Pete sits down for a chat with OneUp Components’ R&D team to chat about how they brought their first hubs to market.
Earlier in the summer, OneUp Components added to their product line up with an opening dive into hubs. We take a look at how they went from concept to reality.
What was the impetus behind developing hubs?
Everything we make has to be something we’d want to ride on our bikes. So any time we want something different than what is currently available on the market, we make it.
In this case, we wanted a lightweight, reliable hub, with good engagement, that didn’t break the bank. The icing on the cake is our range of anodised colours.
Once you’ve made that decision, what happens next?
The idea for a project is just the start.
It kicks off our product development cycle, where we follow a traditional ‘stage gate’ process.
We’ll build the business case, to ensure it’s financially viable, and perform a product risk assessment, so we have a strong idea of critical characteristics and safety aspects, all before pen hits paper. Then we go into ideation, and divergent idea generation, where we try and cover as many options as possible. A lot of the innovation and key product-functionality evolves in this time.
From there, we get into more detailed design, CAD and FEA analysis, material selection & coatings and finishes. All the while, key stakeholders involved in the design will review milestones along the way. When we have prototypes in hand, we do bench safety testing they must pass before anyone gets to ride them.
We then run rider testing on our products, to get an idea of any potential early-life issues and get as many feel-good miles as we can at that point.
How many people are involved, and what do they do?
We like to involve lots of our staff when designing a new product, because everyone here at OneUp is an avid cyclist, great ideas can come from anyone.
This also ensures that we’ve assessed every aspect of the product from an engineering, marketing, sales, and customer service standpoint. However, there is always a core project team that drives the execution of the project, and milestones along the way there will be a get-together point for stakeholders.
Typically that looks like 7-10 people in a design review, from marketing to sales to operations, CS and engineering.
Did you have materials in mind before you started?
We had a few potential candidates in mind, but we worked to find the one that gave us the best combination of weight, durability, and price. In the end, that’s 7075-T6 Aluminum for our hubs.
How did you narrow down the eventual hubs specs from the myriad of options on the market?
Being our first iteration of hubs, we wanted to keep things simple, so we stuck with two hole counts, one spacing, and one brake mount option. Boost spacing is, by and large, the most spacing used across XC, Trail, and Enduro bikes, so it was the obvious choice.
How many prototypes did you go through before getting to the production model(s)?
This is a great question, but unfortunately, we don’t have a good, firm answer.
All we can say definitively here is that we’ve spent the last 3 years developing our hubs, where we went through a number of revisions for everything from the hub shell, endcaps, drivers, ratchets, and bearings.
Can you talk us through that prototype stage?
When prototypes show up it’s like Christmas morning for the engineers.
To get to that point, we’ve done a lot of work ahead of time in assessing failure modes, 3D design, and finite element strength analysis, all before we get physical samples so we have a good idea of what it’s going to be and how it’s going to perform.
Early-gen prototypes are all look-and-feel, and get smashed in destructive testing. We will update the design based on the findings. Next-gen prototypes get more safety testing and at this time, the engineering team or go to another round based on findings.
And so goes the merry-go-round of design. Eventually, they go out to rider testing in the broader field when we’re close to production.
How important are your athletes to product development and at what stage do they become involved?
We’ve got access to and partnerships with lots of world-class cyclists, who regularly find themselves on top of podiums throughout the year, which means that we’ve got a great pool of very talented test riders to pull from.
We definitely incorporate the design of the top 1% of riders, but we also want to make sure our products are suitable for not only the pros but also accessible and applicable to the general public, so we will always have some weekend warriors who provide feedback, set-up and use case and product testing.
Favourite moments?
Everyone loves a good launch day here, where months, or often years, of work finally hits the shelves. Second to that, would have to be ride testing. Nothing tops an afternoon of work in the woods.
Any disasters?
The worst disaster would have to be when we ordered one of the first rounds of prototypes to be laced into wheels.
The spoke holes on each flange were clocked in-line with each other (so you could pass a spoke straight through both flanges), where they need to be clocked offset to each other, in order to lace up and tension properly. A small detail, that our engineers forgot to update on one of the four layouts (Front, Rear, 28H, 32H) before getting everything machined, so while most of the wheels laced up great, some front 28H hubs did not initially.
A bit of a head-scratcher, where the others were working perfectly, until you see it, at which point it feels glaringly obvious.
Where next for OneUp?
We’ll likely flesh out more hub options eventually, but that’s still quite a ways out. Next up on the docket for us, is a new addition to one of our already existing product lines.
