Re:
Today we left San Francisco, we had arranged a private tour of Specialized HQ in Morgan Hill, coming from a specialized dealer in Wellington which is the biggest independent dealer in NZ has its benefits, we got there at about 2pm, we were met by Seth, frankly I don't know what his job is but he said it was a little of everything!
Initially we walked in, signed in to the building, then I immediately spotted the museum display, bikes going back to the early 80's! I have so many pictures I can't wait to show them to you when I get home next week, those people I know on Facebook may already have seen them.
It was funny listening to Seth in some ways as we had already heard some funny stuff from CK regarding the origins of specialized, so to hear specialized's version was quite entertaining!
For example, specialized started as a parts importer for Cinelli after Mike Sinyard went on a European road trip by bike and met a mutual friend of Cinelli, this meant he started up doing road components, at the same time CK and Gary Fisher were building the first mountain bikes as KellyFisher mountain bikes, Tom Ritchey was the builder for CK and GF knocking out a good amount of frames, also CK said that Mike Sinyard asked them for a mountain bike frame/bike so they supplied him with one in return for parts for their builds. What CK told us was that the bike(s) they sent to Mike Sinyard were their rejects! They had several bikes built with different geometry, the ones they didn't like were the ones that Mike Sinyard got! Mike Sinyard then had them reproduced in the far east which then became Specialized bikes.
Seth was unaware of this I realised! But at the same time thought it was funny!
He showed us around the museum display and then took us up to the office display where they have all sorts of weird and wonderful strange bikes, some have motors attached! A drag car bike thing! A cruiser with a BBQ trailer! All sorts! After this he showed us the body geometry training classes, then onto the in-house restaurant! Then onto the warehouse section, this holds all the staff bikes, maybe 100-200 bikes, the demo area with one of each bike in each size plus helmets as shoes in all sizes, they also have an in-house shop and mechanics, the idea being that if you have a problem these guys fix your bike during the day so you can ride home, they also maintain the demo fleet, we saw a demo8 frame which had been repainted as a one off by an employee that could only be described as stunning attention to detail. I have a picture! It's awesome.
We also talked about product development, they now have their own wind tunnel, they have the ability to 3d print items in house to test aerodynamically before making it out of carbon, they also can make some carbon items in house to test designs so their lead time from prototype to finished item is actually quite short, clothing wise from concept to made item can be as little as a day in-house. That's all pretty amazing, being honest I thought they designed here and it was made in the far East, to know it starts here in Morgan hill is cool.
He then gave my friend Ben a dirt jump bike so he could play on their very own pump track at the back of the warehouse!
Let it be said i am not a specialized fan generally, for along time i was in competition with a specialized dealer in England, the owner of that shop is not what i would call a deacent human being, as a result i didnt like him, his shop or his main brand, in the last 6 months I have worked in Wellington at a specialized dealer and I have to say its been a good experience in that shop and the specialized products are very good with a good back up, coming here to specialized and meeting Seth with his enthusiasm for bikes has given me different outlook on the brand, the part Mike Sinyard and specialized have played in what mountain bikes have become,
All in all a very cool experience.
We are now in Santa Cruz, we got here around 5 and headed out for a street ride, just stuffed our faces with pasta at the local Italian restaurant ready yo hit some trails tomorrow!!
