Nine years ago the face of the cycling industry changed forever with the establishment of Ruckus Composites, the nation’s leading carbon fiber repair and inspection facility. This episode talks about the early days of Ruckus, how the repair process has changed and the challenges of starting a carbon fiber repair business.
Dan: 00:00 Hey everyone, I’m Dan the marketing director and I’m Shawn, the owner and engineer and today we’re coming at you for the first episode of the fiber side chats. We’re broadcasting from the ruckus composites headquarters in Portland, Oregon and today we’re going to be talking about how Ruckus Composites got its start
Shawn: 00:15 and really where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.
Dan: 00:39 All right, so thanks for tuning in for the first episode of the fiber side chats. And like I said in the intro, we’re going to be talking about where do we come from, where do we go, how do we get their cotton eye? Joe? That’s right. So we’re going to start from the top. Uh, Sean, what is rutgers composites?
Shawn: 00:56 What is Ruckus Composites? That’s a great question. You know, we kind of represented a lot of things to a lot of people depending on who you talk to, you know, we save a lot of bikes for people that thought they were without hope. You know, at this point we saved many thousands of bikes. Um, we get a lot of people back on their favorite bikes, keep a lot of great bikes rolling, keep a lot of bikes out of the landfill and just Kinda keep the good times rolling.
Dan: 01:16 So Ruckus kind of functions as the premier repair and fabrication service in the bike industry.
Shawn: 01:20 Yeah. You know, we invest a lot of money into continuous improvement in ourselves and our technology. We’re always trying to figure out what’s new, what’s better. We’re trying to stay ahead of the curve.
Dan: 01:31 Why did you start Ruckus and how things change, as you said on Linkedin. It’s been nine years. Yeah. You were reminded today. Congratulations. How have things changed in those nine years? How has the business grown? How has the business shrunk a, how’s it different now than it was when you first started?
Shawn: 01:51 You know, the best piece of business advice I ever got is stay flexible. Big Companies, small companies, they’re all different than what they are. Even looking at Specialized, they started as a component importer and now they are something way different. Ruckus started the same way. I originally started out wanting to actually fabricate and machine parts. I was only 24 at the time. I honestly didn’t know a lot about business and sales. Sales isn’t a natural position for me, so over time people just kind of got wind that we were the best at composites and just started asking if we could start repairing bikes and started saying yes and learning more about it and dove right in and now we’re doing thousands a year, thousands of bike repairs a year. Another thing that we did was we moved to a couple of years ago, we moved to all pre-preg carbon. That’s before we used to have to mix the epoxy by hand into the carbon. Anybody that’s ever done this before knows how messy that can be. Pre -preg is a lot more expensive upfront. Any need ovens and all these other machines to process it, but it just the precision that you’ll never get out of a wet lab.
Dan: 03:02 For those of you that don’t know, or unfamiliar pre preg carbon is short for pre impregnated carbon fiber, which just means that the resident is already integrated into the fibers when it arrives at the door, as Shawn said, it’s a lot easier to use than a wetland because you don’t need to take a step to infuse the resin, uh, through the laminate as you’re actually performing the part. Correct. That you nailed it. So did you have a motivating factor to kinda start ruckus? Was there one instance where you working in the bike industry before you kinda got to start? Did you come from an outside perspective? What was the driving impetus to get the business going?
Shawn: 03:41 I was a pretty big outsider. I raised a little bit in college was just a commuter. I’m like most interest people that get into the bike industry. You start working on your own stuff. Bicycle is a beautiful machine. You can see every work in part and you know, there’s a lot to learn every time you screw something up.
Dan: 03:58 So how did you figure out that you were able to perform repairs on carbon fiber?
Shawn: 04:07 In the first place I’ve been working with carbon fiber and some form or another for probably got more than 16 years at this point.
Dan: 04:12 So what one form or another, what do you mean?
Shawn: 04:15 I used to make high powered rockets, took third place once in a jet propulsion labs, a rocket category where we actually had to fly rockets and then land them way before Elon Musk ever did it for the record and we got to present our findings to jet propulsion labs and then all of NASA.
Dan: 04:31 What was that kind of construction process like? Were you still designing everything and a cad software? Were you using your engineering background to kind of do that?
Shawn: 04:39 Yeah, we had to build everything from scratch because nothing ever existed really. So we had to do all the lay up on the fence on the tubing and you know, like most good high powered rocket projects. The first one exploded into a mew million beautiful pieces at 700 miles an hour. And uh, I cried a little bit. So I got. That was my first entrance into repair, making homemade expensive fireworks essentially. Wow. That’s one way of seeing the success so well eventually the second time.
Dan: 05:06 So how did you take those skills and kind of work them into the bike industry? Right. Rockets and bikes aren’t exactly the same thing where it was kind of the first carryover that made you realize, Whoa, this is kind of a niche industry,
Shawn: 05:18 you know, and just started with a transfer, a passion, a lot of passionate and a lot of things. I work on low of rockets, love high space, love science fiction, love bikes a lot, and a love of bikes represents a lot of people. Uh, and there’s a lot of new technology into bikes that’s really pretty amazing. You know, it’s, we see it all, a lot of small changes, but we’ve come pretty far in the last 20 years. What was the first bike that you repaired? Do you remember? Probably the first one I ever built myself built it out of a it into my basement at the time in college and I think I hacked up some lugs, a bottom bracket ahead tube and some that have a really, really garbagey Peugeot and I hand carved all the foam, built a Jig out a two by four hours on the bike, would have never been that great, but you know, first first run was a something special and it broke obviously. Then I got to repair it and you’re like, you know, you’re, there’s something here.
Dan: 06:18 Talk more about that kind of early day processes. Uh, you said that carbon fiber repair has been around for a long time, but how did you personally figure out how were going to do it?
Shawn: 06:28 You know, a lot of repairs are really done the same way. You would fabricate parts, you know, you have your raw materials and you integrate it into the final product. Where repairs really difficult is you’re working with somebody else’s design and that’s one of our strongest values here is we have the ability to re engineer or reverse engineer reverse design. A lot of parts, we’ve invested a lot in ultrasound technology and a lot of other different inspection methods that allow us to really recreate the original design intent of almost any bike model,
Dan: 07:00 so this was basically through the nine years and extensive process of trials figuring out what can and can’t be done.
Shawn: 07:08 Innocence, yeah. There are a lot of basic foundational methods that you know, the American Society of mechanical engineers, the American Society of testing materials essay and the FAA, all of strict rules and regulations and guidelines around carbon fiber and composite repair already.
Dan: 07:24 So you were kind of taking the theories and practices that are already existing, but figuring out a new way to apply them within the bike industry.
Shawn: 07:32 Exactly. Bikes are nothing like airplanes. I would say they’re honestly a heck of a lot harder. A lot of complicated shapes, a lot of complicated tubes. Nothing’s easy.
Dan: 07:42 Why would a complicated tube shape make a repair more difficult?
Shawn: 07:47 There’s a lot of reasons. One, bikes are small in comparison to an airplane wing or a quarter panel or hood of a car. A big things are really easy to lay up. You have a lot of material, you have a lot of room for error essentially with a bike, you know you’re dealing with tubes there, honestly, half inch diameter, have a seat, stay up to maybe a two inch down tube and you’re trying to wrap a complicated convex or concave shape. And to do so effectively you have to pressurize and that’s where a lot of complications can arise.
Dan: 08:20 Talk more about the early days of Ruckus composites. You know that, that first year, how many, how many bikes did you do? What was the shop like where you’re working by yourself, what was kind of that early experience starting Ruckus,
Shawn: 08:32 why those first couple of years were pretty lonely as me. Um, I had a CNC router at the time, a half aptly named Lord cuttings worth. So, you know, a lot of long days just kind of experimenting. And yet again, at that point I still wanted to make component tree, so I was cutting tools, cutting molds, designing my own process and just trying to get a lot of that stuff off the ground.
Dan: 08:59 What were Ruckus’s first products that you were making?
Shawn: 09:00 Why we kept it pretty simple of flat plate carbon things. We did a car back before the craze went around for cyclocross. We made a lot of carbon fiber chain guards. A pretty simple part. It just has to be machine specifically to match up with the chattering.
Dan: 09:14 What was your first real challenge as a business?
Shawn: 09:18 A boy, I don’t know if I can remember the first real, um, there’s, you know, every day is a new challenge. Um, you know, a new bikes, new methods and trying to figure out how things fit together. Um, bike industry is changed standards, uh, you know, people know that are familiar with that process. So, you know, we have to stay just as up to date. We have to develop new tools every day. We have to develop new jigs and that’s one of the areas where we excel the most. As you know, we have a lot of 3d printing capabilities in house. We have a lot of great machine shops that we work with. We have some internal machining capabilities. This allows us to rapid prototype, you know, within hours, typically new parts and new tools, new jigs, unanimous, we can get it done that day. Most often.
Dan: 10:04 How are you accomplishing that? Using 3d printing, mold, making silicone injections,
Shawn: 10:10 all of the above. You know, every, every repair is a special case and no repairs re, we don’t ever truly see the same thing twice. We may see the same broken seat, stay on the same bike twice, but you know, they’re always a little different. Every carbon fiber bike even made in China or Taiwan or Asia or wherever, it’s all handmade. Every part is laid by an individual person. You know, that person could have a bad day, they may forget apart, hopefully not. There’s a lot of quality assurance built into the process, but you know, everything there is a little tweaking on every step.
Dan: 10:43 So you said that no to damages are the same. Even if to handlebar strike, strike the same top tube, the damage still isn’t going to be exactly the same. Why’s that?
Shawn: 10:55 Well, uh, it depends on the rider. Some writers gonna fall harder. Some are going to have different wheels, different forks, you know, if their headset is, has a lot of grit in it, it’s going to actually slow that turning process. The handlebar, even the different court tape in there is going to impact a little differently. There’s just so much variation. Every single repair and damage that you know, that’s yet again where you have to be smart and agile and very flexible to be able to successfully do very safe repairs over and over and over like we do.
Dan: 11:26 So in a sense then each repair is going to be unique as the rider or crash that happened.
Shawn: 11:33 Nothing’s the same. That’s kind of the hardest part about the repair business is you don’t, you can’t invest in a lot of like molds per se because you’ll, you’ll never see it again. Um, everything has to be flexible and adaptable. Otherwise you’re generating an insane amount of waste and expense.
Dan: 11:50 So if every damage isn’t the same, is the repair process then similar for each individual damage? Or does that vary based on the, the given damage? Is, uh, is a top tube repair going to be similar to the down tube repair?
Shawn: 12:06 Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, you know, to cure our pre impregnated carbon is to cure a certain way. You need x amount of pressure, y amount of heat and the amount of time for a safe repair and however you achieve those goals, whether it’s bladders or bags or tapes or inflation, that’ll get you there as long as you cure it correctly and pressurize it correctly, you’ll have a safe repair. Shapes make a world of difference. You know, a, a joint on a bike is very complicated and you’re not. You have to do some very specific vacuum bagging techniques to get great pressurization around to see to joints.
Dan: 12:42 So over the nine years you’ve had to grow and adapt and learn all these new processes. As you’ve said no to repairs are the same. I imagine no paints are the same either. So everything is similar, but not along those same lines. How does rutgers had to adapt and grow over the years? Right? It’s, it’s still the same name, it’s still Ruckus, still performing the same service of carbon fiber repair, but in the vein of same but not how, how’s the business had to adapt and change in these nine years?
Shawn: 13:10 Oh wait, we had to, you know, honestly, growing staff, um, people have really taken a liking to us for a lot of good reasons, in my opinion, were very dependable. Uh, we put out, take a lot of pride and value and being responsive and taking care of people and trying to go above and beyond wherever we can and, you know, through those efforts, we’ve grown massively year over year over year. And you know, the hardest part about this has been growing the staff, teaching people, finding the right people and getting people trained. Uh, there’s no formal schooling that you can really go through to come in here and be ready to go. Day One. Um, it takes a pretty long process to learn how to paint bikes. Um, learn how to repair bikes, learn how to even machine damage. And you have to know all the nuances of every bike, whether a spacing is 1:30, 1:35 and 42 or 48, those things matter a lot to the end product and it’s only a few millimeters, but it’ll make a bike not work, not work.
Dan: 14:13 Now’s about the time in the podcast where we move on from our topic and move into audience questions. As always, you can submit these questions through our instagram, our facebook or Linkedin, all at Ruckus comp. And if anybody still uses twitter, were there to. The first question comes from beautiful firefighter [inaudible] on twitter. They asked, are there different kinds of carbon fiber. If so, how are they used on a bike?
Dan: 14:39 I know for example, the company lamprey and one of their newest role models has 400 individual plies of pre preg in the bike. So that’s 400 cut sheets of unidirectional and twill carbon fibers. So lots of different kinds of carbon fibers that could go into a lab structure of a bike. But I’ll give it over to sean to explain, uh, maybe a few of those. Just like, you know, a steel bike or steel in general. There’s a lot of different types. There’s a big difference between the steel that’s in your sink that’s in your toilets, that’s in your car, that’s in a high end, thin walled racing bike. I’m kind of the, one of the major aspects are positives and writing. Carbon, just as Dan said, there’s 400 different pieces of carbon in there. Each one can be a different grade for a different reason. So that’s kind of one of the cost additions to a carbon bike is someone gets to make that decision for 100 times which pieces, which, whether you want rider comfort or if you want, you can tailor the down to very differently than the seat stays.
Shawn: 15:42 That allows a lot of different performance values or a rider comfort per every lay-up. So is there a different type of carbon that you could put into, into these areas to tailor those needs? Yeah, there’s quite a few different grades of carbon. They’re generally graded on their stiffness value. Um, you got some standard lower-quality stuff that’s honestly quite a bit cheaper and you have stuff that is, you need military grade status to buy and one of the most overlooked aspects of carbon bikes is actually the apostasy that goes into it. Um, and the last 10 years there’s been major, major chemistry and engineering gains based on the epoxies that are mixed with it. Dave Stanley asked through instagram here all about high mod carbon. What exactly does that mean? I’m odd. Can mean a lot of things really. Um, it’s basically a great of carbon based on its stiffness value.
Shawn: 16:36 Now, there are no numerical values associated with the word high mod. Every bike company, every company in general can take that as they want, is a lot of marketing. Well, you really need to do is look at the engineering and technical data sheets for every style of carbon that you’re using. The next question Rachel mock and steen asked, is there any type of carbon that can’t be repaired? Um, boy, almost all carbons can be. There are certain damage types we don’t really want to work with. And that’s basically if they’re too catastrophic, where it’s just almost not worth it. Um, there’s certain roof rack, you know, everybody’s drove a biking to a roof rack at some point or another, or they know somebody that has and depending on type of their car, how fast they’re going, a lot of times that bike can be completely obliterated and we sure we could truly piece it back together. But at that point we’re almost to building a brand new bike so we might as well build a brand new bike so more comes down to the cost of activity of the repair rather than actually what can be repaired for the most part anyway. Right? Yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of people that have a lot of personal value or emotional value in that specific bike and it’s really worth it for them, for us to go through those extensive repairs. They can be expensive, but yet again, it’s based on the rider
Dan: 17:54 so we can repair almost anything carbon, we can’t repair broken heart’s just yet.
Shawn: 17:59 Well, we’ve met a lot of hearts by getting their bikes back to them.
Dan: 18:03 The next question from Tim Roberts a, this one was also through instagram. Do you guys have a favorite bike that’s out there right now? You think? Dan? I ride weird old one inch in 26 inch bikes, so, uh, I don’t have a good. I don’t have a modern bike that I like. But what about you show him,
Shawn: 18:21 you know, there’s a lot of changing standards. Uh, I build all my own bikes as well. There’s a lot of cool new bikes, you know, I love almost every flagship model by every brand out there. We’re pretty big fans of the new trek, Amanda, so ours. They’re just kind of out as top of the line as you can get right now as far as cleanliness inside and out, their joy to work on
Dan: 18:41 a bunch of great questions. Thanks. Audience for the submissions. You can submit your questions on our instagram, facebook, or Linkedin if you have any pressing carbon fiber related needs. Uh, so that’s it for the first edition to the fireside chats. Thanks for listening. As always, remember, the only moment is the president makes sure to live in it every once in awhile. A thanks for tuning in to the fireside chats from Ruckus Composites and we’ll catch you next time. Happy trails.