Hiker News #2

Since our last news, we have been doing lots of official stuff concerning the company and production. Our new company is now officially registered as Hiker Real World Bicycles Oy. Congratulations to us!A more detailed history of the bike and company is maybe to come at some point, but to sum up our path to this point:

The new test forks are ready at Fort and will be sent to Zedler Institut for another run of fatigue testing. There will be moments of dread to come but we must have faith that the forks will survive. We have forks with the new crown mentioned in News #1 and as a backup some forks with thicker Reynolds fork blades.

To proceed with production, we need to pay the materials prepayment and buy 13 kiloeuros worth of steel tubing. That’s a bit exciting and not only in a good way. But one can’t do business and be afraid of money I guess… Then if all goes well we will have 88 framesets on around 1st of June.

On the side, we have been drawing stems, decaleurs and thinking about a front rack for production. We got a price estimate from Fort for all three, which is quite competitive, but as the Japanese Yen is very cheap, Nitto is a surprisingly cheap option at the moment. We just don’t have the connections needed to make custom products there, and no “stock” Nitto product fits our needs perfectly... They would be fine, but not perfect. If people are willing to pay the same price for something made in Europe by a more unknown manufacturer as they are for famous Nitto quality, I’m not sure…

Visit to Bespoked exhibition 
and the Fort factory

A highlight of the company's journey happened just a while ago when we, quite extempore, decided to go visit Bespokedexhibition in Dresden, Germany and our frame factory Fort in Ústí nad Orlicí, Czechia. We figured we could see some competing designs, new ideas, network with bike industry people and pay a long due visit to the factory. We hadn't met the people at Fort before even though we had done business for years already. And of course we could spend some quality time with our team! We were taking the ferry to Travemünde and driving south from there, so the trip would take a week in total. 31 hours of ferrying + hours in the car there and back gave plenty of time to discuss and just to fool around and be without internet for a while.

Business in the ferry cabin.

None of us had visited a proper bike expo before, so all was new and exciting. The event was much bigger than I think any of us expected and filled with bike stuff to stare at. I (Aki) chatted up some of Töölön Pyörä's suppliers like Brooks and SON, and together we questioned Reynolds Tubing staff and Columbus distributors about properties of steel fork blades and things like that.

Most of the show was about carbon this and 3D titanium that, which don’t interest me personally too much, but still it was good to see all of this in real life. I as my critical self was mostly pointing out all the problems and weird overengineered solutions that were on display. My personal favourite was Tim-Tas-Rek's crazy but still utilitarian modified vintage frame that stood out from all of the super blingy mega expensive bikes.

Our other favourites from the show were Hulsroy, Meerglas of course (seeing a new Nivex derailleur live was definitely a moment for me), Wünderlich, Quokka and Alonukis. You can probably see their bikes at some coverage of the event, I was too busy chatting with people to be able to focus on photographing.

We also had a good discussion with Hahn Rossman about our fork design and the fatigue tests which was good and helpful so thanks a bunch to Hahn! I didn't have time to praise the removable extra mixte-stay -design that was shown at some previous bike expo, I forget which. Definitely one of my favourite bike ideas in the last few years! Everyone we talked to was really helpful and not gatekeeping at all which was super nice. Hopefully we can help someone just starting out in the future as well.

We were so deep in the zone by the end that we even went to ask Madit Metal about the possibility to 3D print our own fork crowns and what would it cost. We found out it would cost about 10 times as much as a cast crown we now use so it's probably not gonna happen anytime soon.

Get yourself someone who stares at you like Marko at this bike.

We also visited the afterparty for a bit which was crowded and hot and loud so we decided to go browse the streets of nightly Dresden instead. There were tons of people hanging out in the street and in front of spätverkauf corner stores. Drinking, eating döner and falafel, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and legal and semilegal weed was going on steadily everywhere. We enjoyed the atmoshpere for an hour or two and then went to bed, as we had to drive to Czechia the next day and get ready to take on our main quest: visiting Fort Frames.

Fort Frames factory.

Located in the small charming town of Ústí nad Orlicí in a sort of mountain valley, Fort headquarters is a medium sized factory building plus a separate storage hall near the town center. We got a tour of the premises which were very authentic and well worn as they have been in business for about three decades If I recall correctly. Someone would maybe say that's where the magic happens. But really it's just regular factory work where the staff is grinding and machining and welding and brazing in what appeared to us a well thought out pattern. It was super interesting to see the machines and processes along with all the products, mostly steel bicycle frames, that were being made.

Arriving at the final destination.

And of course we had a meeting with the design and management team, Michal and Daniel. Our present of special edition Jaloviina and chaga mushroom seemed to spark some genuine curiosity in them! Friendly relations were established and production methods, problems and timetables were discussed. Mutual understanding was surely greatly increased during the visit. Our concept of high-performance-but-relaxed all-road alt-touring bicycle was surprisingly not self-evidently a normal business idea??

On the way home we had again plenty of time to discuss and plan the future of Hiker bicycles. The return journey on the ferry was especially relaxing and comforting after an intense week of business tripping. We are already looking forward to visiting both destinations again next year!

Until next time,
Hiker Crew

Frame jig at the factory.