5: The RF20 Examined

Hello, and good day to you from episode 5 of our new podcast series Project Breakaway. A metaphorical and literal time in the day when we hear 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, Arm Goğanian, the other co-owner, CEO, lead designer, and engineer, and early 4:00 a.m. riser of Predator Cycling. How's it going over there, Arm? It's going great. I think the day is just about over, right? Not at all. So, uh it's the first full week uh of the new year. Mhm. And uh it feels like we're just working five times as hard. Yeah, that's the point of the new year, right? That's that's Yes, I guess. I guess. So, let's uh jump right in here, as we have a lot to talk about today. We do. This is a packed podcast. It is. So, you need to monitor yourself. Yes, I'm sure I'm going to do my absolute best, cuz this is a one of my favorite topics. Okay. So, let's talk. So, Arm, we had a lot of hits on our website on our new road frame, the RF20 here, in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Um It's been kind of steadily ramping up. Right. So, it's been a passion project of yours for over 2 years. Yeah. And it it's been unveiled, and it's been on our website as a pre-order for quite a while. Mhm. Um and so I thought we might take a little bit of a deep dive into what exactly makes the RF20 stand out. Yeah. What makes it cool? Yeah. Um I figured maybe we can go into a little more detail about each part. Um specifically components that are made here in house, and the design qualities uh etc. etc. Yeah, you just tell me how deep dive you want to go in deep dive. Um I want to go to a deep dive that our listeners understand, but I also want to uh not bore them with 5 hours of conversation. It's not boring. Um No, it's not. It's it's not um for a nice 30-minute conversation. All right, let's do this. So, let's start from the top. Yeah. What is the general concept of this road frame? Arm, you wanted to design a new bike. Mhm. Um what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you're like, "I want to design a new bike"? So, well, th- this particular bike um was was something we've been talking about for a long time, about a a road bike that was a a Well, to back up just a little bit, in the past with Predator, we'd always talked about this concept of like total efficiency, like not just thinking from a perspective of like um fit or aerodynamics, but just as the whole package. Um and that's kind of where this RF20 came from. This idea of building a bicycle that rode well, had good road characteristics, um was comfortable so that you could produce more power, it fit correctly, um and it could cut through the wind. And kind of crossing all of those um those those key points um and working as a balanced bike. And also in in this particular bike, it's really geared towards a a more traditional road frame. So, not a crazy road road racer, more of a leisurely road? Yeah, I mean you could the bike is is is never it's never going to go away from our our core of being building race bikes. I mean, that's just kind of what we've I've always done. Background originally was time trial bikes for the I mean, for racers. It's the circle thing. Uh velodrome. Velodrome. Uh so the original the the very very first bike we ever built, which is the black bike that's sitting back over here, is is a time trial frame. So, for road racing. Um and then that quickly moved into track, cuz I'm a track racer, and I love track. Um but it was always geared towards building the fastest bike in the world. Just make it go fast. It doesn't matter if it's comfortable, it just you have to get fast times. So, the RF20 is more of a road frame, a fast bike for um Yeah, your for your Joe Schmo, Jane Schmo, Yeah, I who also wants to beat traffic. It's Yeah, I mean it's it's to be honest, it's kind of where I'm at in my life right now. I want to go out and ride my bike. I'm not racing anymore. I want to go ride and just have fun, go do a century, go do, you know, a Grand Fondo. Um Can you attach a Burley to this bike? Sure. Why not? Cuz that's where you are right now in life. Yeah, I am. I am. It's a tandem with the with the Burley attached. But my point is is that it's a bike that is definitely has a racing heritage behind it. It's definitely responsive. It's definitely quick. It descends like a a monster. And it looks cool. It looks cool. It's aero. It's fast. Um but it's not it's not to the point where it's uncomfortable to go fast. We tried to kind of tone it back to the point where it's like, "This is a bike you could go and ride a 100 mi on." Um and, you know, not complain that the bike is too rigid, and it's not forgiving, it's and, you know, not forgiving enough to lose performance. So, we just tried to kind of skate that um Right. thing. And also, I I mean, I I I I probably can't go without saying that the bike the reason that this RF20 is actually created was there wa- we were doing an AU class that was geared towards it. And um that was designed Cuz it's a design piece. It it is. And um originally we did not want to I was not going to do the RF20 for that class. Um but um the the person I'm doing the class with, Michael Sagen, was adamant that we should do the road frame that we've been talking about. And so that kind of led the inspiration to do this bike. And hence, it's taken so long, cuz it wasn't really planned to happen um like this, but it came up and and I'm really happy it did. And now it's here. It's here. So, let's get into the nitty-gritty of the frame. Let's start with the front triangle. It is a monocoque piece. So, basically, it's a one-piece system made out of composites. Yep. Is that a unicorn in the composite world? No. Um it's it's happened in the past. It's it's If you look at modern builders, um you know, semi-custom, custom, um even like small production shops that are building bikes, um are are are torn between going monocoque front triangles and going um into like a piece system where you have like multiple pieces, four or five pieces that are joined together. Cuz that's normally kind of the the That is the cut, copy, paste of a bike is the tube to tube. Well, there's tube to tube where you're mitering tubes. There's also like molding tubes that are suction that are glued together. Um but and it it gets tricky. There's a it's a tricky process. So, like I'm trying not to go down too far of a rabbit hole on this concept. But the the the thing that makes ours different is monocoque front triangles have been done in the past. Um we're doing a monocoque front triangle um and we don't have there's no bladders in our bike. We have mandrels. Mhm. So, we're using a mandrel system to build a monocoque front triangle. So, that's it's it's a different approach than how you normally face a front triangle. Um and that gets away from the the the problem you've had in the past with monocoque front triangles is they're actually heavy. Um and they're actually not optimized layup schedules. Because it's so hard to lay it up on a bladder or on tooling or doing like um the old Giant patents where you had that fold like the fold over system where you'd lay it in the mold and then fold it and then put the bladder inside and then fold it back and all of that I'm not familiar with that, but that sounds horrible to lay up. Yeah, it's not fun to lay up. It's also um it the Anyways, you go down this rabbit hole of of why the layup is is not optimized, and hence a lot of companies went away from it and went to this um construction where they could focus on building really good parts that then are bonded together. So, our mandrel system optimizes the monocoque structure. Yes. Um we're able to get Cuz we figured out the the magic sauce. Yeah, essentially. So, we basically have a a inside of the frame that is a rigid part that we can actually lay to lay composite parts onto and then also in the mold, and then we basically assemble the whole thing, and so we have a true mandrel inside the bike that's that's removed when we're done. Right. Okay. So, um that's the general uh shape for the front triangle. But let's talk about the intentional shape of the actual tubes. Um Yeah. Like the the head tube. It's a very thin hour gla- hour glass shape. Yep. So, is that because it's it's it's an aero, it's a more responsive, does it make it stiffer? It it's it is more aero. That's the main focus. And that's So, like when you look at aerodynamics, um the frontal surface area. So, like if the bike is coming towards you, um that area that you see in front of you is one of the most important things um um for wind flow. The less that the wind sees, um the quicker it is. There's less that there's to block it. So, um making that head tube as as thin as possible um and yet not making it so thin that it actually weakens the frame Mhm. is a very fine line. Um and that's where a lot of attention was paid to the to the RF20 is that balance. Again, we come back to this balancing act of making it aero, but still making it functional, and making it a good bike. Right. Um and that's really I I think we, you know, there's obviously always going to be the argument like, "Oh, you could have, you know, pushed this harder." But then it's like, "Yeah, but then you would have compromised this." So, that's that line. And so the front head tube, I'm very proud of it because it is um it is less frontal surface area than some of our old time trial frames that used like 1-in steer tubes, super narrow everything. Um the RF20 actually has less frontal surface area for the same head tube height. Um And how does that affect the torsional load? So, well, that's a good question. Um the old problem that we had was on our old frames, uh we used 1-in steer tubes, which is the older very very thin steer tubes, and um external headsets so that we could actually mill down the head tubes as thin as possible. Uh and you reduce your your torsional strength when cornering, breaking into a corner, like fast descending and breaking, the bike did not perform great, but it was really fast in a straight line. Now, the RF20 uses a tapered headset, which is common in the bike industry. Um we use an inch and an eighth top bearing, and we use an inch and a half bottom bearing, which is essentially about as big as a system as you can get. There are people that run inch and a half to inch and a quarter or inch and a quarter straight through. We don't. We use inch and a half to inch and an eighth. Um and we were able to design the front head tube, that hourglass that you described, Mhm. is designed around the bearing selection. So, we actually selected the bearings that were designed that we designed the front head tube for and then built the carbon structure around it to encase the bearing. Um and then around the the taper is actually guided by the steer tube taper of the fork. Um Cool. So, it's as minimal as possible. And um if you well, I I'll let you continue down the frame cuz Yes, let's continue down the frame. Let's continue down the down tube of the frame, which is the bottom tube. Right. And you designed this specifically to hold a bottle cage. Hey, guys. We're in a shop. And that's our vacuum running. That is a vacuum. Hold on. Are we running a part right now? Uh I'm testing vacuum holdings. We're testing vacuum holdings. So, Arm designed this down tube specifically Oh, hey. We also have a dog here that loves vacuum. Okay, so the down tube was designed specifically to hold a bottle cage. Why is a bottle cage so important? Because let me tell you, I ride a steel frame. And I never actually use the water bottle because I can't reach it while I'm riding my bike. I have short arms and arm syndrome compared to my legs, I guess. I look like a drunk T-Rex trying to reach down to my water bottle cage. Oh my God. So, I only drink when I come to a complete stop. Yes. But enough about me. Why did you design a bottle cage in mind? Oh my gosh. Uh I wanted you to continue. Uh no, so uh we we designed the down tube to incorporate the water bottle uh because uh you need to drink water um when you're riding a bike. And Oh, so that's where I messed up, too. I never had water in my uh bottle cage. Hence, you didn't need to reach for it. Hence, why I look like a drunk T-Rex. Um yeah, so we want to focus on having the airflow flow over the seat the the water bottle itself. And so, creating a traditional teardrop shape is um is not uh uh it would not work. It does not benefit you if you have a water bottle there. So, we designed it so that it would incorporate the air the flow that comes off the down tube would go around the bottle um itself. Um which is super important. Also, we actually designed the mounting location of the water bottle cage very specific to um the layup of the bike. So, there's actually um it's it's designed to be reinforced where the bottle cages are so that you can have um a much better connection, so you don't have um as much problems down the road. Um the other thing that's really interesting about the down tube system is if you look at the the RF20, I think the signature look for it is this this edge that comes off of the down tube. It's very edgy. Yeah, and there's this one like uh it's an edge. It's a crease. It's I don't know what to how to describe it quite, but it's that piece that comes off the head tube and goes across into the down tube. I think it's the most distinguishing factor of the bike. Mhm. And that is actually designed to tie into the torsional strength that you were talking about in the head tube. So, that we can actually sw- within that section so that it gains us torsional strength on the bottom race and bottom bearing of the head tube. And so, that ties into the down tube and gives you um much better braking performance, cornering performance, out of corner sprinting, um all of those characteristics come in because of that the way that ties in together. See, I actually just learned something. I didn't even know why that existed. I just thought it looked cool. But there's a reason. Oh, there's a reason. Which probably goes back to our previous episode about simulation, cuz all of this was thrown into a wind tunnel. Yes, this is all thrown into a wind tunnel. It's this is CFD simulated, and it's also um we also run uh structural analysis on the composite structures. Cool. So, um and then the only thing that just quickly before I uh we leave the down tube, um one of the other I mean, there's other characteristics of the down tube that make it interesting, but just for this episode, um the the other one that's that's cool is that we actually the shape that it goes into at the bottom bracket is optimized for width the to get to gain width on the bottom bracket so that you get more torsional strength out of the bottom bracket junction. Mhm. So, that shape and that transition, there's a lot of attention paid to it. Cuz it looks a little wide, but it's purpose. There's a purpose. It's designed to um to really give you a ton of strength in the bottom bracket area so that you can have as much pedal efficiency as possible. Awesome. Let's uh let's move up to the seat tube. Yeah. Which is also a a an aero shape. Yes. And it's not blunt. It's not right. So, we did not you you'll see a lot of companies you see that focus on a um that do like that aero acceptance for the water bottle. So, they they'll make a you know, drafting area for the bottle to sit. Um they also do a very similar job on on the seat. tube. And we didn't. Um we came with a different approach cuz we started running some simulations and noticed that there wasn't a huge difference if we made it blunt to kind of um grab the back of that dirty air coming off the bottle cage or if it was a full foil. Dirty air? Yeah, dirty air. Is that what it's called after it goes through Yeah, so when you hit uh when you get turbulence um and you start getting that um when you look in the tunnel and you see the lines kind of going all over the place, Dirty air. It's dirty air. Dirty. Okay. So, we designed it so that if you didn't have a water bottle cage on, again, this is that whole threading that needle, um if you decided like if you're racing a crit, and you want to take your RF20 out and you ran a single bottle cage, um you'd actually gain an advantage um because it actually helps clean up the air coming off onto the rear wheel. Cleaner air. It it helps clean the air. Less the more dehydrated you are, the cleaner your air. Sh- yeah. Cuz you have less water. Yeah, there's a correlation there. But if you're very thirsty, you have very dirty air. Okay, moving on. Okay, can we move on to the top tube? Yeah. It is more of a rectangular square shape on the sides to stiffen the bike. How is that different from normal tubing? And you also said it was reinforced for impact. What kind of impact are you talking about? Okay, so that that's a really good question. So, it is a kind of more of a a square shape, like a torsion box. Um and that helps gain some rigidity again in the front end. It also helps locate the the seat post and um a little bit better so you don't gain as much torsional load there um when you're pedaling and you're kind of rocking that seat a little bit. Um that can transfer into the seat tube, which can actually flex and move the bottom bracket section a little bit. So, we designed it to be a little on the square side to help give you some torsional strength in that seat tube. Um it's also tapered out towards the head tube again to gain um some strength in the head tube and also to kind of transition that air and try to guide the air that's coming off the head tube and guide it guide it down the top tube and um extend that region behind the head tube. Um regarding impact, we we come from doing a lot of carbon repair over the years. Um and one of the big impact areas is um handlebars spinning around and hitting the top tube. Right. Also, when you go to a coffee shop or go someplace, a lot of people I don't know why they lean their top tube against something. You shouldn't do that, people. We should lean it against the seat. You lean your top tube the top tube to lean it against the pole or something. Oh, you mean like I have that bike back there? Yes. Yes, exactly. Wait, you're saying to put Oh, just put your seat. Put the seat against the wall. Uh I feel like that's not as sturdy, but you know, what do I know? You break your bike. Yes, don't do that. Um so, yeah, that um that's an a common area where things get hit. Also, um you know, you're holding a water bottle you drop it. to hit the top tube. People sit on the top tubes when they're descending sometimes. Um so we have a a reinforcement in the top tube to help reduce the possibility of cracks being formed from impact on the top tube. Um Cool. So we we paid very close attention across this bike from our experience in repairs to make sure the bike is uh durable. Okay, let's finish up the front triangle here and talk about the bottom bracket. Yes. What is the general function of a bottom bracket? Uh this is a whole episode. Oh gosh. I mean you just had to explain it to me in like one sentence. Uh What does a bottom bracket do? It holds the bearings that hold the crank. Holds the bearings that hold the crank. So holds the pedals? That holds the chain rings that hold the pedals that turns your leg power into forward motion. Important housing for the engine of the bike. Yes, I'll take that. That's a very yes. Yes, so it is the heart. I've always referred to the bottom bracket as the heart of the bike. Um it is where all of the power is generated. It all goes through the bottom bracket. Um Okay, so our original concept and I'm just going to read this cuz I have no idea what this means. For our bottom bracket was an Evo 386 T47 Yes. Was the original concept? Yeah, that's You changed this system. Explain. First tell me what I just said and then explain why you changed it. Okay, so there's a there's a 500 million bottom bracket standards in the bike industry. Um FSA came out with what they call the Evo 386, which is a clever system. It's basically um a BB30, which is um 30 mil axle that goes to the crank um bearing system, but wider. It's 86 and a half millimeters wide instead of 60 uh 68 millimeters. Um so it gives you a wider platform for the axle of the crank and gets the bearings wider farther out. You think you'd want wider though? I'd feel safer on a wider system, right? You're there's there's you could sit here and argue this for Oh, but if I want to go fast I don't want it is why is that what you're saying? Yes, also, but then also there's the fit factor of it and your stance your width stance that you have. Right. Distance apart. This is a This is a whole fit episode we need to discuss. This is a multi-part fit episode. So let's not go down that rabbit hole. But the the idea that the 386 is a it's a good balance. It's I think it's a good balance and it also the way the bike is made it helps us with the layup and how the bike the heart of the bike is. Now the T47 um was developed by Argonaut and uh Chris King. Uh which is a really cool system, which is essentially a press fit 30 bearing that's threaded. Cool concept of how to work. Um and I really liked it and I was going to adopt it on this bike. When we started going down the rabbit hole of simulation, like we talked about in the previous episode, we realized that there was material that was left on the table that didn't need to be there. And then also we get into this whole issue of um concentricity of the drive side bearing and the non-drive side bearing of them being in alignment so that they're both parallel and on the same axis. It's very difficult um because you have a two-piece mold that's either side. So you have to the accuracy of the bearing location is dictated by the tooling of the mold. This I know what you're talking about. Yes, so cuz you do the mold. Because I can sell you a misaligned bike. Yeah, so the issue of this alignment issue on bearings is a real big problem and it causes all kinds of bottom brackets like it it you get drag in the bearings. So we started going down this rabbit hole on how to fix this with it not I don't fix is the wrong word. How to make sure that a T47 uh bottom bracket system is perfectly aligned is really difficult to do. Um and we were going to tackle that and then realized that there was no point because we had a weight penalty in order to do it. So what we ended up doing is um we designed our own precision um machined bottom bracket sleeve that basically bonds into the frame, which is somewhat similar to what was done in the first BB30 bottom brackets except for the fact that this isn't welded. This is actually bonded into place. So what we basically did is built our own bottom bracket system and then bonded it into the frame. Um and that's what we did. And then we ended up designing our own um preload spacers that load the the correct preload between the bearings and then we also designed our own non-contact seals on the outside that um connect that seal the bottom bracket to um the the crank interface system. And then took it a little farther than that and actually designed specific um um non-contact seals for each crank system. Um so that whatever crank you have, we actually designed a a seal system so that there's no spacers, there's no shims. It just fits all nicely snug together and sealed. We did? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it's right there sitting back there on the workbench. Oh, okay. Let's move on to the rear triangle. Yes. Okay, so your rear triangle uh is the chain stays and the seat stays and the dropouts. Yeah. You have an asymmetrical design for that. Yep. Um where the asymmetry begins in the chain stays and then works its way down the tube towards the bottom bracket. And why did you do that? So the load there faced on each chain each chain stay is completely different from one another. Um your drive side chain stay is under compression. Um so Drive side's on the right. The right side, the side that has the chain rings. Um you're basically um compressing that chain stay into the bottom you're basically trying to pull the rear wheel into the bottom bracket. So it's being pulled. It's then being if you think about it, it's rotating and twisting kind of on the axis of the non-drive side drop out where the hub meets. You get this twisting force. So we designed them for each of the of the load cases that happen. Um and then also on the non-drive side you have a disc brake mount. So you have a breaking force that's being applied. So you have completely different forces that are happening. So each tube is specifically designed for the job that it's doing. Um Based on the simulation data. Based on the simulation data. That we talked about in the the previous episode. Yeah. Okay. I mean I could Go. I know you could. So I'm trying to So let's tone it. Let's move on to the the dropouts. Yes, dropouts. The dropouts are hollow. Yes. As we discussed um previously, we talked about intentional design. Yep. They are net shaped composite molds. Yep. Are dropouts not normally hollow? Um No, they're usually like not carbon, right? Well, some are not carbon, some are metal and that are done. Others are made out of um a it's referred to in the industry as forged carbon, which is basically chopped carbon pre-preg that's pressed into a shape. Um and then they machine it all out from stock. Uh so it's machine. But ours is in the mold. Ours is all done in the mold. Which I know because I lay up these molds. Yes, you do. And they are designed to have the cable routing go through them. Yep. On the drive side one the cable routing goes through it has a hollow section that guides the cable through and out the back. Um that's all molded into the um in the mold. So there's there's there is some trimming that's done post mold but cuz we extend it because there's some draft angle that we just can't get in the mold. Mhm. Um so there's some trimming operations that happen but it's uh non I mean it's non-structural parts that we're trimming and we're not yeah we're not trimming any shape from it. Within that custom axles. Yeah, so there's a whole I that's another whole episode on its own. But uh yes, there's a I don't know if I can do a whole episode on axles. I could do a whole episode on dropout systems for sure. Dropout systems and that all connects with axles and locators. So I can get on board with that. So we have one of the things that we did is we again we come back from repairs. And so um a lot of dropout systems are carbon on aluminum contact. So your I s- what I mean by that is that you have a aluminum or steel hub that is in contact with the carbon of the frame. And you get this like wearing. Carbon doesn't wear very well in that in those regards. So we designed um the dropout and hanger system is actually inside of the frame. So it locates the axle of the hub and then connects it. And then we built all of our threading and attachment systems as like these sandwich pieces that go together into the drive side. And then on the non-drive side we designed our own indexing sleeve that's this really thin part that's all made out of metal so that the axle rubs against that and then we designed because I hate the look of through axles it's a through axle system and um I hate the look of through axle nuts sticking out the outside of the frame. I just think it looks really bad and tacky. So I designed our own axle through axle system that matches the frame. So it's all perfectly lined up and it's all nice and flush. And it's ridiculously light. Looks good. And then quickly let's discuss the seat stays because they're intentionally bent towards the frame. Yep. Transition is designed within the mold. Yeah. Um And it's done in the seat stay mold. So we said like the front triangle is monocoque. Our front triangle is fully monocoque frame and then the is fully monocoque and then the seat stays um each seat stay is separate, each chain stay is separate, and each dropout is different separate. So these are all separate parts that are bonded together. Um the seat stay is a ridiculously complicated part um because it basically turns 90 degrees in an angle to go into the frame. All of that is once again net shaped and is done inside the seat stay mold. The reason for that is so that the air that flows over that section of the seat tube um it doesn't it it guides the air and cleans the air up as much as we possibly can going over the rear wheel of the bike. Um it's also a very um airfoil sh- it's an airfoil shape that goes down the um down to the um to the dropouts and uh it helps clean up the air that's coming through there and have minimal drag. Yeah, clean up that dirty air. Clean up that dirty air. Okay, and then let's touch on the seat post real quick, which is also It's custom built. Yeah, it's a proprietary seat post um that Quite quite thin, huh? It is. It's a very thin post. It's an aero post again. Um it has a blunt rear to it so that it has a nice sharp foil on the front so it can cut through the air and then um guide the air off the side of it. Um yeah, it's it's a pretty cool post. Um there's also some interesting composite layups that are in there. But And then our handlebars that we're using for the RF20 currently are just the a stock stock handlebars. Right. Um but we're looking forward to refocusing on our own major handlebars here in 2021. Yes, we've been working on some systems for our That's next up. Yeah, that's the next step after the RF20. And then quickly um sizing for the RF20 we do not have an official geometry chart posted on the website. No. But we are um redesigning that page here in the next coming weeks. Yeah, and so I mean one of the big things we've gotten that question quite a bit and the reason we never released one was we got a lot of the pre-orders that we had for the RF20 were from previous customers and they just had this um we've always made full custom frames and they had their old geometry charts and they wanted it. So um all of the pre-orders are all in custom geometries. So we haven't made any of the stock sizes for any of the pre-orders and to be honest we're kind of just we we had enough pre-orders to justify the production of the frame and keep going with it. So we just took our pre-orders and started running as fast as we could to get um into production. But we're going to work on the online builder, which Yeah, so we're working on the mechanical gruppo option to what you have a Yep. Di2 option available. Yeah, so we're going to be adding um the we're going to be adding mechanical, we're going to be adding uh Campy um to it. Uh we're going to be updating some of the features on it for the builder. Uh we're going to be updating the page to add into some of the composite side of it a little more. Um going to the geometry charts and stuff like that. Um we're going to be adding quite a bit here in the next couple weeks. Yeah, I'm just getting And for any listeners that have reached out to us, we are getting back to you soon. Yes, we've been Um any inquiries we've had about the RF20 because we've really got quite a few here in the last couple weeks. Yeah. Um lead times for the RF20 pre-orders now available online and we're rolling out here soon in the first quarter um with a projected lead time of six to eight weeks for frames. Yep. We're going to offer stock sizes 54, 56, and 58. Yep. With a custom custom option that will have um a little bit of a longer lead time since a custom mold will need made. Yeah. Um but also feel free to email us with any questions you have um as we update all of that information on the website. Yeah, so we're trying I mean our goal right now is to get next month to start rolling out um pre-orders. I'll just start getting all the pre-orders out next month and then once we get through with those we'll start looking at six to eight weeks. And then quickly quickly touch on um the carbon specs. Um Quickly quickly. Oh, it'll be a whole new uh we'll do another episode but just quickly in case anyone has questions about the carbon composites that are used on the RF20. Yeah, so this is I mean this is a big rabbit hole of a topic. But I'm so one of the big things that's that's focused on the RF20. Again, this goes back to the front triangle design where that we're talking about a monocoque front triangle that's based around a mandrel. Um we are using um quite a bit of bi-directional woven braided sleeves that are pre-pregs. So we have uh imagine a Chinese finger trap essentially is what it looks like. And so the cross section of the tube defines the orientation of the fibers. Um so we can it allows us to do quite a bit of things. It also really enhances the the ride characteristics of the bikes and allows us to manipulate fra- the frame characteristics. Um we also have Unidirectional is used for to build up the stiff parts that need Exactly. So there's a balance between bi-directional sleeve and unidirectional sleeves. Um and we have a um we use a standard modulus and high modulus um um fibers for it. Uh we're going to have we have a really nicely tuned uh geometry carbon layup that we're doing. And then I think we talked about in maybe second or third quarter to start offering some other uh layup options for the bike. And that was the RF20 in in a nutshell. Yeah, that's a fast forwarded version. Fast forwarded one. Uh quick question. Uh will there be an RF20 one? Just kidding. Maybe in 2022. Uh no, yeah. Um I I can't. Okay, so we have a lot to look forward to here in the next three weeks or so in terms of marketing and a huge campaign push um we're working very hard on right now and we're excited for things coming up. Yep. Um and then in future podcasts we're still looking forward to invite some guests and talk about um design. I think we have a few ideas here now from this podcast about maybe stuff we could talk about with design. Yeah, for sure. There's a there's a lot. Mm so um yeah. You know I can talk about anything for ever. Anyway, we thank you for choosing to take some time with us and we look forward to future breakaways. I'll try my hardest to put any mentions on our news section on predatorscycling.com. Also look for us on Instagram and LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and in person here in Tennessee. Also be sure to check out the RF20 on our website predatorscycling.com. And um let's get back to work. So our listeners we ask you to please share, like, and subscribe. We're available on all major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening and have a good one and find some time to break away.