Rain! Wasn't this the stuff we were trying to escape? Pinkbike's Suburban towed our BC weather into Santa Cruz, where locals actually thanked us for ending a three-week drought.
Bell Sport's wall of fame: For 57 years, Bell helmets have protected champions of every action sport, bomb-squads, heavy construction workers, and soldiers. Can any other brand make that claim?
A few steps away: signed team jerseys in beautiful monochromatic yellow.
An entire room full of employee commuter bikes made Easton Bell's commitment to cycling self-evident - and this was a rainy day.
Inside the test laboratory, an Easton wheel is undergoing a protracted fatigue test that repeatedly stresses the drive-side spokes and freehub body with a torque load that surpasses any mortal man's leg power. Easton wheels must pass industry standards at home and abroad - and then make it through its more-stringent in-house testing before they get the nod for future production and sales. Impressive.
We easily identified the various wheels and handlebars that were being subjected to stress testing in the lab, but RC had never seen a carbon fiber Lacrosse racket being put through its paces (left). Handlebar destruction testing will be enhanced by a swivelling weight (right), which Director of Product Testing Niko Henderson explained, will better emulate the flexible human wrist.
Helmets are buckled into special head forms and then rammed onto a series of anvils, rounded, wedge-shaped and flat, with a measured amount of force. The flat test being demonstrated is surprisingly, one of the most destructive.
A weighted wheel is forced down on a huge roller drum with a number of steel strips attached to its circumference to measure the effects of riding over millions of bumps. This is the road wheel setup, although the mountain bike 'bumps' are only about 1/4 inch taller. Technicians say that a full test may run almost two days
A closer look at the wheel testing drum. Like many of the machines in Bell Sport's test facility, the drum testing dyno was designed and built in-house.
Easton's wheel-building department assembles experimental and race wheels in addition to wheel repairs and warranty service. Easton's top dog, Wylie Johnson, demonstrated the Acoustic tuning method developed there to ensure that each spoke is evenly tensioned. Johnson uses a guitar pick to pluck the spokes as well as a calibrated tension meter. Each wheel is then computer-mapped and physically rechecked for quality control purposes.
Santa Cruz is rumored to be second only to Vancouver in the number of restaurants per resident. Jia's has been a PB fave for years.
Cambodian Ice tea
Videographer Aaron Laroque prepares to descend upon Fox Racing Shox's new HQ in Scotts Valley near Santa Cruz
Fox was mid-way through a complete remodel of its new facility in Scotts Valley. Wraps depicting its bike, snow and off-road products will ultimately grace each room. Mark Jordan (right) was our host at Fox Racing Shox. Jordan left Decline Magazine to take a marketing position, where his excellent bike-handling and communication skill sets will be powerful assets.
We were not allowed to even crack open the door of Mark Fitzsimmons racing shop. Evidence of 2013 suspension components was everywhere.
Seen in the tech area
Side-by-side off road vehicles are the fastest growing segment of Fox Racing Shox's business, which includes motorcycle, snowmobile and off road cars and trucks.
Race Shop Mojo
Pinkbike Ping Pong in the Fox lunch room. Fox moved its research and development, administration and sales staff to Scotts Valley in order to consolidate operations and to make room for more manufacturing at its Watsonville complex.
While touring a bunch of mountain bike companies in California might be interesting on some level, this is far from my idea of a California tour/road trip (as a mountain biker).
I bet they are riding, but it's just not the focus of the story. As much as everyone loves all the different web edits and shred tales it's cool to see this side of the industry too.
How do they calibrate their tension meter? Acoustically as well? Or do they have 'something' that never changes and they measure it with the tensiometer to make sure it measures the same?
A standard spoke tensiometer is calibrated using the gauge on the left of the work bench with a dial indicator on top. The gauge has a similar length and type of spoke stretched to the correct tension, which the technician uses to check his tensiometer with throughout the day. Once the wheel is brought up to tension, the builder uses sound rather than the meter to even the spokes. If one spoke is correctly tensioned, all spokes which ring at the same musical tone will also be at the same tension. It's a much faster way to accomplish the task compared with using a tool to check each spoke.
RC
Thanks. I asked because the DT Swiss tensiometer can lose its ability to measure absolute values in a month with regular use. Even DT Swiss say it should only be used to check relative values from spoke to spoke (which I've heard most wheel-building houses already know). Which almost begs the questions of why they have a unit of force on the meter. For the price it should come with a 'standard' spoke (or set of) from which it could be calibrated. We might as well save our dough and use the Park one (which I prefer ergonomically) for relative values.
I have tuned by ear and its not bad on new builds, but sucks for rim swaps etc. But you already knew that.
not all fox's stanchions are kashima coated. in fact, almost every OEM fox fork and rear shock isn't kashima coated. the one's that are kashima coated are aftermarket products. so fox finds it cost efficient to just send a small lot to japan rather than build a coating facility for kashima coated stanchions. but i heard that is going to change soon.
i visited FOX factory in January and most of the stuffs i saw were with Asian labels, from plastic caps, stanchions, steerers etc etc.. but one thing is good about FOX is their build/engineering and testing quality.. and the guy at FOX said that some parts are actually cannot be produced in the states
www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/sea-change-ahead-for-bell-helmets-32973
I have tuned by ear and its not bad on new builds, but sucks for rim swaps etc. But you already knew that.
www.eastonbellsports.com
"lives in SC"
Tip for Easton: STOP making wheels, you suck at it.
how do you know?
it started raining.