Gee, first off, you had a huge crash. I guess it was a fair bit ago now. How long ago was that, what happened, and how are you feeling?

Are you looking to make a full recovery and return to racing?

Have you thought of 3D printing some stuff for in there? It'd just be a little stronger.

Rob, let's get into some of the tech details of your manufacturing and how this actually works. Let's just pretend for a moment that I don't know anything about the additive manufacturing process. Can you explain this to me in general terms, so I have an idea of what it is?

Is this the same as 3D printing? Is the process similar, or is that a completely different thing?

So it's not the same as the little sausage tube squeeze-of-plastic out that I have in the garage?

How long does it take to make these lugs? Is it an hour and you come back into the room and you have a bunch of lugs there ready for tubes, or is it days, or?

For one bike? One set of lugs, 16 hours?

When you say support structures inside, I'm picturing when someone builds something out of carbon, they're placing the carbon pieces over a bladder and into a mold. You're obviously not using a mold or a bladder, but are there some parallels there as well?

I imagine there are many advantages to doing it this way, but I'm surprised to hear you say 16 hours. Looking in from the outside, that's probably a factor in the cost of these things. Is there any way in the future to lower that time quite a bit, which would then lower prices?

I mean, the best way to get quicker with additive manufacturing is more machines, so that overnight you can get five out of something instead of one, or a bigger build space, or whatever. But yeah, it all seems to take a lot of time.

And it's not like subtractive manufacturing. A CNC machine would take a good chunk of time to make all the same lugs. It might not take 16 hours, but it would still take a decent amount of time.

When you guys are calling these lugs, it almost doesn't do them justice. When I hear lugs, I think of a Giant Cadex or a Colnago and maybe that's not a bad thing, but I don't think you're doing these lugs justice either. First off, they're titanium, but also there are some super crazy details, like the honeycomb structure in there. Can you speak a little bit about weight optimization and what goes into making them like that?

We're going to come back to those lugs. But Gee, I just wanted to ask you a question about testing. What has this been like for you to be able to have that kind of product available where you could change out this and that, and back-to-back things like that? I imagine it's been super interesting.

A lot of designers and product managers will always repeat that perfect is the enemy of any good; at some point, it's got a ship. Does it become a challenge to actually ship a product or press the done button, because it's so easy to keep making changes?

The bike industry would never do that! There's lots of talk about 'ride feel' and we were just talking about testing different flex characteristics. So, Gee, from your perspective on the trail, do these bikes feel different than a more traditional frame of similar travel and geometry? Should a rider who buys an Atherton frame expect a different feel on the trail?

I've been to countless media presentations over the last 15 years where engineers and marketing people have drilled into my head that a monocoque carbon frame made in a mold, it's the lightest most efficient way to do it. But your guys' processes is very, very different. How would you reply to that?

It's really difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison to subtractive like CNC or a welded-together frame. If I ask you guys to fire up the Renishaw machine and make a basic shape, and then we use a CNC to make the same shape out of titanium... I realize it's not apples to apples because you could make a more complex shape with the titanium, but if everything is the same shape, the subtractive would be stronger, right?

Ben, are you, are you familiar with a Czinger 21C? For people that want to see what additive manufacturing can do, that's the place to look. It's pretty impressive.

If that had happened in my life, I would be telling every single person I met!

Do the lugs have to be titanium?

Also, I imagine that because it takes so long to make these things, it's going to be expensive anyway, so you may as well make it out of the best material.

This might be a stupid question, but do you guys just get a box of titanium dust? Does it just melt it into the piece you want? Is that how this works?

Wow. How does the custom process work? Let's say I want a silly, short travel bike that's too long and too slack. Do I just go to the website, tell you what I want, and then the lugs get printed out, and obviously they're slightly different shapes to give you those angles, and then the carbon tubes are glued in?

Did you guys just find that people screwed up their bikes too much?

How the hell do you guys do like EN testing and stuff for that many frames?

All right. Let's backtrack a little bit because I just heard that you guys have three new bikes in the works. I don't know how much information you want to tell us. Part of me is hoping that it's some short travel 29er for me to ride irresponsibly, but what's in the works?

Going back to additive manufacturing, was the development of the suspension similar to how you would've developed suspension for a traditional bike? You do a bunch of thinking, get some ideas out on paper, and then try it in the real world to see how it goes? Or were you able to iterate faster, or did you have to think about different things?

So that's maybe a limitation of using a lugged additive frame, is that you aren't going to put a shock mount point in the middle of a down tube or a top tube.

When I see those two letters, DW, I think light compression tune and great under pedaling loads. Is that true with your bikes as well?

Weight isn't everything, especially with a product like this that's obviously meant to be ridden quite hard. But I would guess that the finished product would be slightly heavier than a monocoque carbon frame. Is that true?

Let's talk about the carbon tubes and those joints. First off, where do the carbon tubes come from, and are they different on different size bikes and different models of bikes?

And how are they attached to the lugs? I bet me saying glued doesn't do it justice...

What if I had my Atherton frame and I damaged one of the carbon tubes. Is it feasible to send it to you to have it repaired?

But you can't actually take the lug apart?

Going back to the weight, do you guys have a number handy on that one 150mm bike?

But you feel you could go lighter if you wanted?

Shifting gears, Gee, I want to go back a little bit and talk about the business itself. You're riding bikes at the highest level, going along like, oh, you know what, downhill racing, it isn't enough of a challenge, I feel like I should start a bike company. What made you want to own a bike company?

What does success look like for Atherton Bikes five years from now or ten years from now? What are you going to be happy with?

On the business side, one of the advantages that a lot of people talk about with additive manufacturing is being able to hold stock in powder rather than in product. And the other is just in terms of the reduced waste of shipping and the environmental impact and energy that it takes to make a frame. Is there a world in which we would see a North American outfit get approved to produce Atherton Bikes with your algorithm and your technology if they had the machine? Is that a thing?

And that's powder bed fusion, right?

And how does that compare to some of the brands that we've seen?

Who else is doing a good job in additive manufacturing? Are there other people we should be paying attention to and thinking about?

Let's wrap it up with Uncle Gee. Have you guys made a 3D printed run bike for Rach yet?

Very important addition to the catalog.