I’m an Engineer/teacher for a bicycle components company called SRAM. Started out designing cranks, chainrings, and bottom brackets in San Luis Obispo, CA - now focused on helping all our engineers become better engineers. Slightly less focused on preparing the rest of our workforce to do the work of tomorrow and 10-years from tomorrow. I’m also a certified bike fitter but haven’t done much of that lately. I love wrenching on and building bikes, too - so yeah, total bike goober!
Very cool. I coached triathlon dorks for forever so I used to be kinda connected to the industry. And my wife is from SLO and we go back at least 1x/yr. Great little town
Howdy and welcome
! There are other cycling industry folks in the group as well.
My lady is a pro MTBer, and has an on/off relationship with your employer…
(and she’s also a fitter, but doesn’t do that work anymore). I’m also a SRAM loyalist at this point (but it wasn’t always that way!) We are a bike goober household as well. While I’m no engineer, I have a single product design contribution to the cycling industry. I used to race on the PAUL cyclocross team out of Chico, and designed the light mount bearing my name to help with randonneuring lighting in the unsupported ultra-distance events I used to do.
SLO is awesome - I miss it and love getting back for visits. You probably know this but there is awesome moto riding up near the Pozo area if you’re ever back that way with non-pedal bikes!
I did the Cal Poly Penguin dual sport ride out there once years ago and rode some of that.
Wow, cool stuff, Gino! Happy to be here. ![]()
Having an actual finished good named after you is super cool! We’ve come a long way as a company and know we still have a ways to go, but I’m happy to hear that it’s not been all bad experiences in your household. I’m always happy to help if there are unresolved problems going on so let me know if I can assist!
Bike fitting is interesting - it’s one of those things that seems like it should be widespread and normalized, but it’s not well enough understood that the general public seeks it out. It’s also time consuming which can make it feel expensive to consumers. Probably similar to paying for ADV riding instruction… very important but often overlooked and minimized.
SRAM products have been bomber in the past many years! Zero issues there - like zero. I just meant for pros, it has become so much more difficult to have a direct relationship w/SRAM, where it once wasn’t; from the outside it has always looked like those relationships just depend on who has the job on the inside. If you know the right person at the company, feel free to let us know; we’ve tied up 2026 partners/sponsors, and would love to have the conversation with y’all again. ![]()
Re: my light mount, yeah, Paul has always been super cool about giving credit. My buddy Jono had a hub as well, but only the Gino has persisted. I designed the original almost 20 years ago (2028 wil be 20), and it has remained unchanged since our original run of prototypes, aside from color options! It’s always awesome to see one in the wild.
With bike fitting, I’m actually surprised there isn’t some form of it in the moto world… but it truly doesn’t exist.
When I was a triathlon coach I was big into training and racing with a powermeter. I had an SRM back in the day, Powertap wheel, and now have a Quarq crank on my road bike, circa 2015 vintage. Didn’t SRAM buy Quarq years ago?
Can you give me a quick run down on the state of power hardware? I stopped paying attention to that stuff when I punched out of the space in 2017.
My 990 fits me perfectly. Even in gnarly shit I feel very, very balanced on the bike. Light hands. For years I’ve been meaning to take measurements and then compare those to my measurements on the 500.
Ok - since we’re deep into the cycling industry I will jump in too as I procrastinate on work projects.
Have been in the industry for 28 years minus a small gap trying to get rich with some PE guys…didn’t work.
14 years at PI and sold to Shimano during that time. After 6 years with big blue, was time to get back to a smaller company. Now 11 years at another apparel brand - this time on the Custom side. CUORE of Switzerland. That is our brand, our bigger business is OEM for several brands you would all know. We used to make a fair bit of kit for SRAM. Most of the fleet in our garage is SRAM.
Sean - have an older daughter who knows you I believe. She is also a full time racer on Trek Factory. Look forward to getting to meet in person on a moto ride.
Former bicycle retailer here! And long time mediocre bike rider and mid-pack racer. I was certainly an early adopter of SRAM products and have always loved them, and will never forget the sexiness of the full XX group on my 2012 S-Works Epic. (I had one of those and I’m not even a Boulder dentist!)
The bike business is kind of a small world - after @ChrisMunro and I discussed our histories on a camp/ride, I feel pretty sure I bumped into him at some point in the early 2010’s. I certainly visited PI’s cool HQ enough times back then!
I think it’d be an interested exercise to apply bike-fitting “theory” to motorcycles. I don’t think it’d be that big of a logical leap, and I think the upside would be valuable. Generally speaking, you’d likely need to do some human adjustment first (making sure people are standing on the pegs correctly, etc.) followed by an assessment of body position, then potential adjustments to the bike. The biggest foreseeable hurdle would be making real-time adjustments to the bike, that would allow someone to compare various positions comfort-wise. There are also probably different position considerations depending on the type of riding the person does, and the type of motorcycle they’re riding.
Rich - I think your idea about matching one bike’s measurements to fit another is a good one. If we’re talking about the standing position, it’s probably the vertical and horizontal distances between hands (top of handlebar/grip where your hands sit) and feet (probably top-center of foot pegs). I’d have to noodle a bit more about where a body is with respect to the bike, too - is there an appropriate datum on the bike around which your body position should be?
Hey Chris! Very cool your daughter is racing for Trek factory - what’s her name? That is a really fantastic race team.
Cuore is awesome stuff - I stocked up on the branded cargo bibs y’all made for us a couple years back. Seriously the best shorts ever.
Hey Sean,
Madigan(Maddie). Mtb and cx too but that’s pretty limited. I think she mentioned she’s met you.
If you need any Cuore kit just let me know.
Hope we can get out on a pedal bike or moto ride.
Cheers
CM
Just cruising through this thread months after it was active…
The famous Maddie Munro! My daughter rode MTB with BJC for three years while in elementary school, and we followed Maddie’s progress and appearances at nats and worlds with great BJC pride. It’s nice to hear that she’s moved on to even cooler things. You must be a proud Dad, Chris.
I think as moto weather winds down we need to start arranging some pedal bike rides for this crew. Several BJC dads in this group
Very cool. Love SRAM. We’ve built a number of Mechanics Rolls, Bags and Toolbox War for them and the SRAM Mechanics Academy down in the Springs. A good friend of mine, Troy Laffey works down their and is a big Rover guy.
Welcome aboard!