Visiting FOCUS Bikes HQ & Shredding Stuttgart Trails

Lunch in the office kitchen, singletrack out the door, prototypes upstairs, and gelato in Marienplatz to finish.

Vandy and Mick travelled to Stuttgart, Germany, to see how FOCUS works and rides, and boy-howdy were they in for a good time.

Stuttgart provided a week of colour, culture and heritage, told on bikes, and we found some friendly faces along the way. Come along to see what this historic German city has to offer.
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Read the full feature here: https://flowmountainbike.com/features/door-to-dirt-in-five-stuttgart-with-focus-bikes
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[Music] Well, we’re here in Germany, Stoutgart to be precise, and going to check out the Focus Bikes headquarters. We’ve made the trip to meet the people behind the bike brand and check out the head office and deep dive into what goes on to making the bikes. [Applause] Hey, I’m Patrick. Uh, I’m taking care of the brand management team and today I show Paul the treehouse. First start with the office and maybe then we do the workshop. [Music] How far away the mountain bike trails? Like literally 3 minutes. Yeah. Go up that street and then you’re in the forest. You turn the camera off, right? This is the workshop. Nice little plane. Yeah, this is where all the prototyping happens and the bikes are built. So, uh we have two mechanics working here uh every day, all day. So, thank you for the tour. I don’t know how uh people have lunch in your office, but the staff here go to the supermarket, get all fresh ingredients, and have a big family style banquet. So cool. We try to cook uh every day at lunch. Um so, usually there are groups finding together um to make lunch. I’ve been eating out too much recently, so it’s nice to have a home-cooked meal. [Music] Welcome to our focus head office. Oh, hello sir. The boss. It’s nice to Great to see you here. This is all mine actually. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Not a bad gaff you’ve got. Yeah. It’s not a bad gaff as they say in the UK. Is it? He’s sure. Got a lunchtime ride. Wind Masters is flown in especially for it. What a guy. all the way from New Zealand. Let’s hit some trails. Off we go. Didn’t take long to get to the trails from the office. There are some lunchtime rides. Uh some are called the power hour. Every day from 12 to 2, um we have the focus time, which is not officially lunch break, but it’s a time where it’s not allowed to put meetings in your calendar. So there you have a little bit the flexibility to plan a lunch ride or to do some focus work. You go out and go really hard on a bike on a gravel bike usually an hour full gas or you go just 50 minutes on an ebike and come back. Yeah. Yes. In the spring field there, bud. This is not what I expected when they said lunch ride. We’re just trying to one up each other on the gnarliest lines. Here we are. Yeah, boy. Oh, Jaden. Ah. Yes. Yeah. I’ve got it. How far to ice cream? No. Is this um is this your normal staff ride from time to time? This is a lunch ride. Yeah, maybe with less playing, but uh kind of the same route. Yeah. You think win has had some influence? Yeah, could be. I think he has. [Music] [Music] We’re going hot, dude. Thank you, team. Thank you. Good little session. Yeah. Nice and sweepy. [Music] We’re here with Mario. You talked to us uh earlier in the week about the new Jam Squared Next project. Can you give a a brief summary of this? One of the most exciting projects we did in the past few months. What is it? Uh tell us the chance word next. That’s something totally new. It’s a It’s a carbon bike. Super exciting. The main thing about it and the coolest thing about it is that it’s uh recyclable carbon. I don’t know much about Sudgut, but I know it is very famous for cars. We’ve got Porsche just behind me. Mercedes-Benz is around here somewhere. Bosch. Focus bikes is obviously just up that hill. But let’s go see what these cars are all about. and then uh get some feel for the area. There you go. You’re holding it. Well done. [Music] Stoodgart’s a bit of a hub of engineering. I mean, it’s this big melting pot of design and ideas. It’s uh cool to see the museum and a few interesting cars. [Music] [Applause] Even though we just recently launched our three new bikes as an entire new platform, we at Focus are constantly striving for perfection and uh per more performance out of our bikes. And that’s why down here you see a little bit of an ugly dugly prototype. Uh it’s basically smacked together out of uh different frame parts from different generations, an old drive unit in there. And what we’re trying to find out is how much does battery position and the center of gravity changing with the battery position actually uh translates into handling benefits or deficits on the trail. So that’s why down here we have a super small 400watth battery in the down tube smacked as low as we possibly can. And then with the range extender, we are moving that uh center of gravity forwards to rearwards. Uh it’s not only just about finding out how low can we go, also how much backwards we need to be or should it even be beneficial to have it a little higher but further back. All these experiments, that’s what we are having here heading into the future into our upcoming frame developments. [Music] Welcome to France. Welcome to France. We’re going to Vizenborg. [Music] Just crossed over to France and we are going riding with the focus crew for the focus ride day. Yeah, focus ride bike day. It’s the bike day. Focus bikes day 2025. Uh we started it maybe 4 years ago across all our locations and especially here uh we do rides everybody rides the whole day. So Tim, what’s the plan today? So we go every trail except to up and down. So we ride ebikes and it’s the most fun of the ebikes. So we try to empty three or four batteries per person. Maybe we can reach three. So that would be the plan. [Music] Yes. Good ride. Good ride. So, we’ve just done a battery change and uh everyone’s back up to 100%. Ready to rock and roll for some more laps. The big storm was like laying around. Everything’s vegetarian. They made a decision a few years ago. Any focus event? Veggie food. It was actually Today is the focus bike day. All of the staff at head office you go out riding adventures throughout Stoodgart in the region and come back here grab some food and swap the stories from the day. How good. So talk me through it. Okay. So we started at a meeting point and we started eating breakfast. Very German. Very nice coffee. Very awesome German breakfast. Then we went to a lake when you rode your bike. We rode our bike. We rode our bike. No, it’s focused bike day. So, what we do in focus bike day is riding our bike. This is not rated for my weight. So, Maritz, how is this initiative feel for you and having spike day? Uh, yeah, it’s it’s now really um a super important date in our calendar. It makes me feel super proud because when do you really spend full time together on the bike enjoy that and also you know the different segments we have. Some ride EMT, some ride roads, some ride travel and everybody has a great experience and in the end we come all together here and enjoy that. Yeah, I think that’s very special and I really like the [Music] Oh, Mat is very critical of frame painting, isn’t he? No, I think this one is fine though. And Matt is mine. Yeah, he’s happy with it. Look at this. Oh, wow. We’ve made it to Critical Mass. I’ve never done anything like this, but I like the theory. They’re sort of trying to protest about getting more bike infrastructure in the city of Stoodgart. Cool bike. [Music] The bike drives me crazy. [Applause] [Music] Where’s your beer? [Music] So this is critical mass stoodka. We had no idea what we were rocking up to, but estimated 4 and a half thousand people riding through the streets of Stoodgar. Just a celebration of bikes. So many different types of bikes. Heaps of setups with music on the back. And it’s such a vibe. Everyone’s just having a great time. And uh what a night for it. Just a walk. Oh, his hat. [Music] [Music] Yeah, Stoutgart. We came over here, had absolutely no idea what to expect. Got into Stoutgart and instantly the cycling culture was evident. Everyone’s riding bikes through the streets. headed up to the office, met a bunch of super passionate people. I mean, you can see why they’re here designing rad bikes. And we just finished off with this critical mass. I don’t even know what this was. There thousands of people riding through the streets, shutting down the whole city just to enjoy cycle culture. Hope you enjoyed. We definitely had a awesome week. It’s been hectic, that’s for sure. And now we have a proper understanding of what the brand is about and and the people are so passionate. It’s like super inspiring to see. Thanks for watching. [Music]