cómo diseñamos bikes
Ever wanted to know how a new mountain bike is born? Let us take you from the very beginning of the design and engineering process till prototyping and production.
the beginning
Our bikes actually start as a dream, not as a business plan. It starts normally with: what if we would design…
We do not do market research but discuss in our team, talk to riders that we trust and start dreaming of a bike we would love riding ourselves.
The general idea is for us about design and ride quality. The bikes should bring something new, should look special and have exceptional ride quality, which means for us that they should be fast, balanced and confidence inspiring.
strategy
First we do our home work. Obviously we know a lot of what is going on in the industry, but still we start off with research.
We speak with riders, check the latest roadmaps from suppliers, scan what other manufacturers are doing and ride bikes.
This is the moment we start to develop some early idea’s about geometry, kinematics, drivetrain and components. And we use our powerful design tools to create early idea’s about the new design language for the bike, without making a single sketch yet.
kinematics and geometry
Geometry and kinematics are important factors of our early bike design. With the early idea’s of geometry and kinematics we set to work. We build early 3D CAD models of the draft suspension setup, with rockers, axles, links, bearings and run many simulations to see if we can find something that we really like.
We do not only simulate and test in CAD, but also ride and test with mule bikes and prototypes. Development does not go in a straight like, so after testing we often need to go back to the drawing board to improve, so we can test again.
concept design
At the same time when we are working on the kinematics, geometry and early 3D CAD setup for the suspension parts, we also work on the general design language of the new bike. This is really still handwork, creating lots of sketches, which are getting better and more realistic step by step, as more information is coming in where the actual pivot points will come and how the suspension will work.
The more we come to idea’s we like, the more detail we will add, both in the frame itself, but also components, to get a good overview of how the full bike will look like.
engineering
Once the concept design is fixed, we start surface modeling in 3D CAD to build up the frame, integrate the suspension elements, drive components, battery and all small parts.
Also this process is not linear and takes many months to complete as we are very precise about design and detailing.
To achieve maximum performance at minimum weight we use simulations and run tests with early prototypes.
In addition to a complete set of 3D CAD files, we create a bill of materials and a full set of 2D drawings during the transition to production of the first prototypes.
prototyping
Both during the concept and engineering phases we build prototypes. Early prototypes are mostly more like mule bikes or mockups, or could be 3D printed. We use those mainly for testing shapes, kinematics and engineering solutions.
3D printed prototypes are good to test the fit of motors, batteries, cables and seat tube. At the end of the engineering stage we build the first carbon prototypes. This is done in cooperation with one of our carbon manufacturing partners.
These first set of full carbon prototypes are completely functional and we use them to test performance, kinematics and durability.
We take the bikes to the trails in Alps, Croatia and Slovenia and test them to the limits. During the testing period we document all the improvements and make updates in the CAD files where needed.
This will lead to a set of updated prototypes., which are used for ISO4210 testing, CE certification, testing according to other norms and for showing to the public.
testing
For extensive performance testing we use our locations in Croatia and Slovenia. If frames and components survive the extremely rocky and technical natural trail there, they will pretty much survive anything.
We ride prototypes on Alpine trails in Jamnica (SI) and on the trails of UCI Premantura (HR), UCI Kamenjak (HR) and Rabac (HR). Apart from these testing locations, we have test riders in Switzerland participating in Enduro races.
made in Europe
Most of our production steps are done in Europe, we actually add about 65 percent of the production value in Europe. Many high-end components that we use on our bikes are made in Europe as well.
We build our bikes completely in-house with our own people. Only the raw carbon parts come from a premium carbon frame manufacturer in Asia.
We check the quality of all parts in-house, have the coating done in Europe and also do the full assembly our frames in house with our own quality system.