C/Duro Factory Tour – Precision Made in Czech Republic | Epona | E-Epona | High Pivot

I visited C/Duro Bikes in the Czech Republic 🇨🇿 to get a closer look at how they build their carbon frames. They walked me through the entire process — from the first layers of carbon to the finished product. At C/Duro, carbon fibre isn’t just used, it’s engineered to its limits.

During my visit, I learned about their automated filament winding process, the integrated loop technology, and the level of precision that goes into every frame. I also got a glimpse of their upcoming prototype e-bike and a few other premium components that show how much attention to detail goes into their work.

#mtb #cduro @cdurobikes

00:00 Sušice from above
00:14 Production Impressions
00:30 Intro
01:08 Meeting the pro-riders
01:27 Directly into the production hall
01:33 Oldest winding machine and how it works
02:18 More Than Bikes
02:44 History of C/Duro
03:47 Production process explained
05:11 All machines are made in house
05:49 History of Compotech
07:06 Main business: Not bikes, but also bikes
11:30 Bikes built to order
12:22 Into the bike workshop
13:05 Gravel bike
14:05 The very first frame
15:01 Refining the process
19:54 High pivot prototype
23:26 Infos on the Epona
26:55 Intend carbon fork
30:27 E-Epona (Maxxon Air S motor) specs
43:50 Trails for testing bikes
46:15 Range & Efficiency
47:25 Downcountry and 32’’ bike in the future?
54:25 First ride and crash

Hallelujah. [Music] [Music] [Music] Ramen here. bike ebike protot. Morning. Morning. Nice to see you. It’s a pretty big company. Uh yeah, around uh 60 people. What do we have here? Here are the This is like the oldest winding machine there. Uh we still use it because uh well it still works and uh it can go like with three axis there but it’s uh go for like the the most like basic uh tubes. Okay. Uh what’s happening now is that it’s winding the axial fibers. uh it hooks it on in every turn like behind this uh pin and then it’s uh perfectly straight and also it like uh tightens every uh every time it passes again. Well, most of most of our production is for industrial applications. for marine uh automotive or machine parts like cutting machines, laser cutting machines, milling machine and stuff like that. Okay. Uh yeah, also marine we have uh we do mast for uh yachts and uh yeah. So how much of the company is uh Seduro? It’s this very small part, isn’t it? very very small. Yeah. When did you start? We started in 2017. Okay. It started basically like a passion project just to make a bike for ourselves. Uhhuh. Uh because back then or even before uh Combo Tech was uh producing tubes for other like cycling bicycle manufacturers. Okay. If you know Fesca, it’s like road bikes. So uh they are in Prague. they were producing or we are producing uh tubes for them. Uh that’s also like we did a lots of common research or even like research for them to uh build the bikes in a certain quality. Uh they mainly mainly use uh advantages of the axel fiber lane and high modulus fibers that you can uh process here. Yeah. So it’s a very different process than what I know. The production is uh basically like winding a fiber on a positive mold and then uh compressing it with a with a tape. Uh and this way you can get most of the air out and all the excessive resin also. So you get better volume fractions. Uh you have better quality laminate basically. So, and does it have have to go in some sort of heating system or Yes. Yes. Uh but usually the resins uh they like semicure in room temp temperature but they have to be postcured after that. Okay. To achieve the thermal resistance and maximum strength. How long does it have to be in there? Uh it’s usually like 20 hours or so or overnight. It depends on the resin system and the like. Okay, this is the most advanced uh machine here. It’s basically a six axis robot uh doing all the winding and it has u like changeable tools to uh even like to have better uh spreading of the fibers. And yeah, as you can see, we can do like 6 m uh long beams there. It’s probably a pretty expensive such a machine, right? Yes. But uh they are all inhouse uh developed. Okay. So you you develop them, you produce them here. So you don’t you just get parts to assemble them then? Yes. Yes. Okay. We work together with a company that’s that specializes for the robotics. Okay. So they help us to uh like tune all the control systems and everything but the design of the machines is all all compotch in house and we also sell the machines. Okay. So when did competch start? Uh in 1995. Oh that’s a long time ago. 30 years. Uh and started with carbon uh fiber tubes. Yeah. Uh on and VTEC that you we will meet later. They were doing the uh canoing, wildwater canoing. Okay. And back then in ’90s uh all the pedal shafts were aluminum. Yeah. Or poor quality carbon. So the the carbon ones were always uh breaking and they uh decided to try and make their own uh pedal shaft. So they came up with a technique as you as we could see there like with the pins and winding it around and uh they actually had no clue that it’s called filament winding and it exists uh somewhere uh from before but their professor at the university said okay it looks like filament winding and then they started to uh work with that and so they built their first uh own machine back then like in a garage and but year after year they they went for a bigger project and yeah yeah we have a autoclave also for special uh projects here this is the main business uh this beams for automotive like press lines okay where you move uh sheets of metal from one uh one press to the to another Mhm. So, it’s a multi-step uh process. And uh with these beams, the the beams are super stiff. So, uh the the sheet metal doesn’t bend or something. Okay. And they are light so so the machines or the line can be faster. Oh, okay. That’s that’s the whole whole point. Yeah. I was going to ask why use carbon instead of steel or something. Uh they’re pretty long so steel would bend already, right? Yes. Yes. By by its own weight. And uh these beams they we use uh like ultra high modulus uh fibers. Uh they are called pitch fibers. It’s a different type of uh uh the base uh product that goes into manufacturing these such such a fibers. Okay. And they are uh in in terms of stiffness, they’re very close to diamond already. It’s like uh diamond is like around 1,000 gap pascals of stiffness modulus. And these fibers are 900. Okay. And for Ciduro, for example, we use 400 gap pascal fibers, which is already a high modules fiber. Uh standard fibers are 200, 230. But like 900 would weigh too much for a bicycle, right? Or is it doesn’t m I mean if it’s 900 is it heavier than 400? I mean it’s not heavier. It’s not heavier like in this terms but uh these uh fibers are so fragile that they uh work much better in a thicker layers. Okay. As you can see the cross-section Yeah. here is much thicker than you would see on a on a bicycle. Uh yeah, you wouldn’t need it, I guess. And then it would be much and uh and uh yeah, on the bike frame, these uh pitch fibers, they would be too fragile. Not not a good idea to use them here. Uh that’s a must for a sailing mode. Oh, and wa it’s pretty light. And basically all you can see around it’s uh the main focus is the high performance of uh of those beams like using the best uh possible fibers uh tuning the process to achieve like the uh the best possible uh stiffness weight uh with these beams. We work with like even like with internal uh damping. So uh for the machine parts it can like damp vibrations and thus make the machine a bit more precise even. So you could basically tune the bike according to what you want with you know adapting the layers. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it’s uh all based on this like uh experience from all the other industries and uh uh yeah 30 years of uh working. Did it take long to uh design the first frame and to have the first prototype working? Well, the the first prototype in 2017, we did together with uh Fesca. Okay. We had the tubes and the design and they put it together in their own uh fashion. So maybe just a Yeah, here is a like big uh beam for uh laser cutting machine. So also like fibers super stiff. Uh the foam in there is for the damping also. So it can uh it can go much faster. Yeah. It’s like steel steel beams uh they could go like uh acceleration of like 1 one and 1/2 g. Mhm. Aluminum is like 2G and with that it can go 5G. Also up there there is a press shop and uh machining parts. Mhm. Are there any bike parts produced right now? Like any cubes or something? I don’t think so. Yeah, they are much smaller uh for now but uh yeah. So how does it work? I mean do when you get an order is it like you don’t have any stock frames or do you? No, we uh our frames are built to order. Okay. So if I order a frame today, how long will it take to be done, you know, pre-produced? Like 1 2 months. Okay. It depends on the We can offer uh even a paint job, but normally we uh supply the frames uh raw. Okay. With the raw uh service from just from the process, but we can we can uh offer a paint job. It’s a extra service. Okay, let’s go upstairs and uh we have our like cycle uh bicycle workshop there. Okay. Uh I can show a bit of history of what we did before like even the first frame uh from 2017. Yeah. Oh, cool. Bamboo lap. Okay. Oh, now we’re talking. Uh, yeah. So, also we we did a gravel bike. Just a Has this been released already? The gravel? Oh, we we we’ve shown it, but uh it’s not a production ready. It’s uh it’s a uh just very very prototype and uh yeah, it’s just inhouse and we we are now more focused on the enduro frames. And when is it going to be released? Do you have a date? No. No, there’s no date. Yeah. So, not anytime soon. No, no, no. And he’s like the ultra distance. Uh oh. Oh, it doesn’t weigh anything. Yeah. Well, that’s no air in the tube. Oh, this is even carbon. Carbon. Yeah. Yeah. You don’t see any seal here? No, no, no. We So this one, this is the first frame we did, but uh the first electric frame. Well, uh it started as a normal frame. Uh but then uh we had this motor and uh uh one of our colleagues decided to uh change it to an electric bike. So this was the first uh Apona, right? Yeah. Yeah. This was it it wasn’t called Epona back then but uh this is uh the first Curo bike. Yeah. From 2017. Uh the joints were done in cooperation. Mhm. But uh then like as we do the tubes in a kind of automated way and uh we try to use as as much uh machine power as possible. we went for uh developing our way to join the tubes. Okay. And this is this is the first Oh, it’s it’s so surprising just to take it and it’s like nothing. Yeah, it was the first uh prototype that uh it wasn’t even written. We just uh uh broke it in the lab and uh yeah we when we started to develop the we call it ILT integrated loop technology we went for a way where we did use all the fibers that are in the tube for the loops itself. So you can see the fibers are like spreading around here and all all are hooked around this uh uh head tube head tube kind of but it was produced separately like we had this like a pen and then we slit uh the head tube inside secured it with a glue. Okay. Uh that was like the very very first generation. So this tube was produced with some sort of laces here and then you just put it in there and then you glued it together. Yeah. Are you still doing that? Uh yes, but in a we went through Oh, we can see like different uh different versions. That was one like uh the next version of that looks like a stem. Yeah. uh uh where we used for the loops we used just uh axial fibers there but the rest of the cube we like finished with the fibers around here. It was quite a bit complicated process with the tooling uh not so simple. So then we move to our uh latest approach. Uh that’s basically what we can yeah see for example here it looks a lot better. So now we make the tubes for ceduro in a way that we produce a base tube. Mhm. We machine it at the end. Then uh if it’s down tube, we glue the hatch tube and bottom bracket. Okay. Then we put it back to the machine and go with the axial fibers around here like this. Okay. So the machine moves the frame some sort of basically it’s the tube itself is it’s just a tube with the head tube and bottom bracket with not the not without the rest. And it’s again it’s rotated but the robot goes around the Okay. So so it’s a five axle or three. Yeah it’s well it’s even more but uh it’s a six axis robot uh attached to a three axis. Okay. uh machine. But uh uh this way we can like really like put the place the fibers where we want them and uh yeah then it’s uh like overwrapped with the tube with the tape again like so the fibers are like compressed against the tube. Mhm. So this way we make the joints in a like integral integrated way as a part of the tube itself. Okay. So and it’s all like pretensioned uh really like secured together. And after that we I put the top tube and the C tube uh on it and we just secure it with the bonding with the glue. But uh the main loads are transferred through the fibers there. Yeah. Through directly. Uh does it have uh inner tubes to to guide the cables? I mean maybe not this one but the production one. Uh for now we don’t have in inner tubes. We have uh just a bigger openings. Uh-huh. Uh at the ends there. So could you put something in there like But we but we plan uh uh to do it in this way. So we have a like here it’s closed but uh you can see Oh okay. So you can put in some you know rattle. Yeah. Uh preventing like Yeah. Yes. Yes. We have this uh foam liners in there. So so it’s quiet and uh we could keep like the bigger holes there. So it’s easier to route the cable there. But uh we are especially for uh this frame. It’s like our high pivot frame where we want to make this part like the bottom bracket area in one piece with this uh well now it’s shock holder and 3D printed. Yes, it’s it’s 3D printed. So, uh we want to add a threaded bottom bracket there and also uh this way we can like attach some inner guides uh so we can have a tube. But this has been written already, hasn’t it? I can see the pedals. It’s one it’s the one we saw at the Yeah, this is the this is the one from Bispoke. uh we did like first uh testing of this prototype just last week and and uh this weekend. So So is there any release date planned next year? We we don’t have specific date but uh like the first half of of next year should be ready for uh release. We yeah we we have this modifications there. We also have a name that we want to present at uh DT craft bike days. Oh okay. With some we can we want to show off some of the paint jobs that we can arrange. Mhm. And but uh there’s you want to change basically the whole down tube to go more with the design of the rest of the frame, the threaded bottom bracket and uh inner guides there. So how much does it weigh? Like the frame set in medium. I suppose it’s pretty light. It’s probably not going to be that light. Well, the frame is around 3 3.2 2 kilos. Okay. With the idler or just the frame itself? Uh with with the idler. Okay. Yeah. It was uh 3.6 with the intent shock. Okay. So, intent shock is 450. Yeah. So, so it’s Yeah. 3 kilos basically. Yeah. I have to admit, you know, the first time I saw it on the internet, it wasn’t actually that good looking, but it’s always the case. You see it in real life and it’s so much better looking. You know, do you know the carins? Yeah, I wrote a car and it, you know, it looks horrible on the p in the pictures, but then you see it in real life and it’s so much different. It’s so like the engineering and all that, it’s so makes it looking better than it actually does in the pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Well, until this year, we didn’t pay much attention to it. Uh but uh this year we started working with a industrial designer. So he put together all these nice shapes and uh I did the optimization of those parts to really keep uh keep to the standard and yeah we are working on polishing the bike a bit. Does he ride mountain bike the designer or is it just the designer? He does and he’s also racing you. It’s the German speaking guy you met downstairs. So yeah, you have somebody who actually knows how to Yeah. Yeah, we work really closely together. So yeah, I think it’s it’s going uh in a uh right direction. Yeah. So why did you go for high pivot? I mean the first the Eona was it uh that wasn’t high p high pivot frame. Eona is uh single pivot. That’s basically it didn’t change much from the beginning. Mhm. Uh it looks so good. Seriously, it’s beautiful. Yeah. When we like polish this and uh well the single pivot we love it, but uh we wanted something more capable to try something more capable there. And yeah uh but with this single p we now uh we talk about it as as of like a light trail bike because this frame is like two 2 kilos. Oh yeah. It doesn’t weigh anything. And you could build a 12 kilos uh trail bike with that. Mhm. But uh we were riding it all the time. And also I did like some downhill labs on it and it still works. It’s uh back then we we went for like the long and slick geometry. Mhm. But now it’s uh standard but uh yeah. So yeah, but the high pivot we wanted to try it basically. So and well it’s it really works. It’s uh the difference is uh you can tell you can tell tell the difference right away between the two bikes. Yeah. Yeah. We did we did some backto-back testing and this one is like super playful, agile mainly thanks to the fibers and the stiffness of the frame. Yeah. Because like normally you can say that the single pivots are not that stiff sometimes but with the high high stiffness fibers it’s really stiff. It’s a really responsive agile and like it goes really well in the corners. Okay. And also pedals quite quite well. So, uh I would say it’s a perfect like do it all everyday trail bike cuz uh it I I think it would be better fitting for my style of riding than a high pivot frame, you know, being lighter and I I do ride enduro not that fast though. And uh it’s I think it that one would work pretty well for me instead of a high p high pivot one. Yeah. But uh well this this layout of the high pivot is uh also very good at pedaling. Mhm. And yeah it’s it’s like the racing machine where you can like uh go really hard and uh and push basically to your limits. Yeah. Like your team rider. Yeah. Yeah. His name is Vera. Yeah. Vuita Vuita. Yes. Yeah. Uh and my first impression from the Hyper was like where where where did all those rocks go? Okay. Like suddenly it was like very It would be nice to write them back to back. Yeah. Can you can we talk about the intent collaboration you did? Is it like can we talk about that too or Yeah. Yeah. Uh so how did this come to Well, I’m just I’m not sure I’m the right person to uh talk about it because I wasn’t in the whole process. Okay. I was just with the frames there, but uh but not I don’t know many details but basically the collaboration started here at at a local race. It was maybe I think back then it was part of Chile Enduro series or or even before Cornelius from Intent was here riding and uh we met him or met him in a shuttle because he he was providing the shuttle there and uh yeah they started to talk about it and uh tested like first uh Fox then and yeah in Cornelius was interested in making them uh lighter and stiffer lighter and stiffer. So, uh our tubes were the perfect perfect mesh, I would say, because they’re also made with the high uh high modules fibers. So, uh they are much stiffer compared to the aluminum ones and a bit lighter. Well, as far as I know, it has been a learning process, though, because that one took a long long time to produce and to really work, didn’t it? I mean, we it’s it hasn’t been released yet. I mean, we’ve seen it a lot at Bpoked especially and before that, too. But people are keep asking when will it be released? I’m going to buy that. Going to buy that, but it hasn’t gotten a release date yet. Yeah. So, is this the final version or will there be any changes? Uh as far as I know, this this is the final final version. Uh definitely in terms ter terms of the look. Uh we might change some layup or something that you can’t see this hidden in there. And yeah, it was quite of a process uh uh making the joints here properly uh all the bonding and yeah. So are the tubes carbon inside too or is there some alloy you know tube inside of the carbon tube? So I don’t I don’t know how it works. I know that there are bushings here and then you know it just has has to work. There are bushings also here. Mhm. But uh I can’t say much. Okay. But the the carbon tube definitely goes in here and it’s secured in the crown. So holy cow. I’ve seen so many intent forks, but that’s the best one yet. Yeah. Or maybe this one. This one. This that is pretty good. We did few there. Um that’s the uh Infinity World Cup. World Cup. Oh, yeah. I think I saw that Eurobike already on Cornelius bike. I’m not sure though. Yeah, it was it was already in Eurobike. Uh sorry, I just Sure. I know. I know. Wow. Yeah. We have a a sample which is like from the first batch uh of of motor. So it has a slightly smaller battery and uh even bit lower uh power of the motor. But uh they already have uh like for the review there there’s the like full spec uh like full power. Sorry. What is the full spec going to be? So how the battery and motor? So uh full spec is uh you can choose from 400 and 600 W hours battery and the motor uh will have uh 90 newtonmeters and up to 650 W or something like that. I think it was 620 or 620. Yeah. And it’s 2 kilos the motor. Yeah. Yeah. Uh can you actually can you already order this bike? I saw some pre-order, but since it’s a prototype and the other one is sent there for testing. I imagine if I pre-order this bike, I may not get it in I don’t know in a year or something due to probably. Uh also the motor isn’t like fully released yet. We are just uh about to get the B samples there and we don’t have the price. U we didn’t agree on the price yet. So Okay. So, the what was it almost 4 4,900 I saw on the homepage to to pre-order it. Is it going to change? probably going to be something around that but uh it’s u it’s too far uh from now to tell but uh yeah we are we are uh about to produce like the next batch of uh several frames to really like tune is the frame going to change in any way? Well, we are already working with the designer to give it more smoother shapes there, but uh not for the first uh batches. Okay. Why go with Maxon and not Bush for example? Well, uh to be honest, the cooperation with Maxon was quite of uh coincidence or we were searching for a motor supplier because we wanted to make an ebike, but uh everyone was uh only selling like 2,000 units or some like uh very big numbers that didn’t make sense for us. So, Maxon, they were the first or the only ones that uh we could agree on like a reasonable uh batch number. Okay. And they turn out to be like uh the lightest full power motor there. And yeah, uh I was wondering about that because since you can you produce an ebike, you you design it and all that and you set up for one special motor and uh in the future you never know what happens. You know, you could go for, for example, nowadays everyone’s going for DJI. Yeah. Because, you know, people want that motor because there a lot of power and all that stuff. and we don’t know yet if there’s any warranty issues in two years or something and then nobody’s going to buy the bike there. Could you redesign this quickly to adapt for a different motor if Maxim for example wouldn’t work out? I think yes. Uh even for for this one, we went for a 3D printed u bottom bracket area. Basically, there’s a big uh 3D printed part. It’s inside there. Okay. It holds the main pivot and mainly the motor is attached to it. Okay. Uh so we can change that that part and switch for uh any other motor there. So there’s no problem. Seat post insertion is probably the longest you can get. You can slam it all the way in since it’s that’s so cool. Usually with other ebikes, you have some sort of bended, you know, bent uh seat tube. That’s uh one one of our like frame design philosophy is to keep the tubes really straight because it’s the most effective way how to transfer energy from one point uh one point to the other. M so we keep the tube straight even with the designer we are like saying hey calm down make it straight uh because otherwise we would lose uh performance and yeah as I said we are we were only before we were only focused on the performance so we didn’t care much about the visual part now we are working more on that but we want to keep that performance that we worked so hard to achieve so and also your sort of production process doesn’t allow for bent tubes, does it? Or could you produce bent tubes, too? It can, but it’s a complication, let’s say. Well, it’s and it it honestly it doesn’t make sense unless it’s like uh uh necessary, you know. Uh and before we we used like bent tube here, okay, but it’s Yeah, it wasn’t worth it. Would it be difficult to take out the battery? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It’s uh for now it’s kind of a process because you have to take out the motor and disconnect the control unit. Okay. And then wire uh uh take a wire through the head tube. Uh so yeah they uh they they’ve decided to go for like permanent battery for a weight uh reasons. So that’s is there any range extender planned? Uh there is. Yeah. Or is it already? There already is. I think it’s 260 W hours or something like that or three like the usual range extender. Yeah. And it fits right here. Yeah. Okay. So, you could have around 850ish with a full power motor. And this one probably doesn’t weigh that much. I lifted it up. Yeah, it’s it’s pretty light. Yeah, it’s around 19 kilos with pedals. Probably. Yes. Depends on the tires and parts. Yeah. What tires do we have here? Dctor. There’s a dissector. Double down. Double down. And uh Magic Mary radial casing. Yeah. So it’s it’s even with these tires, it’s pretty light. And carbon rims. Yes. Do you produce rims too? No. Yeah. You’re sort of We did have a project we tried. Mhm. But uh in our like machines or our capabilities, it wasn’t uh the best way how to make it. So there there are filament winding machines to produce uh rims. Mhm. But uh they operate on a very different principle. Okay. So we did like very high uh road bike rim uh with yeah like the the beam we saw for the for the sailing boat. It has some sort of a road rim shape. Then you would have bend it. And yeah, we even did like this that we we had a flexible mandrel. We want the um we want the fibers around it and then we like moved it together. But um yeah, maybe it will we will uh bring the project back to life, but now it’s not on on the table. So same thing here in the pictures. It just Yeah. It looks like any other ebike and you see it in real life, especially with the sun now shining on it. It’s It’s so beautiful. It’s seriously It’s beautiful. I think even with the bigger down tube that usually, you know, ebikes big down tube doesn’t look that good, but it’s Yeah, we might make the down tube a bit tiny bit smaller because the battery is not that big. It’s uh that we with this prototype we wanted to have like a basically constant cross-section. Okay. So we took this dimension from here and extended it forward to to get it as as fast as possible. Probably be some sort of Yes. Yes. Kind of. And the battery probably goes up to here, right? Or where does Yes. Somewhere around here. Yeah. Okay. So the motor motor is down here. It ends around here and then the battery. You have the cables and then the battery. Okay. Have you ridden it already? Uh not much. Not much. Uh just around the block. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But but my colleagues did so they can tell you more. What’s Oh, that’s the speed sensor, I guess. Cable for the speed sensor. So uh this motor it has one magnet only for measuring the speed or I think yes it’s uh in the disc there. Yeah. Oh there it is. Yeah. Yeah. And uh I keep uh talking about the performance and the stiffness. Uh but when we did this frame it’s much stiffer than the analog Aona. Okay. And why is that? because of the size of the dun. The fibers are the same. Basically, the layup is kind of similar, but uh it’s much stiffer thanks to the big uh down tube. And the ride feel is even like more aggressive, more poppy. You can so there’s no it has the same geometry like the the normal Eona. So there’s no need of a high pivot e pona e e whatever it’s called. Yeah. Uh eona it’s it epona is our uh single pivot platform. So it will be always like this. It’s thanks to the motor and the weight it kind of is very like similar to the uh analog version. So yeah, but it’s stiffer. So have you gotten a lot of questions about its availability already? Because I saw it on the internet couple I don’t know a couple months ago on Instagram. You you teased it and then I was interested in it. Uh yeah. Uh well uh the main interest uh is uh for the for the ebike. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s when people are asking they ask mainly about the ebike. Yeah. It’s it’s I keep saying that ebike and gravel is what we need now and nobody really wants you know a normal mountain bike unfortunately but that’s the way it works now. Gravel and even egravel I don’t see the sense in it. Once you reach 25 km an hour then you don’t need a motor anymore. Maybe more for a touring like just going around slowly just enjoying the views and stuff maybe. Yeah, I can take a normal ebike then and then to have the fun going down. Yeah. Yeah. Um I myself I went through uh like downhill uh dirt jumping then I got injured so I went to cross country then I uh went even for road biking not not much in a racing but uh as a hobby and then I went back to the off-road there and even some gravel and yeah for me it’s I’m really looking forward forward to get my uh ebike now. And uh So you have you don’t have an ebike? Not yet. Okay. But I’m I’m waiting for for this one to be uh half a year here year and then you got yours. Yeah. Can’t wait to ride it. Seriously. By the way, it’s I’ve done like this is the fourth company visit on this tour and I haven’t ridden any bike on at the other Well, Gabber, they don’t have any bikes there. antidote. They didn’t have any bike. Okay. And uh Martin at Soilli, he had well he was uh going to the bike park later that day, so we couldn’t ride. I rode his, you know, you saw the yellow one with Yeah. I rode it on the parking lot and that’s it. So I’m so stoked to get on the bike and especially an ebike because I don’t feel myself being that fit anymore. And then just an ebike. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. Uh, Vuita and Milan will take you around the trails here. Is it up there or Well, it’s there are three, four, well, actually five trails there like the official ones and and there’s a big uh hill over there on the other side. And there’s one almost finished. One trail almost finished. And they are about to build a second one there. Are those very like difficult trails? No, they are like easy mellow like they are like they are pretty flowy. Mhm. There are few rocks there but uh I don’t care about rocks. It’s mostly the jumps and the wet roots you know that’s nothing like that on this trail. They are machine made uh kind of polished uh floats. Yeah. So do you do your testing over there then the first testing of the prototypes? Yes. Yes we do. We go for uh one of the official trails or few of them, but we have a uh some enduro uh tracks or Yeah. Not so official unofficial ones where where we do like the backtoback testing and uh we take uh strain gouges and stuff like that to really go through uh go through it. Yeah. Oh, can I? It was interesting. Uh, we did uh this year we did one session with strain goes and we switched the the frames or the the bikes with VOA. Mhm. And yeah, on the data I could like see that he’s he puts like 30% more uh load into the frame than myself. It was okay. Yeah. Well, he’s a professional rider even even though I’m a bit heavier and uh but uh yeah, he was just going faster and pushing more. Yeah. So, yeah. And it’s Yeah, around here I I really like love it around. It’s the trails even the official ones are like really nice and there are few like hidden hidden gems also. Okay. Of the unofficial. Well, we’ll see how long the battery lasts on me because I’m pretty heavy. 93 kilos. Okay. You know, that’s usually a way of of draining the battery pretty fast if you go on turbo, which I’m not going to do. Yeah. Well, uh uh colleague that rides this bike is uh who actually like designed the ebike. He’s uh he he normally does like,00 1200 uh elevation meters. Okay. On not on a turbo but uh like normal ride with on this one which is a smaller battery. Yeah. There’s like 360. So it’s it’s like slightly smaller. I would probably go with the 600 one since it’s an internal battery. You cannot swap. So 600 is the way to go. I guess it’s just 1 kilo more or so or something. Not sure. So it’s 20 kilos for full full power ebike with downhill tires. Pretty light. Thanks for the inside. Cannot wait to ride it. But now we’re going to eat some lunch. Yeah. Yeah. We have some time still, but we still have some time. So what’s what’s next? Have you have you thought about anything else apart from these bikes or is it you know you have this prototype you have the one the gravel one any is there any like low travel normal bike plans like 120 120 or something? We have uh this we have had a discussion about uh having it like a AONA down thing. We did have some uh people were asking about the lower travel bike. Okay. So we are thinking about it. We were playing with this idea to try a 32 in. Oh yeah. Like the bike ahead one we saw at the beast. Yeah. Yeah. But the Yeah. There we go. Full suspension 32 in. Yeah. Oh, but it would be like very small travel. But u yeah, with 32 in you don’t need that much travel I guess. And it’s always going to be at least what I think a cross country downount bike. You will not I guess I don’t know have a 29 in or 32 in or downhill bike. I I don’t know. Hope not. I I don’t know. It’s no idea. No idea. It’s like isn’t it? It’s like about this side. Yeah, I think 8 cm. Yeah. Yeah, it’s so I wouldn’t know if I could actually Yeah, I wouldn’t fit. Yeah, but Well, we were saying the same about 29iners back then, I guess. So, yeah. So, it might happen. It might happen. Mallet 32 in the front and 29 in the rear. That could actually work. a lower travel fork and then you just I I but I would really like to try one of those just to you know people say oh we don’t need it we don’t need it but then as you just said we said the same thing about 29 spoken uh to a guy from like wheel manufacturing company and they were like yeah everyone is getting ready for it and the whole market is sorry I saw alloy rims already at the white industries booth. They had 32 in alloy rims and then uh the carbon ones biker head had then tires would be the problem at least for now. You have the Maxis and that’s it basically like the Maxis Aspen but uh yeah this guy uh we talked about it and say like all the major like tire manufacturers, wheel manufacturers, everyone is working on it. Yeah. And some say that uh specialized in track they have already uh like finished product. Yeah, I saw a ghost bike. A ghost. I think it was ghost 32 in full suspension bike ridden by a pro on some sort of race. I I I’m not sure. There was a KTM and BMC frames on a cross country world cup. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, we’ll see. probably it’s it’s I people like me we usually think that it’s just for you know making more money now 29 in we already you know we see we’ve seen that been there done that now it’s time for something new to to that’s why the manufacturers you know jump on that train I I must agree I guess because it’s it it’s probably good for people who are way taller than than we are then it’s that’s the thing like even for the like 32 in road bike or u gravel bike because I also like uh work for for the Fesca. Yeah. And uh they do the custom frames and there’s like lot of uh people who can’t fit into a normal uh brand uh geometry. So they do like head tubes like this tall sometimes like people who who have trouble with their back or something or are really tall. And if if you take like a I don’t know size 64 uh road bike on a normal wheels, it looks silly. Yeah, it doesn’t. It’s like kids like overgrown kids bike or something. So there I think they could really like benefit from bigger wheels. What’s the reach on this one? This one is uh 500. 500 to size L. Yeah. I’ve never ridden a reach 500 so far. Okay. 480. It’s always around 480. 475. And the change stays 450. Yeah. Okay. 430. Okay. Just want to ride it now. Let’s get lunch over with and then go riding. So cool. Well, thanks a lot for showing me around. You’re welcome. And all the information on the the ebike and the gravel bike and all the bikes. Uh it was nice seeing it again in real life. Uh I people probably don’t realize how good they are, how good-looking they are because, you know, it’s always on the videos and the pictures they they don’t do do it justice. Yeah. And let’s see how it rides. Probably rides fantastic. I I hope uh you will feel that too because we are uh yeah to be honest like we we try to always like take tell the truth and like we are we designed it. We ride it all the time and I didn’t ride any other bike since 5 years ago. So, uh or well I did but uh uh I had a one year uh with a I bought a downhill bike. Okay. Aluminum and it was much worse than this one. So uh so we are a bit biased towards like to to like it. So I’m really uh interested what we will uh think about it. I already know it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You see the bike? It’s really good looking. Has a new motor I haven’t ridden yet. And it’s an ebike. I haven’t ridden an ebike in months. And it’s I already know I’m going to like it. And it why shouldn’t I? I mean, nowadays you don’t have bikes that really are bad. You know, if you if you go to whatever company, you got buy a high quality bike and you get what you pay for. Uh but then again, it’s so light and it’s so good looking. May have to re reschedule uh my ebike I have coming for this one. Okay. Well, thanks again. More than happy. Let’s have some lunch and then go riding. Holy cow, that’s steep. Okay. What? [Laughter] That was a nice one. Didn’t know I need needed any protection here. I think you can do this uh like in I hope I didn’t break anything.