Trickstuff has pushed their re-opening back to March 1st. It was originally Jan 18, then Jan 23.
The modal on their site says it's so they can migrate to a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system and I am not surprised by the date changes; migrations like that are brutally complex (I've led a few) and I was surprised they originally said they'd do in a month.
From the outside it doesn't speak especially well of whoever is managing the project though, and they have my deepest sympathies, this stuff is freakin' hard (and if they're trying to integrate w/ DT Swiss at the same time, just yikes).
New HP Intense for Gwin no IG Neko Mulally [img]https://p.vitalmtb.com/photos/forums/2022/01/15/11881/s1200_Screenshot_20220115_182628.jpg[/img]
New HP Intense for Gwin no IG Neko Mulally
Just watched the Gwin clip where he follows Neko down the track and windrock, just a thought but is the bike thats covered up Neko's new high pivot bike made by FTW and Gwin may of just wanted to throw a leg over it without getting caught in the act ?
Just watched the Gwin clip where he follows Neko down the track and windrock, just a thought but is the bike thats covered up Neko's new...
Just watched the Gwin clip where he follows Neko down the track and windrock, just a thought but is the bike thats covered up Neko's new high pivot bike made by FTW and Gwin may of just wanted to throw a leg over it without getting caught in the act ?
In the time it took Old mate to hand polish that "A" on the headtube, Some 14 year old in Cambodia has layed up the latest...
In the time it took Old mate to hand polish that "A" on the headtube, Some 14 year old in Cambodia has layed up the latest S-Works Kenevo main triangle!
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is super interesting and I would love to see them succeed.
Buuut I think that time is always going to be the limiting factor with SLS as your primary manufacturing process. The frame shown in the video has a print time of 20 hours! Meaning that if they're running at absolute maximum capacity they could put out 365 frames per year (let's ignore weekends, bank holidays and failures for argument's sake). They probably need 20ish frames per year for the race team and development - that's already 6% of their gross income for the year gone.
Then when you factor in all of labour hours - machine set-up, grinding and polishing, gluing, outsourced CNC milling and painting, and assembly - the profit margin on each frame is going to be extremely limited on an already tiny production run. And is all of this going to be able to foot the bill for the growing Atherton family, all of the staff and a world cup race team? Unfortunately I'm sceptical.
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is...
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is super interesting and I would love to see them succeed.
Buuut I think that time is always going to be the limiting factor with SLS as your primary manufacturing process. The frame shown in the video has a print time of 20 hours! Meaning that if they're running at absolute maximum capacity they could put out 365 frames per year (let's ignore weekends, bank holidays and failures for argument's sake). They probably need 20ish frames per year for the race team and development - that's already 6% of their gross income for the year gone.
Then when you factor in all of labour hours - machine set-up, grinding and polishing, gluing, outsourced CNC milling and painting, and assembly - the profit margin on each frame is going to be extremely limited on an already tiny production run. And is all of this going to be able to foot the bill for the growing Atherton family, all of the staff and a world cup race team? Unfortunately I'm sceptical.
Presumably they could outsource some of the metal parts production (assuming that's their bottleneck) if it came down to it?
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is...
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is super interesting and I would love to see them succeed.
Buuut I think that time is always going to be the limiting factor with SLS as your primary manufacturing process. The frame shown in the video has a print time of 20 hours! Meaning that if they're running at absolute maximum capacity they could put out 365 frames per year (let's ignore weekends, bank holidays and failures for argument's sake). They probably need 20ish frames per year for the race team and development - that's already 6% of their gross income for the year gone.
Then when you factor in all of labour hours - machine set-up, grinding and polishing, gluing, outsourced CNC milling and painting, and assembly - the profit margin on each frame is going to be extremely limited on an already tiny production run. And is all of this going to be able to foot the bill for the growing Atherton family, all of the staff and a world cup race team? Unfortunately I'm sceptical.
That's based on your assumption that their machine(s) only print one set at a time and ignores all other revenue streams the family/compnay has. Baring in mind we know from Neko Mullaly's recent podcasts that its entirely possible to run a World Cup team from the sponsorship deals, especially as The Atherton's have several riders.
That's based on your assumption that their machine(s) only print one set at a time and ignores all other revenue streams the family/compnay has. Baring in...
That's based on your assumption that their machine(s) only print one set at a time and ignores all other revenue streams the family/compnay has. Baring in mind we know from Neko Mullaly's recent podcasts that its entirely possible to run a World Cup team from the sponsorship deals, especially as The Atherton's have several riders.
Generally there aren’t any time savings to be made by squeezing more parts on to a single print. Even if you could use your Tetris skills to find the room for a second frame it’s likely that this would just double the print time.
And yeah I’m sure they have a bunch of other revenue streams from sponsors, the bike park, red bull etc. But if the bike brand isn’t profitable on its own I’d bet that it won’t stick around very long. I just hope that if they can’t make this process work financially that they don’t marry themselves to it.
Have they ever said production will always exist there? Could this be fine tuning a process them sending it overseas to once they everything completely finalized.
Have they ever said production will always exist there? Could this be fine tuning a process them sending it overseas to once they everything completely finalized.
Sending overseas would go against their philosophy, as they offer customizable geo etc, that would have a too high timeframe for sending here and there. The main constraint for production is not the manual labour, but the actual printing. Only way to scale up is using more machines. They started off printing the lugs at the Renishaw facilities before investing in one of their own. These machines are a massive investment, both in itself and the infrastructure. The Titanium powder is highly explosive, so the room needs to be treated as an Ex zone with special protection and certification for all electric appliances allowed into the room etc. They have to be encapsulated or not draw more than 12W. Josh from Silca talked about that on the Marginal Gains podcast, as they got a 3D printer for titanium last year, with a huge investment.
New levo SL reference? The gen 1 SL has been in the lineup since MY2020, and Spesh has a pretty regular 3 year frame refresh rate. I would not be surprised to see an update poised for a 2022 spring release, with the new mastermind and the rest of the usual frame tweaks.
Just watched the Gwin clip where he follows Neko down the track and windrock, just a thought but is the bike thats covered up Neko's new...
Just watched the Gwin clip where he follows Neko down the track and windrock, just a thought but is the bike thats covered up Neko's new high pivot bike made by FTW and Gwin may of just wanted to throw a leg over it without getting caught in the act ?
Which clip?
Neko said they copied the pivot and idler mounting directly off a Session, that was brought in from a shop just for that purpose. Seems logical it could be his frame actually.
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is...
Don't get me wrong there is clearly a lot to be said for small batch local production and I think what the Atherton's are doing is super interesting and I would love to see them succeed.
Buuut I think that time is always going to be the limiting factor with SLS as your primary manufacturing process. The frame shown in the video has a print time of 20 hours! Meaning that if they're running at absolute maximum capacity they could put out 365 frames per year (let's ignore weekends, bank holidays and failures for argument's sake). They probably need 20ish frames per year for the race team and development - that's already 6% of their gross income for the year gone.
Then when you factor in all of labour hours - machine set-up, grinding and polishing, gluing, outsourced CNC milling and painting, and assembly - the profit margin on each frame is going to be extremely limited on an already tiny production run. And is all of this going to be able to foot the bill for the growing Atherton family, all of the staff and a world cup race team? Unfortunately I'm sceptical.
Trickstuff has pushed their re-opening back to March 1st. It was originally Jan 18, then Jan 23.
The modal on their site says it's so they...
Trickstuff has pushed their re-opening back to March 1st. It was originally Jan 18, then Jan 23.
The modal on their site says it's so they can migrate to a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system and I am not surprised by the date changes; migrations like that are brutally complex (I've led a few) and I was surprised they originally said they'd do in a month.
From the outside it doesn't speak especially well of whoever is managing the project though, and they have my deepest sympathies, this stuff is freakin' hard (and if they're trying to integrate w/ DT Swiss at the same time, just yikes).
i remember seeing when the site went down and laughing to myself about how long they thought they'd be down to change ERP systems and thinking their timeline was awfully optimistic.
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups to direct mount.
plus he's still riding the 10 spd saint drivetrain
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups...
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups to direct mount.
plus he's still riding the 10 spd saint drivetrain
best capture i could manage:
Looks like a Hope crank with some sort of Saint decal on it to me
Part of their spiel was that they partnered up with Renishaw who provides the machines and expertise for the Ti printing process.
@baronKanon would you be...
Part of their spiel was that they partnered up with Renishaw who provides the machines and expertise for the Ti printing process.
@baronKanon would you be kind enough to provide a link to the podcast?
Silca has started small with their Ti parts with tools (chain whip, a really light hammer with a heavy head, cassette tool) and cleats (for Shimano/CrankBros/Time - 'lighter weight and more durable') so it's a bit of a different scale at the moment. They don't seem to have a problem with stock at the moment with all of those being in stock pretty much since launch, but they are very niche products.
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups...
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups to direct mount.
plus he's still riding the 10 spd saint drivetrain
Looks like a Hope crank with some sort of Saint decal on it to me
Check spider and axle interface for reference
its certainly possible, it's not like he couldn't still be waiting on a component or two for a new team. the placement of the decal looks a little off too. the "S" is cut off in a way that it isn't on the m820 cranks. would also explain why there were no closeups of the cranks in the video. my point was more that it probably *isn't* a new saint crank
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups...
i'm inclined to say they're not, still 104bcd. not that the new ones couldn't be 104bcd, but unlikely given that they've changed all the other groups to direct mount.
plus he's still riding the 10 spd saint drivetrain
Looks like a Hope crank with some sort of Saint decal on it to me
Check spider and axle interface for reference
yea i think you're right. i zoomed in on that capture then pulled up the hope spider and the silver part on the tabs right below the chainring bolts is a dead giveaway. it would be very odd for shimano to go back to using a self extracting bolt, and on the drive side too.
plus, i would find it odd that they would give him just the new saint cranks but with the old drivetrain. Greg was running protos of both last season. the profile of these cranks doesn't match what greg had either.
i guess what doesn't add up for me is that in changing between teams that both run shimano he had to use another brand crank? did he already sell off his old bikes and not have any spares sitting around? is shimano's supply chain that hard up they couldn't even get cranks to a factory sponsored team rider?
Maybe he just wanted to try out some different length cranks with the new bike and couldn’t get a hold of saints. Could he mount 155mm hope e-bike cranks to test out a Remy Morton style setup? That could explain why the saint decal is too long.
Maybe he just wanted to try out some different length cranks with the new bike and couldn’t get a hold of saints. Could he mount 155mm...
Maybe he just wanted to try out some different length cranks with the new bike and couldn’t get a hold of saints. Could he mount 155mm hope e-bike cranks to test out a Remy Morton style setup? That could explain why the saint decal is too long.
Laurie also may have been short a set of saint cranks if Shimano is no longer producing the old cranks and didn't have fresh ones ready to break cover yet. Slik Graphics make a saint decal that could have been slapped on a hope crank in the mean time. I can see them wanting to have an event of sorts post WC team announcements for the new saint group closer to WC season.
Just noticed in pinkbike's freeride fiesta article, Remy seems to be running some prototype sram pedals that wheelbased reported on a while ago
[img]https://p.vitalmtb.com/photos/forums/2022/01/24/11914/s1200_p5pb21971905.jpg[/img]
[url=https://wheelbased.com/2021/11/19/pedal-for-a-cycle-by-sram/]https://wheelbased.com/2021/11/19/pedal-for-a-cycle-by-sram/[/url]
Just noticed in pinkbike's freeride fiesta article, Remy seems to be running some prototype sram pedals that wheelbased reported on a while ago
Just noticed in pinkbike's freeride fiesta article, Remy seems to be running some prototype sram pedals that wheelbased reported on a while ago
[img]https://p.vitalmtb.com/photos/forums/2022/01/24/11914/s1200_p5pb21971905.jpg[/img]
[url=https://wheelbased.com/2021/11/19/pedal-for-a-cycle-by-sram/]https://wheelbased.com/2021/11/19/pedal-for-a-cycle-by-sram/[/url]
Just noticed in pinkbike's freeride fiesta article, Remy seems to be running some prototype sram pedals that wheelbased reported on a while ago
Went searching for more details on the chromag the other site reported on. Ended up finding a different bike altogether
No details other than it's 120mm rear and can be run full 29 or mullet.
The modal on their site says it's so they can migrate to a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system and I am not surprised by the date changes; migrations like that are brutally complex (I've led a few) and I was surprised they originally said they'd do in a month.
From the outside it doesn't speak especially well of whoever is managing the project though, and they have my deepest sympathies, this stuff is freakin' hard (and if they're trying to integrate w/ DT Swiss at the same time, just yikes).
Buuut I think that time is always going to be the limiting factor with SLS as your primary manufacturing process. The frame shown in the video has a print time of 20 hours! Meaning that if they're running at absolute maximum capacity they could put out 365 frames per year (let's ignore weekends, bank holidays and failures for argument's sake). They probably need 20ish frames per year for the race team and development - that's already 6% of their gross income for the year gone.
Then when you factor in all of labour hours - machine set-up, grinding and polishing, gluing, outsourced CNC milling and painting, and assembly - the profit margin on each frame is going to be extremely limited on an already tiny production run. And is all of this going to be able to foot the bill for the growing Atherton family, all of the staff and a world cup race team? Unfortunately I'm sceptical.
And yeah I’m sure they have a bunch of other revenue streams from sponsors, the bike park, red bull etc. But if the bike brand isn’t profitable on its own I’d bet that it won’t stick around very long. I just hope that if they can’t make this process work financially that they don’t marry themselves to it.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/features/Laurie-Greenlands-Santa-Cruz-V…
It's either that or a NFT...
Neko said they copied the pivot and idler mounting directly off a Session, that was brought in from a shop just for that purpose. Seems logical it could be his frame actually.
@baronKanon would you be kind enough to provide a link to the podcast?
plus he's still riding the 10 spd saint drivetrain
best capture i could manage:
Check spider and axle interface for reference
Silca has started small with their Ti parts with tools (chain whip, a really light hammer with a heavy head, cassette tool) and cleats (for Shimano/CrankBros/Time - 'lighter weight and more durable') so it's a bit of a different scale at the moment. They don't seem to have a problem with stock at the moment with all of those being in stock pretty much since launch, but they are very niche products.
The spider looks exactly like the Hope 2/3x direct mount spider too with the bashguard mounted on the outside ring tabs.
plus, i would find it odd that they would give him just the new saint cranks but with the old drivetrain. Greg was running protos of both last season. the profile of these cranks doesn't match what greg had either.
https://wheelbased.com/2021/11/19/pedal-for-a-cycle-by-sram/
https://www.slikgraphics.com/shop/cranks/shimano-saint-m820-custom-cran…
also, Time was acquired by SRAM early '21 - so it checks out. i'd honestly forgotten that myself.
No details other than it's 120mm rear and can be run full 29 or mullet.
It's also called the Darco.
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