Art’s Cyclery and SRAM have a longstanding relationship that is in many ways unique to the amazing city in which we are both located. One of our co-owners, Scott Smith, worked for Truvativ many years ago before buying Art’s, and a few of SRAM’s employees started here too. San Luis Obispo is such a small, tight knit community that we cross paths far more frequently than many people would expect. We go on lunch rides with the SRAM folks and sprint it out with them on the final straight on the Tuesday road hammer ride. My children are in the same classes and Girl Scout troops as some of the children of SRAM’s engineers. We see each other at our kids’ birthday parties and bump into each other downtown at the Thursday Farmers’ Market. The relationship that we are able to maintain with SRAM and many of the other bike industry companies located in San Luis Obispo really makes this a magical place for people who like to ride.
We had the opportunity to take a camera crew to SRAM’s San Luis Obispo office to share with our customers all the care, expertise and effort that goes into the SRAM products that Art’s proudly sells. Their San Luis Obispo facility handles the development of all of their cranks, chainrings, bottom brackets, and front derailleurs. We have put together a gallery for you to peruse that will offer some insight into how SRAM operates and how this office is a quintessential representation of the personality of San Luis Obispo, California that both of our companies enjoy.
Take an inside look (literally) at Red 2012 and some shots of their newest mountain group, the groundbreaking 1×11 XX1.
Interviews with SRAM’s engineers and a video tour are soon to follow!
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- The interior of the SRAM offices are bright, modern, clean, and remarkably quiet.
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- Not only are the offices bright, but employees’ dogs roam freely everywhere reinforcing the relaxed feel of the office.
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- Do SRAM employees really ride? All of the bikes in this picture belong to employees. There are lunch rides that leave from this office everyday. Sometimes we join them if they aren’t testing something top secret.
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- The SRAM bar with stout, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Central Coast Brewery’s outstanding root beer chilled and on tap. The box above the taps is filled with chilled pint glasses. Most rides end here.
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- Pick your poison.
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- I’ve caught SRAM engineers testing this mean proto trike in competition around town. I’m told that the stiffness numbers on the fork are off the charts.
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- This is the granite table where chainrings are measured with very expensive tools to ensure proper alignment.
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- SRAM literally puts their work under the microscope to ensure that their chainrings are made according to spec.
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- The chainring microscope in action.
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- Each of the colors in this computer rendering of a 2012 Red chainring show where different tools are used on the CNC machine to produce the many facets required. Chainrings are incredibly complicated pieces of engineering.
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- This little machine is invaluable to chainring development. It allows SRAM’s engineers to adjust chainline and chainstay lengths to see how far off the norm frames can be and still have functional shifting.
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- This rear view of the chainline machine best illustrates how chainlines are tested with this machine.
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- This is the lab where chainrings are inspected and tested.
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- Former Art’s employee and current SRAM technician Sterling McBride gets to break things for a living by performing fatigue tests, ultimate strength tests, deflection tests, and elemental contamination tests. He even tests cranks and bottom brackets under water until the bearings seize up so SRAM can ensure that their bottom brackets are as durable as possible.
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- This is one of the many fatigue testing machines that Sterling operates. Here he is testing a 2012 red GXP crank. It is painted white to make identification of cracks easier.
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- I counted at least 5 of these “dry land” crank testing machines that are normally running constantly but had top secret cranks in them that all got put away before we got there.
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- Yes, that is the actual Downieville Inn sign. Unmitigated radness there! After the inn burned down the sign was given to SRAM to display. SRAM has a full bike shop to handle the constant work required to test the products they are developing out on the road and trail.
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- This machine tests the combined stiffness of a crank and frame. This type of testing is extremely valuable because with competing bottom bracket standards like BSA, BB30, and BB86 the overall stiffness can be tested to see which system is best overall. Some frame manufacturers use the data from this machine to make decisions on which bottom bracket and crank spec they will use on their final product.
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- Testing the combined stiffness of a frame and crank also shows SRAM how far they need to go with their crank stiffness. For example: if a 20% increase in crank stiffness only nets a 5% increase in overall stiffness but raises costs 50%, such a change would be unwarranted.
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- A close up of the frame/crank testing rig. We have a video of the test in action that we will share that with you on another post.
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- The door handle to the composites lab.
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- This is a GXP 2012 Red crank that has been sawed in half. It is clear where they were able to save weight on these with the hollow construction that extends through to the full carbon spider.
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- Carbon, carbon everywhere. This was shot in the composites room where prototype carbon cranks are made on site.
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- This plotter cuts out the carbon fiber plies to exact specifications so there is as little waste as possible. Less carbon means lighter cranks.
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- This is where handlebars go to die. The ultimate strength test machine.
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- The new XX1 rear derailleur and massive 10-42t cassette. Heavily tested on our extremely rocky trails. No ghost shifting whatsoever with the new cage design.
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- No chainguide necessary. I rode with 4 SRAM engineers with XX1 equipped bikes down Rock Garden together; a trail that is a mile long World Cup DH level rock garden, and there were no dropped chains. I’m a believer!
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- The new 1×11 XX1 crank.
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- XX1 gets tested nearly everyday at SRAM on punishing lunch rides.
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- One of the early XX1 prototype rear derailleurs. It is hard to overestimate what a huge leap forward this technology is in the history of mountain biking. Dedicated single chainring setups with no chain guide will allow for some radically different pivot locations and widths for both xc and trail bikes.
