The Warp & Weft of American Kit Making with Eliel Cycling's Ryan Cady

Starting an American kit company in a sea of established competitors may seem like a daunting undertaking to some. Ryan Cady, however, became a bike shop owner at nineteen years old during college, raced bikes full time and then ran a sock company before he stepped up to the plate. Cady gravitates toward detail-oriented challenges and he met his match after launching Eliel Cycling in 2014. This episode contains an abbreviated master class in Eliel’s craft - from ordering a spectrum of italian fabrics, to panel choices, sublimation dying, laser cutting, and masterful hand sewing. Cady also shares both his pride in establishing an American heritage brand as well as the challenges of Southern California manufacturing. At the heart of Eliel is a founder and CEO who started a cycling brand because he loves the sport and knows he can improve the experience. Keep listening and judge for yourself.

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Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik

Transcript

0:10

And once again, how do you pronoun? Is it elial? Yeah, El. Okay, almost got it. Hey, this is Sam Huntington, and you're listening to hill climbers. Over the last ten years, I've ridden bikes in Philadelphia and then LA, and more recently Austin, Texas. And it's been one of my life's pleasures to meet hundreds of cyclists over the course of this time. And sure, there's been friendships and camaraderie. Built around some healthy competition on group rides and on Strava, and that's great, but Hill Climbers is really paying homage to those cyclists I've met that I admire off the bike. These are individuals that have really fascinating stories. They're building businesses, or they're part of the cycling zeitgeist in alternative ways. And I think it is a fantastic opportunity here with this podcast to tell. Stories of what they're doing off the bike that maybe you would never hear about on the group ride. Riding next to them. Starting an american kit company in a sea of established competitors may seem like a daunting undertaking to some. Ryan Cady, however, became a bike shop owner at 19 years old during college, raced bikes full time, and then ran a sock company before he stepped up to the plate. Cady gravitates toward detail oriented challenges, and he met his match after launching Eliole Cycling in 2014. This episode contains an abbreviated masterclass in Eliels craft, from ordering a spectrum of italian fabrics to panel choices, sublimation, dyeing, laser cutting, and masterful hand sewing. Katie also shares both his pride in establishing an american heritage brand as well as the challenges of Southern California manufacturing. At the heart of Eliot is a founder and CEO who started a cycling brand because he loves the sport and knows he can improve the experience. Keep listening and see for yourself. We have Brian Cadye, the founder or co founder of Lel Cycling. Yeah, co founder. Yeah, Derek Wyback was my founding partner. Yeah, we worked together for years at SoC. Actually, we used to race collegiate together. That's how we first met. I think he's worked for probably all of my different businesses, my bike shop back in the day as well, for a little bit. So we're long time friends. And Derek, of course, is where this story begins. So Derek hit me up before he visited Austin recently, a few months ago. Said, hey, I'm coming to town, you know, would love to grab coffee. So, yeah, Ryan, it's really a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us. And I'll do a little bit more background. I had moved to LA in 2015, end of 2015. And that was my kind of first time getting familiar with the brand. Leo Washington. Really? You guys have a lot of market share in the Los Angeles area and. Yeah, I mean, the brand stood out, and we're going to talk a little bit about that because you guys feature bold colors, patterns that are out there and attention grabbing, and are very much sort of the antithesis of some of the single color. Yeah. Matte type kits that you see that, you know, that have been popular now for the last, what, like probably ten years. Yeah. But definitely a story behind that, which. Is great that you picked up on. That, but we'll get to that, I guess. Yeah. Why don't we jump right in? And again, this all started with Derek, and sure enough, a few months later, we have Ryan on the show. So thanks so much for making time and for being here on the Hill climbers show. I appreciate you having me. Let's just. Yeah, let's just take the easy question to start. What is your history with cycling? How did you get into it? Well, probably two different phases on that one, so I actually remember years past, so I grew up all over the midwest. You actually asked about growing up in SoCal, but actually, I grew up mostly in the midwest until I moved to California going into 8th grade, into a community in LA. But we lived in Milwaukee, in Wisconsin for a while. My dad worked for Miller brewing there, and he used to take us out to. They used to have the nationals, whatever that was back then there. And we used to go out. He used to have a little one of those reverse trailers. It was made by. I think it was made by Cannondale at the time or something. So it was a plastic bucket that connected to the back of the bike. And he was always into. He loved motorcycles and bicycles, anything mechanical. And then he would take my brother and I, throw us in the back of that thing, and we'd ride out and we'd watch the, you know, just for an outing, you know, go watch some bike races. So that was kind of like the first. Yeah. Introduction to cycling, you know. Cool. And then. And then you got, you know, you mentioned collegiate racing, and I think you mentioned the word pro at one point. What was the transition into taking cycling more seriously? Yeah, well, I played soccer, you know, coming from the midwest, too, you know, big, big soccer area. So when I moved out to California, I was still playing soccer and kind of hit the high school junior varsity and just wasn't, you know, didn't really click that the other kids weren't really excited about it, you know, I really wanted to be, you know, in that varsity level. I missed that, that cut when I was a sophomore, and I was just, you know, it just wasn't my vibe then. So turns out I had a friend and one of my, let's say, a little bit of a nerdy kid, Andy. I don't think he would mind me saying that too much, but, you know, parents work for JPL, so, you know, first kid with an Apple computer, all that kind of stuff. But we were having a conversation one day, and I was in soccer training, and he was a bike rider, so he was riding. He was doing solving century stuff like that when we were almost 16 and got into an argument, as you do as little kids, who's in better shape? As if it has any translation. There's literally zero translation between soccer shape and cycling shape. So he's like, well, why don't you just. I mean, he knew, of course. He's like, why don't you come? I was like, oh, I got my brother's old racing bike that he bought when we were in Ohio before we moved out that's sitting dormant in the garage. I'm like, I'll just grab that thing. And he's like, let's go for a ride one day. I'm like, all right, cool. So I grabbed the bike, you know, no idea how, you know, set it up, whatever, and go out for a ride with him. We're, you know, we're in Claremont, which is a base of, like, mount baldy, if. If anyone knows that from the tour of California, it's a massive, massive climb right there, but in the foothills. So he takes me up on this little. Just this little route, probably with this little tiny hill in the, you know, base of the mountains there, and just, of course, just completely destroys me, right? I mean, as soon as we hit the hill, he's gone. He says he was a smaller guy, too, and I had no idea what I was doing, so. But, you know, I'm huffing and puffing. I get to the top, he's waiting there for me. And even though, you know, he just schooled me, I was still like, man, that was frickin rad. And then we just bombed down, you know, a little descent, and it was like, that was kind of it, man. I don't know. It was like, it was that. That simple. And then started riding a little bit, and then two other things happened. We had. This was hilarious because they had a career day at school, and one of the local cycling clubs it's still there, I think. I think it's still a club Lagrange, man. It'll cut me in a bit. But I don't know the cycling coach, there was a coach that was coach coach in the juniors program, and he shows up as, you know, a career day and talks about being a professional cyclist as if that was a normal thing in high school. So, of course, I was just getting into cycling. Just saw it. So I'm like, I'm going to go check this out. And so, anyways, I just learned about the club and then so immediately joined the junior team with my friend Andy, and they had a couple of really good racers already there and just dove right in at that point, I have. To say, that's got to be like the worst career day model of all time. Of all time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially, you know, especially here in the US. Absolutely. Oh, my God. But also right then. I mean, it was that. Yeah, exactly. I have no idea how that happened, but it was hilarious. And the guy loved the coach. I think his name was Mark. Super nice guy. You know, he used to come out, they used to do Tuesday night workouts, and he'd be on the scooter, and we do little sprint workouts from behind the scooter. And you get the juniors. He was, he was doing it for all the. All the club of the juniors. We'd all line up and, you know, and then there'd be a point. And so we learn how to sprint and, you know, kind of lead out on the motor and stuff. Super fun. Like, they're not a lot of that going on, I think, these days, unfortunately. But the other big thing that happened is that Le Monde won the tour in 89. So I'm watching that on tv, and, of course, that was, like, the end right there, man. I was, like, immediately hooked. I love hearing these stories for, for someone like yourself that got into racing as a young man, because it takes those very special enclaves and a cycling coach coming to your career day. Not a lot of communities have that. And Southern California is one where it's got this really rich history with bikes. And guess what? You can ride your bike every day of the year. There's not much rain, there's not much keeping you off the roads. So that's a great story. You had not shared that one with me. That's a keyer. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, the other cool thing about those clubs, and I think the culture in general, that still is today, right, is that I show up as a new rider junior and immediately there's a whole club that takes you in and basically you become part of that community and it's like not even questioned. Right? I mean, you're on a bike, they're on a bike, doesn't matter. Rich, poor, whatever, you know, like here you are and people are helpful and they're pointing things out and teaching you things. And it's like this instant community of friends. And I found that no matter where I go in travels and all the different versions of cycling I've done over the years, that's a common thread throughout. Right? Yeah. And by the way, just on that anecdote about sort of the feeder program when I was in LaGrange had a, that's one of the local clubs that's been around for decades, but they had a juniors program. And you would see these kids come in and they don't know what they're doing. They're just getting started and within a year or two they're just studs and kids that you wouldn't necessarily think would have that much potential. So, man, what a beautiful thing to observe. And also when you're that young and you realize that you can do a sentry, you can climb 10,000ft in one ride. I mean, it just, I don't know, in some way it's got to set you up for some success when that ceiling is just totally destroyed. Well, what was interesting, you kind of bring up. So at that time, when I started as a junior racer, my first race was at 1516 category and in southern California. I mean, Jeff Evanshine won the junior world championships in that time. And you know, I mean, there were just kids that were already cat one level, you know, super good racers and I had no idea just starting out. So I'm like, oh, I do the junior race. That's the easiest, you know, that's the beginning place you start, right? Wrong. Oh my God. Yeah, so I did, I think a couple races when I was 16, then next year I was in the 17. So I was right. That was when it was like I did like one or two races the year, you know, the summer before end of summer or something. So I come into the season as a 17 year old, still pretty new, been riding six months or something, right? Maybe a little bit more and I just get whacked. I mean, it's just, it's not even close. And I'm just like, holy crap, you know, and it would have been pretty easy to get discouraged. But then I tried, then somebody invited me, you know, like to you know, do another race, do a category race to, like, do more training. Right. So you get two races in. And I did the cat four race. It wasn't even a cat five back then. It was just fours. And immediately I was, like, competitive and, like, you know, mixing it up in the sprint. I was like, this is so much easier than the junior race. So that was super encouraging because I actually won a couple races pretty quick in the cat four s. You know, you've had this really remarkable career and run with Elio. What were you like as a kid? Like, what were your interests outside of cycling? I mean, were you. Is there anything that you look back on that would point to kind of a future in kit making? No, not. I mean, I don't think. I don't think anything from a young age. I mean, if I think about, like, some of the things that really. I mean, I have amazing parents that, you know, I think raised me with a great, you know, even though I was born in New Jersey, that's where they started out. My dad's from the east Coast, Massachusetts. He was working in New York at the time before he moved out. But, you know, the midwest upbringing, I think there was just a lot of really good family values, to be honest. And, you know, I had a really, you know, positive, welcoming, you know, encouraging. You know, I really felt like I could do anything, you know, with. With, you know, my parents support, my family support. And, you know, we moved a lot, too. So we were close family, me and my brother. I have one brother two years older, and we moved every two years for, you know, gosh, five. Five different moves around kind of the midwest, I think. And so that was tough. You know, you kind of have to, you know, you got one, you have to learn how to adapt. And that's another, you know, I think part. One of the things I learned from that, but also being, you know, being really very close with my. With my family. But no, I think the other probably, you know, I think just that, I mean, I was that kid that was pretty good at a lot of, you know, I. Whenever I did something, I was pretty good at it right from the start, but I didn't learn a lot of really good work ethic. I was always the kid that was, like, trying to figure out how to game the system and do things. And I cruised through, you know, not to. Not to brag or anything. I cruised through school, you know, for a while. And, you know, I only had a little bit of trouble when I was doing, like, ap tests and in high school. And even then, I figured out kind of how to game the system and, you know, got into UCSD, right? Which I certainly would not these days. I mean, like, I look at what my kids had to do to get in school these days. I would have been like, there's no way they would have taken me. But then I got the wake up call in college, right? It was just like, oh, man. Almost flunked out of my first calculus class there. Got the wake up call. But I was always kind of that, that guy that was looking for those angles and. But then when I found cycling, I think that the passion that I found, I was just so in love with it, and I wanted to do it. I just wanted to race. I loved the racing part of it, and so I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to become a better racer. And that then, then that passion kind of fueled the attention to detail and, you know, and I wasn't the most physically gifted. My vo two Max is not, you know, 80 or whatever, you know, I think fairly, I mean, good enough that I had success right away, and I'm pretty quick, you know, from a sprint. I had good natural ability for tactics, but I had to learn all that stuff. And if I wanted to, as I got into the better categories, I mean, you have to really learn and pay attention. And, you know, I always had my equipment dialed. I mean, I was really into time trialing for quite a few years. And so before that was, you know, I mean, this was back in, I don't know what, the mid, late nineties. So some of the early, you know, early equipment, the new cervelos and things like that, I had some of those early on, but I was always an attention to detail. And so I was, you know, because of that, I always had a good advantage. I never had mechanicals in races because I always had my stuff dialed. And I didn't want any excuses either. I hated, I hated, I hated that, you know, like, if I screwed up and I didn't win or I didn't do well, I wanted it to be 100% on me. I didn't want it to be like, oh, I got a flat, I couldn't do this, or my chain came off or my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, yeah. And we talked about the mate mahoric. What was it? Was it Milan, San Remo, the dropper post like that? Yeah, that was kind of what I thought of when you shared that aspect of how you're thinking about racing. Obviously, the guy is super talented, right. But he came up with something, maybe gave him an advantage. Yeah. To get him past those maybe guys who are that couple percent more gifted than him. That was amazing. Right? And we'll get into Elio and your sort of unique approach, but I really think that this is telling. I mean, you're thinking about kit making and detail across all of the disciplines in the supply line. I think it kind of a telling comment. So I had a teammate, this guy, Victor Ayala, who lives in Ensenada, and we became teammates in the last few years of racing. And we were on the Schroeder pro team for a year together, years after. I mean, this is, you know, that was 15, probably years before and before Eliel started. But when I did, and he's still racing, I reconnected. He's actually on Lagrange. You mentioned LaGrange earlier, but when I, you know, saw him again after starting Elial, you know, he's, you know, I was kind of telling about the gear, and he's like, Brian, you don't even need to tell me about the gear. I know it's going to be amazing because you're so freaking anal about your equipment and everything. He's like, you know, you always had to have every freaking thing dialed. And I think that's. That's what I brought, you know, and still bring to business. And certainly the clothing and the gear itself. Let's start talking about that. So you mentioned you fell head over heels in love with bike racing, and it sounded like you wanted to make that part of your life, part of your livelihood. What were some of the first steps to starting the company? What's that story? I could probably talk for hours about this, but in my sophomore year of UCSD, I couldn't get all the classes I want. And in my freshman year at UCSD, my parents moved from LA to Detroit, Michigan, for a new job. And so the summer after my freshman year, I went to Detroit with no friends, no nothing. And again, thank goodness I got a job at the local bike shop, D and D bikes. And that was my friend group for that summer until I started meeting some people at the very end. And I didn't want to go back to Detroit, no offense, the next summer. So I got, you know, when I couldn't, I was having trouble finding classes I needed in the spring quarter at UCSD. So I just started working at a bike shop and moved in with a friend on the cycling team who had a. Who was a bit older and had a place, had a little condo in town. And, yeah, so I wouldn't have to go back for the summer. And then that turned into the owner of the shop, you know, kind of a newer shop, decided that he wanted to sell the shop, didn't want to do it anymore. So he kind of told the employees one day, and I just mentioned it to my, my roommate when I went home and he came back to me the next day and was like, we should buy the shop. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm 19, like in school. Like, you know, I mean, he was, I think, five years older and had, I meand, crazy smart guy. He's a dual us swiss citizen, speaks five, six languages, but he had run a business with his dad and his brother previous, so he's like, no, let's do this. Borrow a little bit of money from your parents and I'll put in most of it and we'll go in and do this. So we ended up doing that. My parents, amazingly, kind of went along with that. But it was a great experience. I mean, really, I learned more running the bike shop than I learned at UCSD in terms of what I actually do in my career as an economics major at UCSD and maybe life, too. Which are also very valuable lessons. Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, luckily, my dad was an HR professional for his career, and so he gave me a lot of guidance in managing people. But, you know, that's always the hardest thing in any business of managing people. And there's this broad theme, this narrative around really questioning traditional liberal arts secondary education. And you, it sounds like just, you got put through the wringer early. And like I said, I mean, what a hands on, real world education that you got. Well, I was super lucky. My business partner, Nick, he really took me through different parts of the business, and he was really accommodating because I was going to school. I was still trying to race bikes at the time, and I was a young kid that doesn't always make the best decisions. And he gave me enough rope, but then also knew how to say, okay, dude really grew up here. And, yeah, you know, you need to show up for work on time or whatever it is, right, whatever I was doing at the time. But he also let me go through the different phases of the business to the last. It was for six years we did this. And so by the end, you know, I was the GM and running, you know, overseeing everything. And, you know, he stepped out of the business the last couple of years to do some other things. And then we decided to sell the business. I still wanted to be a bike racer. I got to be a good cat one, and, you know, wanted to give it a try. Just, you know, I didn't think I was going to be a professional racer, but, you know, it's just one of those things you want to get out of your system, and I didn't want to look back and regret it, you know, nothing doing it, and not really, you know, understand me, if I could be a cat one and working full time and getting. Still getting my degree from UCSD, like, okay, well, what if I eliminate the work in the school part? I'll be amazing, right? Fortunately, it doesn't work that way. If you don't. If you don't have the genetics, it doesn't really work that way. But I didn't actually get much better, as it turns out, with all that extra time. But it was a great. It was a great thing. It really did get out of my system, the racing part of it, and I'm really glad I did it. I learned a lot, um, you know, way more than, you know, um, about racing and just, I think, professional sports and life in general, it was a really good experience. Um, and also just to. Just to pay you a compliment and call this out, it's one thing to try to go pro when you haven't already started a degree in your own business, but you. You were already stacking, you know, the academics and. And the real world education. So to go try to be a pro for a couple years maybe, maybe didn't seem as big of a risk. Right? I don't know, some of my, you know, my in laws and family might have been a little bit, like, what? You know, you're selling the bike shop, like, you've got this thing going on here, and now you're going to, like, you know, race full time for a year or two. Like, what is that all about? You say guys, you just don't understand. Yeah, I mean, luckily, they rolled with it, you know, very. You know, I appreciate, you know, family was very, very accommodating in the end, even though I think there was some. Some cross eyed looks, maybe. But, you know, I mean, I did it, and when I got. I got let go from my, you know, but from my team right before the pro championships the year I was doing it. And, you know, which is kind of a funny story, because the next week, I won, like, one of the last races I did and got in a breakaway with the guy who was replacing me for that race, which was kind of funny. But, yeah, you know, but it was, you know, just, it was a, I don't know, long story once. And I'm just like, you know what? Okay, this is, I'm not going backwards with this. Like, I hit the level I could do. I did some big races around the country. I learned a lot. This is great. But, like, now I gotta, you know, I gotta go back and get it. Get a, get a quote, real job and, you know, get back. Get back to life, right? So how do we get to Elio? So basically, I knew the founder of sock guy, cycling socks, and I started working for him. That sum, right away. He's just like, oh, I know you from your bike racer. Why don't you come work me on the. Okay. So I come in, it's just. Just me and him in office, another guy, remote. And I was packing socks, and I'm looking around, and all of a sudden, you know, they had another partner that was leaving. He's like, oh, here, you ran a business before. Here's the books and everything. And, like, you know, like, these guys need you to do this. I'm like, oh, cool, like, I was interested, right? I'm like, all right, amazing. I worked so many hours that, you know, that summer just, I pack stuff and then I go get into the, you know, get in their accounting system, figure things out. I was, you know, learning the suppliers, you know, working with the factory back in. It was in Tennessee at the time, so just got super into that business and then through a series of events, ended up buying the founder out and partnering with the other partner that was there, and ended up doing that for ten years, grew that business. Really interesting, fun business. I think in the end, there was a point where I was looking at, I really wanted to expand and do clothing as well. I mean, we were selling clubs, and teams weren't our biggest business for that. That was actually very few clubs and teams were big enough to do 120 pairs, which was the minimum order of socks. So that wasn't a big part of our business. But, you know, we'd sell, you know, 120 pairs. There's like $5600 order of socks. Meanwhile, that same group, because they're usually big clubs that were doing that are ordering $50,000 of clothing. And I'm like, oh, why aren't we doing that? Like, we're, we're doing all the sales and all the stuff behind the scenes. Like, if we actually had clothing, okay, that's, you know, that's a whole nother story there. Like, making that clothing is a little bit different. Than making socks, which is relatively simple. Which you'll learn later. Yeah, I mean, the machines are very complex that make socks, but, you know, we had a great, we had a great crew in Alabama, very experienced, you know, sock manufacturers that make great socks. So. But it's very limiting. Like, there's only so much you can do with a sock machine. I don't care. All the bells and whittles, the padding, all the stuff that's out there, there's only so much you can do with socks that really affect the performance. And so, you know, I was like, wow, you know, the clothing would be a really interesting thing, but I, my partner at time, he didn't want to do, he's 20 years older, and he didn't want to take that risk and do that. So I kind of put that on the shelf. But eventually I was like, look, I got a lot of years to work here, and I don't want to just. It's hard to expand the sock business into running. There's a lot of bullying going on with the big brands in terms of selling running socks in the different markets. So we're kind of in this niche market, which is great, to be honest. Not a ton of competition, but also not a ton of growth opportunity. Nice, you know, good, profitable business. But I just wanted to do more. And so ended up, you know, buying out, you know, getting bought out by my partner and then kind of started looking for the next, the next thing. And that brought me to, I looked at a bunch of different things at that time, but eventually said, you know, clothing has been my passion. I always liked the fashion. I liked the technology of it. There's always stuff about the clothing I didn't like and still didn't like. And the stuff that I was writing wears out too fast. Chafes in the wrong place. Like, why do they make it this way? Why is there a seam here that seems ridiculous? Like, I could do it better. I can do it better. I can do it better, right? So, you know, so finally put my money where my mouth was and said, all right, I'm going to. I'm going to do it. And what year are we talking? This was 2014. I mean, you know, started doing the research. 2012. I really started at Interbike 2012. Sold to my partner, I think, in February of 2012. Took some time off, did some travel with the family, and then went to interbike that year and started really kind of looking around more serious. And then probably by summer in 13, kind of committed to found the equipment, decided to do it here because that was, I talked with so many different suppliers, and nobody wanted to make new patterns, which I didn't understand quite why, but nobody wanted to make new patterns from the established companies. And, you know, nobody, you know, I mean, they're all doing their own business, right? Why do they want to do business with another, this young kid coming in? Like, what does he know? Or whatever it sounds like. It sounds like you had a vision for, you know, making obviously super high quality product, but then also how, how it would look and feel visually, aesthetically. Yeah. So certainly, like, there's always, like, I always have attention for detail, and even though I'm not, like, a big fashionista, big luxury brands and stuff, but I appreciate it, and I can see things in those brands, and I love the little details and things that make things special. And so that was always part of my parents always laughed that I have champagne tastes and back when I was a kid on a beer budget, but that was just that attention to detail and liking those things. It's like, I don't have to have those things, but I appreciate, you know, and I don't actually, you know, wear a lot of, I don't wear, like, designer stuff, but, but I like, but I like a lot of that stuff. I like to look at it and I like, I like to see that the creative parts that go into that process, and I think that was always a passion of mine and wanting to bring that. Plus, again, the technical aspect, wanting to improve the gear and make it work like I thought it should work. And I also knew from, you know, at the time that, you know, the, there were brands on the market, right, that didn't do custom. And their gear, some of them was way higher quality than the custom stuff we're using. I was like, well, there's no way the pros are wearing the custom stuff that I wear because there's no way you could do the Tour de France and the gear that I'm wearing because this stuff wears out, like, instantly. Like, it just loses compression, starts chafing. There's no way. So, you know, someone's making better gear. And so my goal was to really figure out, you know, how to do that. And, you know, I think at the time, a lot of custom companies was a race to the bottom. It's a very expensive business. It's a lot of labor doing custom gear, the clothing, but also the artwork and all that stuff takes a lot of time. And so I think people are just always looking to cut corners and cut costs and ultimately, you know, the product suffered. And so I said, all right, well, I'm just going to see if I can make a better quality product and I'm assuming there's enough people in the. Market I want to jump into you and I had a fascinating conversation about Kit making before this, and we'll get to that in a second. But also, I want to call out just what you stand for from an aesthetic perspective. Already talked about the colors, the patterns. Was that part of your vision for the brand early days? Is that part of how you wanted to stand out? Can you talk about that? Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I'm such a mix of, because again, grew up very conservative midwest, I'm not going to wear big logos, and here I am in my plain black shirt or whatever, right? Not a, not a flashy guy from that standpoint, but there's something about when you get on a bike and from the team aspect, you know, when you had a great looking kit, man, you just want to put it on and be out there and, you know, there's something about, like, letting loose when you're out on a bike. Like your personality can, I think, can show through. You know, for me, I'm not afraid. Middle aged men are Superman, right? Absolutely. Absolutely right. And I think that's a great thing. Right? And, you know, there's different days. I mean, I go out certain days. I want to, you know, I want to wear a plane kit and just be out and, you know, I want to be, you know, just not noticed and be in my own zone and do my best thinking. And then there's other times you want to go out and just, you know, you feel playful and fun and fast and, you know, if you're in good shape sometimes too, you know, you want to wear something different, a little flashy. And I think that, you know, just that the different, you know, patterns and things can do that. So coming from that, like, I don't have one style that is just like, this is, this is the style. I can go from different places, so I bring a lot of that to the table as well. But also, growing up in California, it's bright, it's fun. And what I saw on the market from the bigger brands and like you said, the monochrome, the matte looks or whatever it is, right? That's not really California, man. We're bright, fun, endless summer, the sunset fade, that's where our brand colors come from. There's just so much color. There's Hollywood. We did a Venice collection one time. Just fun. Colorful. You know, you've got, you know, I don't know, you have so much terrain here and, you know, you've got social stuff, you've got the outdoors here, you've got, you know, Hollywood, you've got tech. You know, California is such an interesting, you know, mix throughout the. And every, you know, there's so many different places in California. It's not all one. Right? But I like that. You know, it kind of brings it all in and to me that's kind of what I think, you know, has inspired us as a brand. That's why we, you know, we wanted to be a California inspired brand. Plus, there's not really us like what I call heritage brands in cycling apparel. You know, they're all european based for the most part. And why wouldn't there be a us, you know, like California is like a, it's a brand in itself, right? I mean it's like a country. I totally agree. And I mentioned arriving in LA and seeing your kits and, and, you know, there's, there's also the bear which is on the, on the California flag as part of your logo. But something about the designs and the colors just said Southern California and people got it. People wrapped it. And I didn't fully realize this, but if you were really just getting started when I moved to LA, then you guys had already made a solid dent in the market when you had just launched. The reason that we're still here is because the first gear that we made, I put so much time into the R and D doing it ourselves. I mean, like, you know, 50 plus prototypes, like nobody does. Like, that doesn't exist, you know, most, I mean, like if you're doing more than three and you're, you know, using an outsourced manufacturer, like you're being inefficient. But, you know, to go from scratch to, you know, really wanting to make a different product and honestly doing those 50 prototypes, that's, that was my education and apparel design and, and fabrics and function and all that stuff. And, you know, I mean I was the tester, right? I was able to make the gear I'd put it on. You know, I used to have like some of them was like this, all white because it wasn't sublimated printed. We didn't have the printing equipment yet. So we get the raw fabric was just white as it, as it comes before it's printed. And so like, I literally had an all white kit at one point that I would go out and do 8000 miles rides in the one that thing better be, you know, not see through, right? It better be had. The opacity better be damn good because you're sweating in this thing and it's going to be a mess. You know, never recommend white shorts unless you're a world champion, right? And you're super fit. But, you know, I was thankful I was actually super fit at the time because I was testing every day. I would go out and I do these monster rides in the gear because everything works the same for 2 hours, right? If you're doing a coffee ride, like, it's all similar. I mean, it's not, but it is. It's really when you get into four, five, 6 hours that the gear is completely changes, right? And so if you can't actually, if the designer that's designing the gear can't go out and do that, you'll never know, right? You'll never know how good a shammy is, how good a material is unless you go out and put it through the paces. And that's where my cycling background and, you know, riding at the level that I rode at was a huge benefit. I mean, I don't know any other. Are there any other founders, CEO's of companies that still design the gear and ride like that? I don't know. Yeah. Don't know any. Off the top of my head, I was just going to say, based on what you shared and going through those 50 iterations, it makes sense that your product can hit the market and you can look like you've already been an established brand. So that's what really interesting insight for me, having, you know, having observed the brand in the early days. Yeah. One of my favorite, favorite stories is one of my local friends here. He's in the cycling industry doing marketing, written for years, owned a bunch of different, you know, companies around the, you know, and, you know, we start off, and he kind of said, you know, Ryan, when you started, I was like, how are you going to do this any better? Like, there's companies that are 30, 40, 50 years old doing apparel. Like, you're crazy to think that you're gonna do something different and better. And then he, then he rode the first pairs and he's like, I don't know what you did, but this is better than anything I've been using. And like, that was it. He was like, I gotta get rid of all my other gear and I'm just gonna use this. So that was, you know, I mean, that's like, you know, you're just like, yeah, it's really, I mean, that. That's the. Yeah, those are the types of things that I really appreciate. And, like, when clients come and say that, the one positive, throughout the ten years, we've had a lot of ups and downs, but the one positive is that the gear has always been really good and people feel it. I talked to some clients just this last week, doing some outreach just to some of our clients, people I never talked to before, and that's the common thing. It's like, man, I found your stuff. It feels amazing. It's just better than everything else I use. And that's why I like the brand. And then, okay, I like your designs, too, but ultimately, it's the quality and the feel that they love. The most important part. Yeah. I was so excited to talk about this. Let's dive into the actual process of making manufacturing kits. There are just some really incredible gems in here. Can you just walk us through what your process is for? Sure, yeah. You know, I mean, right off the gate, right out of the bat, you know, I mean, I realized that either I was going to be living in Asia at a factory, you know, trying to make this gear and just being annoying to whoever owned the factory, or, you know. You know, because nobody wanted to do it here, I was going to have to, you know, do it myself. And, you know, and also, I didn't want to be traveling, you know, young family, you know, I didn't want to be traveling, you know, be gone all the time either. So that was part of the equation. But I actually met someone who was doing the gear for rock. If you remember rock racing, the cycling brand, that was rock and Republic jeans. That was for a few years. They had the big wild race team for a while. They were actually manufacturing their stuff. It wasn't custom, but it was their own inline stuff in LA. And I found the guy who actually had set up there and worked in their manufacturing, and he became a rep for the equipment. So I found the stuff he gave me enough information on. Okay, you need this equipment. Here's kind of the metrics. I was like, okay, I think this can work. I mean, like, you know, we're nothing, you know, we don't have the duties, we don't have the shipping, you know, costs or whatever. I think we can do this. So we, you know, that was kind of, you know, finding the fabrics, finding the right equipment, you know, investing. We were one of the first companies probably to invest in the laser cutting equipment. So not hand cutting any of the. Any of the fabrics, which there's a lot of stories, learning that, learning that machine in its early days. But we did it like Derek and I. Like, we were the ones that started and we were running. You know, we had an artist with us doing the graphics, but we were running printers, we were running the heat press. We were transfers to the fabric. So we learned all these things throughout the process. And can you talk a little bit about the sublimation process and why that's better for the kits, look and quality? The way it works is basically, you have a designer. They go through and they create the design. They have to put it onto a template in illustrator with all the patterns pieces, right. They create a print file, and then it prints onto a piece of paper on a super large format printer, right. And, you know, they kind of puzzle piece it all together, like Tetris or whatnot in our case, because we actually print roll to roll, which is kind of a different, different process. So a lot of companies before would cut the pieces out beforehand, right? Just the pieces of fabric, right. Blank, not printed. And you would print the paper, and then you would take these old pieces, and you'd have to match up size and the right part, and you'd put it on the ink, and then you'd either put it into a flat press, and it would come down and press it, or it could go through a calendar press, which is the moving, like the big drums that it pulls the paper in and goes through a lot of room for error there. You could pull wrong sizes. You can. The pieces can shift and get these little, you know, quality issues in the printing, all kinds of things. So we were like, okay, well, we wanted to use, you know, we wanted to eliminate as much labor as we could because we're in California, you know, very expensive labor. So we looked at, okay, you know, the laser cutting, eliminating the hand cutting of the stuff, and printing roll to roll. It's a lot less people to put the parts on as it's going through. So it does limit as you're printing, though, you have to have the pieces turned the right way to lay in the grain of the fabric. Each fabric has a warp and a weft, which is the stretch in the different directions. It's very important to get that right because most fabrics stretch differently. And how you arrange that on a kit completely changes the fit if you get it wrong. So the nice thing about the way we do it is that the whole process actually is a quality control in itself. So when we set up the templates, you have to set them up so that it prints these pieces in a certain way. It can't move them side to side. There's no messing that up. And then you print the paper. So it's this special ink that lays onto this paper. It dries as it's coming off. It comes in a big paper roll. Take it out to this massive heat press machine. Got a massive metal drum that's heated with oil that basically inside it to keep the temperature consistent throughout the whole roll. And it's heated to, like, 400 degrees fahrenheit is what you need to do the sublimation process, roughly. You put the paper on, you take a roll of white fabric, whichever fabric it is, you put it on the machine. You match them up on this. It has, like, a bed, glass bed that it connects in, and it goes into the roller. There's a belt that pushes it into the roller and holds it really tight as it goes through. So when paper in the fabric. Right. And then when that heat hits the ink on the paper, it actually goes. It's a solid, you know, as it's going in, the heat instantly turns it into a gas. So it skips that liquid phase, turns into a gas. The pressure pushes it into the fabric, and then as it comes out, it cools and goes right back into a solid and becomes permanent in the fabric. So that is what sublimation printing is. So it's not like laying ink on top of a direct on top of a thing. It's not dyeing in a vat or something like, some of the pre dyed fabrics are everything that sublimates printed. All the stuff with logos and colors that you're printing is done in this manner. And it also has to be on a polyester base. Polyester is the material that takes the ink permanently. So all the fabrics, there are fabrics. And this is why on shorts, you'll have a black pair of dyed inner, you know, panels on your shorts. And the outside are a little bit. They're black, but they're not quite the same shade. Well, that's because the inner ones are dyed, because it's a nylon base, which is a much more durable material when sitting on your saddle. Right. So a lot. That's why we use. And it's also, you can get those fabrics to be really opaque and super durable. And then the side panels where it's printed, they have to be partly polyester. So there's a fabric that they're similar in terms of stretch and whatever, but the materials are different, so you have to combine those. And so, you know, one of the tricks of the printing is trying to get those, those colors to match as close as you can, which is really difficult. And to be honest, the higher quality fabric is that, you know, the compression of it makes it harder to print because it doesn't open up as easily. That's why it's opaque. That's why you can't see through. Right. You probably been behind somebody that has cheap shorts and you can see their butt through the fabric and the. Right. In the. In the morning light, you know, not a good look. Right. But our fabrics won't do that because of the quality of it. Learned. Learned a lot just now. Really fascinating. And just to take one step back, I think you mentioned you're not cutting the pieces beforehand. They're being rolled out. You're cutting them after. So that enables you to line up the. The panels and the designs more accurately. Right. Than if you were to cut them out. The design gets printed, it's a little bit off, and then you're trying to put the pieces together to make the design look good when it's not the actual configuration for the kit. So the process for us was it would go into this calendar press. It comes out the other side. The old paper gets wrapped up and recycled. It's got water soluble inks. They don't use the toxic ink anymore. And then the fabric comes out, and it has all the spots of ink on it, you know, on. Still on the roll. We re roll that. We put it on another machine, unroll it onto a bed that has, you know, it's basically a metal grated bed. And it has a laser on a, you know, on a conveyor that runs around, and you load in a cut program. The old ones now, they're like optical. You know, we're moving to, like, optical scans. It just, you know, it just looks at it and does it immediately. But some of our old, our old ones, you have to actually have a, you know, a cut file. You create an illustrator that has these old registration dots, and the laser would use the registration dots actually to line up the fabric. So it's kind of interesting. Like, if it was crooked, it wouldn't read the dots the same way. So it would either error out or if it was just a little off, it could adjust. And so it cuts perfect every time. Even if the material, every material shrinks a little differently. There's all sorts of things that go into that, but that process really gives a consistent cut every time. And because the laser is so accurate, you can put in all your sewing notches and things that people don't see. Right. Like, when you're stretching two different fabrics together to create a particular type of garment, you know, you have to hit certain. You know, you have to stretch it in a different way, and you want it to line up the exact way every time because that's what creates the perfect fit. And so there are little notches that you can, you know, with a laser cutter, it's super easy to, like, make the most intricate, you know, little triangle piece that sticks out, and they get, you know, they all get, you know, they go away in the seat. You know, when you. When they're sewn together, those things all floss. But that's what the sewers used as their guides. Right. I. So, again, another. Another quality control trick that we had to learn in there. And one thing maybe I should have known. I had no idea that kits are hand sewn. So what's the next part of the process with? Yeah, so those pieces come out, you know, it's all cut one at a time. A single ply as this. As this machine rolls through. Right. So it's cut, and people are pulling pieces off. If a garment. The more. The more different fabrics a garment has, you have to do that process each time. So that's why, like a four, four fabric skin suit or something. Five fabric skin suit. You got to do that five times. Right. So the more labor intensive, you know, but that's if you really want to create a piece like our, you know, our top end arrow jerseys. Three different panels. There's. Each of those panels does a different fit. Different fabrics. Each of those fabrics does a different thing. And you can't get that, you know, that particular combination quality without doing that. But then you got to do three different runs, which a lot of people don't realize, right? So you got to get all these pieces together. You know, you got a table where you're putting everything together. You do one fabric, you lay it out. You do the next fabric, you line it, you match it up. And then they go into, you know, they get bundled up together with. And then they go get their elastics and their different thread colors that you have to match. And, you know, we've got a frickin, you know, you know, rainbow of, you know, threads, you know, that we use to match all these different custom colors. And then they go. And they go into sewing, but the sewing process is still a fully manual process. Right? So they, you know, I heard story there was a, you know, us government tried to invest in, you know, making automated sewing machines because their mandate was that they had to make uniforms in the US. Well, they make a bajillion uniforms. You can imagine how expensive that was for them to make the same, you know, uniform. And so they gave somebody a ton of money to try and figure this out. My understanding is they never figured it out just to try and automate it, to make it less expensive to do in the States. But putting two different stretch fabrics in together, the machinery, it's still a hand, it's a feel, it's a touch. The sewers are very skilled. Sewing stretchy lycra together is the hardest form of sewing. If you're sewing couch cushions together that are non stretch fabrics or whatever, you can just. It doesn't matter. You can have anybody do it. But when you start getting into this and you have to make those notches match and all this, it's a true. You can only go so fast. It's a true feel art to it. The machines, there are automations on the newer machines. You can meter out when you're doing the gathers on the elastics to get that right, compression on the waistbands and things. You can set it in certain ways to make it easier, but you still ultimately have an operator at every one of these machines. So it's a super labor intensive process when it's being sewn. I have such a newfound respect for the kits that I'm wearing. I mean, it really had no idea it was so manual. This is a good point to transition into your business, the business model, and how that has changed over the last ten years. And you've had a big initiative to move your manufacturing facilities from Southern California. Can you talk a little bit about the model, the cost of doing business, and why you're making decisions? There was a lot of really good things about doing it here, and I think most people thought we were crazy. If anything, I look at it, it was my education in this. I learned so much those first two, three years doing the manufacturing here. As we grew, we always ran into capacity problems because there's just not enough sewing talent locally. But also, when we started, California was going to mandatory $15 an hour labor. So labor was getting pushed up a dollar an hour every year for small business, right? So we had this constant increase happening. And even though, and I mean, trying to imagine minimum wage in Southern California, trying to live, it's really difficult. Sewing people, they weren't making, they were making above that. But even still, when the minimum goes up, it just pushes everything. So labor is constantly going up. And then we just couldn't find people. We're in north County, San Diego. Who's going into sewing here? Nobody's learning how to sew. So we found all the experienced people. They all came to us because we had the best working environment. We were really good company. We're as much a family as a business can be, and great conditions. We attracted really good people and we paid them well, and they really loved working, working with the good materials and all that stuff. You know, they were focused on the quality, and I think they really appreciated that. But we ran out of, you know, we always were under capacity, we always couldn't keep up. And in the peak season, we would always get behind super hard. And so eventually we said, okay, well, this isn't sustainable. We want to, you know, we know we have more room to grow here and there's more demand for the product. We got to figure out something. So we went back, started looking at foreign factories again, and we looked at a lot of different places, traveled around the world, and there were just so many potential issues. Like, if you don't own your manufacturing and you're doing custom gear, that's really the issue is like, there's so many details as, like, as you just heard, and then, you know, if you're in a factory with, you know, 20 different customer, big brands, right? I mean, whoever's the biggest wins, you know, and you get your stuff here or there, and who knows, they run out of fabric, they might pull something in. I learned that from my first sock factory. You know, it was an outsourced factory. We own the equipment, but. But the guy would change yarns on us because he couldn't play his suppliers. As it turns out, that was a totally different story. But we're like, why are the toes blowing out all of a sudden? Well, it's because he couldn't afford to pay for the right materials, and so he substituted in what he had, and it wasn't the same thing. Right. So I'm not saying that happens all the time, but it does happen, you know, and so when you're doing it. All yourself, you have to control these, these variables for your business. For high quality. Yeah, high quality. And all of our materials come from here. I mean, they're still like, you know, they're italian manufacturers, right? Most of our materials, so they're very consistent. They're more expensive, of course, but they're very consistent in their quality. And so we don't see these big fluctuations in the quality of the fabric, and then, you know, and then we control the rest of it. So, you know, hopefully that is, you know, that equals a better overall, you know, quality over time in terms of your product. But ultimately, we had to find a way to expand. And so, you know, we looked at these places and we said, you know, what if we lose control of this thing? Like, I heard horror stories from people that had moved to some of these factories we were looking at, and some of they destroyed a few businesses that I won't mention, but in our industry, that they bought and moved and just changed the fabrics. It just changed it, and then they couldn't deliver. It's just mess. I mean, there's a lot of stories about that. And so we're like, man, we're going to. We have the potential, like, losing our business if we do this. So ultimately, I mean, we learned. We built a factory. We're like, well, what's the next best thing? Okay, well, we have. Mexico's an hour away. And, you know, what if we looked at building a facility across the border and just using our knowledge and everything to build a new factory there? And so that was the first part of what we did, is we learned all about it, what the import export is, all the stuff. And we started a sewing facility. We chose Mexicale based on a connection we had and set up our own family. We own it. Same thing is here, right? We set up a business that we fully own, and we rented a. Rented up a warehouse factory space in an industrial center, imported some of the same sewing machines we use, hired the people, hired a manager, and built it from the ground up. And now it's a great facility, and it helped us. One of the big problems that we had there is that we started it in 2020, and we all know what happened in 2020. So it was a real. Right when we made the investment Covid hit and things shut down, and the costs of went, you know, went crazy for a while. You know, I mean, we lost a lot of money not being able to get that up and running and make the shift in the timeframe that we wanted to. So that was really difficult. But, you know, I mean, you juggle, you fight, you push through. You do what you have to do. You know, I think that's the story of almost any small business entrepreneur. We got it working, and now we're expanding it, and now we're starting, you know, and it's hard. We're consolidating right now. We're consolidating our manufacturing. We still do all the printing and cutting here, and just until recently, we still were doing sewing here at our facility, but for efficiency reasons and also cost reasons, of course, we're now consolidating in that facility, and that's difficult, man. We've had some amazing people here, ten years that they've been sewing for us here. They're amazing people, and it's been a career for them, which is something you can be proud of. But when you have to tell them that we're not doing that anymore, Mandy, I don't know. That's what's always got me over the years and just killed me, because those people become people you see every day. They become family. So that making those decisions from a business side is really difficult. And I asked you a couple of questions on this topic, was how you guys are capitalized, and also what your plans are for growing the business. And I think these were really interesting answers that you had. You said, you guys are nothing, a really venture backed company. That's not the model at all. You guys are in it because like we talked about before, you're living and breathing, cycling, and it's based on passion and creating consistent quality. And it's not just about an exit and giving the keys to someone else. The other thing that we talked about was this move being a bit of an imperative to create, yes. Scale for you guys, but also a better margin so you can reinvest back into the business, into marketing and sales in order to expand. I just think when you dig deep and pull back a couple layers of the company, what is there is passion and wanting to build a company where your employees take a lot of pride in the product. So the product's great, the customers are happy, and it builds off quality and not just throwing money at the problem and going back to investors to raise every couple of years or whatever. Yeah, I learned sockeye was all self funded. It was a very small company when I started, it was all self funded. We grew based on what we made and could reinvest into the business. We never took money from anybody. Same thing in the bike shop, and El is the same way. The money I made from selling sockeye was just rolled right into starting Elio, into the equipment and everything. And we. I don't know, it was a. I'm not sure how much of it was. I mean, I guess was a conscious choice not to go that route. I know a lot of the company, a lot of companies, and some have worked and some have not, that have taken, you know, big investment money up front. And then they say, oh, we're going to grow this much and we're going to return this much. I've not seen that work very well in the cycling world. It's very different. It's not tech, the scalability of it. It's a very mature industry, and I'm not. I don't know. I'm not a sales guy like that. I'm not going to go out. And it just feels. It doesn't quite feel right to me. It doesn't fit SaaS companies, and there are models and precedent for that and that kind of quick scale, and that's not. Yeah, I mean, that wasn't the goal. If the goal was to make money, right? I'd go do something else, right? I mean, like, I wouldn't be in the cycling world. But, you know, the goal, like, when we sat down and said, okay, well, what do we want Elliott eliel to be? Derek and myself and our silent partner, Matt, we had three of us who was just an investor, one of my long time friends, and was a business advisor. He had his own business as well. We said, what do we want this to be? And, you know, my first response is, like, I want to have a fun company that's exciting to go to work for, that's making cool stuff that, you know, that people are excited about. Like, that was my thing, and Matt's like, don't we have to make money? Like, isn't that the number one thing? And, I mean, that is. Right. I mean, a business is there to make money, like, ultimately, right? Like, if we couldn't make money, like, I wouldn't be here. I'd have to go get a job doing something else. So. But, you know, ultimately, I think that says where I come from is, like, I'll take less money to have fun in a lifestyle and do cool stuff, and, you know, and. But ultimately, I think the balance. And I, you know, I learned this at sockeye because we had a joint venture with the company that ran the machines. We owned all the machinery but the facility, and the guy ran it was his own business, right? So it's basically a joint venture. He only did our stuff, so it's essentially our factory. But he was focused on getting the most efficiency, the most socks to us, because every stock that he delivered, he got paid for, right? If he took a machine down to do product development for us, that was a machine that wasn't making money for him. And so it was this battle back and forth. Like, I would ask for prototypes, I'd ask for this and that, and it was like, I would happen when it happened. And I was like, God, man, it's so frustrating. Like, I want to do something cool. Like, I want to. I want to play a little bit. You know, I want to be creative. And, you know, that's what this. These businesses have always provided for me, is some creativity as well. And with the cycling gear incentive for R and D. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that is what also influenced me to do it myself and to do it here, right, was the ability to do that. And, you know, the problem is, is that when you go too far with it, we spent. I mean, we burned money at the first year developing the amount of beautiful european fabric that got wasted in terms of, you know, a prototype. And then in the production, learning, the production process, we ruined a lot of fabric, unfortunately, until. So we kind of got things figured out. But, you know, but that's the education. That's how you get to that point. But I think it's such a balance, though. There's such a balance to the R and D, the reinvestment. Like, right now, we're very focused on the operations of the business. We've had to do pull back and really focus on our delivery, our processes. We've revamped almost everything in the last. Year, and you guys are. It's ten years in, and you're still here, so you're doing something right. The amount that I've learned from you just in the last hours is incredible. So I'm so glad we got to cover all this ground. And I always ask, do you have any favorite analogies between cycling and the business that you've been running, bike racing and the challenges and entrepreneurship? I mean, yeah, I think it's. I mean, you know, passion and attention to detail. Right. I mean, those are. Those are just a couple off the top of my head, right? The same passion I had for racing and wanting to see how far I could push myself. And, yeah, okay, maybe I'm not the best, but, you know, can I win this race if I do everything right and I figure this out and this trick and that tactic? I mean, you bring that to business, too. And it's the same thing when you dig in and say, okay, like, how do I figure this out? I've kind of figured out. And it's, you know, it's an evolution, man. I'm still learning every day. I just turned 50 this year. I don't frickin know everything. I don't pretend like I know everything. I'm still learning every day. And I think you have to. Yeah, I think. I think being able to analyze a situation and look at things as a whole and how everything works together, that's what I think got me to where I got to as a cyclist, and I think that's gotten elial to where it is today in the gear that we make.