25Seven

Product Design in Real-Time

Yesterday Seven Cycles started a new blog.  Great; just what we need, another blog.

This one is kind of interesting; it’s for a very specific project and timeframe.  Basically, our Italian distributor requested a product for their market that we don’t offer in the United States.  They also requested that we provide them details documenting every step of the design, development, and production processes—so that they can share it with their market.  So, we agreed, and we decided to set up this process as a tumblog.

We’re posting in real time as the project moves along.  And, we’re having a number of Seven employees post on the blog—essentially, the folks that are working on the design, fabrication, and management of the project are tracking their facets of the project.

Follow along, won’t you?  At VelvetSeven.

Strategic Application of Carbon in a Titanium Bicycle Frame

Someone asked me the other day about Seven Cycles’ approach to combining titanium and carbon together in one frame.  This conversation occurred, in part, because of our recent introduction of our Integrated Seat Post frame model.

Part of the conversation had to do with the various approaches to combining titanium and carbon together in a single frame.  And why Seven approaches it the way we do.  This is a long complex conversation.  Not one we could cover in one discussion; so we focused on only one facet of titanium and carbon as frame materials:  vibration and shock absorption.

Titanium and carbon are interesting in the context of vibration characteristics because they behave so different from each other.  This difference is one of the primary reasons that Seven offers frames that combine both carbon and titanium—as well as monolithic titanium frames and full carbon fiber frames.

Bike Project: Earth Day Limited Edition

Recently we completed a Seven Cycles limited edition bike design that was a bit different from our previous limited editions.  This project was different because it turned out—for me—to be more about the process than about the product.  Normally we don’t discuss process with the public; mainly because it seems that most people are a lot more interested in the finished product, rather than the process—or how a project comes to fruition.

The recent limited edition I’m referring to is Seven’s Earth Day bike.  I call it our Viridian model.  I’m a bit of a Viridian.  Even though, technically, the movement is officially dead—as stated by its founder—I still find it worthwhile.

Anyway, why did the process overwhelm the project?  I think that the product—the bike—is actually really cool--I'm jealous of those that will own one.  If you’re interested, you can read a bit about the bike on our site.  The process, however, has had a lasting impact on the way I now think about building bikes. 

Goldilocks and the 1-to-3 Scale: When Is Custom Too Custom?

We’re working on a new version of our venerable Custom Kit—one of the tools we use to communicate with our customers during the bike design process.  Our latest version of the Custom Kit will be out in a few weeks.  We’ve made a number of improvements; this version is the single largest change since Seven Cycles’ first version, introduced more than a decade ago.  It is also the first time that we’re integrating multiple communication modes and technology options—beyond pencil, paper, and conversatoin—for the customer.

As we were wrapping up the design, I was reminded of a conversation we recently had with one of our retailers while we were designing a new version of their Seven order process.  Did you know that Seven customizes not only our bikes, but just about every element of the work we do with our retailers?

Keefe Technical School Visit: Art at Seven Cycles

Last week Seven Cycles had a visit from students of the Keefe Technical School--a vocational high school near Seven.  Three teachers brought fourteen junior-year students to learn about Seven Cycles.  The school sounds interesting.  From their website:

“Beginning in Grade 10, students alternate between a full week of academics and a full week of career and technical education. By alternating vocational and academic weeks, students receive intensive training in both areas.”

The teacher—Joel Crisafulli—is the students’ art instructor.  Basically, one week out of every two, the students intensively study art and graphic design. 

Joel had two primary interests in having the students visit Seven:

Freedom From Choice

I notice—and I’m sure a lot of others do, too—that as “bike fit” gains popularity, stock bike sizing options become more limited and homogenized.  On the one hand, I would think that if companies are promoting fit systems, these companies would also believe that it might be prudent to offer bikes in sizes that actually facilitate improved bike fit, rather than hinder the fitting process. 

Interestingly, overall, that’s not happening.  Over the past decade, more and more bike suppliers are offering fewer and fewer stock bike sizes.  Some major brands offer only six sizes of bike—bikes that cost more than $8,000.

Take a simple case of seat tube angle as an example of diminishing choices--although we could choose any frame geometry element and have the same outcome.  The seat tube angle is an important consideration in bike fitting because it determines the rider’s saddle position relative to the bottom bracket and crank set.  This relationship is one of the most fundamental foundations of bike fit, power output, injury prevention, comfort, and bike handling.  So, one might think that seat tube angle is fairly important. 

Well, let’s examine four of the best, and most popular, high-end stock road bikes in the US market.  Starting with the frame size that is closest to a 56.0cm top tube, the seat tube angles are:

The “One Number Obsession Fallacy Phenomenon”

Every once in a while Seven Cycles works with a customer that has a hyper-focus on one specific element of frame geometry or design—it could be just about any part of the frame.  We call this the “One Number Obsession Fallacy Phenomenon”—or O.N.O.F.F. for short.  Yes, I know that “phenomenon” isn’t spelled with an ‘f’ but that’s part of the joke…

I estimate that 99.8% of Seven’s customers are very open to design input and recommendations from Seven and from our retailers.  The other 0.2% have some strong ideas on bike design.  We love working with both types of customers.  It’s always fun to design bikes with customers that are up for anything—we get to work from scratch and with our entire palette of options.  Equally, the few customers that have strong design or engineering ideas are also great to work with because they tend to think—over-think—about all the design details; this keeps us on our toes and allows us to have a deeper level of conversation about bikes.

Some Factors in Bicycle Frame Tube Engineering

Recently, Yoshi posted a statement and question on 25Seven regarding my post about tuning ride characteristics.  I’m paraphrasing his comment here:  

“I want to know how you made the average…  and the relation of diameter and the thickness?”

Yoshi’s questions are important and fundamental for frame builders.  Without giving away any Seven Cycles secrets, I can explain some of the interesting basics.

In the above mentioned post, I talked about how we adjust the ride characteristics on each individual frame.  Here’s I’ll provide an overview of how we think about ride characteristics—at least as relates to tubing.  In essence, I’m talking about why we bother with tailoring the ride characteristics and why it’s worth the bother.

Interview: Road Bike Action Magazine - Part III of IV

Back in January of 2008 Zapata Espinoza of Road Bike Action Magazine interviewed some frame builders about the future of frame and component design.  Seven Cycles and I were fortunate enough to be included.

I posted the first and second parts of the interview already.  Here's the third part of the full transcript.  The magazine edited the interview in order to fit into the magazine—and probably to reel in my rambling. 

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Zapata:  What do you see in the new world of frame design, materials, and components and where are we heading?

The Future of Fit – An Interview with BRAIN - Part II

A while back Bicycle Retailer and Industry News Magazine asked me and others in the industry about the future of bike fitting.

Here I will reprint the entire transcript in three parts.  I reprinted the first part already.  Of course, it was edited down significantly in the magazine.  I preceded my answers to Sean Hong’s questions with a disclaimer.  It went a little something like this…

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It is always dangerous to make generalizations regarding topics as complex as ‘fit in the bike industry’.  Generalizations become more difficult when the outcome is so important to so many constituents and interested parties—retailers, large bike suppliers, small bike suppliers, and customers, to name a few.

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BRAIN:  What is a bike company’s responsibility to making sure a customer has a well-fitting bike? What is a retailer’s responsibility?