The Pinkbike Podcast: Episode 145 - Ministry Cycles on Alternative Manufacturing, Gluing Frames, & Starting a Business
Art by Taj Mihelich
There's a pretty good chance that your next bike will be made of either welded aluminum or molded carbon fiber, but there's going to be a time, not too far down the road, when it might be grown via additive manufacturing or, in the case of Ministry Cycles, machined from a block of 7075-T6 aluminum in a reductive process. Similar to what Pole is doing, the Psalm 150 frame is machined in two halves before being bonded together with aerospace-grade glue, with the result being a stunning dual-link bike that could be a look into the future of manufacturing.
I sat down with industry veteran and founder of Ministry Cycles, Chris Currie, to talk about how the Psalm 150 came to life, public development and lifecycle, design flexibility, and so much more. Chris also started Speedgoat, one of the earliest online retailers back in the 1990s, and has spent more than a decade in the marketing trenches at Stans, giving him a unique perspective on the cycling industry and the future.
THE PINKBIKE PODCAST // EPISODE 145 - MINISTRY CYCLES ON ALTERNATIVE MANUFACTURING, GLUING FRAMES, & STARTING A BUSINESS
September 22nd, 2022
Aluminum, glue, and online sales.
Featuring a rotating cast of the editorial team and other guests, the Pinkbike podcast is a weekly update on all the latest stories from around the world of mountain biking, as well as some frank discussion about tech, racing, and everything in between.
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So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Can’t wait to see more
I first discovered Speedgoat as an online customer when I was in college at Mich in the late 90's/early 00's. Back then, I worked at a camp for a few summers in Ligonier and was excited to discover that your were right up the road on Rt 30. You guys rocked back then and even hooked up the camp with a bunch of Giants so we could get all those kids indoctrinated into the MTB scene early!
Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to seeing more Ministry Cycles stuff in the future.
Very interesting talk! And the new bike looks fantastic + it comes with a great story.
@SpeedgoatDesigns I love hearing about your perspective and take on design agility, and designing a model for the future. If money was out of the picture, and you were able to additive manufacture frames, what would be different about your frames vs. CNC? Obviously you could easily modify each frame independently, I am curious if there are design approaches or features you could integrate if 3D printed frames were a realistic possibility now? AI Driven Design? Thanks! Keep doing what youre doing!
Just a thought.
If for some reason you magically had the luxury of being able to choose, which race team would you want to be on and why?
Might be Commencal Muc-Off to ride with Aumery.
Or the Syndicate to learn from the GOAT.
Or Frameworks to be a part of the project.
Or Atherton, for Brian that one, to talk additive manufacturing.
Or knowing you all, Pivot, because Lada.
Taking Pinkbike Racing off the table, to make it fair.
But yeah, there is a lot of energy going in there either way. But how it evens out in the end, I don't know. There may actually be less logistics involved if you just start straight from the solid block whereas an extruded tube may pass through different parties. First thought indeed is that turning so much solid metal into swarf takes a huge amount of energy. But I honestly don't know how it works out if you look at the full production cycle.
Can we have more of this kind of thing?
F1 cars are the sketchiest bridges that exist.