CHUCK TEIXEIRA: What I find just so fascinating is what
this little, simple machine can do, and allow the human
form to go so fast and so far.
It's the most efficient way to move a human being around.
And it's a wonderful, simple, basic piece of equipment that
riders use to see the world, race at unheard of speeds,
climb mountains.
You name it, you can do it on a bicycle.
I'm Chuck Teixeira, senior advanced R&D engineer at
Specialized.
Bicycling has been in my blood.
My grandfather owned a bicycle shop and actually raced bikes
in the late '20s, early '30s.
My grandmother watched me while I was in a playpen in
the bicycle shop.
I started racing bicycles in 1973.
And engineering was just a natural conduit to go into to
marry my two passions.
I've spent hours and hours riding, thinking, thinking,
thinking of, what's the next thing I can do?
How I can make this bike better.
How could I make it light?
How could I make it do something that
it's not doing now.
You cut me open, I bleed bicycles.
You can't ask me what's on TV because I have no idea.
The couch is a kind of death.
I require very little sleep.
My mind is always ticking.
I always have 10 to 20 projects lined up.
ANDREW FRASCA: What Chuck was able to do with Easton bicycle
tubing was certainly a milestone along the way of
aluminum development.
If you made aluminum frames, you wanted to make them out of
Easton tubing.
CHRIS D'ALUISIO: We'd been looking for a really strong
addition to our aluminum team for quite some time.
Now we got him.
I think that Chuck and I, along with Andrew, make an
excellent team.
CHUCK TEIXEIRA: After a bit of time, all the resources and
energy have been pressed into carbon, and aluminum has been
kind of brushed aside.
I'm back in the game to bring aluminum back
up to the next level.
Smartweld is a patented technology developed here at
Specialized Bicycles Components.
In order for aluminum frames to take the next dramatic
step, is you have to rethink the way
the frames are connected.
With a conventional joint, you have basically a cylinder for
your head tube, and another tube or cylinder
for your down tube.
The joint is connected together.
It's very basic music instruction.
It looks like it's well-engineering, but it's
really not.
It's up to the welder to create that connection.
CHRIS D'ALUISIO: So what Smartweld does, it takes the
joint and gives it back to the engineers.
ANDREW FRASCA: Smartweld technology--
basically what we have is a head tube that's been
hydra-formed with basically a domed structure.
And the top tube and down tube have also been hydra-formed
with a sort of matching dome.
And when you put those two tubes together, you kind of
get a valley.
And this value is what we're able to fill with weld.
CHRIS D'ALUISIO: They fill in what's left.
It's very clear what they have to do.
And it's also a lot easier.
CHUCK TEIXEIRA: We moved the connection away from the point
of higher stress.
For us, the big aha moment was in the test lab, when we first
placed our very first Smartweld frame on the tube
fixture, and measured just tremendous performance and
improvements.
We could not break these frames.
They just ran and ran and ran.
I've been around for a long time.
I haven't seen this kind of change in performance--
I can't remember when.
There's no greater pleasure than to sit down, design
something on the computer, and go out in the shop and
actually make something.
And then, the cherry on the cake is to go out
for a ride on it.
SPEAKER 4: All right, Chuck, here we go.
CHUCK TEIXEIRA: I really feel that my Allez has just
a great road feel.
It's got a great balance of feedback, of just the right
amount of sensory feeling so I know exactly what my wheels
and tires are doing.
It's wonderfully stiff, yet compliant where I need it.
When I'm sitting in the saddle and climbing, or sitting in
the saddle descending, I've got the plushness.
When I'm sprinting, trying to chase on to the back of the
pack, great performance.
Pedaling stiffness is right there.
Climbing the hills--
beautiful, beautiful.
Carves turns on the way down.
It's got the right handling.
It's married to a wonderful carbon fort-- the same fort
that you find on our Tarmac.
I always find it amazing that a material can actually sell a
product, when it's really the engineering that creates and
dictates how well that material
will behave or perform.
And a low-cost carbon fiber bike truthfully does not
perform better than a great performing aluminum bike.
Our new Smartweld frame performed so well we were
compelled to make an S-Works version.
S-Works is only reserved for the highest, highest
performing bicycles.
It's stronger.
It's stiffer.
It also reduces weight, and looks beautiful.
I really feel that this new technology is going to be one
of those little changes.
We're going to look back 10, 20, 30 years from now, and go,
wow, that was a turning point.
We stopped what we were doing, we made a change, and we made
something better.
If you haven't ridden an aluminum bike lately, you
haven't ridden an aluminum bike.