Characters 14: Dustin Adams & Trevor Howard

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CHARACTERS 14: DUSTIN ADAMS & TREVOR HOWARD
Story by Riley McIntosh // Photos by Dave Silver

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Squamish is an absolute playground. The sheer number of riders there, the ridiculously vast trail network, and most importantly the community of like-minded individuals is really inspiring. Every time I ride there I find myself wanting to become a full time resident. The proximity to the entire Sea to Sky Corridor is almost overwhelming in terms of how much insanely good riding there is within a short journey. It was uplifting to spend some time with Dustin Adams and Trevor Howard, learning about their company, NOBL wheels. From Dustin’s doorstep it was about a four minute pedal to the dirt, and it was evident that Dustin is so excited to be back on a bike and learning the Squamish trail network. After retiring from racing, Dustin built up a very successful Granite and Marble business. It’s evident that what led him to be the most successful Canadian downhill racer before the rise of Steve Smith and Mark Wallace transferred well to business for him. However, it’s obvious that Dustin really missed being out of the bike industry. Dustin and Trevor are a fantastic team, melding the technical knowledge and business savvy that are so crucial. To witness them tearing up the trails together was a refreshing window into a business that is founded on the love of two wheels and trails. Lately Squamish has become a hotbed for the business side of mountain biking, with Pinkbike setting down roots, alongside companies like Commencal, OneUp Components, 7Mesh, Joyride Bike Parks, Dream Wizards, and now, newcomer NOBL Wheels.



Dustin Adams

What is your story?


My background in mountain biking started in 1993 when I began riding a Giant Rincon. Full ridged, 8'' double swept bar ends that were anodized purple and my biggest want in life was a Syncros stem, those were the days!! Early on I was both an XC racer as well as DH. I moved to the Downhill side of the sport after my junior years and it became more mainstream. As a young professional I had struggles with injures and finding my stride, all the while becoming National Champion and becoming a top contender at most Downhill races in Canada. In 2002, thanks to Sean Jenkins and his belief in me, I ended up getting a shot to prove what I was truly capable of. Racing the US based NORBA National Series I was lucky enough to keep injury free and have some good success racing down south and on the World Cups in North America. My background has been racing and I have a soft spot for it in my heart. I have spent almost 15 years dedicated to the clock and am looking forward to seeing what else mountain biking has to offer outside of the tape!

You are from Kamloops. What brought you to Squamish?


I had visited a good friend Kelly Servinski on my 30th birthday. He took Sherri and I for a 6 hour tour of the trials and town, on bikes of course! He planted the seed and it never really left my mind of how great this place could be. After 4 years of kicking around the idea, Sherri and I decided it would be a great community. Wanting to get back into the bike industry and be able to raise my young boys, Squamish was a perfect fit and has so much to offer an active lifestyle. The community is very active and has a solid amount of people who are in similar positions as we are. Sherri and I really wanted to bring our kids up in an active environment and feel we really have made a good choice. As for moving NOBL here, it just made sense. We have trails right out the door, some of the best riding is with 30 min drive, and the industry is starting to grow a small community of great brands that also choose to call Squamish home base. We wanted to be early adaptors to the location and begin to seed our roots. Testing can be done year round and there is no shortage of skilled riders to put our products to the test!

How did you get involved with NOBL?


Facebook! No joke. I had known about NOBL via one of the owners Ryan for almost two years. Ryan had been a customer of mine up in Kamloops and we managed to cross paths many times over the years. He had posted an add looking for an operations manager for NOBL and I made the contact immediately. This is where I met Trevor and really loved his passion and story about how he began the company. It felt like a great fit and we all had different strengths that could really help grow NOBL to the next level. I proposed the idea of me becoming a partner and buying into the company because I felt that I could bring a wealth of testing knowledge, a keen understanding of the industry, as well as business experience to the brand. It was discussed on how and where we wanted to see NOBL taken, and we all had similar ideas. After many meetings and 6 months, here we are. We are aiming to let the riders understand we are not another marketing company buying open moulded carbon products and slapping some decals on there and saying you should buy this!! We own, design and engineer all of our products in house. We have been trying to improve on all of our moulding processes with each bit of feedback we receive. At the end of the day the product has to perform and that is what is so attractive about being involved, no fluff!! There is enough of that out there already!!

Trevor Howard
Trevor, what is your background? Where did you grow up?


I grew up on an acreage in Deroche, BC up until I was eight years old, and then my family moved to Abbotsford and I’ve been here since. My father was a herdsman so I spent a lot of time from an early age on dairy farms milking cows and cleaning calf pens to support my cycling addiction. When I was about eleven years old I would go around to the local farms and see if anyone had old bikes they wanted to get rid of. Within the first year of doing that, it was normal for me to have 10-20 bicycles in the garage. I would take them all apart and build as many fully functioning bikes from the pile. I rented a spot at the local flea market and sold complete bikes there on Sundays - mostly cruisers. People were stoked to get a bike for $40-$50 and seeing as how my profit margins were 100%, I was pumped! I didn’t realize it then, but that was my first entrepreneurial venture.

What lead you to start NOBL?


After high school I took a structures program (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer) and really enjoyed the composites module. The industry was still pretty dismal after 9/11 so I decided to keep my day job and built out a composite shop out of a 1200 square foot garage. I’m positive my landlord thought I was starting a grow-op after he saw the amount of power I was routing into the shop and all of the venting. I built composite vehicle parts such as door sills and custom audio enclosures, and made a host of molded carbon fenders for bikes. In 2011 a good friend bought a pair of carbon rims directly from Asia. I was skeptical but eventually I bought a set as well and was impressed by the improved performance, but not so impressed about breaking three rims a season. After trying a number of different Asian rims and some very expensive American made rims, I was frustrated by different product issues and saw so many things I could improve upon. Over the next few years I imported a variety of carbon rims and did a lot of custom wheel building and worked with the factory engineers to make product tweaks for me. As the product improved, I could see the hobby turning into a full time business. In 2013 I formed a partnership with Ryan Kononoff, a businessman I met through real estate investing, and we formed NOBL Wheels. He was the acting CEO, and I was running the day to day operations.

What are some of the key concepts behind your wheels? What makes them special or different?


We started by making all of our rims relatively wide, asymmetrical, with bead seat bumps, hook-less, and smooth curves so that voids in the laminate are not a problem. When it comes to carbon rim manufacturing, you're putting a lot of faith in the manufacturing process and this is where I spend most of my time. I'm not sure how many owners of carbon wheel businesses can actually make their own product from start to finish. I think NOBL’s commitment to making the best product possible first and foremost is what separates us. We are a carbon wheel company, if we can’t nail that, then we don’t have a business. It’s in the fine details that makes one rim better from another. We are steadily improving them and release upgrades constantly. We’ve scrapped entire molds in order to shave off 0.1 mm in one area and add 0.1 mm in another. Any company can make a rim of the same dimensions, weight, and appearance, but those traditional measures are the least important when it comes to measuring a product's performance. We’ll spend 30 days per year on average at the factory working on product development hands-on. There are just two workers that perform our specific layups, and we analyze every manufacturing step intimately so that we can develop our own processes. I’d rather focus on development and let the product speak for itself rather than on trying to be a marketing company that happens to sell carbon rims.

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www.hellobc.com
www.exploresquamish.com

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