Otso Waheela, the World's Most Versatile Gravel Bike
We recently reviewed the Wolf Tooth Components B-RAD system, a super versatile gravel hardgood that allows for multiple bottle cage configurations. You can read our full review here. The all new Waheela S is the world’s first suspension-corrected gravel/adventure bike on the market. An interesting feature that allows riders to optimize the bike’s geometry for either rigid or gravel suspension forks. With a unique Tuning Chip dropout system, the Waheela S can be built with tires ranging from all-road 700Cx28 through road-plus 650Cx53 to a massive trail-ready 700Cx53 (29x2.1). The versatility continues with internal routing for dropper seatposts.
PC: The Path Less Pedaled
Our friends over at The Gravel Ride catch up with Brendan Moore of Wolf Tooth Components and Otso Bikes to talk about their gravel specific hardgoods and the new Otso Waheela. The Path Less Pedaled also recently reviewed the new Waheela S.
The gravel ride Podcast interview
Waheela Video review by the path less pedaled
“Otso is the spirit of the bear in Finnish mythology, the most important, revered, and respected animal of all. Otso is the noble king of the forest and a symbol of strength and courage. The bear spirit is also a relative, an ethereal forest cousin or brother. He can be seen in the freezing snow and blowing leaves or the bright sunshine and moonlit skies of the wilderness. On forest trails, gravel roads, or urban streets, an Otso bike will inspire you to achieve your best.”
Automatic Transcription (forgive any errors):
All right, Brendan, thanks for joining us on the podcast this week. I'm really excited to get to know wolf tooth and also a little bit better today. Yeah, thanks for having me. I always like starting out by learning a little bit more about you as a writer and since you're a, a, an owner of a company, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about how the company started.
Yeah, well I guess I'll talk about the three of us that started together. Um, Mike is the original founder and Dan and I joined him, uh, about a month or two after he started at Mike's. Been racing 20 or 25 years in cross country avid mountain bike, rabid sat biker Dan, my other business partner is a more of a distance guy. He'd done. I did a bike or I did a rod, I guess he's done the arrowhead 1:35 half a dozen times during the Baja divide, you know, just all kinds of crazy long distance stuff. And then, um, I come from an SCC race background erased ECC pro level, like c for about 10 or 12 years and still dabble in some racing, but, uh, given the business and growing children, I haven't been doing quite as much as they used to. So, so we kind of come from a bit of a diverse set of, uh, a writing background, um, which brings a lot to the table when we start talking about out. So
yeah, absolutely. And did you guys have an engineering background professionally?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so we all came from the tech world, um, engineers and tech. Mike and I worked in a automation engineering department, so we basically designed robots that built a hard disk drives and then Dan was on the design side of the hard disk drive, so designing the intricate details of a hard disk drive and all the mechanical features. So we all worked together doing this and um, had a passion for riding road at lunch together, that kind of thing. And always talked about bike parts and maybe deficiencies in some and things we liked and didn't like. And um, and that's where the passion started and then an opportunity came to give this a go and we jumped at it.
What was the problem that you guys saw initially? What was the first product?
The very first product was actually a chain ring, a wide narrow chain ring for a fat bike, um, because we here in Minnesota, we're forced to ride bikes four or five months a year. And so mike design that up and I started testing it and it's about the same time that [inaudible] came out and we really felt that one by was a key, um, technology for fat bikes because front railers tended to not work with snow and ice. And so that was the first product. And then what actions actually the biggest product for the company that Kinda really got us off ground was those cassette extenders. And um, back when people were just starting to go one by and adding the 42 to two, their 10 speed. And uh, you know, at this point we basically don't sell any of those anymore. The oems have largely answered that large wide range cassette question. But uh, so those are the two kind of first products that got us off the ground while we were still working our day jobs, packet packet, ca technology hard this rep company.
And was that derailleur extension piece, was that something that originally was solving a problem that you were seeing in the fat bike world specifically or, or any one by setup?
Well, so there was the cassette extender, so it's actually a cassette cog that went behind the cassette was the first product later we did follow up with a, a derailleur extension piece to help help that work better. Um, but that was just a cassette piece that honestly it was pretty ubiquitous no matter where you lived in the mountains or you lived in the flat, he lived in the flat so you could just run a bigger chain ring. And at the time, remember the cassettes were only 1136 was the biggest right now, you know, now we're talking 10:50 AM, 10:51 in the case of Shimano new 12 speed. Uh, the 1136 sounds absolutely teeny, like a road or gravel or something.
I think that's absolutely where I first came to become aware of, uh, was in that I was running my niner gravel bike and I always needed more gears and someone came up to me and said, you know, you don't have to change the derailleur, you can just get this little part by this company in Minnesota and it can solve all your problems.
Yeah. All the problems.
Maybe not the problems with my lack of horsepower at times, but you youth it not me a man. Well that's great. That's a really interesting origin story. And then presumably as you guys acquired more equipment and sophomore or opportunity, you just sort of let your engineering minds grow wild. And I've seen you kind of pick a lot of problem opportunities across the cycling space to tackle with your unique componentry.
Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, from the beginning we had a lot more ideas than those are just the two products that kind of allowed us to launch the company. But very quickly just knowing that oems are going to make wide range cassettes, which they do now today. And knowing that there's going to be other challenges, we'd with a derailleur optimization, all that stuff. We quickly moved into the things that like our be Rad system and some of these more innovative standalone products that aren't tied to necessarily somebody cassette or somebody is derailleur. Um, so that's something we did very early on with foresight to all products have a finite life when we need to go specifically probably only had three to four year run rate. So.
Right. Yeah. What a step back. I definitely want to get into the be rad system. But with respects to gearing for gravel riding, you'd mentioned sort of your excitement, enthusiasm behind. No one by trend. Do you see that continuing across kind of all segments of cycling or GC, the roadies still retaining to buy as you know, the predominant option?
It's an interesting and kind of polarizing question on the road. Um, I think it's less, less so on a gravel and then not at all in the mountains. The mountains by rights all switched to one by. I know there's some still some holdouts, and I'm not saying everybody has to go one bike because it gives people, some people pretty worked up, but uh, and then on gravel, honestly having a little, a little wider range cassette, I think you've found it extremely useful. Um, you know, you end up with these little corn cob cassettes, I call him like 11, 25, you end up with double shifts anyway. Most of the time on gravel road is going to be a bit more of a challenge and you know, just just a frame road for a second. The number of usable actual years on a double. A typical double setup is about 14. So you know, where we're at right now, we're at 12 speed right now. Right, right. And so you could see a way to 13 speed in the near future, I'm guessing on the road. Um, and so if you got the 13 speed, could you fudge those bigger three cars and not upset roadies and have small enough jumps in the small causes? Maybe that's what it's going to take though.
Yeah, I think you're right. I, I, I struggled a bit, so I've bought my last spike two years ago and I had made the decision that I was going to buy one bike that was gonna replace my road bike and gravel bike and all the research I pointed to lead me to believe yeah, there were some nuances that I would lose and going to a one by. And so I elected to go to a two by simply because I was trying to purely replaced my road bike and I've largely been happy with it. But one of the things that I have come to realize that know, which is probably obvious in retrospect was that the one by a drive train off road is just so much quieter without, uh, you know, the longer chain and the front trailer on there that there's, to me a real advantage there and any disadvantage I was perceiving or loss of, you know, gear subtlety really hasn't manifested itself in the way I feared it would.
No, you got to remember though, there is really high level road racing and there's the time where it can get annoying. Basically if you're in a group road ride and you know, the, the um, the speed is changing subtly and you want to shift, just barely shifted gear to keep your cadence at a certain level or people that have spent years and years on road bikes and expecting that one tooth cog difference, that those are the people that'll be the last hold outs and honestly it'll take 14 speed's probably to convert them.
And uh, do you still have a road bike in your garage?
Not the kind with skinny tires.
The skinny tires I have on right now are $38, I think 38 because honestly with, with cell phones, um, I avoid at all costs that a personal impact. All of us, pretty much everybody on staff here does. I don't. There's maybe one or two guys that do group road rides anymore. Yeah. But even then, like this time of year, they're, the group road rides shifts to gravel. Um, I was just out this weekend, this out this weekend for a cruise in several hours. I saw four cars unraveled and that was, it was bliss. It was blissful. Every time, every time I'm on the road, it's like, you know, white knuckles is, are they on their phone, are they drinking their coffee or you know, whatever. And uh, just not the fun relaxing experience I want when I'm out riding my bike.
Yeah. I'm always saying the same thing to my roadie hold out friends that they just don't know what they're missing. When you can get out there and get off the beaten path and not have to worry about cars at all. And you can just have pure peace during your rides.
Yeah. Yeah. You've come out and just like totally refreshed. Maybe. Maybe you're tired, but totally refreshed mentally and, and happy. I don't know how else to describe it. I, I'll feel after her gravel. Right. But just, just content and happy.
Yeah, I agree. I think it just, it plays on a number of different lover, the levers emotionally. When you're out there riding, you get the peace and solitude, but then you also get challenging sections where you felt glom onto something a little bit more tactical on your gravel bike and get your heart rate up.
Yeah. Yup. So it'll be, you know, if we get to 13 or 14 speeds, I think one by will make huge inroads into road and probably completely take over gravel.
Yeah, I think you're right. And then certainly on my next bike, which is upcoming and I'm definitely going to go the one by route and um, you know, any shortcomings, I spent so much time off road that they've road shortcomings aren't going to bother me whatsoever.
Right. And the interesting thing thing on the side that we've seen with, with gravel and road is that, um, it used to be all a lot of the chain rings we sold in the gravel and road segments square, 40 to 40, 38 meaning cyclocross racers and writers and now we're seeing a shift to a lot of $46 going out the door, which is kind of that sweet spot for the one by gravel with a wide range cassette or one by road with a wide range. So we are actually seeing it on the chain ring side too.
What type of cassette gear ratio or people matching to that? 40 six?
Um, typically it'd be 1140 Shimano cassettes are and that's our favorite, that's what we all run. They have nice, small, not small for roadies again, but smallish your steps, I'm relatively inexpensive cassettes, they're easy to get if it on hd driver. Um, so that's the most common one that we're seeing.
And what derailer systems does that put you into?
Well, for one by you can basically get any derailer to work if you're using our thriller optimization products, um, the road linker to go link or some of the trailers work natively with you had the 10 pan which allows road shifters to work with mountain bike rider railers, but basically the 1140 isn't too challenging to get to work from a one by perspective once the 1142 is a little more 10:42, and then once you get to 1146 you're really pretty much stuck with you than a mountain bike reader. Railer and your road shifters. Um, or in Graham's case, Ram actually has a, some wide range of solutions that work with that out of the box. So.
Right. Interesting. Well, shifting gears a little bit, let's talk about the [inaudible] system. I mentioned in my initial outreach to you. I had my first multiday bike packing experience and I recognize the shortcoming in my bottle setup, so I was interested to talk to you about the Rad and where that came from.
Oh boy. I don't know if I. I should let this out of the bag, but so be routed. Actually it stands for bottle, a relocation and accessory device, but the initial design for the very first came out of Iraq and scientists know Joe guy that works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory a. He happens to be my brother. Brad. Going to be Rad. Came from ice. No joke. He made he uh, yeah, he was A. Yeah, I don't think we've ever told this story. He was trying to move his bottle around a little bit on trying to remember. I think it was his ibis, maybe a Mojo. Um, anyway, he came up with this little kind of looks like the two that we sell today. We sell three different signaling for people that don't know, three different bases. Is that allow you to mount things on your bike and move bottles around you have to go to the website to see how it all works.
But he designed the smallest base, smallest of the three to be read to kind of. And it was actually, um, you know, something that I had seen and then one of my employees and uh, the guy that runs a machine shop unbeknownst to us and without asking, just went off and made a couple and I saw that and actually we had been working on some other, the double bottle thing where you can mount the two bottles side by side, which is some people laugh at. But uh, those that have tried it, no, it's pretty sweet. Um, if you need to throw more water, we'd had some prototypes around that, but that didn't really become a product until I saw the Rad. And I'm like, you know, the double bottles of product if it's an accessory to another system. And so we kind of put that together and started developing the different length basis.
Um, and then launched with this system with the three bases I'm mounting plate with a strap, then those bases and the double bottle. And so what this allowed you to do is mountain bottles up and down and move bottles around, knocked two bottles on mount these straps that held things on your bike and it really allowed gravel and adventure riders and even at cross country racers to too, I'd extend, gets stuff off their back and so, and then it's just grown from there and I'll go on there and there's, I think a 10 or 12 accessories you can buy for the system all based on these, these three bases that you can mount on your bike. Right. So that's how it started. It was, it was kind of an accident, um, and kind of something that we didn't prove the guy that was working on to work on, but we didn't stop them either.
Right. And then you found out it started working in and opening up some new possibilities.
Yeah, it was more like, hey, we had this other stuff that, oh yeah, if we took this and this together, it becomes a system and then, and then now here we are today.
Yeah, for those of you trying to visualize it, so you've got a base that mounts into your existing water bottle, water bottle, cage area, and then you can adjust where you attach your water bottle cage or accessory to a different area of your top two or sorry, happier. You're down tube. Um, which provides with the accessory mounts a unique way of adding multiple water bottle cages or pumping tube strap. A whole bunch of other accessories.
Yeah, yeah. The best way to go to the site and look at it, look at it because there's so many different ways. It's always kind of described it as the erector set of a bicycle accessory mounting because there's going to have tinkered with it for hours in my basement. Moving stuff around, especially with the bags and stuff we have now. And you can really hang in, jam a lot of stuff on your bike. And basically at this point I'm writing most of the time with just a cell phone in my pocket,
right? Yeah. And my bike packing setup, I had a sort of a quarter frame bag and I just needed the bottle cages to be exterior to that. And I looked at the two water bottle mountain. I was like, that would have been perfect because they were just set the bottles outside of that bag and solved a big issue for me.
Yup, Yup. Yeah. We have a number of people doing that exact setup you just described.
So you guys were working in the machine shop, you were making accessories and the derailer optimization stuff and later that'd be Rad. But recently, and I'm not sure how recently you started your own bike brand. How did that happen? Come about.
Yeah. Yeah. So once again, we ride fat bikes four or five months a year. That's how it started. We started selling bikes about two years ago, I guess last month, two years ago in September. Um, so also is not that old. Um, for those that don't know a. So is a, it's a bite than our, I guess our slogan is born in the north woods. We try and build bikes around what, what the kind of writing one might do in the northwoods, whether that be northwoods of, of California, northwoods, Minnesota. I'm not, I'll call it not shredding bikes if, if that's a term that people know. I'm not downhill, not enduro. Um, these are more general cross country and gravel adventure bike. Uh, anyway, we, we ride fat bikes a lot here. Obviously. I've said that several times and I'm one of the big buggers that fat bikes is the q factors really wide.
I'm on the order of like an inch wider than a mountain bike and more than an inch wider than a road bike. And so, um, that really it can be hard on knees and hips if you spend a lot of time peddling the summer and then switched to this thing where your feet are way out. It puts a lot of strain on the inside of your knees. Um, and so we've been kicking around the idea. We'd seen some prototypes with people kicking around. The idea of using what was a, a and I guess still is a downhill standard. So that'd be um, in common terms. And 83 millimeter bottom bracket. I'm a road, it would be 68 millimeters a mountain would be 73 and this was 83. And then a fat bikes for 100. So you can see a kind of the step 73 would be typical mountain in 83 is what we retargeting and we'd seen some prototypes and we're like, you know what, I think we think we can do this.
And so I'm one of the enablers. They're doing it though was one by you can't do an 83 millimeter bottom bracket that bike, like we do our vojtech without committing to one by because everything's competing for the same space down there. So once we committed to one by which we were comfortable with because there are know we were both to to, to do, um, once we committed to one, by then it was a matter of doing the layouts and understanding the engineering. And then I'm working with a frame manufacturer there was willing to explore with us because there was challenges in the layup, you know, getting the chain stay right where it kind of goes between the crank arm and the chain ring gets pretty narrow. And so, uh, anyway, one thing led to another and I guess took about 20 months from when we started.
Mike might had business partner started to cad to when we launched. And then um, when we launched, we also, we ride a lot of gravel. I mentioned that too. And uh, the opportunity arose to do a production made in Taiwan, um, but production stainless steel bike and which has some unique properties that we appreciate around here, namely corrosion resistance. And so we pursued that as well because we had, as part of the fat bike, develop this rear dropouts system that allowed you to move the rear wheel around for different types of snow or different kinds of conditions. Some are writing, I'm shortening or lengthening the chain stays. Which law on the roadside lends itself to something like cyclocross geometry all the way through road touring geometry. By moving the rear wheel further away from the bottom bracket or closer to it. So we took that same technology, the same dropout, and put it on a stainless steel road bike so we can launch the company with both bikes, um, at the same time. So that was about two years ago.
And then subsequently you've added a third bike in the gravel category, is that right?
Yup. Yup. So in the most recent ad, um, we kind of, we tried to get it out last spring, but we missed it and because we were getting left few last things right, but there's new one really, uh, the word hasn't gotten out on it yet, but it's got some really interesting features that I think you're going to start to see in almost all gravel bikes. Um, first one is, it's built on a 420 millimeter exela crown. So that's how tall the fork is, if you will. So from the axle to you, the headset, um, traditional gravel cx, even road to a large extent is much smaller than that. Gravel cx. Excellent. The crown is usually around 400 millimeters. Um, ours is 420 and you might ask why a core 20? Well, it's not what you think
exactly
really because yeah, it's not that it's actually because the roads this road suspension forks, the MRP, um, the Fox and even the [inaudible] which is a strong spring forth, um, those all operate on a little higher exhale to crown. And so when you just plot those on, a normal bike is built around 400, it kind of prompts the bike up and changes the geometry and there's really no compromise to do in 420 x or the crown 400 is just kind of a legacy thing that just carried through. So we took a fresh look at it. So why are we doing $400 when and you need 420 to make these suspension forks have travel so they don't hit on the front wheel. So, so 420 x with the crown is one interesting feature. Has internal dropper routing maybe will become a thing. It's becoming more popular and drop our bikes. It's not going to be for everybody. Um, and then 29 by two point one tire clearance, um, that might sound like a lot, but you know, you go out and some of these back country roads up in the mountains and at 29 by two point one tire is not too much tire.
Now it gives you a ton of versatility is gone that wide.
It does, it does. But then, then you get the, the people argue, well that raise the bottom bracket too much and I'm like, trust me in situations where you need a tire that why'd you want to hire bottom bracket? You don't want, you don't want your pedal and inches from the ground. Um, and so that's going to be, that is the only bike out there that both that and the water can actually sit 29 by two point one tires. So those key features were engineered in and those aren't on most sites today. The other thing that we did with where he lives, we did a longer reach. The reason we did a longer reach, it's not to be longer, slacker, lower like all the enduro bikes. It's actually one of the reasons is just to get the size, the geometry between the small and medium and large and exhale to be the same.
So typically what you do on a small frame is you slacking the head tube a bit to make the, a toll her lap, not so bad on a small frame. So if you're stopped, you know, hit your front, you hit your toe on the front wheel. Um, it also creates a more stable handling bike across the board. That is the reason the enduro bikes are doing it because you get a more stable handling bike with a little shorter stem. But the front wheels further out, I think the count most common geometric term anymore as long front center, I'm talking about long front centers and long rear centers. But what that means is that the steer tube is just pushed a little further forward away from the seat from the seat post. Um, so you run a little shorter stem, but that gets the front wheel out there a little further, which makes her more stable handling, which on all road gravel, whatever you want to call it, adventure road is, is actually a good thing in a, in a, in a nutshell that you took a relook. We took a relook at everything that had been kind of leveraged that road and cyclocross that has driven what gravel is today and said most of that's right, but there are some things that we think should be a little different.
Yeah, it certainly feels like a very forward thinking bike and one of the areas where the several areas of things that you, you mentioned that have been hotly debated by previous guests on my podcast, specifically suspension in gravel bikes and drop receipt perse. So I'm interested to drill into your thoughts on suspension for gravel bikes because I think that's a bold positioning. Obviously you do have a rigid for that this bike is available with, but giving a couple of different suspension options I think is a bold choice. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Yeah, the dropper posts thing, um, you know, I don't know for art types of gravel riding, we don't use those. I've been in situations on my mountain bike where I've been on gravel roads in the mountains. Again, for example, where a dropper posts would have been useful. There's no doubt if I would have been on a drop bar, bike out wanted one. Um, the challenge with dropper posts is durability. I'm the 27 two so far I haven't had the best record because you're smashing kind of the same internals and other smaller tube. Yep. And so, so that's been a challenge on the dropper side. It is a thing though, there's a lot of people doing it and there are people that say it's necessary and useful. Um, so that's why it's in our bike. Um, and having that, having that option doesn't hurt anything. I mean I can understand the debate about maybe wanting it or not wanting it, but having it as a feature should provides no detriment.
Yeah. It's certainly terrain specific. I know, again, who have heard me talk about dropper posts, I'm sold. I don't have one yet, but I do believe in in my. My area of riding here in Marin County, I could definitely use it.
Yeah, you definitely can.
No doubt about descending download, whatever, and similarly I do believe that suspension will hold a place in some gravel writers future. Again, depending on your terrain, I understand if your idea of gravel riding or mixed terrain is just kind of light fire roads, but if you get into some serious terrain, just like on a mountain bike, the full front suspension fork is going to allow you to go faster and likely more safely.
Yeah. I think honestly, as silly as this sounds, the thing that's going to drive suspension into gravel is going to be a good looking for work
afford like an inverted arm. Think about like a cut down rs one. Like if you saw it at nine or dual suspension, gravel bike, they did something like that cut down rs one that looks kind of normal on a drop our bike. I honestly, I honestly think that's one of the biggest holdups because we had the Fox on there and we had it set up with um, one by, with Shimano and the left shift or was set up as a remote lockout. It was sweet. Yeah. Had everything you needed at your fingertips. I mean like you could lock it out as completely rigid breaking bumps coming. You flipped the left shift there, but it still look like a mountain bike park. It functions, it functions great. It does everything great other than it looks like a mountain bike parking. That's a hurdle that I'm not sure the general gravel crowd is willing to give up yet.
Yeah, it's been a theme that's come up on the last couple of podcasts and I totally agree with you. I think the gravel market tends to draw its biggest base from roadies and roadies came with a very specific aesthetic in their mind and uh, even it's going to take awhile. I think once the performance attributes of suspension forks and dropper posts, and maybe the aesthetics, as you mentioned on the suspension side, come around, there's really going to be no reason not to have them on your bike.
Yeah, I mean if, if, if it looks, if it's a 40 millimeter micro suspension that looks mostly like a fork and you're not a weight weaning, um, it would be faster even even in some races where you're mostly gravel, maybe a 30 Kanza for example. I'm guessing over the long, long haul, a lot of writers will be faster if they're more comfortable.
Yeah.
Pedaling those forks, those forks don't move there too and they're tuned the right way. They won't move when you're seated pedaling. Um, and then you flick a switch, hopefully a left lever or some kind of lever when you stand up and it's rigid. Yeah. Um, so we're just not there yet. But the, the point of the bike was we had to get the bike geometry there because when that comes out is not going to be a 400 accidents crown. That's going to be 4:20 and 4:30, whatever it wants to be, but
yeah, I think it's going to be a part, uh, involve writers coming to the conclusion that gravel is actually their primary use of a bike, not as secondary use in addition to their road bike or mountain bike.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that will be a. If they want to have one bike, having the suspension on there and the extra weight will be a difficult one for them to overcome. Now that said, nothing to say. I mean on the Vojtech we'd put a suspension fork on there in the summer and we rided rigid and fat in the winter. Nothing to say you can have a rigid fork and a suspension for kind of gravel bike too.
Yeah. Are you seeing any of the oem fork manufacturers kind of a approach the market and the way you've described. I know the Lao fork in it of itself just a little bit of a different beast, but is, is fairly lightweight as it is, but with Fox and some of the other fork manufacturers are people looking at gravel and, and thinking about 20, 19, 20, 20 with some more gravel specific suspension.
I gotta think they are, but I can't want, I can't comment to the, you know, being an oem customer on what, what's coming, but um, I hope so. I mean, I think it's a market that's ripe for that. Um, I just don't know when that's gonna happen.
Yeah. It's probably a one more than an f at this point. Given the current trends around gravel bikes.
Yeah. I mean you'll know about probably six months before because you'll see teaser images on instagram or something like that.
Yeah. And going back to the dropper post comments, actually no. You make a couple of cool nifty adapters for drop bar graph, a dropper post activation. Is that right?
Yeah, yeah. We have a remote lever that's really a successful mountain bike product for wolf too, but we also make one that mounts on the, um, the road bike up by the, uh, the, that, the, uh, the stem and um, and allows you to activate your dropper post. We are, we didn't tie something back, uh, about, I guess it was last winter bikes, enl support 10 or 15 months ago. Um, there was a bar end dropper post activation and you might see that come to production here real soon.
Okay. Well you'll definitely have to keep us posted on that. I'm keen to see that kind of stuff. As the said, they'll, they'll soon be a dropper posts in my future.
Yeah, we played when and then when we showed that it got teased on, it was on bike rumor and then there's all kinds of like, oh, that's the worst place. So that's the best place in like we've played with and I've seen where others have put the remotes for their road droppers. And first of all there's not a perfect place for it. I'm the perfect place would be a left lever on a one, but the proposition of gutting a hydraulic lever to get the, the Paul's out of it, if you will, you know, the clicking mechanism is a tall, tall order and so it's difficult to make the left shift at work unless it's a dedicated left shifted dropper. Post activator smells only exists. And then on the mechanical side we do know people that have got it on, but when you're talking like a hydraulic disc brakes left shifter, um, other than that, the Ambar end ended up being the best position. So you'll see if you search on bike room or in the internet, you'll see what, what we had shown at the show. But, uh, basically that's the next best spot for ergonomics, for safety, you know, not moving your hands too far. All of that.
Yeah. And being able to at least keep it on one part of the bar while you're activating it, I think it's going to be important.
Yeah. Not Getting in the way of your critical hand position spots.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's exciting to see the industry continue to innovate and have you guys fill the pockets where there's a short term need, but also look at creating longterm sustainable products. So I appreciate you spending time with us today.
Yeah, well thanks for having me. It's always, always something to talk to you and glad to gladly come on again, if you ever would like to see
come up. Well we'll put links to all the products we've talked about in the podcast notes and make sure everybody knows where to find you to see if any of these teas products come out and definitely I want people to take a look at the auto bike because I think it's a really. It's a good looking bike. It's got some unique attributes to it and clearly you guys are super thoughtful about what you're doing.