Spotlight on Wolf Tooth: Q&A with Brendan Moore
We caught up with Brendan Moore, Co-Owner & VP of Wolf Tooth, at this year's Saddleback House Show to find out all about the brand's design process, the new clipless pedals and what they'll be working on next.
QWolf Tooth has made its name finding solutions to existing problems or bettering the ones that exist. Why do you think that you are so well placed to do that?
The brand did start out making some problem-solving bits, but we've really evolved into what you'd call mainstream products. Chainrings are fairly mainstream, but also dropper posts, pumps, pedals, bottom brackets, headsets.
All of those things existed, you need them to ride your bike, but we've taken all of those, and in each case, there was opportunity to improve what was out there in the marketplace. That's really been our focus, leveraging our engineering expertise, our riding experience, to see what needs to be improved and do our best to improve it.
QThe CTRL, ALT and DEL clipless pedals are new out from Wolf Tooth. What problem was that range designed to solve?
First we had the flat pedals, which had been a big hit, and we wanted to expand into the clipless pedals, because on the mountain bike side the split is maybe 50:50 and then on gravel, or road or XC, it's all clipless.
The evolution was to pursue a clipless design. What we saw out there was that the most widely accepted cleat system was the Shimano cleat system, which is actually really good. The cleat itself is good, but we saw opportunity in weight, thickness, corrosion resistance. Platform was one of the big ones, the platform to support the shoe, having that connected feel with the bike, a really supportive pedal. And then, finally, adjustable Q factor built into the pedal.
Those are the five key things that we looked to improve. We're lighter than the competition, thinner than the competition, with a much bigger platform to support the shoe. All the binding parts are stainless steel, the axle’s stainless steel and then the adjustable Q factor is built in. It only takes about two minutes per side to change it. You can do it on the bike. It's a super simple and a super robust system. It's the same bearing and bushing system that we use on our Waveform Pedal, which has been proven to be super durable for the flat pedals.
Wolf Tooth has 'rebooted' 5 aspects of clipless pedals.
Q-factor, platform, thickness, weight and durability.
QWhat is each pedal for?
The CTRL has the biggest platform. It's our trail pedal, so that's the biggest platform on the market. That’s designed for a softer soled mountain bike shoe. Call it a trail shoe, is how typically people refer to it.
The ALT is the XC pedal. That is still a big platform, but slightly smaller, because you're generally riding a stiffer soled shoe.
And then the DEL is a one-sided gravel pedal with a bigger platform than the ALT. It was designed for what we're seeing now in gravel, especially as it's evolved, which is a lot of riders riding road pedals for the support, but being frustrated by having to ride road pedals when they're off the bike, at an aid station or maybe a rocky uphill. The DEL is a normal SPD cleat, but it has the feel of a road pedal, the support feel of a road pedal. It's also super light.
The pedals, by comparison, the DEL’s only 216g. The ALT is 295g versus XTRs at 315g, so appreciably lighter too, which is important. If you look at a road pedal, a typical road pedal system, including the cleat, the DEL is almost half of the weight. If you include the cleat and the pedal versus a road pedal and a road cleat, remarkably light as well.
QWhat about the name? Where did that come from?
It's kind of corny or cheesy but CTRL, ALT, DEL, we're rebooting clipless pedals, was kind of the tagline. Rebooting a lot of the features that we felt could be improved upon.
QDo you have any other pedals in the pipeline right now?
Indeed, lots, but we aren't going to talk about those just yet. But you can imagine what they might be, with different disciplines.
Each pedal has its own speciality and specific qualities.
The DEL is for gravel, the ALT XC, the CTRL trail riding.
QYou also have some new bottom brackets out. Could you talk about those a little bit?
The bottom brackets were released in April. Bottom brackets are a really interesting wear point in the bike that often people are frustrated by, because they're unhappy with what they have. When we started the design process, we looked at off-the-shelf bearings, kind of a faster road it would have been.
But ultimately, we had to step back and look at, “What are the key features that we see on the marketplace?” There were about six of them that we came up with that were “best-in-class” features for a bottom bracket. As it turns out, no bottom bracket had all six. There were some that had four, some that had three, but there was nobody that did all of them.
It starts with having a plastic crankset to bottom bracket interface, sealing around that crankset spindle, sealing the inside of the bottom bracket. Then, from there, we look at the bearing and the bearing sealing system. We have an extremely tight labyrinth seal all the way around that keeps the grit out. Water, though, can get past that seal, it has to be able to, because otherwise there would be too much friction.
Then we got to the bearing, and the bearing design took the longest. We went to a custom bearing maker to design the bearing. We were like, “We want a stainless bearing to do this, we want these features,” and they said, “Actually, we think you should do a hardened steel bearing with this coating that's more resistant to corrosion than stainless.” They said four times more resistant. It doesn't corrode, basically. Out of that, you get a more durable bearing.
Then we started talking to them about sealing. One of the features that's often not done, because it's hard, is the gutter seal. It's that lip seal. It's a flap that sticks out. There's a normal seal on the bearing, and then there's a little flap that sticks out. The flap wipes on the backside of our bushing. If moisture gets past there, the gutter seal stops it and it can evaporate back out.
What you don't want is grit getting into that inner seal, because if it gets in there, if you look at what's moving, it's this, relative to the seal, water will work its way into the bearings, and that's when you get a bearing failure. It's layers of protection. You need all of them to get a best-in-class bearing. You guys at Saddleback actually helped us to test the early samples, and they're still testing them, and the production ones, you haven't been able to break them yet.
The new bottom brackets been constructed for durability.
Their seals, O-rings and caps keep dirt and water out.
QApart from more pedals, what is on your drawing board now?
We have a lot in the pipeline, some big projects next year. A lot of times, we talk to people and they're like, “When are you making the Wolf Tooth *blank*?” Pick the thing. That's on our list, all those blanks. We don't have cassettes in the plan. We don't have derailleurs or shifters. We don't have suspension in the plan. I would say, anything else on a bicycle’s fair game.
QHow do Wolf Tooth products go from paper to reality? Walk us through the design process.
We've expanded a lot as a brand, as far as the different types of things we offer, and now there are a few new areas that we're going to be playing in, but a lot of it's completing a package, whether that be a cockpit package or some other thing on the bike. It complements a certain line, like doing more pedals, because now we have two types of flat pedals, three types of clipless pedals. We can continue on that pedal line, there's more pedals out there that need to be developed.
The tool line, we have tools, we have pumps, now we have tools that fit in pumps. In that same vein, the bottom brackets were very much like, “We make headsets, people want bottom brackets that match.” So, a lot of the new products we're looking at are things that might complement current product, completing a set, adding to what we already make, to make it a more compelling offering to the customer as a full package.
We start with a lot of competitive analysis, benchmarking, leveraging personal experience on what we do and don't like. What can we improve? What could be improved? What could we add, feature-wise? From there, we progress into some initial design concepts. Out of initial design concepts, we need to look at cost, we can't make something cost a million dollars because nobody will buy it. We have to look at where the competitive landscape is. Can we make it for a reasonable price?
If that all works, then we progress into prototyping and then all the way through the design process. But all that upfront work can take months, to make sure we don't get to production and it's like, “Oh, this is gonna cost too much. Shoot, nobody's gonna make any money,” or “It's gonna be too expensive for the customer.”
Wolf Tooth's new products enhance its current lines.
It takes months to perfect, test and launch a design.
QYou mentioned that we've helped with testing. Are there lots of people that help you, and are there particular testers that you rely on to give the best feedback?
We have a lot of pro testers. You guys at Saddleback ride in the worst conditions, I think, of anybody. We have some nasty winters where we're from, in Minneapolis, with some road salt and stuff, but I don't think anything quite measures up to the bridleways and the grit that you guys ride in all winter. So, the bottom brackets were tested here last winter. Snow's hard on it, but the mud and muck you guys ride in has a remarkable ability to destroy bike parts.
And of course, with the gravel pedals, because the DEL is the first pedal that's really designed for gravel, marketed to gravel, really optimised for gravel, we've had that under gravel pros for many, many months. I've been on some of the clipless pedals for over a year and a half.
So, we have a lot of riders in-house, but we also look to find people that can break things for us. We have a couple of key people that are the best bike part breakers. One of them actually works at ENVE, and he's the only one that can reliably destroy just about anything we send him.
QAre there any particular problems that you don't have a solution for yet, but that you hope to one day solve?
The flying bicycle is the one that we haven't quite fixed yet, but we're working on it! I mean, there are always challenges with a design. A lot of it comes down to, the market will only bear so much cost for something. There are some problems that could be solved by something super expensive, but you would sell three of them because they're super expensive. I would say that's probably the biggest hurdle, is making a marketable product that people will be willing to buy, that they can afford. That’s why we do a lot of that up-front work, scoping is super important, because sometimes you have to make trade-offs.
Pedals for more disciplines are on the drawing board.
They'll also make products customers have asked for.
QWhere do you see the bike market going and what do you see in Wolf Tooth's future?
We talked about it a bit with the product line, we have a full product roadmap for years and years, lots of things we haven't gotten to that we're expected to make. As far as the bicycle evolution, I think what you're seeing a little bit now in mountain is some stagnation.
I still think there's quite a bit of opportunity in wheels. Wheels still explode, tyres still explode, bottom brackets still wear out, pedals still wear out, we think we have the best product but we'll learn. We'll certainly learn as we go along. Making things last longer, making things more durable without making them heavier. Those are where the opportunities are that we see.
Again, it comes back to how much people are willing to spend. Bicycles are already expensive. Bicycle parts are already expensive. So, if you're going to bring out a new product that's expensive, it needs to have either a significant performance advantage or it needs to last longer, or it has to have something that makes it worth it to the customer to pay that.
All that to say, there's still a lot of room for improvement on bicycles, and I think you're going to see a lot of those products come out from us in the future. It's been a fun evolution for the brand, from the problem solver type stuff to really mainstream, stockable products that every rider can use, that had some opportunity to improve. We're going to continue down that path.