Video: Seth // Edit: Curtis // Words: Daniel
I still remember getting a phone call back in the early summer of 2018 from someone who typically is in the know, who was excited to tell me, off the record, that some key people in the bike industry were working on a suspension project that would be a total game changer - even revolutionary. I’ve heard something along those lines countless times over the years, with products that have, for the most part, fallen flat and aren’t actually as revolutionary as the fully invested designers, investors, and product teams think they may be.
A new standard or “reinvention of the wheel” in the bike industry is far from a new concept. Countless brands hype up something “game-changing” they’re producing. I know this because I see the press releases every day. I get it, if I were invested in a product or project that I had poured my resources into because I believed in it, I would be too. However, I have learned to take all of these things with a grain of salt, as most of the time, those “revolutionary” products aren’t all that revolutionary at all to anyone who isn’t on the development team. The NDA’s that are signed and waved around are more of a hype tactic to baselessly inflate the perceived value of what’s to come. The press releases and information embargoes don’t really matter in most cases, and in my opinion, it’s all a smoke show as no one outside of a select few people truly cares. That said, I’m a firm believer in respecting embargoes and NDAs, and it is disappointing to see anyone knowingly violate them.
The Synthesis
Back to that call - I wasn’t totally dismissive given who I was talking to, but I was quite skeptical. It was a story I had heard countless times before. I filed it away and went on with the day. A few months later, it came up again, so I dug a little deeper, and as soon as I learned who was behind the project, my perspective shifted. I became a lot more interested.
“It’s Dave Weagle, Jason Schiers, and Hap Seliga,” I heard them say. I’d suspect that many people are familiar with Dave Weagle, the designer of the DW-Link and other widely used and effective suspension designs, but I suspect the other names may not ring quite as familiar. Even I could have somewhat glossed over the others, except that I had been riding and loving the new Crankbrothers Synthesis E11 wheels. Those wheels had been designed by a team that included none other than Jason Schiers.
