FLO 60 and 90 wheel review

General
42

Not to be negative as I wish you the best of luck but it seems like this process is taking forever. In hindsight do you wish that you had waited until you were further along in the process before you made it all public?

Actually no. When we made this public we were on track to go into full scale production. It was impossible for us to know that our factory was going to… for lack of better terms… screw us. We lost a ton of money and our molds were useless to other factories. We were forced to start over.

In the end we are going to have a much better product. Our followers have thanked us time and time again for being open and honest. The majority of them have enjoyed following our journey.

You’ve said our process is taking forever. Do you know what the process is? We are not simply placing our sticker on an open molded product. We have designed our fairing shapes from scratch. This took months of CFD testing followed by wind tunnel testing. We then had to select all of our components, find a list of factories, go through the design phase with each factory, create customer fairing molds, build prototypes, test the prototypes, re-design, re-prototype, re-design, re-prototype… oops there goes our factory… start over finding a new factory, go through the whole process again.

I know from the outside it’s easy to say those guys are taking forever, but if you saw the process from my shoes I’m sure you’d think differently.

Could we have released the news at a better time? Maybe, but I think it would be hard to determine that time. All I know is that I’ve made a ton of friends in the process of starting this company/releasing the news and we now have a few thousand people signed up for the pre-order.

Finally, we wanted the community to be a part of our design process. We wanted the community to give us their suggestions, so they felt they had a hand in producing a product they they liked. Because of the community there have been many changes to our final product…

To name a few:

A new logo
Black rims
Improved skewers
etc.

I think in the end this will all work out. Our followers and future customers who purchase our products will receive better products as a result of our “process” even if it has taken “forever”.

43

Since your main goal seems to be price (and not necessarily aerodynamics). I don’t see why you didn’t just copy the old 404/ new sram fairing shape. Somebody has already ran all the CFD and aero testing and determined it is a pretty good shape and relatively fast. Not only that but the patent has ran out so you can just copy it with no worries. That seems like it would have been a lot faster and easier and then you could of used that money to make another generation. That is probably what I would of done.

44

Since your main goal seems to be price (and not necessarily aerodynamics). I don’t see why you didn’t just copy the old 404/ new sram fairing shape. Somebody has already ran all the CFD and aero testing and determined it is a pretty good shape and relatively fast. Not only that but the patent has ran out so you can just copy it with no worries. That seems like it would have been a lot faster and easier and then you could of used that money to make another generation. That is probably what I would of done.

Our main goal was to produce high quality, leading edge aerodynamic wheels at a great price. We are not in the business of “copying” other peoples designs. That didn’t feel right to us. We wanted to develop our own shapes and produce a product that we could be proud of. I think our aero data and our pricepoints are a good indication that we will accomplish our goals.

Take care,

45

This, Chris, is what will make your business successful. Because, the public will be able to have a wheelset that will approximate the speed of new designs at a fraction of the cost. When the wheels are here, then why would others go with the old copy of the 404 for same or greater price. You have stated your goals and we all look forward to seeing the final product - and especially racing them!!!

Brent

46

Not to be negative as I wish you the best of luck but it seems like this process is taking forever. In hindsight do you wish that you had waited until you were further along in the process before you made it all public?

Actually no. When we made this public we were on track to go into full scale production. It was impossible for us to know that our factory was going to… for lack of better terms… screw us. We lost a ton of money and our molds were useless to other factories. We were forced to start over.

In the end we are going to have a much better product. Our followers have thanked us time and time again for being open and honest. The majority of them have enjoyed following our journey.

You’ve said our process is taking forever. Do you know what the process is? We are not simply placing our sticker on an open molded product. We have designed our fairing shapes from scratch. This took months of CFD testing followed by wind tunnel testing. We then had to select all of our components, find a list of factories, go through the design phase with each factory, create customer fairing molds, build prototypes, test the prototypes, re-design, re-prototype, re-design, re-prototype… oops there goes our factory… start over finding a new factory, go through the whole process again.

I know from the outside it’s easy to say those guys are taking forever, but if you saw the process from my shoes I’m sure you’d think differently.

Could we have released the news at a better time? Maybe, but I think it would be hard to determine that time. All I know is that I’ve made a ton of friends in the process of starting this company/releasing the news and we now have a few thousand people signed up for the pre-order.

Finally, we wanted the community to be a part of our design process. We wanted the community to give us their suggestions, so they felt they had a hand in producing a product they they liked. Because of the community there have been many changes to our final product…

To name a few:

A new logo
Black rims
Improved skewers
etc.

I think in the end this will all work out. Our followers and future customers who purchase our products will receive better products as a result of our “process” even if it has taken “forever”.

Thanks for the response. I have no idea what the process is. It seems like everything I ever get involved always it much harder than anticipated once I actually get down to doing it. I guess you are experiencing that as well. Again, I wish you guys the best in your venture and am excited to see the products come to market in the near future. The black brake track looks awesome. I would be shocked if we did not see that on some other wheels very soon.

47

Sorry to hear about the delays and sourcing issues. Not fun, but you’re adapting well and landing on your feet.

But since you are starting new, any chance of a narrower front hub design to get a little more of an aero advantage? Are hubs like that even available from your suppliers?

Good luck, it is great to watch your progress.

48

I’m excited about these wheels. I got rid of my disc because of the issues I had with it, and have been on a FB60 set with a disc cover. That’s fine for ease of use, etc, but not a perfect blend of race wheels. I’m in for a set of these for sure. LOVE the concept of designing something high quality from scratch and pricing it for the average athlete. Thanks tons! I signed up for the newsletter and can’t wait for pre-ordering.

49

Actually no. When we made this public we were on track to go into full scale production. It was impossible for us to know that our factory was going to… for lack of better terms… screw us. We lost a ton of money and our molds were useless to other factories. We were forced to start over.

I hate to be a dick, but getting screwed over was not an unforeseeable risk. It’s a fact of life when you do business with low cost suppliers in China. In fact when you asked opinions on this forum a year and a half ago it was mentioned:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2662123;page=3;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;#2662945

Good on you for having the capital, determination and resourcefulness to survive in spite of getting hosed. But getting hosed is a fact of life for everyone. Even the 800 lb gorillas like Apple.

50

This, Chris, is what will make your business successful. Because, the public will be able to have a wheelset that will approximate the speed of new designs at a fraction of the cost. When the wheels are here, then why would others go with the old copy of the 404 for same or greater price. You have stated your goals and we all look forward to seeing the final product - and especially racing them!!!

Brent

Brent,

Thanks for the continued support. Your thoughts are right on track with ours.

All the best,

51

Sorry to hear about the delays and sourcing issues. Not fun, but you’re adapting well and landing on your feet.

But since you are starting new, any chance of a narrower front hub design to get a little more of an aero advantage? Are hubs like that even available from your suppliers?

Good luck, it is great to watch your progress.

We looked into that actually. Since all of our wind tunnel testing had already been done with our current hub design we decided to stick with what we had. We will definitely consider that option on future wheel designs.

Thanks for the support,

52

Not to be negative as I wish you the best of luck but it seems like this process is taking forever. In hindsight do you wish that you had waited until you were further along in the process before you made it all public?

Actually no. When we made this public we were on track to go into full scale production. It was impossible for us to know that our factory was going to… for lack of better terms… screw us. We lost a ton of money and our molds were useless to other factories. We were forced to start over.

In the end we are going to have a much better product. Our followers have thanked us time and time again for being open and honest. The majority of them have enjoyed following our journey.

You’ve said our process is taking forever. Do you know what the process is? We are not simply placing our sticker on an open molded product. We have designed our fairing shapes from scratch. This took months of CFD testing followed by wind tunnel testing. We then had to select all of our components, find a list of factories, go through the design phase with each factory, create customer fairing molds, build prototypes, test the prototypes, re-design, re-prototype, re-design, re-prototype… oops there goes our factory… start over finding a new factory, go through the whole process again.

I know from the outside it’s easy to say those guys are taking forever, but if you saw the process from my shoes I’m sure you’d think differently.

Could we have released the news at a better time? Maybe, but I think it would be hard to determine that time. All I know is that I’ve made a ton of friends in the process of starting this company/releasing the news and we now have a few thousand people signed up for the pre-order.

Finally, we wanted the community to be a part of our design process. We wanted the community to give us their suggestions, so they felt they had a hand in producing a product they they liked. Because of the community there have been many changes to our final product…

To name a few:

A new logo
Black rims
Improved skewers
etc.

I think in the end this will all work out. Our followers and future customers who purchase our products will receive better products as a result of our “process” even if it has taken “forever”.

Thanks for the response. I have no idea what the process is. It seems like everything I ever get involved always it much harder than anticipated once I actually get down to doing it. I guess you are experiencing that as well. Again, I wish you guys the best in your venture and am excited to see the products come to market in the near future. The black brake track looks awesome. I would be shocked if we did not see that on some other wheels very soon.

People often say if you knew how hard something was going to be before you started, you often wouldn’t start. I can tell you first hand that we didn’t see all of the struggles we would have. In saying that, I’m still very happy we took the plunge.

Take care,

53

I’m excited about these wheels. I got rid of my disc because of the issues I had with it, and have been on a FB60 set with a disc cover. That’s fine for ease of use, etc, but not a perfect blend of race wheels. I’m in for a set of these for sure. LOVE the concept of designing something high quality from scratch and pricing it for the average athlete. Thanks tons! I signed up for the newsletter and can’t wait for pre-ordering.

We are happy that you like what you see. Thank you for the support. We appreciate it.

All the best,

54

Chris, with the new factory and subsequent improvements to your wheels do you expect that your FLO 90 will show better aerodynamics than it did in your wind tunnel tests? In other words, will it begin to more clearly outperform the FLO 60?

Also, I know you answered this before, but do you guys have any plans to offer powertap versions of your wheels, or at the very least offer a wheel with the fairing drilled properly for a powertap that a buyer could have assembled somewhere else?

55

Actually no. When we made this public we were on track to go into full scale production. It was impossible for us to know that our factory was going to… for lack of better terms… screw us. We lost a ton of money and our molds were useless to other factories. We were forced to start over.

I hate to be a dick, but getting screwed over was not an unforeseeable risk. It’s a fact of life when you do business with low cost suppliers in China. In fact when you asked opinions on this forum a year and a half ago it was mentioned:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2662123;page=3;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;#2662945

Good on you for having the capital, determination and resourcefulness to survive in spite of getting hosed. But getting hosed is a fact of life for everyone. Even the 800 lb gorillas like Apple.

Getting hosed is a “risk”. We always new and continue to know that this is a “risk”. What I said above is that it was impossible for us to “know”.

“Risk” is merely a “possibility”. There is no certainty in risk, meaning it could or could not happen.

“Knowing” is a fact. It’s either yes or no, right or wrong, black or white.

When we released the news about our company, getting hosed was certainly still a “risk”, but based on our conversations with our factory, import/export team, and progress to date, it seemed like a very small risk. As a company who needed to start creating brand awareness, we decided the risk was small enough to start spreading the word. In the end the risk still got us.

Now if I would have “known” that this was going to happen, we would have postponed our process of creating brand awareness.

I hope that makes sense,

56

Just wished u made them in 650’s. Good luck lads, you guys are going to rock!!!

57

Chris, with the new factory and subsequent improvements to your wheels do you expect that your FLO 90 will show better aerodynamics than it did in your wind tunnel tests? In other words, will it begin to more clearly outperform the FLO 60?

Also, I know you answered this before, but do you guys have any plans to offer powertap versions of your wheels, or at the very least offer a wheel with the fairing drilled properly for a powertap that a buyer could have assembled somewhere else?

Our new factory will be constructing the wheels aerodynamically equivalent to our first generation wheels. The FLO 60 and the FLO 90 are have nearly identical aero benefits with a 3 gram (on average) difference. The FLO 90 will make a great front and rear wheel. I will say that our FLO DISC shape was based off of our FLO 90. This means that if you put a wheel cover on it, you will more than likely experience similar aero benefits. Meaning you may be able to experience negative drag with a wheel cover ;).

Power is definitely on our minds at FLO. We are working towards power but it will not be available right out of the gate.

Hopefully that helps,

58

Just wished u made them in 650’s. Good luck lads, you guys are going to rock!!!

Thanks for the kind words. 650c may be an option in the future but we needed to stay financially sound as a new company. Opening up a whole new set of molds for 650c wheels doesn’t currently fit the budget.

Take care,

59

Our new factory will be constructing the wheels aerodynamically equivalent to our first generation wheels. The FLO 60 and the FLO 90 are have nearly identical aero benefits with a 3 gram (on average) difference. The FLO 90 will make a great front and rear wheel. I will say that our FLO DISC shape was based off of our FLO 90. This means that if you put a wheel cover on it, you will more than likely experience similar aero benefits. Meaning you may be able to experience negative drag with a wheel cover ,

wow, hadn’t thought pf that. i can keep my FP60 cover and put it on my new FLO 60 wheels. Great idea

http://i51.tinypic.com/263ihrr.jpg

60

Our new factory will be constructing the wheels aerodynamically equivalent to our first generation wheels. The FLO 60 and the FLO 90 are have nearly identical aero benefits with a 3 gram (on average) difference. The FLO 90 will make a great front and rear wheel. I will say that our FLO DISC shape was based off of our FLO 90. This means that if you put a wheel cover on it, you will more than likely experience similar aero benefits. Meaning you may be able to experience negative drag with a wheel cover ,

wow, hadn’t thought pf that. i can keep my FP60 cover and put it on my new FLO 60 wheels. Great idea

http://i51.tinypic.com/263ihrr.jpg

Sounds like you have a plan! Nice bike. How do you like the saddle? I have a new one just like it that I haven’t had time to swap out with my fitter yet. I’m currently using and Adamo Race but it’s a little wide.

61

I’m currently using and Adamo Race but it’s a little wide.

I told you…move it back further. Seriously.

It’s not too wide, you’re sitting on it too far back…

:slight_smile: