1: Breakaway Takes Flight

Hey. Good day and welcome to our new podcast series Project Breakaway, a metaphorical and a literal time in the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the back of the shop to come and share with our listeners what we're doing, how we're doing it, what it takes to do it, our ideas, our designs, our innovative success stories, and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles, uh composite manufacturing, out of the box design, or even curiosities beyond, I encourage you to stick with us, settle in, and learn a little. I'm Courtney B., co-owner and project manager for Predator Cycling, and I'm here with my partner Arm Gaganian, co-owner, CEO, lead designer and engineer, Mr. man of many talents, hats, trades, so on and so forth. How's it going over there, Arm? Uh it's going pretty well, especially if you keep talking to me like that. Well, um big day. It's the launch of our new podcast here at Predator Cycling. We previously had a podcast about, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago. Yeah. Um it was called uh Feed Zone. Feed Zone. I can't believe I forgot. Uh where we took our lunch breaks at the shop with our employees who were no longer with us, but we were also in California at the time. Yeah. Uh we we talked mostly, I think, about actual cycling uh events, racers, like Yeah. I feel like I kept poking a little bit at Lance that that those years. I think you had a series on it. I did. Uh yeah, it was a lot about like events that were happening in the in the in the community. in Southern California. But now we're no longer in Southern Southern California. We made the move about 3 years ago to Nashville, Tennessee. And um we changed the focus up a little bit here at Predator Cycling. And recently we've been doing a lot of of new things, um but I just don't think a lot of people know what we're doing. No, we've definitely kind of uh uh kept to ourselves the last couple years. Um and it's been like a pretty long journey to get to where we are. Um and I think that was part of the move that I mean we had kind of discussed it internally ourselves that that was going to be a big part of the move here to to Nashville was to kind of refocus on what we do and what we were doing and how we were doing it. Um and I I think that's why we've been so quiet. Um and also, you know, things kind of changed. So, um we had to adapt a little bit and um yeah, I think though we'll start making some noise again. I think because of COVID, everyone was launching a podcast. And then we were like, "Hey, we already did that up 5 years ago." So, let's just start it back up. But now we have Project Breakaway. So, it's going to be a series focusing more on uh what we're doing with design and manufacturing. And we've really delved deep into a lot of different types of softwares and um And just kind of giving uh people an insight to what we're That was me. Sorry. Uh really giving people an insight into what we're doing here at the shop and what we're working on and some of the innovations that we've been doing. Um we've been really um quite we've been working a lot with companies like Autodesk in the past. We've we've given a lot of uh classes at like AU. Um we've recently done some webinars and stuff with NVIDIA and KeyShot and Lenovo and really talking about workflows and how we do that, um how how we how we've been um streamlining our workflow for manufacturing and design process and simulation and generative and Okay. But before you go down that giant rabbit hole. Um can just for any new listeners or anyone not familiar with uh Predator, um can you and going forward in many episodes our listeners will learn that Arm can talk probably incessantly about any topic. So, can you give a quick quick quick quick quick uh overview of Predator Cycling, uh what we were, um what we uh where we were, obviously, uh who we are now, what we see in the future. Um and because now we coin ourselves as Predator Cycling and much much more. Um yeah, so we Predator Cycling started um as Well, it started when I was racing as a junior and we wanted to I wanted to build a really fast time trial bike. And that's kind of where it all started. Um How long ago is that? Oh, I'm an old old man now. I am an old man. Uh I was 14 at the time. So, that was about 20 years ago. Um yeah, it's been a while. Um so, we I started that's where it started. Um and then from there it kind of just grew into like making one-off bikes for racers, um specifically for time trial bikes. Cuz at that time, too, it's like right it was right before Lance was racing the Tour and there were no time trial bikes. You couldn't get them. It was almost impossible. Anyways, um so we kind of went down that rabbit hole of building bikes and then ended up opening a shop and then we started building some road bikes and some time trial bi- more time trial bikes and some track bikes. And then about 12 years ago, we kind of made that venture into composites, um and kind of really hardcore into composites. We started doing composite repairs. We started doing uh custom one-off bars and projects. Um and this all of this was kind of uh during this whole process was an evolution of how we were designing and how we were trying to manufacture stuff and streamlining that process. So, and that kind of just brings us up to today where um um you know, we're we're bringing it brings us to today because we're bringing now to market, you know, a road frame and um handlebars and parts that we were building back then, but with our much more refined Right. workflows and manufacturing process. Yeah. It's hard to describe Predator Cycling. I feel when I get asked, "What do you guys do?" And I've there's two there's two answers. It depends on the person that asks. If it's just a regular person at a dinner party or a person I just met, I say, "We make custom carbon fiber bicycles." Yeah. If I see a twinkle or a tinge of interest, I say, "Actually, Predator Cycling, we do bicycles, but there's so much more." Yeah. We engineer, we design, we are, you know, dipping our toes in sports equipment, but also automotive, also aero aerospace, also healthcare. We've gotten approached by so many different people for so many different projects. Yeah. And at the same time, we're developing our our own um you know, products and merchandise. And it's If you come to our shop, I can just point at different things and you're like, "Well, that does that, and that's connected to that, and that does that. And it's just you really have to just come here and listen to Arm talk for 3 hours before you even get an inclination of maybe what we do. So, I think we're going to the idea for each episode going forward is maybe to focus on little pieces throughout the shop. Mhm. And also cycling stuff as well, but um maybe it it might go too granular for some people, but others find it very interesting. Yeah, and I mean I think that kind of ties into one of the things like one of the things that happened for us was when we started showing off I mean 5 years ago when we started showing off some of the tech that we were developing to make our bicycles, um we got approached by a lot of different companies um that had other applications for it. Um and we kind of just went down this rabbit hole because it seemed like a really good opportunity and we could explore some of the tech that we couldn't have done in the bike industry. So, that's how we kind of ventured out into other industries um and doing a lot of design prototype to manufacturing. Um and not just I mean Courtney kind of hinted on it, but not just on the product side, but also on the manufacturing side. Um one of the things that we've worked here is kind of starting down that road of, you know, like industry 4.0 is what everyone's calling it, but basically an interconnected shop. So, we've actually built our own machines for the RF 20 that's the new road frame we have coming out. All of the parts that are made by for that bicycle are made on machines that we built ourselves from scratch. I mean, I say from scratch, we literally solder the PCB boards together um and program them so that they work and they connect and they connect to the data and the materials that we're spec'ing and our simulation data and all of that starting to kind of connect to each other. It's not done, but it it's the starting of that. Um and so a lot of companies saw some of what we're doing and had interest. And so, we kind of um went down other projects which actually was kind of really great because we learned so much down going down those roads where we went into we started talking to people that were using materials and processes that we had, I mean, never even thought about for the bike industry. Um and so now we're kind of circling back and trying to put everything we've done and all of those processes that we've developed for other people and put it right back into where we started, which was um our bikes, our components, our our product line. Yeah, so going forward, I think we're going to hit on a lot of those different topics. Um but for today, I think we just kind of wanted to do a kind of a welcome podcast uh first episode and then briefly talk about what's going on right now, what's going on today. So, um we have many projects going on, but I wanted to discuss our largest failure of a launch today, our new road frame RF 20. um and discuss gosh, discuss COVID and cycling and business and small business and why are we keeping this bike that had such a failure of a launch up on our website live? Why are we pushing it? Why are we keeping it relevant? Well, let's discuss what went into this bike. There are so many cool technologies um that we'll focus on coming up here in the next few weeks, but um each piece definitely needs its own highlighted episode. But um so many parts went into the design of this frame. softwares hardware softwares hardware etc. time time time Yes, lots of time. time time Anyway, um Arm, what is who's the RF 20 four? How is it different from any of our previous Predator frames? As well as how is it different from any other frame on the market? Your it in the bike bike industry is apparently everyone tells us is smoking right now during COVID. But what they don't realize is yes, that's your average consumer, you know, big box store frame that's selling off the market, not necessarily your high-end ridiculously high-tech bicycles. Yeah, and on top of that note is I think one of the problems that we had with the launch of the RF 20 was that um we were kind of coming back into bicycle I mean, we were coming back into the RF frame um pretty hard. And so, um it was just really bad timing. But um the the RF 20 is really our first product that uses what we're talking about earlier, of this whole system, this new system of manufacturing and design. Um and it this is the first product that uses all of that into it. Um one of the things that makes the RF 20 so different is uh we use both uh generative design and we used uh topology optimizations with composites um to design this bike. Um so What does that mean? Um it basically means we had some really big computers trying to figure out how the material should be structured and laid up so that it meets our um requirements. So, our ride requirements, our deflection, forces, loads that we put on the bike, um and how the bike is supposed to respond and um So, previous bikes that we made, how did you how how's that different? The orig- the very first bikes we ever made were all aluminum and Scandium frames that were extruded tubing, um you know, aluminum tubing um that were cut, mitered, and welded together. That was the very first bikes. When we started introducing carbon to that, we would start buying carbon fiber tubes from suppliers and then bonding that to our aluminum frames um and building bikes. And then from there, we evolved to doing what's considered now a tube-to-tube construction, um which you take cured carbon fiber tubes, cut them, um miter them so that they fit together nicely, um glue them, wrap them in carbon fiber, and cure them. Mhm. And then from there we kind of evolved to um 3D printed core systems and um internal mandrels that would stay in place cores that would be wrapped in carbon and done. I see a lot of that with small builders on Instagram. Um For sure. Their evolution is using 3D print and just kind of wrapping it with carbon and calling it a day. Um yeah, so I mean there's a lot of different ways to use 3D print. We started using 3D print for some of our molds and stuff about I think 5 or 6 years ago. we started doing that. Um there's definitely pros and cons to it. Um it gets hard when you start getting into higher temp stuff. It gets a little tricky to do. Um and it also gets really difficult on trying to balance the the the the material properties of the 3D print and the composites. When you start doing simulations on it, you can see that there's there's issues with it. Um and collaborating those two together is is actually a lot more complicated than it seems. Um and also you have a if you have a structural core, the big thing on if you have a structural core inside of your composite part, you want to be able to simulate for that core with the composite layup so that you're not redundantly adding material to the part that doesn't need it. So, it gets a little tricky. Um And that's something a lot of other companies small bicycle builders still have access to. It's hard to get those types of softwares. And we luckily have, you know, you who can figure these things out. Also, I mean, that that kind of ties back into the idea of when we kind of left doing more bike work and went into other fields. Um I mean, we have a simulation suite of software that's, you know, very expensive, very high-level simulation software that most bike manufacturers, small or large, don't have access to. Um and the reason we had access to it was because we were working on other projects. Right. Um But not even access, just the wherewithal to even know how to utilize the software. I look at your you working and I see colors and lines. And you le- you know the material sciences behind these things and you can figure things out that big corp, you know, aerospace is working on. These are the people we're speaking to. Yeah. And we say, you know, "We're just a bike company." Well, yeah, we're a bike company making you know, aerospace create bicycles. Uh yeah, we actually it's funny you say that. We actually just did a uh AU our last AU panel with which is Autodesk University. which is Autodesk University. Um we taught a couple classes there. And the last one we did was a panel um which was talking about the integrations of kind of uh of ANSYS, which is one of the big simulation softwares that we use, and Autodesk. Um and the two panel people was was um from Predator Cycling and then uh Firefly, which is uh kind of SpaceX, their competitors to SpaceX. They're kind of the race to make a rocket to go to space. Right. Um so, it's kind of interesting and it was really interesting to talk to talk to them because a lot of the processes that they were using was the same stuff that we were doing. Obviously, the scale is different Right. and the product is way different. But it was really cool to hear that it's like, "Oh, we're doing a lot of the same stuff. We're using the funding is really different. Oh, the funding yes, the funding is drastically different. We do what we can with what we have, and I think we've done a lot. Uh no, for sure. Um but kind of tying back into the RF 20 and why it's so different, one of the things is I mean, not only did we use these types of design tools to design the product, but also if you actually look at the fundamentals of how the bike is made, um so the RF 20, the entire front triangle is a monocoque front triangle. So, that means that it's a singular piece. Um there's not it's not bonded together in joints. Um and in the bike industry, that's kind of it's kind of controversial about how good that is or bad that is. And there's there's pros and cons to it, for sure. Um the reason we went with monocoque um is because on a simulation and construction point of view, it is far superior to have a monocoque piece than having a assembled unit. Um and there's a lot of intricacy in wh- why I say that, but um one of the main reasons is is that you can actually design the materials to cohesively work as a unit together instead of using them as separate pieces that are bonded together and relying on the structural integrity of the bond to transfer the energy between the bikes. Um and so monocoque is that and also to be able to make a monocoque frame with very precise layups is really hard, um especially for a bicycle because of all the shapes and sizes and how to get parts in and out. And I think that was very intriguing on its the level of difficulty to do it. For you to design. Yes. Um For me to lay up. Oh, yes. No. It's a pain pain in the butt. Yes. Um and the other thing that's different about the RF 20 is is that it is um it is entirely built of reusable expanding mandrels. Um and for those of you that don't know what that is, it essentially what we mean by that is there is an inner structure to the bike um that is laid up with we lay up both on the tool the mandrel and in the mold. And then we apply we we put the mandrel inside the the mold and it is a very complicated curing, heating, ramping, vacuum, air supply system that goes inside of it. But basically, we control that so that we can control the thermal properties of the mold and the ramp schedule of the epoxy system that's in it. And we can compress it and we're actually able to achieve um depending on the part, anywhere between 400 and 650 PSI of internal pressure, which is a lot. Mhm. Uh and then we can actually remove the mandrel from the inside of the frame so there's no structural core in the frame and then we can actually reuse the mandrel systems. Right. So it's looking at it from the the RF20 is really complicated and it was also a really big challenge to try and make it reasonably priced. Great. The the price was very difficult. There's a secret not so secret sauce on the insides but it's pretty amazing that two people in a small business were able to Yeah. To do this and Well and the thing is is like I mean if we had like if we were looking at aerospace where we had a much larger budget we could have done this there there there are techniques to do this exact process but the frames would have cost 25 30 thousand dollars a piece um Right. And so Well you slap a name on it like Tesla or something and you sell a bottle of whiskey for a thousand dollars and Yeah. Sell a hundred of them. Uh no for sure so I mean for us that was a real big challenge because we had ideas That's a good idea. We should start selling our own branded alcohol with our Predator bike. There you go. I'll make some moonshine in the tub tonight get it going. Uh but yeah that was that was a big challenge for us was to bring it into a at a price point that was competitive that we could actually accomplish and do and scale. So Right. Well I think we're going to go into the RF20 a lot in more in further detail here in the next episode or two. Um I just wanted to briefly touch on it here in this Yeah. This intro. Um just to pump it here for a second it is available online at predatorcycling.com currently ten percent off pre-orders with free shipping and you can try out our bike builder. Yes. Um which is pretty neat um which we're also going to go into in a different episode because we worked on it with our friends over at KeyShot. Yeah. Um and it took a it's what everything takes a long time. It does. You know you got to build the bike and then you got to mark it and you got to actually have figure out to put it on your website so people can play and change colors and that stuff just doesn't happen. No. It takes hours so um anyway check it out uh go on predatorcycling.com and um check it out here and then just quickly I want to touch on some recent news here um we just completed uh last month uh AU Autodesk University they had their online uh COVID series Autodesk University which you were a part of on a panel Yeah. Um where Yes. Uh Firefly. Firefly yes. So if you guys want to Google that check it out it's probably up. It is I think you still have to log in to AU to see it which is free you can just create an account. It was a pretty it was a pretty good discussion Firefly is a really cool company Yeah super cool. The discussion was really I watched from home uh so it was good um you were also on an Nvidia webinar which is probably also Google Googleable Googleable is that a word online uh and that was a webinar discussing KeyShot and Nvidia Lenovo and your um The RF20 Yeah. With the RF20. Um And that's actually super interesting I got that's really interesting because we were uh on that topic we were um one of the few that had early access to Nvidia's new RTX uh A6000 which is their ridiculous video card. Oh the video cards The video This guy could talk about video cards forever. Oh my gosh Every morning I have to listen to something about some sort of computer part I have no idea what it does but apparently it's pretty vital to my to my situation as I use my computer I don't know I say hey does it make my Facebook stocking faster? Yes. Then there you go. Go get yourself an RTX A6000. Um and then oh you also I just wanted to talk about um recent news webinar fatigue. I'm not on the webinars but I have to listen to you on the webinar. So that webinar fatigue is real during COVID. Yes. I think everyone's feeling that but you built a really cool background. Oh I did. You think Nvidia that just briefly touch on because I think people who are stuck at home and want to mess around with something that's a little bit better than your Zoom green screen. Well I may have taken it too far but um I I was doing a webinar with Lenovo and Nvidia and KeyShot and so I wanted to make a background because someone had mentioned that you should do a cool background so I said okay. So I took KeyShot and made it a a warehouse setting and then dropped the RF20 in it and built modeled in in Fusion all of the parts and then did that as a background and rendered it out really ridiculous high resolution because we have an RTX A6000. So yeah I I'm actually I'm going to take a screenshot of your background and I don't know where I'm I'm placing this probably in the news section of our website if you want to check out a picture of Arm's backdrop shop. Yeah but if you have the trick to it all is using uh the Nvidia broadcast which is a new app they have that is free you just have to have a more recent version of their video card I don't remember which one it is you have to have but if you have a recent video card it uses an AI uh driven uh background removal tool inside of it so you can actually remove your background and drop in another image it works a thousand times better than anything that's built into like Zoom or Google or It's so cool and for those of you bored at home on your webinars just to change it if we had a school age child I mean fortunately I don't have to deal with the whole COVID work you know Zoom from home but if we did I would probably make an admission to change his background every day to something just hilarious. Oh I would do it I would do I would render out images for him every week. I was just him and his best friend him and Mickey and his best friends anyway it's a pretty cool um Yeah it's a cool option. For sure. Um and then quickly what to look forward to here on uh future podcasts um we're going to discuss our manufacturing methodologies um we've come up with a fun little system I think that even though it's specific to us I have a feeling it's going to it's going to become a thing. And uh we're we want to discuss um obviously the RF20 again um we want to discuss uh material properties different types of carbon fiber everything going on here in the back of the shop we're going to talk about softwares um hardware partners um future products we are really excited we're going to bring some three D print new three D print manufacturing Yeah. Um here soon to launch some smaller products maybe more acclimated to your cyclists and um maybe if you have a Peloton at home you might need some of these products because everyone apparently ordered one in back in March and April and then also we were going to discuss um our major bars Yes. Major major bars because everyone wants one and we haven't worked on them for a while and going to start that back up here soon. Um Yes we are. So um basically in this COVID virtual reality that we're all living in we thank you for choosing to sit down with us and we look forward to future Breakaway podcast episodes. I'll try my hardest to put any mentions in our news section on predatorcycling.com. You can also look for us on Instagram and LinkedIn. LinkedIn's a fun new favorite one we're also going to discuss a partnership with and um the socials here are exhausting me uh we're also on Facebook and Twitter but I can't guarantee that I will get to those and give them equal attention and time um because I find those less interesting for business. Anyway I've got some molds to go run. Yes. Arm has some things to design. Um so please share like subscribe contribute to our Patreon just kidding I don't know what that is uh I hear it on a lot of podcasts I think it's something podcasters just say I don't know maybe I should look into it. Will we profit off of it? I don't know. Anyway thanks for listening have a good one and find some time to break away.