32-inch wheels, flying bottles and the future of bike design with a secretive Quebec company

Since 2010, a small company based in Granby, Que., has worked with more than 150 brands in the bike industry, largely in secret. Faction Bike Studio is part bike-development laboratory, part industry think-tank. Until recently, it’s been happy to provide its services to brands big and small in the background. But for the past two years, it’s been coming out of the shadows, giving glimpses of just what it does and its significant influence.

In this episode, Faction Bike Studio product and marketing manager Adam Robbins reveals a bit more about what goes on at the company. Is it hard keeping secrets? And why is Faction now discussing the things that it does more openly? Robbins also talks about how Faction works with select partners, including Asa Vermette and Neko Mulally of Frameworks Racing, Andrew L’Esperance and Dangerholm (Gustav Gullholm) on projects that push the bike technology forward, but not always in obvious ways. Find out more about where cycling technology is at and where it might be going from an inside perspective.

Below are a few highlights from the episode. For the full interview, watch on YouTube or download on your favourite podcast app.

Matthew Pioro: Is it fun working at Faction?

Adam Robbins: It’s amazing. We get to do crazy things all the time. We get to try different bikes, learn about different bikes, work on some of the funnest projects that you get to see in the public and be like, hey, I’ve supported on that. So there’s a lot of really cool things. We have a a very strong culture internally. Everyone rides bikes, whether it’s road bikes, mountain bikes, commuter bikes, whatever it might be, everyone rides. So it’s a great environment and the the group rides can get pretty pretty fast and pretty amazing as well.

Is it hard to keep secrets?

Yes and no. It’s quite easy to keep them, but at the same time, it’s nice to try to share little bits here and there—let people’s minds start to think, give them the right questions to to trigger new thoughts and new ideas. So it’s all about how you word things and how you can keep everyone wondering and questioning.

Do you have friends, cycling friends or bike nerds bugging you over drinks, asking you like, “Tell me, do you work with a brand that rhymes with ‘Beck?’” And then you have to say, “No, no, no, I can’t talk about it.” Does that come up?

It does come up for sure. Yeah. Everyone’s always interested, especially when people ride certain bikes. They want to know, where was this bike made? Where was this bike tested? Have you guys had hands on this? So it definitely comes up all the time. People are always curious. But we like to keep our lips sealed and let the the companies stand true to what they are. We won’t let people know that we’ve supported in certain situations, unless the brands want to share. There’s definitely some clients that we work with that they want people to understand and know that their bikes have been designed and made in Canada by Faction Bike Studio. So it really depends on the brand, but we want them to have their their final say. We never go up to them and say, “Hey, do you want everyone to know that we’ve supported?” So it it’s always up to them.

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