9: Positional Pain? Adaptive Solutions For Cyclists, Ep. 09

Hello, and good day to you from episode 9 of our podcast series Project Breakaway. A metaphorical and literal time in the day when we here at Predator Cycling take some time away from working in the back 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 innovative success stories, and even our missteps and failures. If you find yourself with an interest in bicycles, 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 of Predator Cycling. I'm here with my partner, Aram Ghasbarian, the other co-owner, CEO, lead designer and engineer, and video celebrity of Predator Cycling. How are you? What what? I'm doing really well. How are you? I'm good. So, celebrity, how excited were you about our customer story highlight video from Lenovo that was released on the website earlier this week? Um, I was super excited about it. Does that tell you what a what a total nerd I am? Um, yeah. Uh, yeah, I know, it's super cool. Um, I was really excited to, you know, be on that selector list for the RTX A6000 from Nvidia, and then, um, I was even more excited when we got to stick that card into a, uh, into a P620. Um, and yeah, it's just cool to see companies like Lenovo taking an interest in, you know, little Yeah. Small companies like us that are doing are trying to innovate with workflows and and software and trying to push the envelope and and they appreciate it. Like, that's cool. That's super cool. Right. So, they sent a crew out here last week, no, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, I don't know. And they shot, um, a lot of B-roll here in the shop. They shot our interviews, and they cut it down to, I think it was like 3 and a half minute, maybe. Yeah, something like that. customer story video, um, and then I think they're doing a little print campaign, and, um, and of course we had Lenovo on our podcast last week as well. Yeah, we did. No, it's just cool that a company, I mean, they're just this huge company and they just have interest in, um, in in, I mean, smaller companies like ourselves, and also just the fact that they're so intrigued by pushing the envelope of their own hardware and and getting feedback, and I don't know, it's just it's really cool to see companies like that interested in us and Right. Last year was a pretty cool year for us. Like, I mean, we got, you know, um, Nvidia took an interest in what we were doing, and and so did Lenovo, and, um, Um, yeah, and I think that it's nice to showcase what we do cuz I don't feel like we're so small, we don't have the own capabilities of Oh, for sure. Of pushing our stuff out there beyond what we have. So, it's nice to get on a more of a larger platform. Yeah, for sure. It it's super helpful, and it's also just yeah, it it's it's cool just to get the validation from other places that were like we're pushing it. I mean, we think we're pushing it, but, you know, you don't know. And then you get validation from companies like that, so that's kind of cool. Mhm. And it's cool to have a video crew sent out here, although I wish they would have maybe put some extra spending in there for hair and makeup. Yeah, I definitely needed some makeup. Oh, yeah. You don't know. You think you look good, and then you see yourself on screen, and Yeah. You're like, man. Well, you looked good, but I needed help. Ugh, those angles, man. Those chin angles. Okay, so we wanted to shift gears a little this week. Um, we've talked a lot recently about our new road frame and the design and the simulation, but in addition to all of that tech that goes into a bicycle, we also rely heavily on our our own bodies and our feelings and our emotions. So, how are our bodies physically how they physically sit on the seat, how our feet rotate with the pedals, how our hips rotate with each revolution. So, we wanted to just to discuss another important factor that goes into cycling and into making a bicycle, and that is a professional bike fit. Yep. So, Aram, what is a bike fit? Well, so, yeah, so a bike fit is usually when a person, usually you go in, you get a bike fit, and you are fitted to a bicycle. So, it starts usually with a initial consult and understanding on like what your problems are, how, you know, what problems you're having, um, on the bike, if you're having any pain, hot spots, pressure points, and then from there it kind of goes down into, um, looking at your cleat and how your cleats interface with the pedal, um, and then looking at seat and seat position, seat height, set back, pressure, So, what problems are you like like knee pain, back pain? It can be any of it. It could be knee pain, it could be hand pain, hand numbness, um, going numb when when you're sit thing, um, So you're talking not only maybe like switching positions of where your hand lays, but maybe adding or or I guess adding components to help you or how if your feet hurt or your knees hurt, you can add things to help assist the spacing of how your joints Yes, absolutely. And a lot of, you know, so kind of fit is super important because you every person is different. Um, everyone is built just a little different from each other and um, and the way you interface with the bicycle is is is set. You have your your two feet that both interface with the the pedals, the shoe which interfaces with the pedals and the cleat system, and then you have um, um, your butt which is interfacing directly with the seat Mhm. And then you have your two hands. So you have five basic touch points that are interfacing with the bike. Um, and it gets really complicated really fast. And so one of the things that's, you know, um, really important is to be comfortable and to be comfortable and to be efficient. Mhm. So there's all kinds of products. I mean, we have um, um, different types of of underlying pieces that we can put inside under handlebar tape to adjust where your hand positions go. Um, on how your grips work, um, bar tape and there's, I mean, I mean, thousands of different style seats that all work. And there's even I have yet to find one I like. Well, yeah, and it's it's a big thing. I mean, finding the right width, the right length, the right, um, the right padding, um, and then for the application, I mean, like one of your big problems is that like you use bikes differently. You have an ergo bike that you jump on and use and then you have your, um, your commuter bike, you know, hybrid that you ride around town on and then you have a tandem and you're wearing different clothes and different things to do each of them and that makes a difference. Um, Right. And the type of shoes you're using and how it fits and all these things are a factor. So, um, like on the cleat side, you can have, um, uh, leg leg shims you can stick under if you have like hip rotation or leg length discrepancy. Um, there's there's, um, there's, uh, shims and and wedges you can put inside your cleats to adjust the the angle of the cleat and how it engages to help line up your, um, your knee and your leg better. Right. Because unless you were like 100% perfect at birth, you probably have one leg longer than the other or All kinds of things. I mean, not everyone is like me. I mean, Perfectly perfect in every way. Yeah, like Mary Poppins. Um, but no, so there's all kinds of ways of adjusting. And then there's like stance width, so we're talking about like how how your foot engages with the pedal and the width it is from the center line of the bike. Um, people in the industry refer that as also Q factor, which is the space between the crank arms. There there's just there's so many different variables that affect it. And it kind of goes back to like when we first started Predator. Um, that was something that was really important to us because um, we tried to design bikes and components around the person, not the person con- conforming to to the bike parts. Right. So it's been a big topic of ours and fit is something that we've focused a lot on. How many people do you think that aren't professional cyclists know to get a bike fit? A lot of people just go to their local bike store, pick out a bike. Mhm. Is it usually something that's offered or mentioned or do they ride for a while and realize that it's painful and then they start googling it? Well, that's a really interesting question. It and so a lot of times people will buy bikes and, you know, the salesperson will quote unquote fit them on the bike. Um, and they're not really getting a fit. Um, It's like buying a bra. I you don't know you've never experienced this, but you know, you go it well, I mean, my gosh, maybe I'm aging myself, but when you know you first got a bra, you went in, the lady measured you and she'd be like, you know, this is your cup, this is your your, I don't know what the other side is. Anyway, they fit you in a bra, you go home and it'd be the most irritating thing ever to wear. So I'm saying a bike if people might and that's a maybe only only relatable to women, I guess. Sure. But you go home, you buy this bike, you go home and it just doesn't fit right and it's just you're constantly trying to like fix it throughout the day. Yeah, yeah, so exactly. So people are are, uh, you know, you you get tired and you kind of stand up on your on your on your, uh, pedals and you don't want to sit or you move your hands and rotate or move and adjust your legs. Yes. You're creating like temporary relief for something that you could probably fix altogether. Right. And so the the problem that you get into is a lot of sales people, especially on on, you know, bikes that are like under a thousand dollars, um, you're typically not dealing with like really high level sales people that know about fit typically. Um, so and a lot of bike shops don't offer true bike fitting services. Mhm. So, um, that's always been the fit is kind of this generic fit you in a box, um, you know, get the right saddle height. and that's about it. Um and just you know whatever makes you comfortable. Um and usually you have to go to a fitter to actually get bike fit. So when and where did you start become start fitting? Well, I originally well, so I mean okay, so originally when I started racing and I was like 13 or 14, I started getting really bad knee pains. Like really bad. It started hurting like horribly. Um and my coach at the time um was he told me I need to get bike fit. And I was like, okay, well what's that? Like he had originally fitted me and just like, you know, to raise the seat, adjust the seat, this and that. And so um he made an appointment with me and I I got to go and I went to uh see Paul Swift who's the I mean he's probably one of the best bike fitters in the world. Um I got super lucky. I got to meet him and he did my bike fit for me and fixed most of my problems. I mean all my bike fits. Well, he didn't fix all of them. No no, there's still many many many problems. But I mean he was able to adjust I mean he you know he put cleat shims in and and pedal spacers and spaced me all out and just really got me fitting on the bike properly. Um and it totally changed my life. I mean it just changed my it changed how I rode a bike. It changed how I felt. I was going on longer rides. It just made such a huge difference. So then when you started to make bicycles you felt that was a extra add-on service or you just felt like if you're making a bicycle you want to be able to ride it well. Well, I I mean You want him to like riding your bike. Not even that. When I first started building bikes, I didn't even want to build bikes for other people. I just wanted it to help me win races. Like that's it. I wanted an edge. Wow, so selfish. No kidding. Oh yes, completely. Um and so I wanted to design my bike around the fit that Paul had done for me. Mhm. So I just thought like well why would I make a bike that doesn't fit you? Like I mean just make the bike fit me because like I this is my best position. Hence the custom bike. Hence custom frames and that's why we never in tell very recently offer any sort of stock geometry. Um until the RF20 uh we only built custom frame geometries 100%. Um but yeah, so that was something for us that was built into us at at the DNA in the very beginning was that we just built um frames and components and parts that were molded around you as a rider and to fit you. So fit was just I mean bike fitting was in our DNA from the beginning. I mean it just it was part of what we did because you had to fit the person. Mhm. Um I mean at first it was just me and then as I started making bikes and and producing more frames and for myself it more people wanted it. Mhm. Um and so we started selling it to them and then I had to start trying to learn how to fit and um eventually I started I took uh Paul used to have classes uh bike fitting. I think he still does bike fitting classes. Um and I I took his classes and I I ended up teaching with him as well and um it just became a big So you've become a I guess quote unquote certified bike fitting Yeah, I I have I got instructor or bike fitter? Uh instr- in well uh fitter and then I was an instructor. I was an assistant with him. I was I helped guide some of the his classes. Mhm. Um I didn't teach class on my own. I I just taught with him. Um but yeah, it was it was a lot of fun and um that was kind of always the the the starting point for our products and parts. It was always about talking about touch points. So I okay like you know this is how the person's interfacing with the bike and this is the problem they're having and so we need to fix it. Um So let's talk about like maybe one of our products and how we um molded it into like you were talking about handlebars earlier um with me. Not not on here but I'm okay mentioning it. Yeah. So how did our handlebars fit into that? Yeah, that's that's that's a perfect point. So um the handlebar was the first part or the first component that we worked on that was completely redesigned because of how we had the restraints on fit. So the if you look at the the the major pilot that's the clearest example. Um if you look at the shapes that are on that bar, there's these really like wavy organic shapes like on the top of the bar and the angles of it. It looks kind of strange. Um those are all built around how you interface with the bar. Mhm. So as your hand goes from the outside of the bar to the center of the bar Mhm. the bar gets higher. Right. So Because you're using more of a palm palm placement Yes. in the middle of the fr- in the middle of the bar. Right. And one of the things that you want to do is when you're racing those bars were originally designed for racing on the track. So um they were designed so that when you were racing a a Madison where you had two riders and you exchange each other, uh when you're riding at relief and you're trying to recover, uh we wanted the rider to be able to lift themselves up and breathe better and just get more air and relax. And so we built that lift into the bar so that they could go up about centimeter and a half almost in their bar position when they went to the center. And then when they went out wide on the bars it went down a half a centimeter lower than the clamp section of the of the where it clamped to the steer tube so that they could get a lower more aero position and tuck up a little bit better. And the way that the drop started it was a more organic feel and it was it extended so that they could put their hands on there so you had a hand placement. Mhm. All of these things were designed or were around how you interface with it. And also the distance it is from the the vertical distance if you're looking down at the bike and you that where that handlebar the cross section would be that goes uh perpendicular to the frame that is actually arcs out so that as your hands go closer to the center line of the bike they go farther away from you. There's a lot of little key details on those bars that are specifically designed around fit. And we did that very early on with with all of our majors. Um so yeah that was that was a really obvious um What about the bike itself or the new the new RF 20 what design integrations did you make for stance I know the bottom bracket is wide. Yes so the bottom bracket is wide is wider than normal it it uses those still standardized cranks so that Q factor effect is is actually kind of eaten not by the um by the the um by the cranks themselves not the the the bottom bracket but um we did a lot of things on how we designed the molds of the frame so that we could make modifications to account for custom fit. We also went ahead and designed the geometry itself around the horizontal like the theoretical top tube of the bike um so that it it fits more people. It's designed to fit more riders can fit on a frame and then we offered it so that it is a full custom option is still there we didn't get rid of it. Mhm. Um but just because of the RF 20 and the way we make it it's just a lot more difficult to make it that way and we had a lot of feedback from newer people that were interested in our bikes and weren't interested in custom and didn't want to pay that penalty for custom that price penalty. So we did um a stock version and then we also have a 100% custom version as well. Right. So we talked about handlebars, we talked about the frame. Now excuse me, you've been tinkering. Yeah. Yeah that's the best way to describe it. That's the best way to describe you. You're a tinker. Yeah I'll take that. You've been tinkering with 3D print accessories. Oh yeah we've been doing it a lot. So we kind of hinted towards it quite a bit. We have and I think we're getting close to releasing Yeah a couple of products. So go into that as much as you want where or are willing. Okay um so a couple of the things that have have um become more and more um well so okay back up a little bit here. We we've talked earlier on in podcasts that we've been doing a lot of 3D printing and we have different types of 3D printers and we're kind of building our own little farm here of printers. Um and we have a background in making custom one-off parts that's kind of what we've always done. So we've always been approached at fit modification parts um custom handlebar adapters, custom um cleat systems, custom spacers, all kinds of things. And we've in the recent years we've kind of tried to print a bunch of them um kind of pushed away some of them because we just don't have the time to build it. So we designed by we had a couple of requests for some leg length products for adjusting the leg length for for cleats in inside cleat systems. And what do you mean by adjusting the leg length? So you someone has like a stack height problem so like for instance one leg is shorter or longer than the other and they need an adjustment for it. And there's there's people that there are products that are made that that do that they have a just a shim that goes So you're just adding basically a shim underneath your cleat. Well and to lengthen one leg to match the other. Exactly. And in these particular cases they also needed to have um a angle associated to it and the shoe was a little bit different so it needed a little bit of customization to be able to fit to the shoe properly. Um and I'm kind of always tempted with this idea of of making some of those fit interface parts and 3D printing them that it's been a kind of a I've always wanted to do it. So anyways this was kind of an opportunity to do that so so we did it. And it worked it worked really well. Mhm. Um and because we have now the 3D print capacity to actually put that into a product we've been experimenting with some prototypes and some earth and I think we're pretty close to production on a couple of them. So, um we have a couple fit-related products that we're hoping in the next couple weeks here we'll be able to release. And what is the benefit of using so you say a shim? I've seen these and they're usually just plastic. Uh-huh. Um you know, made overseas. Yeah, it's injection molded. There's just injection molded. So, what is the benefit of using our expensive 3D printer and our expensive 3D print materials on these? Well, so it gets there's there okay, this is like a rabbit hole of a question because the materials themselves are the printers are expensive, the materials are expensive, producing it in that way is expensive because you're doing it in an additive approach where you're adding the material that you need. Mm-hmm. You can actually be very intelligent about where you put material so that you can intelligently create the part. And the material properties are a little bit different. Oh yeah, they're actually a lot The strength. Well, it's it's even more interesting than that because you can actually print the material in such a way to get certain material properties and because we can adjust the forces and like because we know where the adjusting okay, the forces and loads are pretty static. Well, they're not static in the sense of that they're continuous loads and and um they have their dynamic properties to it but we know the direction and the and and how much of it is coming and when. The frequency we can adjust for. Um because of that we can actually run it in the simulators and actually figure out the perfect material structure or to make the part. So, we can add material where we need it. We can actually put little reinforcements in and hollow things out just to get the perfect amount of weight to power ratio and and adjustment. And the problem is so okay, that's one aspect of it. So, we can make a really cool part but then on the fit side, every we go back to this concept of every person is different. Right. So, you can't like if you have for instance, someone might need perfect example is me. I have and my left leg, I use a 1 mm leg length shim and I use a 2 degree tilt to my to my cleat. Right. And um I used to do that with four separate um uh cleat wedges. Yeah, shims shims and wedges I used to use. I want just quickly to interject here. People who probably aren't familiar with what you're exactly talking about, think of like a piece of plastic that's in the shape of your foot and it's thinner on one side and thicker on the other because there's a degree of tilt to how your foot you make pedal harder on the left side of your foot or the harder on the right side of your foot. So, you have to remedy that by putting a shim in. Yes, uh yes, so it's it's the size it's the shape of your cleat that interfaces with your pedal with uh interfaces with your uh uh shoe. Okay. And um it's to adjust for your natural tilt in your foot. Okay. And yes, so you're absolutely right. It's with pressure points. It's yes, you're Well, your mom can thank me later for giving her a visualization. There you go. Um but you want to create even pressure across the bottom of your foot is what you're trying to do uh essentially. And and everyone's a little different and everyone's and and there's so many pedal systems out there and you have to adapt systems and what not and then there's there's things that you do inside the shoes as well. So, anyways, the idea of being able to print them so that you could make any angle, any length, any adjustment that's needed on demand à la carte Mm-hmm. is super cool. Well, okay, so you're talking about having usually the shims are stock stock degrees or whatever. Right. But you're also talking about Predator Cycling offering a service of custom wedge sizes Yeah. based on each specific rider. So, let's say you have a problem, you're going to log on to our website, which is not available right now, we're building it. You log on to our website, what are you putting in to our system to let us know what specific customization you need? So, you can go ahead and put in any angle from zero to to 5 degrees that you would want and any stock height of .4 mm to 6 mm that you want. Mm-hmm. Um and we'll do it in increments. So, we'll probably do half degrees and we'll do 1 mm or half a millimeter increments that you can select and then they will be made and they will be made on demand They're made to order. Yeah, they're made to order. We we They're 3D printed, made to order, shipped out. Like in a week. In a week. We're trying to Made in America. Yes, yes. Made made in made in Tennessee. Made Middle Tennessee. Um and it's uh we get the request. This is like a thing that this is something this and other products we've had the request for that we've never been able to make custom on demand like that before. We've made some custom versions of stuff like this in the past and it's just painstaking and now that we have 3D printers at our disposal, now that we have all of our simulation tools to actually create and simulate this Right. We finally have the tools so we've just decided to just hey, let's do it. Yeah, for sure. Well, now we have the bandwidth too because we used to use a lot of 3D printers for manufacturing and now we have it and we're like, well, we're I mean we're we're finishing off all the final tooling for the RF20s and Mhm. like well what are we going to use all these things for now? So let's make some parts. Yeah, I'm staring right now at the printer printing our test parts right now. Yes. So hopefully we can get these tested and get them rolling soon. Yeah, and it it's I think this is going to open up a whole new thing for Predator um like I've said in previous episodes we spent so many years working on our on our manufacturing platforms and our systems and design philosophies and how everything works and workflows Right. and and we had to because of that we had to go away from a lot of our custom build you know boutique parts that we had that we used to do a lot of. We've had to go away from a lot of it and now I'm really excited with 3D printing and a lot of our new workflows and and CNC machines we're able to bring that back to scale. Right. And it's just a benefit for our customers. Absolutely. We've had Buy buy yourself a nice custom frame. Yep. And then we'll have you fit on it. Correctly. Yes. Absolutely. Um One stop shop. Yeah. Um great. So um let's wrap that up and quickly talk about um some recent news here. The RF20 page is officially updated. Yes. As we promised with geometry charts and more uh photo angles of the frame and close ups and Also clarifying some of the um we got a lot of questions about how our bottom bracket systems and and Mhm. There's a lot more information. There's a lot of info on how everything works and some cutaways um so that you can we can visually you can see it. Right. So it's no longer in pre-order. It is up for sale. Has an 8 to 10 week lead time. Um and listen people we know that you just don't click on a button online and pay a $5,000 plus cart check out. So we've added a button for interested buyers to fill out a short riding characteristic survey Yep. Which we will then get and then we can schedule a consultation with you. Yep. This is a time for you to ask questions about what you need in a bike and in terms of what you want strengths of whether carbon placement or aesthetics and component selections. Um we're always happy to help out we're always happy to help out with that. And the idea is to use the online bike builder that we created on the RF20 webpage to um create the frame of your dreams, get a feel for the price, and then you can schedule a consultation with Arm and um it can help you narrow down exactly what you want out of that frame. Yep. Yeah, if you you know we can talk about components and carbon layouts and and fit if you have bike fitting questions on what frame size you should need. Do you need custom? I mean all these kind of things are we're here to help so Right. And then once you have that consultation and you decide it's a go you go back to the website you click the button we make the bike. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. Go book an appointment. Yeah, go book an appointment. Arm loves to chat so block three hours off. Yeah. This is true. This is true. So um let's talk about future podcasts. Yeah. We are excited to host our second call in visitor here soon. Oh what? Uh next week we're going to have our friend from Ansys Kurt Chan. Kurt is the senior product marketing manager for Discovery which is a super important software that we use here for simulating our frames and components. Yep. Um so we look forward to discussing how we use uh live simulation during the actual design process to see instant results. Uh specifically we will be talking about using it for parts intended for 3D print which we just discussed. Yeah, we did. So we thank you for choosing to take some time with us and we look forward to future breakaways. Look for us on Instagram and LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and in person here in Tennessee. We ask our listeners to please share, like, and subscribe. We're available on all major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening. Have a good one and find some time to break away.