Nov 30, 2021

This week we sit down with Bryce Wood from Colorado's Alchemy Bicycles to discuss the companies' titanium and carbon gravel bikes.

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Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos):

Alchemy Bicycles

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: 

[00:00:05] Hello and welcome to the gravel rod podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week on the podcast, we have Bryce wood from alchemy bikes in Colorado. You may recognize Bryce's voice from my Sea Otter Roundup episode, where I got to know the brand a little bit, but I was certainly curious to dig deeper. So I was happy to have him on for a full show. 

[00:00:27] Before we jump in, I need to thank this week. Sponsor competitive cyclist. 

[00:00:32] Competitive Cyclist and the online specialty retailer of road, gravel and mountain bikes, components, apparel, and accessories, featuring cycling standout brands like pock Castelli, Pearl Izumi, and five 10, an unrivaled in-house bike assembly operation. They bring the personalized attention of the local bike shop along with the selection and convenience only available while shopping online. 

[00:00:57] The real difference that competitive cyclists are the gearheads. Equal parts, customer service and cycling fanatics gear heads are former pro athletes, Olympians and seasoned cyclists. With years of experience. All available by phone, email, or chat for product recommendations and hard won advice. 

[00:01:15] You may recall from the last couple of episodes that I had a really great experience with my own personal gear head, Maggie, as she walked me through the various gravel bikes they have available for sale on competitive cyclist.com. Today. I have to say, I wasted a lot of time perusing items on competitive cyclist. I'd been given a gift certificate and I wanted to pick up something for myself. So I found myself going through the clothing, the gloves, the components, all kinds of stuff. I think I filled my cart with $500 worth of stuff before I backed it off and got down to my gift certificate amount. 

[00:01:52] I'm somewhat proud of myself. I ended up with a nice mix of practical things, as well as some things I've been lusting after for a while, I got some replacement disc brake pads, and also a digital tire gauge. I talked about that a little bit before on the pod, how I thought it would be curious to be able to really see precise. 

[00:02:11] Measurement as to what PSI I'm running between the different wheel sets, just to make sure that I'm getting out there and understanding what various tire pressures are going to do. I've got some tests coming up in the future that I'd really want to know what range I'm in. As I test some new tires and new some new products. 

[00:02:29] The team over a competitive cyclist has generously offered 15% off for all podcast listeners. So go to competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride and enter promo code the gravel ride. Get that 15% off your first full price purchase. Plus free shipping on orders of $50 or more, 

[00:02:48] Some exclusions apply. Go right now and get 15% off. Plus free shipping@competitivecyclists.com slash the gravel ride entering promo code the gravel ride. 

[00:03:00] I mentioned that was on the site this morning, picking out some things for myself. I actually got a shipping notification today already. So they're doing same day shipping in some instances. So you can be confident@competitivecyclists.com. They've got your back for holiday gift purchases, things you need to get in a timely fashion. Go over to competitive cyclists.com/the gravel ride

[00:03:23] With that business behind us, let's jump right into my interview with Bryce, from alchemy bikes. Bryce. Welcome to the show. 

[00:03:29] Bryce Wood: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. 

[00:03:32] Craig Dalton: Yeah, definitely. Ever since our brief conversation at , I've been super excited to get you on board and just learn a little bit more about the alchemy brand. You're done some super interesting stuff in gravel.

[00:03:44] So why don't we just start by a little bit of the backstory of alchemy. 

[00:03:49] Bryce Wood: Yeah. So alchemy was founded in 2008 in Austin, Texas by Ryan who still owns the company still comes into the office every day. And there he met our designer and engineer. Matt met shoes that they aligned on.

[00:04:05] You know what they wanted to do in the bike industry. And Matt was a crit racing and as a six foot four, 230 pounds guy, he was having a hard time finding frames that were rigid enough for him and could support him during that kind of a race. So he was really interested in building his own frame.

[00:04:27] And so that's how alchemy got its start. Moved to Denver, Colorado, where we currently are about two years after the fact. So we've been here in Denver for a little over a decade. And this is where we. Design and produce manufacturer and also bring customers in to have that experiences is all right here in Denver.

[00:04:49] So we're really fortunate to have the Colorado people supporting us 

[00:04:54] Craig Dalton: super interesting. So of those first bikes that were made, were they manufacturing out of steel or titanium or carbon at that? 

[00:05:01] Bryce Wood: So Matt was actually doing he was experimenting with a wet carbon play app. And those were the first carbon bikes that he produced, not really under an alchemy badge.

[00:05:10] We started building out a metal and a carbon fiber is a more expensive and In depth product to work with, you need a lot of specialized tooling. And it's relatively expensive. So carbon fiber didn't come until a few years into Alchemy's existence. 

[00:05:29] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's super interesting.

[00:05:30] Yeah. I feel like the number of people. Manufacturing with carbon in the us is pretty small. So I was super excited when I learned that you were doing that in Colorado. So can you walk through the sort of carbon fiber construction process that you're using on the frames?

[00:05:48] Bryce Wood: We do everything here starting with a CAD rendering. So we designed the frame, make sure that it looks good to us on a computer screen. After that we're gonna 3d print out a model so that we can hold in our hands and make sure that we've got the design cues that we're looking for. Everything is where it needs to be.

[00:06:07] From there we do a pre preg carbon construction. So we get sheets of unidirectional carbon on our large rolls. And we use the CNC plotter to cut those sheets into shapes that we can lay up. So we use, different orientations of the fibers for different components. We build all the.

[00:06:28] The frames in a tube to construction so that we can change the carbon layup of a change day or a bottom bracket shell, which needs to be really rigid. And that layup is going to be very different from the seat stays are the top two or the down or the C2 where we need compliance. So building in that tube to tube construction, really not only allows us to offer a custom geometry really easily, but also allows us.

[00:06:55] Tune and dial in the ride, feel of that bike to a degree that we don't see from a lot of manufacturers, 

[00:07:03] Craig Dalton: are you alternating some of the sort of tube dimensions or the layups on a size by size basis? 

[00:07:10] Bryce Wood: So how we have it Plotted out for like our Atlas line on the Ronin line is we make these tubes extra long and then we can MITRE them down and MITRE them in different angles to create a unique geometries for the new rogue.

[00:07:29] It's a little bit of a different venture for us. We're doing an advanced monocoque construction where there's. Tube the tube, but there are less components. So like the down tube and head chamber are one piece that allows us to have less junctions, which means less weights and more strength.

[00:07:48] But it means that we do need different sized molds for every different sized frame. 

[00:07:54] Craig Dalton: Gotcha. On that tube to tube construction, how has, how are the tubes bonded together? 

[00:08:00] Bryce Wood: Yeah, the tubes are bonded through an overwrapping process. So basically we put a very fine layer of a proxy that holds the tubes together.

[00:08:09] Once they've been mitered and put into a jig to hold the geometry in place, and then we take Dozens of sheets of carbon. And we wrapped them in different orientations to join those tubes together. After they'd been wrapped, they go into a vacuum bag and then into a large oven and they're cured in that oven so that those overwrap pieces become part of the frame itself.

[00:08:37] Interesting. 

[00:08:37] Craig Dalton: And then once that process is done, is there like sanding and finish work that happens on carbon. 

[00:08:44] Bryce Wood: Yeah, there is. So we use we, we machine our own molds and house and we use a silicone and latex bladder. So we get really good compression out of our tubes and they come out of the molds extremely smooth, the overwrap process that vacuum bag tends to add a little bit of texture on those wrapped surfaces.

[00:09:05] And we do need to sand those to be. 

[00:09:08] Craig Dalton: Got it. Got it. Thanks for that. I, I think about carbon fiber as more of that model. Production process and less. You know what you've described, which is really interesting. It for me it share it. I start thinking about the visuals of, it's steel or titanium frame building process, where you're putting it in a jig and you're bonding and you're welding them all together.

[00:09:27] So it's interesting and clear to me and hopefully the listener. You can really make a lot of adjustments pretty easily in the process by having those tube forms that are a little bit longer and just chop them down and MITRE them to the appropriate size for what the customer's looking for.

[00:09:44] Bryce Wood: Yeah. It's definitely unique. And. And you don't see that in, in any mass produced frames, it's all going to be a monocot construction, which is easy to produce. And you can to a certain degree still tune those tubes to do what you want them to. You add different layers here. And there but you lose the ability to do that custom geometry, which is something that our customers, I think really value and something that is one of the pillars that we built alchemy on.

[00:10:12] And we'll do that forever. 

[00:10:14] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's certainly rather unique that you can get a carbon fiber frame custom fitted to your own personal specifications. 

[00:10:23] Bryce Wood: Yeah, there's really only a few companies in the country doing that. So we're really happy to be helping to lead that charge.

[00:10:31] Craig Dalton: Let's talk a little bit more about Alchemy's journey. You mentioned that the co-founders started out by building road bikes or criteria bikes to fit their needs, and eventually started to offer them under the alchemy brand. At what point did it start to expand to the mountain bike and gravel road?

[00:10:47] Bryce Wood: As soon as we noticed that there was a market for gravel we dove into that head first. So we, we offered pretty early on a true gravel bike, not just a cyclocross frame that we build as a gravel bike, but a true gravel frame. That took on all the cues in design and performance that people were looking for out of that discipline.

[00:11:11] Mountain bikes came because. A lot of us rode mountain bikes and we really wanted to be able to have something under us that for our company name and that's actually really taken off and become probably the biggest department at alchemy is our Arcos mountain bike. 

[00:11:29] Craig Dalton: Yeah.

[00:11:30] Interesting. I imagine. One sitting there in Colorado understood pretty hard, pretty darn hard to not want to build a mountain bike being in that location. And to imagine, as far as the mountain bike landscape goes again, being able to offer these custom capabilities for the bike is pretty unique in this space.

[00:11:49] Bryce Wood: We've found that there's not a lot of demand for custom mountain frames. The bike itself and the discipline itself is so dynamic. It's not like a road or gravel where you find yourself in a stagnant position for long amounts of time. You're always pivoting and and moving on the bike and.

[00:12:12] That combined with your suspension means that there's not a huge demand for it. We still offer custom geometry on our hard tail mountain bikes, because that's a little bit more similar to the road in gravel side of things. But we are not currently offering custom geometry on the full suspension, carbon Pikes.

[00:12:30] Craig Dalton: Understood. So on the gravel bike, you mentioned, you saw the trend beginning and you started to design a bike specific for gravel. Can you talk about some of those design considerations in the original bike and was that original bike? The Ronan, 

[00:12:45] Bryce Wood: The original bike was actually the eighth on a map bike.

[00:12:48] We wanted it to not be as, as. As a cyclocross bike or a road bike but we wanted to stay away from something that was too slack. We wanted it to be really comfortable and capable and just have that extra clearance that you need on a gravel bike. As this sport has evolved.

[00:13:09] We've. Notice that the original eighth on is not looking like what gravel bikes are looking like today that they're getting longer. They're getting slacker there. The demand for Mount mounting points and racks and fenders has really increased. And it looked a lot like a cyclocross bike that I would think of today, but for the time it was a little bit different than that.

[00:13:31] The new rogue is really moving into that contemporary design where we've got really slack had tubes and bikes really meant it's purpose built for adventure. 

[00:13:42] Craig Dalton: Gotcha. So let's talk about your, you've got two models currently, and one of them has two materials. So you've got the Ronin in both carbon, fiber and titanium.

[00:13:53] Why don't we start there and talk about the intention of that bike, the type of writer it's looking to serve, and maybe spend a moment or two in terms of if a writer sort of keys in on the Ronin as being the bike for them, how do you talk to them about titanium versus carbon? 

[00:14:10] Bryce Wood: Yeah. So the Ronin was the next iteration of that original life on and had just expanded and dialed in what a gravel cyclist is looking for.

[00:14:21] We kept it True to that same design element of the Aidan, where we wanted relatively steep geometry that makes the bike feel really lively and responsive. But we wanted that, that clearance and the capability that comes from a grapple machine. That bike's been in our stable.

[00:14:44] A couple of years now two and a half years. And it's still relevant. I think for those people who are interested in gravel, but also want to be able to ride on the road from time to time. And also those people who. Our maybe racing gravel. So that's the bike that I would recommend if somebody is looking to do Unbound gravel and be competitive.

[00:15:05] I push them towards the Ronin instead of the rogue. If you want that quiver killing bike, that bike that you can maybe have two wheel sets for, and it's going to be really capable off-road, but still be able to keep up with your group ride with your friends on the road. That bike is going to be.

[00:15:20] It's going to serve you really well. The distinction between carbon and titanium, just like on the road it's gonna, it's gonna be really dependent on your goals and your riding style and what you want that bike to do well. So if you live here in the foothills and you're riding up mountains all day long That carbon fiber, the responsiveness and that the rigidity, and it is really going to serve you.

[00:15:46] And in that purpose if comfort is your main concern or you spend a lot of time doing endurance riding the forgiveness and the compliance and the titanium frame is really going to benefit you and make you a lot more comfortable. It, the weight gain between carbon and titanium.

[00:16:04] Titanium being a little bit heavier is really not a huge consideration for most people. It's about 200 grams in our frame, depending on frame size. So it really comes down to do I want this bike to be fast and responsive or would I rather it be comfortable and easier to live with on those longer rides?

[00:16:26] Craig Dalton: Are both the titanium and carbon fiber versions offering the same accommodation for tire size. 

[00:16:33] Bryce Wood: They do. Yeah. So we called form our titanium tubing and house, and that's how we achieve the rear tire clearance. We do an S bend seat, stay and chain stay to allow the exact same clearance. So you can fit a 45 seat tire and both C carbon and titanium.

[00:16:51] Craig Dalton: And then on the six 50 tires, I think I noted that you can go up to two, want 2.1. 

[00:16:57] Bryce Wood: That's correct. 

[00:16:58] Craig Dalton: Yes, sir. And with the two Ronin models, correct me if I'm wrong, but these are models that if a customer is working with you, you do offer a custom geometry and modifications. 

[00:17:10] Bryce Wood: Yeah. So every bit of that from the build spec to the frame, geometry, to the finish options for all.

[00:17:17] Craig Dalton: Cool. And now let's talk about the rogue. Say you began your journey with model one, then you moved over to the Ronan and then this year you've introduced the rogue. Tell me about the philosophy behind it and where you see this sitting next to the Ronin lineup. 

[00:17:34] Bryce Wood: Yeah. It's that next progression and gravel, right?

[00:17:37] Everybody this sport has really Taken over a large part of the industry. And it's really growing exponentially year over year. And the people as they keep riding, they find out. What they need out of a gravel bike. And so this is that answer to the last decade of people riding gravel and expressing their needs.

[00:18:03] We'll still be keeping the Ronin in the lineup, but the road is just a great compliment to it. If you're that cyclist to is expressly riding off road, you want to get out of traffic and off the road. The road is going to be your bike. If you want to do light bike packing and you want to get lost the rogues, the bike for you.

[00:18:25] So it's not going to be as steep or as racy feeling as the Ronin is. It's going to be that bike that can take you anywhere and keep you comfortable and have all the Accessories and accompaniments that you want when you're on a long distance ride away from civilization. 

[00:18:45] Craig Dalton: Gotcha.

[00:18:45] So when talking about how you've made it a little bit, slacker, wider tires, tire clearance, any other bits of the geometry that have changed for this style of. 

[00:18:56] Bryce Wood: Yeah. Definitely. So we've dropped the seat stays and we have carved out the lower section of the seat tube. And both of these design elements are going to give that rear end a lot more compliance.

[00:19:09] So we've actually got a couple millimeters of travel built into that rear end just through. The carbon construction of the frame that paired with those larger tires is really going to help to keep you a lot more comfortable. Also with the rogue, we've added more mounting points so that you can add racks and pioneers and make that.

[00:19:33] A little bit more capable and other design features the SRAM universal derail your hanger, or D H we added that because we've, it's been around on the mountain bike side of things for awhile. And I think for a bike that you're really taking off road and adventuring and exploring with that makes sense to have that product on the bike, because it really protects your drive train when you're in.

[00:19:58] Those situations where you might have tight clearance of rocks around your things get really muddy. You've got that re rail feature to keep your chain where it needs to be. And if you do happen to go down, it's also going to protect your derailer so that you don't find yourself in a bad place when you're far away from 

[00:20:16] Craig Dalton: This might be a little bit difficult question to answer, but could you describe what that Ude H looks like and how it differs from a traditional derailleur hanger?

[00:20:26] Bryce Wood: Yeah the UDA H is It bolts on to the rear dropouts. You've got a bolt that enters the driver's side and bolt onto the actual hanger. That's on the non drive side of that. Right dropout. It has a feature on the inside that helps to re rail your chain. So if you're on a really bumpy surface or your drill is not properly adjusted and it's, and you shifts into that first position instead of your chain going in between the cog and the dropout and jamming up the drill, you're hanging.

[00:21:03] Spit it back up onto that, that first cog. So you're not going to have that situation anymore where you miss shift or the chain gets rattled off into your frame. Another great feature of it is that it actually rotates because of how it's Because of how it's attached to the frame. It rotates backwards in the event of a crash.

[00:21:22] So instead of it breaking your derail yer as a knuckle or at the melting point, it's just going to rotate and get your derail your out of the way. So hangers have been doing this for us for years, but only in a lateral capacity. So if you crash on your side, Your hanger is built to, to break right?

[00:21:42] To protect your earlier. This kind of takes that a step further in an oblique impact. Or if you just catch it earlier on a rock or something, it's just going to rotate that back and give you a better chance of your drill. You're surviving that situation. 

[00:21:57] Craig Dalton: Got it. And when you're removing the rear axle to take the wheel off, is it still attached to the frame or is it, does it come off with that removal of an axle?

[00:22:06] Bryce Wood: Nope. It's the exact same once that drill your hangers now said everything works the exact same as your traditional through actual system. 

[00:22:13] Craig Dalton: Got it. Thanks. I appreciate that. So would the rogue, if I'm someone who fits the bill, but still does a little bit of road riding with this bike, what do you slap a road wheel set on this?

[00:22:25] What am I feeling that's different than the Ronan? 

[00:22:28] Bryce Wood: Yeah, it's still a road configuration, right? You still got dropped handlebars. You still, you're still going to be in relatively the same position. But this bike is going to put you in a little bit more upright position. It's a little bit shorter.

[00:22:42] And you're gonna, you're gonna notice that the bike is not quite as responsive when you're sprinting or climbing up the hill as a Ronan or a road bike would be. So while it's still going to be perfectly happily written on the road, it really is built to Excel off. 

[00:23:00] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that makes sense. I think something you said a few minutes ago was really interesting to me just talking about, the decade that we've been riding gravel and how this bike is the culmination of that.

[00:23:11] And I have to say, when I met you at sea Otter and I looked and understood the specs of this bike, I really do feel like it's on point with the moment and the journey that certainly speaking for myself that I've been on as a rider and where I want to see the speck of these bikes. 

[00:23:26] Bryce Wood: Yeah. It just takes everything that, that one step further.

[00:23:30] It's like gravel without limitations, right? Where a Ronan's going to serve you. In 90% of the situations that you find yourself in. But it's lacking a little something. If you're a true gravel, officiant auto, and that's where you spend most of your time writing, you're going to want the option to run a larger tire.

[00:23:47] You're going to want mounts on your forks and your rear end. You're going to want that, that slacker more comfortable, more stable geometry on those rough roads. So it's really built for. 

[00:23:59] Craig Dalton: Yeah, it's interesting. I certainly have been public about my journey. And I think when I originally started gravel riding, I sold my road bike and said this is going to be my road bike and my gravel bike.

[00:24:10] And I made certain compromises to accommodate for this notion in my head that I would still ride on the road a lot. And over the years, absolutely. I've just discovered that. Nine times out of 10, I really want to be off-road immediately as quickly as possible and stay off the roads. And my choice of equipment has gradually moved towards that acknowledgement of, Hey, if 90% of my riding is exclusively off-road and being where I live, it's fairly technical.

[00:24:37] I do need to optimize around that. And as you said, certainly I've got to drop our bikes. I want to put a road wheel set on it. It's fine. I'm not going to win any criteriums on it, but I wasn't going to do that. 

[00:24:49] Bryce Wood: Exactly. Yeah. If you're riding nine times out of 10 on the gravel, that one time out of 10, that bike still gonna, still going to be fun to ride on the road.

[00:24:56] But you're going to have all the capability that you really need those nine times out of 10. So yeah that's really how we do this. Yeah, I think it 

[00:25:06] would 

[00:25:06] Craig Dalton: be interesting if people coming from the road side of the market are willing and able mentally to make that leap all the way over to the rogue right off the bat.

[00:25:14] Or if they still like me needed an interim step on a bike that quote unquote felt like it was going to be more of a road. 

[00:25:21] Bryce Wood: Yeah. It's been really interesting working with all of our customers and seeing that transition on their own journeys. And we've got a true road bike. We've got an all road bike, we've got the racy gravel bike, and now we've got the rogue and we're seeing people that are.

[00:25:40] Are a little hesitant and they're going to just step up to that all road bike and get the 38 C tire clearance and go off road, 20 or 30% of the time. And I think that it's a good thing to have, all those steps in between because there all those bikes are gonna really be tailored for each individual riders needs.

[00:25:58] If you're on the road all the time, Craig, who's got a bike for that. If you want to get off the road a little bit. Cool. We've got something that, that suits that need as well. I don't think we're seeing a lot of people make that transition, that full transition from roads to rogue right now unless, they, in that situation where they can own multiple bikes in which case that's the best case scenario is to have that true road and to have a true.

[00:26:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. It's a good segue. I would love to just hear from you about the customer journey. So what does it like alchemy bikes sells direct to consumer from the website. Why don't you talk through what that experience looks like, how you tend to work with customers and what type of timeline it takes to get one of these bikes underneath them?

[00:26:46] Bryce Wood: Yeah. While we do offer all of the bikes available for immediate purchase on the website. We find that not a lot of people go that route. Most people when they're spending that much money on something like this, they want to talk to somebody first. So we, most of the bikes that we sell, we've got that conversation with that customer before they actually makes a purchase.

[00:27:08] I'm the main point of contact at alchemy for all of our road and gravel customers who are looking to purchase a bike. And if they've got questions about specking it out or they need a fitting first I'm the person that they're going to talk to about it. So the customer journey really starts with that first phone call.

[00:27:24] Hi, my name is blank. This is what I'm looking for. And then we can talk a little bit more about their individual needs and we can land on. That platform first. Okay. You need a rogue. And then where are you going to be riding? What's your riding style. That's going to bring us to determining what kind of gearing or drive, train that you need.

[00:27:47] And then the hardest part of the whole process is what color do I want the bike to be? Everyone gets hung up there. So after, after we've determined all that with the customer. We send them a copy of their geometry. We send them a rendering of their paint and we send them a build sheet, detailing all the components that we're going to build their bike with and we get approval from them.

[00:28:09] And then we take a deposit and the production team gets to work and we start ordering components. Typically we like to try to keep the customer updated as their frame moves through the production. So I'll send them a picture of their frame after it's been over wrapped before it has paint on it so that they can be a part of that bike coming to life.

[00:28:28] The question. A timeline and delivery is a tricky one in this day and age and largely it's dependent on their component choices. So we can turn around a custom geometry custom painted frame. And about eight weeks we have stock sizing that's paint, ready that we can paint and turn around in about two or three weeks.

[00:28:51] And the main holdup right now is going to be components. Every small builder as well as the big guys are also feeling that squeeze right now. There's some components that we've got decent availability of, and we can turn that bike around in 10 or 11 weeks on. And there's some stuff that is in such high demand in such short supply that it's gonna, it's going to be a couple months before.

[00:29:14] Before we can deliver that bike. The great thing is that we can make concessions and we can work with that customer and say, Hey, this product is going to be out of stock. We can get you the bike quicker. If would entertain moving to one of these other options. So we can work with you every step of the way to get you that bike when you need it at the price you need it.

[00:29:33] And. I'm really hold your hand through it. That 

[00:29:37] Craig Dalton: makes a lot of sense. I certainly love getting those check-in points with manufacturers on what the supply chains looking like, because it has been grim and reported as grim on multiple episodes of this podcast. So I think everybody at this point is accustomed not happy about, but accustomed to the idea that they may have to be flexible or.

[00:29:58] Bryce Wood: Yes. We're very fortunate to have excellent customers and most of them are completely understanding and, they'd like their bike next week, but they know it's going to take a little bit longer than that. And they're very nice to us. And and we're very appreciative of.

[00:30:14] Craig Dalton: 100%. You mentioned the paint jobs and the option to get custom paint. I think you have about a half dozen stock colors and then unlimited options on the custom paint. Are you doing that painting in house or is that a partner? They're in the Denver area? 

[00:30:30] Bryce Wood: Yeah, we have our own pain studio here in the facility.

[00:30:33] So we're doing all of the wet paint and all of the cerakote here in house. 

[00:30:38] Craig Dalton: The rogue that we looked at sea Otter had that cerakote paint technology. And it, can you describe what that is and how it differs from a wet paint? 

[00:30:48] Bryce Wood: Yeah. Sarah code's been around for a little while. It started to make its way into the bicycle industry in the last year or two.

[00:30:56] It is a polymer ceramic coding And the actual, the colors are suspended in five that that polymer so that makes it extremely Finn and a lot more tough than it's a wet paint counterparts. So it's about a six, the thickness of a wet paint. And. Easily twice as strong, so we can still expect to see where out of it.

[00:31:27] Just because that's it's not impervious to it, but it's toughness related to its thickness is quite remarkable compared to wet paint. We can't do as many unique things. We can't do a lot of pearlescent colors. We can't do color shifting But we can still do a lot of different design details and Sarah code.

[00:31:48] So it's a really a perfect coding for the road that we're expecting to see a lot of off-road usage. And we don't want your down to, to get chips in it from Erin rocks, flying up from your front tire and leaning it against a tree. All of that stuff is gonna hold up a whole lot better with.

[00:32:10] Is 

[00:32:10] Craig Dalton: the cerakote applied in a different way than a wet paint. 

[00:32:13] Bryce Wood: It's applied in the same way and that it is sprayed through an air gun. But it needs to be baked and that's really where it achieves that toughness. So we have to bake it for a couple hours after the coatings applied.

[00:32:26] Okay. 

[00:32:27] Craig Dalton: Cool. Thank you for letting me explore some of my sort of deep personal questions on this. I love what you've been doing with the brand and super excited to expose listeners to what alchemy is all about. 

[00:32:39] Bryce Wood: Thanks. We're really excited about the direction that cycling is going and people wanting to get off road, and we really want to be a part of that, and we appreciate you bringing in Some visibility, not only to our brand, but to, to gravel cycling in general.

[00:32:55] Craig Dalton: Fantastic. Thanks for your time. 

[00:32:58] Bryce Wood: Thanks a lot, Craig. Nice to talk to you. 

[00:33:00] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to Bryce for joining us this week. 

[00:33:03] I really like what they've done with the alchemy rogue bicycle. I think they're spot on in the spec and the versatility of that bike. And it looks like it's going to be a. A hell of a lot of fun to ride. I also want to give a shout out to our friends at competitive cyclist. Remember visit competitive cyclist.com/the gravel ride and enter promo code. 

[00:33:22] Gravel ride 

[00:33:23] To get 15% off your first full price purchase. 

[00:33:26] If you're interested in connecting with me and other gravel cyclists around the world, I encourage you to check out the ridership. The ridership is a free global gravel and adventure cycling community.

[00:33:37] I think of it as an online forum where you can ask any question you want connect with other riders, create group rides, and generally share our love and passion for the sport of gravel cycling. Simply visit www.theridership.com for more information. 

[00:33:54] Finally, just a quick shout out to those of you who have become members or supporters@buymeacoffee.com slash the gravel ride. It means a ton every time a new contribution comes in and just helps pay for the overhead of the show and a portion of the time that I dedicate every week to bringing you the best gravel cycling content. 

[00:34:15] Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels