Sea Otter Pt. 2 - Big Wheels Keep on Rollin'

Episode Transcript: 

Hottie (00:07)
Okay, we're here with Aaron Stinner of ⁓ Stinner Bikes. You put your name on the brand. You must be confident it.

Aaron Stinner (00:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I've been doing it a long time and it used to be just me and now we got a full team. still the one designing and making the buttons.

Hottie (00:23)
Yeah, well full disclosure to the audience Aaron I have met before it was years ago Up in his shop in the Santa Barbara area where we talked about it was a previous podcast not this podcast So don't look on the feed for any Aaron's dinner interviews You have to go to an old podcast that I used to do to find it was a good show though And we learned a lot about the brand at the time Aaron and at the time you were starting to transition away from full custom buildings into more pre-built bikes and that kind of thing. How many models do you have now in the student

Aaron Stinner (00:53)
So five models now, we just launched our full suspension Romero here. So we just launched our full suspension bike. That's our fifth model. And then each of our models, well, not the full suspension, but each of our other models come in like two different steel or titanium. So yeah, good wide range.

Hottie (01:09)
But it's still a built-in the USA brand.

Aaron Stinner (01:13)
Yeah, yeah, we're still built in Santa Barbara. We got a nice big shop, a little bigger than when you were there last time. ⁓ And yeah, we've transitioned. We still do some custom bikes, but most of what we do now is stock products.

Hottie (01:27)
Right.

Okay. Excellent. So the terrorists haven't totally killed you then you've been...

Aaron Stinner (01:32)
Totally.

we obviously, like, I mean, just like everybody else, it's a global economy. So we're not immune, but ⁓ hasn't affected us as much as anybody else. ⁓

Hottie (01:42)
Of course, one of the reasons we stopped by the Stinner booth is the same reason a lot of people are stopping by the Stinner booth is out front here you have a 32 inch gravel bike, drop bar bike, which doesn't have a name printed anywhere on any tubes, but you are lovingly calling it.

Aaron Stinner (01:59)
It's the Refugio, so our Refugio is our gravel platform and we'll call this one the Refugio 32. That's the name right now. And we'll see how it goes. I mean, it's still very much in its infancy. I think we're trying to feel out what's going on here. It's titanium, it's 32 inch. This one that we're looking at is a size large. It's a drop bar gravel bike. kind of taking...

Hottie (02:15)
and it's titanium.

Aaron Stinner (02:27)
taking a path less traveled even within the 32 inch space and just trying to feel out what a gravel bike would be with 32 inch.

Hottie (02:33)
What did it take to turn your current refugio into a 32er?

Aaron Stinner (02:39)
You know, it's not a whole lot. mean, we're playing around with geometry numbers here, so I think that's really what most people are trying to figure out is what rides right, what feels right. And then we've been seeing a lot of hardtails and a lot of that stuff coming out. we weren't, we built one or two prototypes. We did some hardtail stuff and looked around with it, but I wasn't quite convinced fully. mean.

Feeling all the good stuff that you feel with a 32 inch, and then feeling all the negatives as well in those hardtail platforms. But for some reason for me, just like in how we were designing and looking at it, like my mind just instantly gravitated towards gravel and like drop bar. Like the speed the bike was feeling and like a lot of the positives that I was feeling out of the hardtail prototypes that we were doing, like it made sense to go to a drop bar, at least in my mind.

Hottie (03:27)
And is that because you felt like the platform, the 32 platform, is a more straight line speed type platform as opposed to a tight turny?

Aaron Stinner (03:35)
Yeah, so Santa Barbara's our testing ground, so you're going to be exposed to that, it's kind of unfortunately like what... fortunately and unfortunately. So we got a lot of steep climbing, fire roads, six mile climbs, multiple thousand foot ascents. But then we also have these tight, twisty, canyon style descents. Now if you're coming down a fire road, sure, the 32XL's, especially with everybody focusing on the mountain bike stuff, I'm riding on a lot of these tight, twisty things and I'm like... long wheel bases, hard to get around corners, trying to have to change a lot of your riding style. Didn't feel that much faster when I was descending. Now climbing, totally felt it. You go up the hill, the bike's rolling a lot faster, everything just feels so much quicker. ⁓ And I think that's where I was like, man, if I just put a drop bar on this, it feels like it wants to go fast. And that's like, at least with gravel riding, to me it just made sense. So was like.

that maybe puts more energy towards that.

Hottie (04:37)
How is this not a mountain bike frame? Is it tighter? What differentiates that from any hardtail frame you might?

Aaron Stinner (04:45)
So our geometry numbers on this is a little bit more geared towards gravel, you know, it's not as slack. It's not as ⁓

We're tightening things up. We're trying to see where we can kind of get from a geometry perspective to just feel, I'm less concerned about tight, twisty stuff, right? I'm looking at some of these gravel rides and going, like, unbound. This thing could excel there. I don't have to worry about descending a single track trail there, right? How fast can this bike go? How fast can it roll? ⁓ So just picking those geometry numbers the right way. And in complete transparency, like, you know.

This one that we're looking at is a brand new one. I haven't had a chance to play with these geometry numbers yet. We've tweaked a few things. Less concerned about trying to get that rear end super, super tight. How can we cram a 2.4 and this chain line into a 430 chainstay length? This one's like four, I think this one's 455. We stretched everything out a little bit. yeah, I'm excited to see how it does.

Hottie (05:50)
So 455 is about where you've landed for the time being.

Aaron Stinner (05:54)
That's

right now, that's like, I want to try that and then we can like, if we feel like we need to choke it up more, can see where that goes.

Hottie (06:01)
There's a little bit more room. How about head tube angles and fork rakes in that area?

Aaron Stinner (06:04)
It's fun there.

Yeah,

so mean we are still running a mountain bike fork. I I think in a perfect world I'd love to see a 32 specific fork, you know? mean it's getting that axle to crown down shorter. I mean that's gonna help a lot with like geo numbers and like geometry that we can play with, right? Reminding me a lot of like where the gravel industry was like when it first came out. You had cyclocross forks and mountain bike forks but nobody had like a gravel specific fork. So, or at least aftermarket there wasn't one available. So...

It'd be cool to see something, this one has a mountain bike fork on it, I think it'd be really cool and we might be working on something that has a shorter axle crown, something a little bit more applicable to 32 inch gravel. ⁓ Because now your head tube lengths, have the ability to fit somebody smaller maybe on this platform is available. ⁓ But you know, there's costs to molds and getting carbon forks made and all these things so.

Just trying to find out where we can get with what's available to start playing around with like, well, what would this look like if this was like a full on?

Hottie (07:09)
You could proto a steel for it and mess with it by

Aaron Stinner (07:12)
Yep, and we have. Okay. Yeah, we're playing around with that. ⁓ Even done a Thai Unicron fork playing around with that. We just wouldn't want to do that in a production environment. It wouldn't make a ton of sense ⁓ or from a cost perspective. ⁓ but for now, we're this next iteration, have, you know, mountain bike fork on it, suspension correct mount bike fork. It's got a flip chip so we can play around with some rake numbers and yeah, just kind of see how it goes. 70 degree head tube angle on this one.

⁓ slightly steeper seat tube angle. So still taking a little, like the seat tube angle wise, like taking a little bit more inspiration from the mountain bike side, not trying to get like super kicked back. ⁓

Hottie (07:54)
And bottom bracket, did you have to drop it too to keep the.

Aaron Stinner (07:57)
I think our BB drops right around 100 on this one. Really? ⁓ we were thinking about going lower, we didn't want to change, compared to the first prototype, didn't want to change too many numbers just so we're not having to compete with trying to find where we need to change things instead of changing a bunch of stuff and then not understanding those correlations.

Hottie (08:22)
And how did you deal with toe overlap?

Aaron Stinner (08:25)
⁓ This one's okay. ⁓ It is a size large, the reach is long enough that we can avoid that. I was playing around with a medium-sized frame geometry, and it starts to get really tight. That's where it starts to get interesting.

Hottie (08:43)
Is that do you think that's the rub with the 32 or platform like yeah, it's going to work for guys our size. You're 6 foot 2 or 3 and I'm 6 foot and I love it. I love riding it, but we got to think about the writers or 5253 like all those folks who may want to be on this.

Aaron Stinner (08:59)
100%.

I mean, and I think that's where, I'm, you know, not only am I designing it, but I'm also the one with the checkbook. So it's like, at the same time, it's like, I'm not confident enough to sit here and start building a stock model where we have inventory built around a 32 inch platforms. Like, makes a lot of sense for me because I'm tall, but, you know, the slice of the industry that this is going to apply to is relatively small, all things considered, right? Like, it's 50 % or less. And

You know, we've played around with the idea of maybe only offering this. I think we will do a, we're gonna do a small run of these this summer so we can do a small run and we'll have a fleshed out geo chart and we'll see how it does and just do a limited run. Eventually, do we make this a model that's stock or do we make this just a custom option that people can, you if you're six, seven, this makes a lot of sense and it's easy. But if you're five, 10.

There's a lot of better options out there, at least currently. ⁓ But I will say, the bike feels fast. mean, it's cool to get on something and instantly feel that.

From an engineering perspective, the numbers would tell you that it should be faster, but sometimes you get on things, you're like, is this a placebo just because it feels different? is this like, I mean, not just myself, but you could talk to others. I think people are getting on these bikes and the numbers, their times are faster on testing grounds that they're used to riding on, and that's exciting, right? It's cool to see those gains just by changing a wheel platform. So I think that's where the hype is coming out.

Hottie (10:39)
And one other numbers thing, you went boost. did you go boost?

Aaron Stinner (10:43)
Just to get that bracing angle, you know, and on these ones, know, so we are, this is a prototype rim for us as well. ⁓ We are starting to prototype our own wheel line. ⁓ And so we worked with our manufacturer, they were able to come out with a 32 inch ⁓ prototype rim for us. ⁓ So I think there's a couple things that we're competing with, right? So bracing angles, hub flanges, then also like,

How do you make a rim that can give you that extra stiffness, you can ramp up that spoke tension and feel good about it? So a lot of things going on.

Hottie (11:19)
Yep. Well, I mean, have you set a timeline? Like how long would you are you going to give this to be something that you can move forward?

Aaron Stinner (11:29)
So I think we're going to take this home and ride this. This one's a little bit better. So this is, again, size large. The original one, I did fit me, but nobody else could ride it. So I think more guys on the team are going to be able to ride this one and get some feedback and then kind of look at the geo numbers. mean, the nice thing is we manufacture everything in-house. So we could launch something like this as soon as in a couple of months.

But also, if we get back and we're really designing it looking at it, if it takes longer to sit there and decide what we want to do, then we might take a little bit longer. But I do think.

the demands there, least from in my eyes, we've had a lot of inquiries around it. And I think ⁓ getting other folks out on these bikes that aren't us too will help give us more feedback. So I think doing small runs and continuing to improve and tweak will help us ⁓ kind of find our path on what we're building here.

Hottie (12:27)
Well Aaron, I know we soaked up all your time here talking about a bike that's kind of available. yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you have a beautiful line of bikes. Thank you. I'd encourage people to go check them out whether or not you're in the market for a 32 or something. It's his only thing. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

Aaron Stinner (12:42)
Yeah, yeah. Thanks.

Hottie (12:44)
Ready?

Hottie (00:34)
All right, cool.

We're here at Sea Otter. One of the big buzzes is 32er. know maybe a portion of our audience will roll their eyes. ⁓ more 32 talk, but it is kind of here, and I think Salsa may be evident of that. As far as I know, you folks are the first medium to large size brand to do a production bike, which is what we're gonna talk about in a second. Am I accurate in that?

Joe Meiser (01:02)
It certainly wasn't our goal to be the first. We wanted to have a really well sorted bike first and foremost. ⁓ I think one of reasons we're here able to show a complete bike is because we were able to start working on the project over 18 months ago when we started seeing tires for Maxxis. We jumped right in and started prototyping and so now we are here and sharing the Fargo 32.

Hottie (01:23)
Fargo 32 now traditionally the Fargo has been in the lineup for this far how long

Joe Meiser (01:28)
long.

The Fargo was launched around 2008 as Salsa's bike packing drop bar bike. It was originally designed for routes like the Tour Divide or the Great Divide mountain bike route. And it's really been a stalwart model for us that has been a bike that folks are using for bike packing, for ultra racing, for gravel riding as a really comfortable platform. So it's just quite versatile as a platform. And it was one that we felt 32 really complimented the experience of the bicycle.

Hottie (01:57)
You guys have racier platforms than the Fargo.

Joe Meiser (02:00)
Absolutely,

yeah, so we're really well diversified, known for gravel. We just launched this year our Flyway, which is our center of market gravel bike built for racing, ultimately. ⁓

Hottie (02:12)
So take me back 18 months ago, why did you guys decide to take the plunge here? Because for Salsa, it's a bigger plunge than for a smaller builder.

Joe Meiser (02:22)
Yeah, we decided to take the plunge because we thought it was interesting, first and foremost. We had some industry friends that had had some experience with it, partners of ours who were like, hey, you should be giving this a look. So it's one of those things that for me as a product manager, when I start getting ⁓ two or three or more data points, it's something that really becomes something we want to look at. ⁓ I would say also our brands, Salsa and then Surly, which is also owned by QBP, are known for wheel size exploration.

You know, we're the brands that brought fat tire to the space. We brought gravel to the space, plus wheels. And so it was a really natural thing for us to start exploring when we were able to start getting tires and testing. We built prototypes in drop bar, in mountain, and ultimately settled in the Fargo as a first platform because it was something that both served the experience, but also, you know, let's be real, steel and titanium or something weekend.

develop a little bit more quickly than say cutting carbon molds and a little bit more affordable to bring to market as well.

Hottie (03:25)
And why the Fargo? Why not a mountain bike, which some people have done? Why not a racier bike? Why the Fargo?

Joe Meiser (03:32)
You know the Fargo is a platform, like I said, it's built for that versatility and it's a product that we can bring to market to really start to see the space. We know that riders are going to have apprehension questions, maybe adamantly opposed to 32. And so we're to be bringing frame sets only initially. And then Terravale, another brand owned by QBP, is bringing wheels and tires. And so we're able to see the market for early adopters for riders that are curious, shop owners, being some of those early adopters, and really start to make people comfortable with it, understanding it, able to talk about it, seeing where its opportunities are and maybe where its compromises are as well.

Hottie (04:14)
And where do think they should understand about it?

Joe Meiser (04:17)
Well, first and foremost, bikes are still fun. And 32 is fast. It's really quite comfortable. It's really fast. In some of our early testing on it, immediately we started to capture PRs that I personally, like I hadn't broken for over five years. ⁓ And we started to take KOMs that I don't go chasing. And so on our earlier prototypes,

You know, we have this phrase of like, this is the worst 32 is ever gonna be. And we're still capturing KOMs and PRs on these bikes. And so as production equipment comes in, we just anticipate that momentum to literally continue ⁓ on the bike. So that's the first thing. The other thing we're trying to do with Fargo is really break down the idea that this is only for riders that are, you know, six foot tall and above. We're standing here next to a small Fargo that your audience doesn't get to see, but that...

fits 5'2 riders on that bike. Our engineer on the project happens to be a 5'2 woman. One of the testing that we did was building a 29 Fargo prototype next to a 32 Fargo prototype in this size small with like geometry, like angles and doing that A-B testing to really understand does this have value for small riders? Can we fit? What are the compromises?

And I was here to say that with modern progressive gravel geometry, head angle in the 67 range, seat angle in the 75 range, shorter cranks that we mostly all love, we're able to fit the rider on a small with no toe overlap whatsoever. That's pretty darn awesome.

Hottie (06:05)
That's huge there. Toe overlap would be, I would think, one of the bigger barriers to building a drop bar 32er. That big tire's gonna be right in the way there, because you don't have the room, you're not going for that long reach mountain bike thing with the slack head tube angle. Was the key the shorter cranks, or was there something, some other secrets?

Joe Meiser (06:25)
All those things working together, you know, there's no single item working there, but as we slacken that head angle to 67, we're pushing that fork out. As we steepen the seat angle to 75 and let fit drive, we're pushing that front wheel out. And the third component really is the crank. You know, designing around 160 to 175, or 160 to 165 cranks nominally, just adds a little bit more. So those three things are really working together to create that lack of toe overlap.

on the bike. And then as that front center got longer, so too to the back end just to fit the wheel and that front center to rear center relationship, that ratio, and we're not looking for a golden ratio there, but when those two things are working together, it really makes the bike handle well. And so this is a bike that is a little bit longer wheelbase, but it's stable and it's fast and fun to ride.

Hottie (07:18)
What other departures did you have to make from the 29 or Fargo to get to make this platform work? I'm guessing bottom back a drop. Were there other things?

Joe Meiser (07:25)
Yeah, bottom bracket drop ⁓ did get lower, whereas height remained constant, right? And so that was a good starting point for us. We did do some additional testing after the first round of testing on those prototypes. Our engineer took it back into our fab shop, cut out the bottom bracket and put in a centric bottom bracket to test bottom bracket height and give us another 15 millimeters of adjustment. And so then after that, we really came to the conclusion like, hey, this idea of keeping bottom bracket height constant makes sense here.

Even with the shorter cranks. Of course, as we drop the bottom bracket, you know, that's going to drop the rider deeper into the bike, influence standover, and maybe make stack a little bit taller as well. But one of the things that's really working for the Fargo across all sizes is that generally it's got a pretty high stack. It's a 29 inch drop bar mountain bike in the 29 inch. And the reason we were able to design this and maintain stack on the 32 to the 29 was dropping head tube lengths, and then using negative 25 stems as well. So that's really planned to maintain a constant rider fit experience in the bike. It is not a gravel race fit. It's very much an all day bike packing, touring fit that prioritizes a balance of riding in the drops versus being on the hoods when you get into rougher terrain.

Hottie (08:47)
Is the fork a 32 or specific fork or is that a carrot?

Joe Meiser (08:50)
It  is not that's a great observation This is a fork that was in our catalog already and it's actually a 29 by 120 compatible fork which is what we see a lot of custom builders using right now as they build prototypes and based on the calculations that we've done just basic math we think that a 29 by 120 rigid fork is equivalent to what would be a suspension corrected 32 by 80 mil fork

And we're anticipating that, like we saw in the early 29 days, we'll see fork length, fork travel being one of the things that's played with the fit riders into the platform. Of course, we see that in lower end hardtails today in market. We'll see that in mountain product as well, we think. And that's what we're doing on the Fargo here as well.

Hottie (09:38)
Do you like the idea of suspension or is rigid the place to be here?

Joe Meiser (09:43)
Most riders ride the Fargo rigid. That said, I love a suspension fork on the front end of our Fargo. It just makes the bike a lot of fun to ride. And yeah, it's an added weight, but it's also a lot of added capability riding on single track with drop bars.

Hottie (09:59)
Yeah, and it's one of the areas the industry is still trying to sort out is if you go suspension how much and 80 since you 80 corrected here right seems like the right number is Would that satisfy the market or do they want 100 because no one knows 80 80 with 80

Joe Meiser (10:15)
Wah.

Yeah, what's 80 millimeters travel, you know, satisfy the market is maybe different than our opinion. As a brand Salsa has made the cutthroat for years and the Fargo for years as 100 millimeter travel compatible, rigid bikes. And so our opinion has been hey, if we're to put suspension on it, let's put sophisticated suspension on it. You know, and what we can do with 100 mil or 120 XC damper is very different than what

brands have been able to do with the shorter ⁓ dampers that are in those gravel forks. So, you know, think maybe 40 to 60 forks are serving the market today. We're also compatible with that on our gravel platform, the flyway that we talked about, but we also love the 100 to 120 space as well. Four drop bar bikes, and you can see that throughout our line, both in motorized and non-motorized bicycles.

Hottie (11:12)
But we've discussed about who this bike is probably for and what it can do. It can go fast. You've bridged that gap to the shorter rider, which is, I think, was a lot of people thought wasn't really possible, or maybe the shorter rider would never be able to get into this platform. But no bike is for everyone. Who is this bike not for? What conditions is this bike?

Joe Meiser (11:33)
not for? This bike, as I said, I think this is for the gravel rider, the bike packer, and anyone that's looking for a really comfortable gravel bike. We see bikes like the Fargo or our Cutthroat being ridden by ⁓ many in the field at unbound and gravel races around the country because of its comfort. And so we've seen these trends in 2.2 tires in race. We've long had these. I have raced unbound on a Fargo.

in the past and ⁓ really appreciated the comfort that Fargo offered with the bigger tire. So it can be pushed into a gravel scenario, but it's not gonna be for the gravel racer. It's not gonna be for the rider who's prioritizing low stack and aero position on the bike, certainly.

Hottie (12:23)
or who's doing a lot of twisty single track, would you not dare it in those spots?

Joe Meiser (12:27)
⁓ I think a drop bar mountain bike is fun but also a little bit of an oxymoron. ⁓ I love our Spearfish and our other mountain bikes for single track riding but I would be remiss if I didn't say that you know often my rides on the Fargo include a little bit of pavement a little bit of gravel and a little bit of single track.

Hottie (12:48)
By the way, something caught my eye just now is it looks like you have plenty of room to spare in these rear stays. Like if a pretty fat 32 inch tire came out, the Fargo would handle it.

Joe Meiser (12:59)
know Fargo being a bike that was designed for bike packing and routes like the Tour Divide was built to encounter mud so we keep mud clearance really healthy on the bike. We're looking at a bike with a 32 by 2.2 in front of us. It'll fit up to a 2.4 and some of those 2.4s are measuring pretty big volume so we want to make sure it's fully comfortable with ample clearance. So we're not talking about you know a four or six millimeter clearance we're talking about an eight, ten or more depending on the tire you're running.

Hottie (13:26)
Okay, what's the timeline? When are we gonna be able to get our hands on a

Joe Meiser (13:29)
We are here at Sea Otter, previewing or launching the bike. We wanted to get out to riders, get some impressions, get people comfortable with it here at the show. ⁓ We will be delivering them later in 26 and launching them in the fall of 2026 with inventory at retail for riders.

Hottie (13:46)
Okay, well, we wish you luck with the platform. If there's somebody can pull this off, I'm sure it's Salsa. And we look forward to seeing him out on trail.

Joe Meiser (13:53)
⁓ Thank you, appreciate your time.

Hottie (00:00)
All right, we're back with Daniel Yang of Neuhaus Bicycles in Marin County. Also Yang Manufacturing, which is his own company, plus a great YouTube channel, which we've been following. And we've had Daniel on the show before. As we said, Daniel put us on a 32-inch mountain bike, the Hummingbird, which wasn't quite available.

Daniel Yang (00:28)
It was a rigid 32. That was our original prototype. You got one of the first dibs on it. And since then, we've had a couple updates.

Hottie (00:35)
Right, now you folks are actually building bikes that are available to purchase. Tell us how things have progressed on the new house side since you and I rode the

Daniel Yang (00:45)
Yeah, so we actually released a production rigid 32 called the Nova I described that as a super gravel bike. It's similar to the one that you rode except a production version ⁓ and also at Sea Otter we are showing off our titanium hummingbird 32 inch available in large and extra-large and It's a front suspension. That's what separates it hundred miles of travel. Okay

Hottie (01:09)
And the reason why you didn't call the tie a Nova tie is because of the suspension.

Daniel Yang (01:14)
Right, Hummingbird is our suspension platform, hard tail, in 29 it's 120, in 32 we do 100, so you still get the correct fit. Otherwise if your fork is too long, your bars are too high.

Hottie (01:29)
In fact, you and I discussed proper suspension travel for the 32 platform when we did our ride. You and I at the time thought, maybe 80 seems about right. Why did you arrive at 100 for this bike?

Daniel Yang (01:41)
It preserves the same stack height as our 29. So for the large and extra large, if you go smaller, you're well, it's to be seen. And that's actually why I'm one of my missions at Sea Otter. I have two missions. One, I want to talk to fork manufacturers because we have the tires. In fact, there's multiple tires that I've seen at Sea Otter where if you see, I know this podcast, but I'm pointing over there. You see Max's has the 32 inch forecaster. That's a new one. I saw Vittoria released their Pioti.

in 32 ⁓ and Teravol has a 32 by 2.2 gravel tire. So a lot of new tires. Rims are there too. A lot of rim manufacturers like Light Bicycle, they have rims now. A couple bigger brands like I9 also have rims. Reynolds has some aluminum rims. So a lot of stuff going on, but forks, that's the missing piece. That's the last piece of the puzzle and I'm here to find that.

Hottie (02:37)
So has your mindset changed at all about the necessity or demand for suspension in the 32 platform?

Daniel Yang (02:45)
Yeah, so to be a mainstream Honestly to be a mainstream mountain bike brand you need a full suspension. That's what everyone expects We don't do full suspensions. We let the brands with much bigger money do that ⁓ And we love hardtails. So for a hardtail 100 mil travel rigid back end it kind of makes a lot of sense with the bigger wheels because you get more rollover and to me I'm describing this category as Endurance mountain biking. I know typically these are called cross-country bikes, but that gets crossed over into racing and

Racing is a completely different demand from just riding your bike out on the mountains or the hills. honestly, I didn't want to like the 32s, but I've been riding them more and it feels weird to go back to 29s. And to be clear, I'm six feet tall and the Narnia Hummingbird Titanium 32 available now, kind of waiting on forks, ⁓ that's only available in large and extra large. we, know, 29 is still good and we don't want to put someone on a bike that doesn't fit them.

Hottie (03:45)
What else have you seen change since we spoke and I think it was the fall. What else has popped up? know there's been a lot of obviously the level of noise against the whole idea of 32 has gotten a lot louder. But what else have you seen?

Daniel Yang (04:00)
So I will say, I've seen a couple of gravel bikes, 32 inch gravel bikes, but this is the second mission that I'm here. I'm looking for 750D stuff. So I'm out here asking all the tire manufacturers, will you make me a 750D? And that's 30.5 for those who are in the mountain bike world, halfway between 700C and 32. WTB produced a tire.

Several years ago that never reached production. We somehow got two samples of those tires ⁓ They're 750 D by 40 and after sea otter. We're gonna build a 750 D prototype. So we're gonna prove that is good because I think The the cats of the bag horses left the barn. It's pretty clear that for endurance riding a bigger wheel Makes a pretty big difference, right? ⁓ Like I I'm using these 32 inch XC tires and on my 29 inch bike

I hate cross-country tires. Like I feel like I'm going to slide out, with the 32s you get so much grip, you get this crazy rolling feeling. ⁓

Hottie (05:05)
Why not just do a 32 or gravel bike?

Daniel Yang (05:08)
you're gonna get toe overlap. That's the big thing. there's a really cool, and much credit to WTB for pioneering this. I wish they had just stuck to it. But there's a really cool use case where a lot of people with gravel bikes, they wanna put road wheels in their gravel bike. But the problem is when you put a road wheel in a gravel bike, the road wheels are smaller, or I should say road tire. The road tires are smaller diameter, and so you end up.

It affects your steering geometry to make the bike steer slower. And with a road bike, you want the opposite. You want your bike to steer faster. And so if you actually put a bigger wheel into a gravel bike, you will have a faster steering bike. So there's a use case where you already have a gravel bike. You buy a 750 D by 35 road tire and I bet you, you will get a crazy fast road bike. That's never going to happen because road cycling is ruled by old people in Europe, the UCI.

So you're never gonna see 750D come to road, but for those who don't care, which is everyone else in the world, I think you could have a really cool road gravel setup. And then of course, if you want to have, if you're tall enough and you want to have a bigger wheel size, then I think a 750D gravel bike makes a lot of sense.

Hottie (06:22)
So give me your initial feel on that. you resurrect 750D? Do you think, I mean the industry seems to be all in on 32, a lot of energy is going that way. Can some of that be redirected to yet another wheel size? It will.

Daniel Yang (06:38)
for sure happen. If you study the past, you'll understand the future. And the past was 26 to 29, then 27.5 came in, and then it kind of marinated a little bit, and it's still around. And I think for smaller bike sizes, it makes a lot of sense. Same thing's gonna happen with 730G. And a lot of people will, the common internet troll is gonna say, ⁓ what are not 40 inch wheels?

You know, progress takes time, right? And like sometimes an idea can be ahead of its time, like 750D. Sometimes it takes another product to kind of build the confidence for a larger wheel size. So, you know, out here having fun, trying to figure that out.

Hottie (07:20)
Well, you'll let us know if you find what you're looking for forks, right? And somebody is willing to go in all in on 750D tires. Yes. That's what we're looking I thought you were shopping.

Daniel Yang (07:30)
This is the order of operations. We need a tire, then rims are pretty easy. could roll, like Astrol could roll us an aluminum rim. And then forks, that's the one that comes a little bit later. But for a gravel bike, you don't need a suspension fork.

Hottie (07:47)
Forks are for the 32 or platform. That's what you need forks.

Daniel Yang (07:49)
Correct, but you also need a fork for a 750D. It's just a lot cheaper to make a carbon fiber fork than it is to make a whole production line of 32 inch forks.

Hottie (08:00)
Well, you know how to make forks. We've seen that on your, on your.

Daniel Yang (08:03)
Yeah, so I've been slowly unlocking the pieces. I know I have friends who make tires, have friends who make wheels, I have friends who make forks, so I can make a carbon fiber fork. So all the pieces are there, I just need a tire.

Hottie (08:16)
and the will and the

Daniel Yang (08:17)
And I the willpower is will other people believe

Hottie (08:20)
Let me ask you one final question. Have you been able to gauge consumer demand yet? Like what's it like? What's the pressure? What's the demand been like at Neuhaus and elsewhere for new wheel platforms?

Daniel Yang (08:34)
I would say we're not the best person to ask because we're not mainstream. I mean, we're almost sold out of our Novas, so our production Nova. So that's a good sense. everyone who's tried, I mean, you ridden the new 32 inch Hummingbird, you liked it. It's great. I would say for certainly for people who have saddle heights over 770 millimeters, they will really like 32s. If that's the style, like endurance off-road riding, if that's the style they're into.

Hottie (08:50)
Yeah.

Daniel Yang (09:04)
they'll really like it. ⁓ We're still testing with shorter and obviously shorter saddle heights might want 32s and there's a use case for that, but we're being cautious about it. We don't have to release an entire product line at once.

Hottie (09:19)
Okay, all right, Daniel. Good luck at Sea Otter. I hope you find what you're shopping for.

Daniel Yang (09:23)
Thank you. I hope so too. I'll give you an update later.

Hottie (09:28)
Excellent.