know, apply it heavy. You don't want to leave it on there. It's just a wipe the stanchion, apply it, cycle, wipe it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, one of the things that people don't know and if you get into, like the nerd out of the ceiling surface the Kashima code or whatever, whatever brand there that if you look at that at a microscope there's a lot of pits and valleys to it, and so one of the things that kind of degrades suspension performance is, if it's too clean, like you need some lubricant in those little holes you know to fill in the gaps, yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so that's been an issue where you know, when a fork feels so good cause it's been serviced, it's also because we don't go and like scrub it. Yeah, like I don't use alcohol or anything to take that off, we just it's almost, it's almost cleaned with oil. So but, uh, that fork boost probably helps keep that going longer past, when the the wipers will weep a little bit and they'll kind of self do that uh over time, but eventually that goes away.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So and then, uh, you were about to tell us all about the gritty secret details of what you're releasing in the fall.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, so I keep trying to get companies to do this and that none of them bite man.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well and honestly, if you do want to talk about new release stuff that you know, all you have to do is put a date on when you want us to talk about it. So if, if it is something that you want to get out there and have on the program, we would love that, and we can keep a secret until you tell us.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, it's not the world's biggest secret. You can use it when you like, but we do have a drivetrain cleaner coming out.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh cool.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, it will be available for everyone around. Should be around the 1st of September. Might be a little bit earlier to the North American market, but it'll be in around that time. So it's not this next major release or anything. But if you're going to potentially move away from Teflon-based lubricants or some other wet or dry lubricants, you want to have a clean chain and clean drivetrain. So we feel we should provide you with a really quality cleaner to do that that is also safe to, like you say, have on your hands all day and do those types of things.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:One of the things that I'm getting from this podcast already is I had no idea how thoughtful Stans is about the environment, and I mean hearing that they're using ocean plastics. You know they're making biodegradable. I didn't even know the sealant was, you know. Usually, you know, I tell people, hey, when you change a flat, just dump that stuff out on the trail. You know you get sideways looks, you know.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:But knowing that if you're doing that you're not ruining the environment, you know when you're putting a tube in to get home, you know, because you cut a sidewall or something. Uh, so that I that's new information for me. I really like to hear that.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:We try and do what we can where we can. We're not perfect. I still have a gas guzzling SUV and I ride a dirt bike sometimes, but our New York facility is solar powered. We put more back in the grid than we use. That's hard to do at New York State. I think there's 230 panels on the roof, something like that. We use ocean plastic where we can. We do the biodegradable which you know. That's something that some of the other competing products in the market. They might do things well, they might not, but if they're using a synthetic latex, which there's been this kind of steady drumbeat of synthetic doesn't have ammonia in it. Yada, yada, yada, okay, great.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But it's a petroleum product.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:at the end of the day, they're mostly petroleum-dried products, and that's what you would be dumping out on the trail. That's just not my style.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So is ammonia something that's just a byproduct of the latex you use, or do you have to add ammonia in?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:No. So the normal way when natural latex is harvested from the tree is that they add a small percentage of ammonia as a preservative, prevents bacteria growth and so on, and it also prevents some premature coagulation, et cetera. So that's super common. There are natural latex is starting to become more and more available that don't use ammonia. They use other things for that, creating that stability and preventing bacterial growth. They're just harder to come by, more expensive, etc. So when we receive the blend that we use it's less than 1% ammonia. That still can be a pretty pungent smell. We dilute it further. So we bring in this blend. That's done for us specifically. And then I mentioned New York water and there's other additives to make it last longer and do certain things.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:The smell may be from the new york water but by the time we have it in the bottle it's less than one tenth of one percent. Okay, so there's really nothing in there that causes any sort of harm or damage. You do get a little bit of a scent, and we could add another chemical or something to mask the scent, but why?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, you're trying to reduce the amount of chemicals anyway. Can I bring up an old subject that's maybe a soft spot or a sore spot for you. Like yeah, this is old, though, and but he's been in it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Why are we bringing up old stuff?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Just because I like this is the first time I've actually been able to ask about it, but in the shop we used to get the blister problem. Do you remember that, the blisters? And so basically what would happen is a customer would come in with a tire and it's got this big looks like a pimple or blister on the tire and what would happen? There's a particular brand of tire that we've already kind of beaten up, maxis Maybe. Brand of tire that we've already kind of beaten up, maxis maybe.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Um, and it was at the time the one of the only sealant companies on the market so this is how long ago this was, and uh, and they would point fingers at each other and like, as a shop, we never know, you know. And basically one would say, oh no, it's not our product, it's their product reacting with ours. And then the other one's like no, it's not our product, it's's their product reacting with ours. And then the other one's like no, it's not our product, it's their product, that's defective.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So what's the truth, mike? Yeah, what was going on?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I'm not a tire manufacturer. I've spent time around them and we had a lot of discussions back in those days about what was going on with different things and, yeah, we were certainly being blamed for a lot of it.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:But, uh, thick skin over here. So we did our own, our own studies internally and prepared some reports and went to Taiwan and that was some folks and said it was largely their us marketing and this isn't specific to Maxis. I use their tires all the time. We support each other with rims and tires and so forth, but, um, their tires all the time. We support each other with rims and tires and so forth. But we presented our reports and the sales and marketing team was in the room and they brought in the engineers. The engineers looked at us and said yeah, we know.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Apparently, in the tire manufacturing world we're going back 20 years. Yeah, this is old stuff, this is not a current issue.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's not something we see, hardly at all. There was some difficulty in having the nylon and the rubber sticking together within the casing. So you have the nylon casing and the tread cap and it's all molded together, et cetera. If those two would separate just naturally from sharp edge impacts, what have you? And that casing came away from the tread rubber. A little bit air was going to get in there and then seal it off and seal that air pocket closed, so you would have this bubble form that looked like so your product was doing what it was supposed to do.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It was sealing the tire Largely.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, it was trying to fill that hole in the casing where they had separated and delaminated. There are similar issues with casing shifting in certain brands and things like that where it's hard to make those things stick together. 100 every single time, yeah and um, yeah, basically we proved the point by we were running drum tests quite common on rims and tires and had never even had the tires in the same room with sealant and we're creating the same bubbles, oh wow, and saying, well, clearly it can't be sealing right. So that's, that's how we overcame that. And I said manufacturer of tires has gotten better, from beads to the construction to. I mean, look how many options we have now yeah, yeah, it's all the types.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's definitely not something we ever see. I haven't seen one in so so long. So, um, but I'll tell you there was some companies that didn't have that problem.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So ones that don't have the separation as much, yeah, yeah and like those companies are still going and I very rarely see problems with them, and the company I saw problems with still has problems from time to time. So not not throwing anybody under the bus, but uh, but yeah, I, I, I would definitely point more at the tire than I would the sealant, that's for sure so let's fast forward 20 years, two decades, to today.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, sorry and that's okay hey, old people.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Old people need to reminisce okay.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So I'm just saying I hear you, I hear you um, what's the difference between your original and race day sealant?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So it's really pretty simple. The liquid base of them is identical, okay, so everybody knows they're known as sealing crystals. It's particulate. Pretty much every sealant uses some kind of particulate to help plug the holes. So in our case we have this standard formula, the original formula of particulate. Consider that one dose per bottle, and then in the race day we use two doses, basically, and then we add an additional extra large particulate in there for the much bigger holes. So we're really pretty similar. Race day is much harder for us to produce, even though it sounds simple. But yeah, that's really it, you just don't put. Race day is much harder for us to produce, even though it sounds simple Um, but um, yeah, that's, that's really it.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You just don't put race day through a valve stem, don't don't try to uh and you'll be fine. And don't put it through the R injector system either. It won't work. It'll plug it up instantly, but um, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So if it seals better, why wouldn't I just run it every day?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:just some.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Some people do yeah, but those two reasons you know like yeah, just just it's just easier to put the other stuff in, so okay like race.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:What I'll often do, and some of us in the office do, is when we set up new tires, we'll set them up with race and then we'll continue to top them off through the next several months while you kill the tire with just original, that's, some of large particulate is still left inside and you're just refreshing the liquid. By and large Interesting.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I like that idea. That was verbatim what they told me. So we were carrying race day, but basically the idea is the bigger particles will plug more so that you don't lose your race, and so you're less likely to have a flat.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Uh for a race it's a little more maintenance intensively, so you have to open the tire bead. Not everybody wants to do that all the time it can. Uh, you know the famous standable can form a little bit quicker because that's largely driven by the particulate. So you'd want to clean those out what, what, what.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:What makes those?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:it's the latex drying over time and the particulate being picked up, so it kind of snowballs a little bit and it creates the coral-shaped animal.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:At one point we had a contest for who could bring in the biggest one, and a guy won because he had it in fat tires or in a fat bike and they were huge. It was bigger than a regular tire, you know?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, you see it doesn't form as much now. I think there's some differences in the mold releases that get used and so on. There's a little bit of speculation there because nobody will tell you what they use. And, yeah, we've done some slight adjustments through the years I guess 20-plus years now so you shouldn't see those form quite as readily.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I always thought somebody told me once that it was CO2, freezing it into a ball when you use CO2. That's an interesting theory, because I never had Stanimals in any of mine and I never use CO2.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And so it supported my confirmation bias.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:But then just recently I had a Stanimal in one of mine. But yeah, those things are awesome. I still have a couple sitting on the shelf at the shop always. I think I do too.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:All right, we were taking a look at your Exocor valves. Neither of us have used them.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Maybe talk us through those and what's the value proposition of an Exocor valve?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, we introduced Exocor last year. Really, we were thinking about this for a long, long time, and the Presta valve that we all know was invented about 125 years ago.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:And at the time they did not consider using sealant. Believe it or not, it was not a factor when that was invented. So obviously you can replace valve core. We've shown people how to clean valve cores et cetera. It's not a big deal to change one out. But we wanted to kind of take a fresh look at it and we said well, the first thing we want to deal with being stands is sealant. What would make a valve work better with sealant? And then the second piece was, of course, increased airflow.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It isn't going to hurt anybody.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It just makes inflation easier. And the Santa Cruz Reserve did a great job with airflow and really have nothing bad to say about that design. But I don't think, I don't believe they were thinking sealant first when they did it. I've never actually talked to them about it, but they were kind of the first one of what I I termed the super valve category. Yeah, so that's, that was kind of the benchmark when we were working on exocor, based on their design.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You know, you can't inject sealant through the valve very well, it's just a very long poppet style valve and then the o-ring at the bottom can still collect sealant. A bit natural latex like that loves to stick to rubber, so that can be a bit of an issue. So, taking our fresh approach, we were saying, well, can we get the same airflow that they did? And that's, that's a tall order? We got close, but trying to deal with sealant through exposure to a small Presta valve core, you've got a lot of little narrow passages and several different materials in there. So we said, can we take that thing out? What's a cleaner way? Well, it's a long brass pin, effectively.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:And yeah, we wanted it to be serviceable without tools and you could still take off the whole housing and do straight through the valve for injecting sealant. And we also wanted to make sure that it worked with every press, the pump and gauge and so on. That was out there. We didn't want to create a new standard that forced you into a different pump or, you know, change all your tool. You know who wants to change all their floor pumps? We've all got several of them, I'm guessing. So that was how we came about it. We did lots and lots of iterations and a lot of airflow testing. So we were measuring standard liters per minute. So what pressure does it take to achieve 100 standard liters per minute airflow? And, like I said, we got very close to where reserve is at and I think we addressed the sealantant quite well. So if you have an exocore in your hand and you want to clean it, you just unthread the housing itself and pull the pin out, wipe it off and put it back in.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You're done okay that's the big difference.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So it's not like you just move the presta core up, high or anything like that it's. And then when you're um, when you're when that pin is in there, is it dropping farther down to create a bigger passage like is the cone?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:uh, yeah, kind of when it's fully opened the bottom there's like three little wings on the bottom. Yeah, we'll sit on the top of the valve stem, so you've got three large passages for the air to move through, okay. And then at the top, there are like three windows at the top of the housing, while they are into the housing itself, okay.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's a pretty handy little system. You only have to open it a half to two turns to get max airflow and, like I said, we're just shy of where reserve is at for maximum airflow.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I feel like you guys are in a prime place to kind of change a standard, not that? And right now every bike mechanic in the whole world just groaned yeah you know, I did too. Yeah, even a bike, yeah, because I'm envisioning a schrader valve hole but a valve that has a presto top so that you can inject it into a bigger valve. You know, and nobody's come up with that. And a company like stands is unique because they're not just making the valve, they're also making the rims, so they could easily do that.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And then they also have I don't know if you knew this uh, they have uh Schrader valve course which is great, which we've used for those people that have, kind of like, drilled out their rims and then realized they wanted to go tubeless, and so I feel like that would be something that would work too for high flow.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I think that's always the first reaction. Why don't we all just use Schrader?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, why don't we?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So it does require a larger hole which, when rims were narrow, was a problem. So now that they're all wider, you've got space for it in the airflow testing we've. We've done schrader valves do not move more air than a press the valve. Okay, it is the same amount of airflow, like within a tenth of uh the standard, the pressure that we're measuring for standard liters. So it doesn't offer anything. That way it's easier to fill up at the uh, the gas station or or what have you, but it doesn't really address what we were going for, which was better with sealant and better airflow, okay.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So sure about comes up short on both and your exo cores can be used on any rim at this point, that's yes, yeah, any, yes, any Presto-sized hole will accommodate an exocore.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:We have the full exocore valve which uses our Universal Plus valve stem, which is an alloy valve stem. They're insert compatible and so on. So we've got the passages on the back. We have a different shape stopper. We call it an elongated elliptical stopper. It just fits a wider variety of rim shapes better.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:And then you'll see, if you look closely at a universal plus valve stem, that there's an interrupted thread and that thread is where the O-ring lines up when you put an exocore housing on it, so you know where to stop. It kind of tells you don't back it off any further, you don't need to. But that's all it is. It's there as a kind of a fail-safe to not take your ExoCore all the way off. But otherwise it's a standard aluminum valve stem. And if you start with Universal Plus and you decide, hey, maybe this ExoCore thing's for me, you can buy the housing separately and upgrade it. We should have some OEMs next year coming with Universal Plus valves installed on the bikes and then the shops will have an upgrade option for their users if they want a higher flow valve. It's a little bit easier to live with. They'll be able to upgrade them right there on the spot.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Texas car now we're a norco dealer and one of the nicest things when we started selling norcos was to see stands rims coming on the bikes is, and even their lower cost bikes, you know, relative to other bikes that we sell in the shop, has really kind of made that bike have a way better pedigree. You know, Norcos are pretty awesome bikes but then to have stands rims coming on a, you know, a $2,000 aluminum full suspension was pretty awesome. So that's what I liked. How much business do you guys? How much is your rim business versus your sealant business? Like you know, like if you had to get rid of one.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Percentage-wise yeah, yeah.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, I mean sealant and all the related accessories tape, valves, et cetera is a larger portion of the business at this point. That wasn't the case. You know, 10 years ago, this point, that wasn't the case. You know, 10 years ago we did a lot of complete wheels at oe and aftermarket, which you know. Obviously, 600 wheel set or 900 wheel set, you've got to sell a lot of sealant to come close. So, uh, yeah, it's shifted a bit over time. Tubeless adoption grew, more options became available in rooms, the ov bikes came with better rims and wheels. So the upgrades are different than they were a decade ago, but yeah, it's shifted. Uh, which is part of us seeing service as being so critical to the success of the shops and and to our own success uh, do you guys make your rims in-house?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:is that a new york product or is that uh partnered with somebody?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:yeah, our very early rims, if you go back to 2002 to 2005 or so, were US made, not by us, but they were extruded and made, they enrolled in California and then shipped to the East Coast and we QC'd them and they went out for anodize and they came back for decals. It was a lot of shipping. Yeah, and anybody that's been around a long time knows that Stan had to weigh every single rim himself. Oh, really.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:They would have Stan's handwritten weight in silver Sharpie right on the rim. Wow, people love that, but at the same time it was a problem. Right on the rim, wow, people love that, but at the same time it was a problem. So, uh, yeah, we uh, at some point there I can't recall the exact year moved to uh, uh, oh, under sun ring lay. Okay, it was uh. So they had had a factory in indiana and then, when they were acquired by hayes, moved, moved that all to China and I probably have some of those details wrong.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's been too long, but we were having the rims produced by them in China for a long time and then we moved production later on to Taiwan and today we can produce most of our models in the sleeved and pinned can be produced in taiwan or vietnam and all welded product is in taiwan. Wow, so we have. We have three tiers. You mentioned narco. They've been a great partner of ours for years. We have what most people right now is our premium alloy option is the mark 4 and the ex3. Right now, then we have kind of we call the mid-tier performance option is the s2, that's a sleeved rim product, and then we have the d series, which was a pinned product. So three different price points, but the biggest thing for us was that tubeless had to work perfectly on all of them. So we maintain the same tolerance, just largely in the same dimensions, to make sure that everybody has a very good tubeless experience, regardless of the price point yeah, that was the always the thing back in the day.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Again now, like you said, there's a, there's been kind of a leveling of the field, almost uh, but back in the day, stands set the standard like they were the standard.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So, uh, I sat in a meeting in high wall at one time from someone we used to do business with for another reason and they said hey, you guys are doing a great job with rims, appreciate the business, but uh, we're gonna just have to make something look exactly like yours. Now that was about the time that it all started to turn yeah, and that's yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's a big issue, you know they actually told you that, oh yeah, yeah, I mean I'll give them credit right to my face.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:they said we just going to start making rims that look like yours, yeah.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think their way of doing business is different than ours.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:That was not a Taiwanese company.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:No.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:It's a European company.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, really oh wow. Oh wow, oh interesting. Yeah, because I see a lot of Asian manufacturers who are are like that's a great idea. I'm just going to make the same thing. They're like like I don't think it's a something that they're doing offensive in their culture versus where we see it as offensive. You know, like you're, you're taking my idea and and making reverse engineering is illegal.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It is legal sorry yeah yeah legal?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:certainly is legal and I think you know we've had a lot of great sorry. I was just going to say. I think they see it as kind of like a flattering, you know, like a imitation.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Maybe I don't know yeah.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:We've had a number of long-term partners that do respect IP very well and we're quite happy with that. But I think there are some other less scrupulous or you know, really good reverse engineering groups out there. Yeah for sure.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So I want to talk about a product you guys have had for a while and I am remiss in the fact that I have not tried this yet. And as I was researching it, I'm like Jesus, why don't? Why have I not used that? And that's your dart system. Oh yeah, and the thing that I'm still using the old bacon strips and the thing that kind of was that I was surprised to learn was that it's it's designed and capable to plug a much bigger hole. So I don't know, maybe, just maybe there's some other folks in the world that are remiss like me. I know the product's been out for like five years, but, like, tell me, tell us a little bit more about the dart.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, we released the original dart in october 2019, so we were just trying to get caught up on production very well received when they came out. When when all the covid madness hit, and then then we scrambled for a while, but like everybody, so so that project came about. I was actually working on a similar but different product on the side and thought, man, how do we get this to work in a plug type system? And kind of had this random email phone call I remember taking the call from from interbike uh, with a, an inventor out of australia. He's been a great guy to work with and he said said hey, I've got this idea. And I'm like, are you serious, because I'm working on the same thing? Usually wouldn't discuss those details but he said, yeah, I've already filed for some patents. I said, okay, then how do you want to do this? You want to work together, and he's a chemist as well, and we was heading down the same path.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:And, yeah, we spent about I don't know 18 months refining what he had into practice and developing a tool to install it and basically what it is is a fabric that is saturated, impregnated with a chemical, just a salt, basically that when in contact with our sealant. It's optimized for our sealant. It reacts instantly and creates a permanent plug. So if you were, if you were to take it I think we have this on some of our instagram youtube like take a bare dart and just swish it around and seal it, you'll just see it like ball up instantly. So the idea is, if you get these larger punctures where sealant doesn't work on its own, you install the dart in the hole. It has a little barbed kind of fitting on it. When you extract it, the fabric will be sticking up through, but there'll be some exposed on the inside. Roll the wheel around. Sealant makes contact. Instant seal permanent plug. Does it kind?
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:of glue itself to it.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Effectively? Yeah, it'll stick to the tire casing and it forms a little ball of sealant right on the material itself.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:My most troublesome and most tire-ruining flat that I get is a pinch at the bead, though number one because you know the sealant wants to centrifugally force it out to the tread, you know. So it doesn't get to the bead very often and you have to kind of shake it around and notoriously the tire is kind of moving around the bead and kind of moving back and forth, kind of breaking any kind of seal that you got open over and over again. Is this something that may help there? Have you seen any?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Really? Yeah, you most definitely can use darts right at the beat. That was a big thing for us in testing. We were at very rocky conditions here and pinch flats do still happen. Most of us don't use inserts, but it will work right at the tire beat anywhere in the casing. You can stack two or three side by side. Yeah, really, whatever you can imagine you can do with. Or three side by side. Uh, yeah, really, whatever you can imagine you can do with them it's uh, it's pretty incredible.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:And then, uh casing or uh insert. You said is it something that you have to put in and where an insert would stop it, or will it? No, no no problem there at all. Man, I'm getting some of these. I know we have them at the shop. I you know what I've sold them at the shop mostly is to road bikes, because we heard that at a higher pressure they work better. They don't work out like the worms or the bacon strips.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Right, they have that little. It's a plastic piece. We assemble all these in New York, so they're welded together. Plastic welded together and it retains the fabric between the two pieces. Yeah, they're welded together. Plastic welded together and it retains the fabric between the two pieces. So the one caveat I'll say is where people do find a failure or have an issue is they try to install them in holes that are too small. So if it's a one, two, three millimeter hole, you should really let sealant do its thing. Yeah, maybe some people are anxious. I got to try this dart, do it on an old tire at home. Use a little knife, make a cut Practice. If to try this dart, do it on an old tire at home. Use a little knife, make a cut practice if you want to.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:but yeah, a little bit more yeah but you try to put them into a really small hole, you can have a hard time what's the diameter that you're kind of thinking is optimum? Uh, I think the smallest you'd really want to put in is about four millimeter okay, all right, that's a good rule of thumb.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:So yeah, uh, if it helps with the beads, I've got like six tires at home that I can revive, so yeah they become permanent seal.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:So if you put them in and mount the tire again, put the dart in but let the sealant make contact sit for a minute or two, you're, you're good. Um, you know, during testing we had people here. I ran a tire for four months maybe that had 20 or 30 darts in it. Wow, it's not going to cause any problems.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Did you shoot it with a shotgun or something?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:You keep putting them in over and over and over to test it.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, we have reps that will come by with a sealant or a product or whatever and they'll just puncture it with an awl or a sharpened screwdriver or whatever. Like it's pretty funny when, when they first started I remember slime did that a long time ago, you know so when it first hit the bike market so you guys are in the land of pokey things out there. Yeah, oh god, yeah, everything out here wants to poke you or bite you?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:yeah, inject you with poison yeah, mike's probably for the 500th time you've answered this question. Big, big Flats, new York Like.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Jesus.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So you're based in Big Flats, New York.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, we definitely planned that one. We've avoided it for 20-some years of doing the April Fool's thing with it. It's on the bottle, people see it, they laugh, they think we made it up, but no, it's a couple miles. People see it, they laugh, they think it's. Yeah, I think we made it up, but no, it's a couple of miles from where Stan and Cindy grew up. It's just where we've been.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's hilarious.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Originally, our first address, though, as Stan's, was Horseheads, new York, so we did move down the road to Big Flats.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That is pretty awesome, though Never petitioned a town to change the name or anything. Oh, they should have a stands day or something like I don't know if they do that, but seriously, like I, I imagine well, how big is your operation? How many employees, uh, do you have?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:uh, yeah, I think we're like 36 right now. Yeah, that's size they're they're about. So we have the facility in in big flats, new york, which is, uh, it's actually three buildings on a single parcel, two, uh, warehouses. Yeah, that's sizeable. Sitting tonight I'm not in it, but, um, the office here is largely our sales, you know, distributor sales. Um, engineering is here, so all r&d work and most of the marketing team is based here.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:But state college is a phenomenal riding location. You guys have never heard of it or been out this way. Uh, rocky, technical stuff. If you like rock crawling, we've got it. If you like super long descents, you're gonna come up a little short. We've got some gnarly descents, nice. And then we've got hundreds and hundreds of miles of gravel around here. So transylvania epic takes place here. The wilderness 101 uh, thumb brick gravel races, unpaved gravels not too far down the road. So it's it's a good spot for riding and testing and so on. And the office we're in now the local progressive skills park is in the backyard, basically. So we've got that going for us and I'm also vice chair of uh board of rothrock trail alliance. We're building currently building 53 miles, a new trail here, so we'll have 250 miles or something when we're done in the local forest wow that's uh it's pretty good, so it's fun.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Environmentally conscious yeah, been in the business forever and you know advocate for trails like I.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:I am definitely going to start buying more stands product there'll be a grand opening next week for the first eight miles of that project and we'll open another 11 before winter. That's awesome congratulations.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's awesome. Well, mike, thanks for spending some time with us. It's been great to get to know you and hear more about stands. I've been using the product for 20 years.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:I have not tried another one because I have had no need to yeah, yeah, the, uh, the, and I'm anxious to try the wpl a little bit more. Definitely tried the fork boost and the oils, but I haven't tried any of the other stuff. And then, man, I'm getting some darts. We've got them in the shop. If I remember correctly, they come as a two-pack and then you can buy refills. Does that sound right?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, so the refill used to be a five-pack. We just changed that to a six, six. And then the standard, or the original dart tool was just recently updated from a carbon rod model to a stainless steel rod model, a little bit more durable, especially when you're trying to deal with small holes. Yeah, um, and if anybody ever has an issue with the carbon one, we'll swap you out for a steel one, no problem, nice. And then, um, in that same vein, we uh, last year I should know this we launched a project with DaySaver tools out of Switzerland with what we call the Incredible Dart, so it's a stashable version for your handlebar. So that's a pretty cool machine.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh, they showed us that at Sonoma.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that looks really cool, more machined, and is it in your bar ends?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Yeah, it fits in your handlebar. If you're running grips without a bar end plug, yeah, that'd be awesome. Do this little cam mechanism and run it in there.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But yeah, cool, that's what we're doing over here, for sure, right on. Well, mike, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?
Mike Bush - Stan's President:No, I should really have something very profound, but it's 11.05 my time the day after coming home from Europe.
Dane "The Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's okay, man.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You did really well. By the way, that's pretty much how I feel every day, by the way. Thank you so much, sir hey thanks.
Mike Bush - Stan's President:Very good, Thank you guys Appreciate it. Thank you.
