Crow Bicycles - David Toledo

Jul 5, 2022

This week I’m releasing my conversation with David Toledo of Crow Bicycles. I first interviewed David early in the pandemic, but with the dramatic supply chain issues that were going on at the time, Crow decided to push the launch of their e-gravel bike back. They are now in-market with an extended line up of e-bikes so I’m excited to get our conversation out there.

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Crow Bicycles

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

This week on the podcast, we've got David Toledo from Crow, bicycles from Madrid, Spain. I actually recorded this episode early on in the pandemic and was excited to learn more about the CRO brand. As it turned out as many of, you know, The disastrous supply chain affected many, many brands and it actually affected crow's planned launch schedule.

We put the episode on ice, but I'm happy to say Crow is ready to go. With bikes, ready to ship.

CHRO bicycles as you'll learn shortly is an E bicycle company. With a gravel model that is their flagship offering, but they also offer commuting bikes, a flat bar, gravel bikes, and a bunch of options. If you're looking to enter the e-bike market. I've always been fascinated by e-bikes. I first got an e-bike for a cargo bike and it was a no-brainer to schlep my son around.

But increasingly I've learned to appreciate the place that e-bikes have in the market. Whether it's for commuting or pleasure. I do think if you open your mind, E-bikes makes sense for a number of types of riders. I often think about some of the riders I see up on Mount Tam, which is a bit of a hefty climb.

As they're getting older, maybe they don't have the ability to get up the hill or maybe they're trying to ride with younger friends and I see multi-generational rides. Happening with fathers and sons and the father might be on the e-bike or a son might be on the e-bike. So it's been fascinating to see. So I'm excited to see where these will fit in. And I know crow's execution is very slick.

You'll hear David talk about the type of drive train they've implemented and the sort of Swiss army knife approach they've taken. With the bike with the type of motor and battery pack removable from the bike entirely. Making it a perfectly. Acceptable standard bike, maybe with a slight weight penalty.

But perfectly acceptable to ride. So I think it's an interesting option. Encourage you to enter this episode with an open. Heart about what e-bikes could be and learn a little from david and go check out the cro bicycles lineup.

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Versus my gravel rides. So it's great to have that flexibility. The crew too has been simple to use and data can be uploaded to all your favorite platforms like Strava and commute and more. One of the things I've also been thinking about as I've found myself a little bit out of shape. I don't have a power meter, although you could connect that to the crew too, but I do have a heart rate monitor. And what you guys might not know is that hammerhead actually has their own heart rate monitor while it works with any ad plus system, they also have their own technology.

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So don't forget to use that promo code, the gravel ride, and that's a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of a career to just go to hammerhead.io. At both items to your cart and use the promo code, a gravel ride. Thanks so much to hammerhead for supporting the show this week. And with that, let's jump right into my interview with David.

, David, welcome to the

[00:05:04] David Toledo: show. Thank you, Craig. Thank you for your time and thank you for your interest in crop bicycles. Yeah. I'm excited

[00:05:10] Craig Dalton: to get into it because the e-bike category is obviously.

Hitting all elements of the sport from commuter to mountain to gravel. Mm-hmm, , it's gonna be interesting to dig into the technology and what you are working on, but before we go there, David, why don't you tell the listener a little bit about your background and the inspiration behind founding Crow, bicycles, to say

[00:05:35] David Toledo: that maybe in the us, you were early adopt in the digital trains and, and eCommerce, but in Spain specifically when I'm located.

Came a little bit later than that, but I, I started very early in the early, in the first, uh, stages of the digital world in, in Spain, early 2000 in 2001, I funded my first, my first company. And it was a consultancy to help on the digital transformation to the, to the small companies in Spain. But it was really hard time doing that because it, it was, I, I felt I was talking in Chinese to the people.

It was like, oh, they, they didn't understand what I'm trying to explain them and the opportunities of the digital world. And so that, but I started there on that time in 2001 with the, my first steps on the digital world. And then I, I, I run, uh, my own digital, uh, advertising agency, uh, for, uh, many years. And on parallel, I started a new business.

Was raped with cycling industry with a few, with a few colleagues. And we started in 2000, uh, six with cannon bicycles. Uh, cannon bicycles was really interesting because it was the, probably one of the first direct to consumer brands in the market. And in 2006, it was here in Spain. It was just a few small retailers or super big online stores, like, uh, chain re and cycles.

And that, that kind of stores or gems in USA, some people was buying to Jenson USA, even in Spain, but there was no real. Digital brands in the cycle industry. And Kenon was, I was coming to the market to change the things. And it was at the beginning, it was really tough because the people didn't trust you very much.

They didn't trust on your project, on the brand that they didn't know it. And it was hard. But the, when with, with a lot of work from always side, this, the brands start to have a lot of, yeah. Awareness in the market and, and the people started to trust on us and it was, yeah. Then everything came. It was like explosion and everything wanted to all industry wanted to copy somehow cannon bicycles on that after few years, and now everything has changed.

And, and I can say that the digital industry or the digital business are here for good. And it's something that, uh, even the, the big players. Figuring out how to interact with the digital world and to keep their, the traditional business models that trying to do some kind of blending between both words.

But it is very interesting. And, but my background definitely is digital. Absolutely digital.

[00:08:06] Craig Dalton: Interesting. So after all that time with canyon bicycles, did that spark an inspiration that you saw an opportunity in the market that led you to Crow bicycles?

[00:08:17] David Toledo: Yeah. I had clear since the very beginning that the digital business and especially the direct to consumer business, it's the, in my eyes at least is the way to go.

Because you have as a brand, you have direct and close contact with the customers. Sometimes the people say, Hey, yeah, but you don't have a physical place. I cannot reach you. I cannot see you face to face. But the thing is that is double side. The customers contact directly with the brands and the brands are interacting with the customers.

And this is something wonderful because the, the customer can express their feelings, their, uh, fears or, uh, their needs. And the brand has all this input from, from firsthand. And this is part of the magic of the direct to consumer model. And you can react really quickly to the problems and yeah, somehow all these things made me to, to, to, to shape.

In my head, if I, sometime I, I will have a, my own bike brand that was sold with my dream that definitely this, this will be the way to, to do it. But also there was a lot of things to improve because there was after 14 years working with cannon bicycles, I saw all the aspects of the brand, the good things.

And sometimes even not the so good things, because it was always how you see it in English, Chinese and shadows or something like this. It's, uh, it's like, Things that it was not so nice. And this is the kind of things I want to improve. I want to change a little bit, and also from, uh, my experience and my learnings during my Eli years, there is also new ways to do business.

And this is the part that I'm definitely going to disrupt in conversation with other brands. And even with Kenya bicycles in the coming months, we want to work in a project that is going to change the way the customers. Use the bike we could say. Yeah, but I cannot say too much about that because it's just an ongoing

[00:10:03] Craig Dalton: project.

Interesting. Great. And then to pull the company together, were you drawing on other teammates that you had worked with previously at canyon to design the bicycles, et cetera?

[00:10:15] David Toledo: Yeah, I mainly the design of the bicycle was my work for the last, yeah, probably eight to 10 months or something like this, or previously since 2008, late 2019 until mid 20, 20, or a little bit more.

I was working, just focus onto the cycling bicycles portfolio and design and components and trying to develop concept and a range that has Sims. And then I contacted my, one of my colleagues in. Ex or former C in Kenya USA. And he was working in another industry and I conducted him to. To tell, Hey, I'm gonna launch that this, this is something that sounds interesting to you.

And of course he was interested since the very beginning and, uh, we start working and he helped me to also to shave the bikes in terms of adapting them to the, uh, us market and to the us, uh, consumer needs. And, and together we did a lot of, uh, things. Yeah. But it was, it was really interesting to have like both sides, right?

The, the European point of view, uh, of the cycling and the American point of view, because. Even if, if it's, uh, gravel and even if it's cycling, uh, sometimes they're pretty different, uh, from market to market. Yeah,

[00:11:27] Craig Dalton: absolutely. There definitely seems to be globally different perceptions around e-bikes particularly in the offroad world that we see in Europe versus the us stepping back for the listener.

So Crow bicycles is introducing a range. E-bikes E gravel bikes to the world. David, why don't you get into just some of the basic idea behind the bike, the type of. Engine that I don't know, even know if engine is the right word in e-bike so you'll have to correct me but, but I'm super curious. I've been very, yeah.

[00:12:00] David Toledo: Motor yeah. Motor maybe is the right way to, to yeah. But motor or system or just, yeah, it's maybe motor is the right

[00:12:08] Craig Dalton: one. Thank you. Yeah. It's, it's been interesting for me. I probably started out originally seeing e-bikes offroad and being frustrated and maybe being a little bit of a naysay. I started to see them commuting into San Francisco.

And I started to have a realization from a commuting perspective. There were absolutely days that I didn't wanna ride the hour to an office downtown in San Francisco, but I certainly didn't wanna get into a car and having an E commuting bike made sense. Then I started to talk to more and more athletes who were riding them off road.

And I started to appreciate a lot of the nuances. In the e-bike market and how it creates accessibility for athletes who might not be able otherwise to get up the big Hills around here, but it also opened up new performance elements, new ways of riding, because you could discount certain things that may take up a lot of your time in any given bike ride.

So I've become very pro eBike actually. And I'm curious to talk about E gravel bike because I haven't quite. Made that fit into my mental model yet.

[00:13:19] David Toledo: yeah. The thing is that there's sometimes it's hard because there's so many kind of likes and this is interacting with customers. It's really, as I said, it is really interesting because you get a lot of feedback.

Sometimes this feedbacks are saying, Hey, this is a mope. Or this is buy a motorcycle instead of an e-bike. Why, why do you buy an e-bike? You can buy a motorcycle or something like this, and this is not real bicycle. And so many feedbacks like this. And the thing is that most of these feedbacks are coming from people that never before tested a, an e-bike.

Yes. And they don't have an experience with e-bike and, and I will definitely recommend them to test it because it's, it can change your whole perception of like concept of this thing. But the it's gonna start with saying. Somehow I have to give them a part of, of the, the ride because yeah, there's some e-bikes in the market that definitely, they are a concept that I'm not really, uh, friend of it's those super.

High speedy bikes, uh, super powerfully bikes that they're somehow, they're like a moment with pedals and I'm not really comfort with that kind of, of concept. Or I respect this is in the market. I am of course agree that this needs somehow to be like regulated because they can be even dangerous sometimes because they have a throttle and then you, you can use it as a.

Motorcycle, but there's another can of EBIS that this is, uh, more like, uh, a bicycle with some systems. And in this group, this, this is in some states in the us, this is called like the class one and they are limited up to 20 miles per hour. And at least in Europe, they have a limited a limitation on even on the power, the power, the motor cannot give you more than 250 Watts of power.

Okay. . Yeah. And this is, this is another concept, absolutely different to the super powerful, super heavy e-bike. And, but the, the truth is that one of the friends, I was one of the first I was missing in the market. When I started to, to develop Crow, bicycles was something in between the e-bikes that you can find in the market, even coming from the big players, right?

Like from specialize or Cannondale, their approach was more like. Powerful e-bikes but, uh, a bicycle, but with a powerful motor and somehow a little bit heavy, more heavy than I would like to have in a bicycle. So this is what I, I started to think. Hey, there's I think there's room in the market for a lighter bike, uh, uh, a e-bike that it's a blend between, sorry, between a, a standard bicycle and an e-bike something that you can enjoy pedaling that it needs to be easy to pedal.

And it needs to be light and it needs to be nimble. And so all these concepts needed to be developed in a bicycle. So I start to research and I found that there was no many options in the market for that kind of bicycles. And this is what I decided. Okay. I need to step into that and I need to develop a brand that it's focused on the experience.

Not only on the, yeah. I have a, a, a super cool bike, but it's, I have the feeling that some, somehow this is, uh, like artificial. I wanted to have a bicycle that when you're riding, you don't feel that this is any bike. You feel that it's somehow you're better trained than you really are or better fit than you really are, but you don't feel that you're not working out.

And this is found Fati. I met FASU with through canyon bicycles because they used them at, in Theban and commuting bikes. And, and I, I saw there was like, uh, a lot of potential with that system. And. Yeah, this is basically what I wanted to develop a e-bike concept or a bicycle, a bike brand focus on really light e-bikes where the experience is.

The most important thing is, uh, to have the feeling that you are not using, uh, Mo pit or something like this. That is a real bicycle. Yeah,

[00:17:13] Craig Dalton: I think there's a couple really interesting points there for the listener one. I think we've all seen almost beach cruiser style, electric assist bikes, and someone goes by you at 20 miles an hour.

And it doesn't even look like the same sport, right? It's just, they're not a cyclist. They're not getting any fitness or barely any fitness out of that. Maybe that's my personal bias. But when you get to the performance e-bike and these lower weighty bikes, clearly you're getting a workout. You're just getting it at different points.

I like the way in your. Indigogo campaign, how you're articulating some of the power assist where it's the, the level one is like a breeze at your back. Yeah. Whereas the, the level three is like a rocket ship. So I think it it's super interesting. The second thing I wanna point out, and it's difficult without looking at an image and I'll certainly have links to both your website and the campaign about the motor and battery mechanism and how mm-hmm fr from the uninitiated eye.

It really does disappear into the construction of the bicycle. You're not seeing a big battery where the water bottle might be, and you're not seeing a massively oversized mechanism around the crank shaft. Yeah. So it's a very interesting visual with the Crow bicycles and this FSA motor system that I, I think you've designed into the product.

[00:18:35] David Toledo: yeah, yeah. For zoo was really interesting because you can find some bicycles in the market that they, they have like, absolutely integrated the battery into the main cube, but it's something that you cannot easily remove from the, from the bicycle. So you you're gonna have always this battery and the motor eats.

Integrated in the bottom bracket. So you, you have a bicycle that it's an e-bike, it can be a not super powerful eBike and it can be pretty light e-bike. Yeah. But you have all these things in there inside, and you can remove them. And it's the aspect of some bicycles is, yeah, it's great. You can see that there's no even connections or URA was offering something that I really love.

It was that it's a clean. Design it's absolutely integrated into the main tube. And, but the thing is that in seconds you can remove the whole system, even the motor, that this is the most interesting thing. Even the motor and the battery in one pack and just put in place a hollow cover and you have a thunder.

and this is, this is like, uh, the best thing, because if you want, just to experience a standard bike without any assistance at all, and without the, and with you, the extra weight of the motor and the battery, you can do it in seconds.

[00:19:52] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's pretty fascinating. And I know I saw that you've basically, you have a, sort of a compartment that snaps back into where the battery and motor was, so that you can carry a jacket or what have you, in, in that location when you're not using the battery.

[00:20:06] David Toledo: Yeah, that's it. That's it? Uh, this is this, that was one of the interesting things for me. And this is one I always tried to say to the people, Hey, this is, this is not a mop it. And this is like absolutely different concept. To what maybe you're used to seeing a, in a e-bike, but this is a real bicycle and you can even use it as a real bicycle.

This is the magic of the system. This is, it's absolutely integrated in the, the whole, this angle bicycle. You cannot really notice that you have a motor and the battery there, but even if you want, you can, you don't need to carry with, with you, if you just want to go for a standard bike ride. And yeah.

[00:20:40] Craig Dalton: So the bicycles am I correct?

That they hover around sort of 30 pounds.

[00:20:46] David Toledo: yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. 30.2 30.7. Something like that. Yeah. And

[00:20:53] Craig Dalton: is that, is that with the battery?

[00:20:56] David Toledo: Yeah, that's with the battery and

[00:20:57] Craig Dalton: the motor? Yeah. Okay. And then when you take the battery out, what do you bringing the bike down to at that point?

[00:21:03] David Toledo: Yeah. It's you can get, let me. Be sure about that figure because it's, I have all the figures in, in kilos. gotcha. So yeah. Wait a second. I'll let you know what was that? I think it was like seven pounds or something like this. I'm correct. Yeah. You remove 7.3 pounds, right? You're removing a lot of weight and the weight of the hollow tube.

It's uh, 0.9 pounds. so you're turning your 3.2 pounds bike into a, a 23.8 pounds or something like this. So it's, it's very light. It's a really decent weight for a, a standard bicycle. So it's, I know it's there there's of course lighter, like the more likeer options in the market, but this, but you cannot transform into a eBike.

And this is the, the great thing of this concept that you can have two bikes in.

[00:21:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, I think that's really, it's a mind blowing thing as a consumer to think about how it fits into your life and how having those two bikes. Yeah. It's not your featherweight race bike, but without that battery in there at 23 odd pounds, that's not obnoxious either.

That's a bike that you can still ride and enjoy. Obviously there's a lot of different sectors of the e-bike market. E mountain bikes and commuter bikes have been huge. As we've said before, what made you feel like E gravel mm-hmm was the right category to enter and for the listener, what type of adventures and types of riding do you think that an E gravel bike opens

[00:22:33] David Toledo: up?

Let's start saying that probably for me, the, the E the, the, the gravel's like, uh, the most versatile bicycle ever is, is a perfecto rounder. You can go everywhere and do whatever you want with that. You can to commute, you can travel with it. And that that's, that was why I decided to start my, my, my background, my bike brand with, with a gravel bike, but Y E gravel bike it's because I saw there was a new world to discover with a, with an, a knee bike.

I, I, I really love to. I travel with my bike. I, every year I try to do at least one of two long urinates during, I don't know, 10, 10, 10 days or 12 days crossing part of the Spain. And I was always carrying my, my backpacks and, and all the, all the backs to, to carry all the stuff for 11 or 12 days. And, uh, some at some points I was Australian because even if you're feet, you definitely feel.

All the way your came with you it's as, at some points it's, it's too much and you don't enjoy very much with that. So I start to think, okay. The, even for that kind of customers, when you're traveling, when you need a bike, that goes all kind of the rains, an e-bike it's perfect too, because you can be riding without any assistance and at certain points where you need some.

You can count with that backup system that is going to help you. It's going to make your life a little bit more easy, and it doesn't mean that it's going to be any trick and you're not going to enjoy cycling, or you're not gonna do a workout. It's just going to help you when you want or when you need. I think it's

[00:24:09] Craig Dalton: really interesting with the e-bike again, cause I, I feel like a lot of people like the natural perception is it's not a fitness experience, but it just changes.

Where you're able to ride. They think about riders here out of San Francisco and anybody who's living in the city knows it might take you half an hour to get across the golden gate bridge and then into the Headlands. And in a big day, you might get to the top of Mount TA. But if you eliminate some of the efforts in the, the early part of that ride and maybe ride out to Fairfax and start from the backside of Mount TA, all of a sudden things that would've normally taken.

A six, seven hour ride long day, which is generally outside the, the world of possibility for a lot of people, all of a sudden you're able to explore the backside of Mount TA or, or even farther out with the ESY. Yeah. So it becomes really interesting in the same way. Just a gravel bike in general becomes interesting that the combination of roads and trails, you can bring things together that you otherwise wouldn't.

On other types of bikes mm-hmm so I think it's, it's just one of those very thoughtful things. As people are thinking about these bikes, you need to consider what, what it will open up for you to. .

Yeah.

[00:25:23] David Toledo: Yeah. This is one of the, one of the actual, this one of the main keys that you can, you can prepare your daily ride in like absolutely different way.

You can, if you need to cross a city or you need to, uh, reach a certain point and you, you need to do some, I don't know, row that even you need some speed or whatever the EBI is going to always help you there. And you can enjoy the rest of the ride without, but this is part of the key of, of our concept that you can enjoy.

Without any assistance, because even with other e-bikes you in the end, when you are not pedaling or when you're not having assistance from the motor, you are moving the motor. And this is somehow, this is hurting your experience because you have some kind of filling, like, like you have, uh, a not fine pedaling or you, you feel it like, uh, a little bit like a jam.

I don't know how to express it in it's. So easy to pedal light with, or as in a standard bike and in, but with the FSU system, it's very interesting because when you don't use the, the assistance, the motor is disconnected from the bottom bracket. So you feel that you're riding a standard bike, even with the

[00:26:27] Craig Dalton: mechanism still installed on the bike, you still don't feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:32] David Toledo: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's a point. That's a point you have three, a systems modes. This is the breeze, as you described before, there is yeah. Having some wind on your back and the rocket, but in the middle you have, uh, a river and all of them, you can configure, uh, you can customize them with, with your laptop and, uh, a USB cable connected to the system.

You can transform your, your whole system into, uh, a different behavior when you want and you can explore and you can play with it. But the, the cool thing is. You have another mode that it's, uh, we call it like the non systems mode and, and the LEDs are, uh, right and wide. And in this mode, it's, the system has a clutch and the motor is connected from the bottom bracket.

So you are riding a standard bike and you're carrying, of course you're carrying some extra way because you, you have this 3.1, sorry, 7.3, uh, pounds of the motor and the battery. But it's not that much. It's not something that, and you are not really going to notice that weight very much because you're riding like one of the, uh, wonderful things of the global bikes is that they are not, you know, rolling this massive, super wide and heavy tires of a moon bike.

You're rolling with a, with a tire that really rolls. Perfect. And even with the battery on the motor there, it's great. But one of the keys of the system is that you, your motor is disconnected when you're not using the systems. So you have a standard bike.

[00:27:59] Craig Dalton: That's really interesting. And I know for the listener of a, a large, very large American brand, just introduced a mountain bike with this same exact engine in it.

So I think it's something we're gonna see more and more. And again, I probably misspoke. I shouldn't call it an engine. It's that mid drive motor that we're talking about. interesting. So where are you in the progression of beginning to start your production and deliver bikes?

[00:28:25] David Toledo: Yeah, that's interesting question.

Uh, a lot of people ask it, ask it as about the, the production and because everybody knows how it's industry right now and the industry struggling. This is struggling because there's, it's, there's a boom on the demand. Something that after 15 years in the cycle industry, I never saw something like this, but it's, it's great because this is in somehow it's, it's unparalleled with our vision.

We, we want more people riding on bikes. We want more people. Using versatile solutions for enjoying and for doing sports and also for commuting for transport. And so that's great because this means that more people is using bicycles. But yeah, the, the question is we are not going to use the stocks of the OE products.

This in industry, in the cycle industry, there is two, two ways to approach to the, to the components. You can buy them as a OE, or you can buy them as a. A store or something as a retailer, the big players are always, they need to use OE stocks because they're ordering massive amounts of products. They cannot order their products to any other stock that is not an OE.

And this needs go through the, directly to the production facility in whatever, in Japan or in the us, or in Asia. And that, that has a list of orders or pre-orders from all the big grant. And. Like right now because everybody's ordering and there's a mass waiting list. And, but our case is a little bit different because we are a small brand and we are not going to order a massive amount of, of parts.

Uh, so we are going to order them to the local European stocks to have access to, to products that are going to be a viable sooner than the OE production. So we are gonna have of course, a. Expensive product. We are gonna have less margin in our products, but instead we can, we can deliver the bicycles to our customers before.

[00:30:26] Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, we've talked about it on the podcast before. It's a very complicated moment in time for global supply chains and it's particularly affecting all the smaller brands that I speak with because the big guys are sucking up all that volume and the manufacturers just simply can't keep up with the demand.

[00:30:46] David Toledo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a with the COVID thing, there was like a lot of work that was a stop. And, but basically the production capacity is what it is. So even if you want to order more, the factories can produce more. So this is right.

[00:31:03] Craig Dalton: Yeah. You assume that it would sort itself,

[00:31:05] David Toledo: we would start shipping.

[00:31:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Sorry, dude. I was saying, saying, yeah, you assumed that a year into the pandemic that it was gonna start working itself out, but there's no indication that supply is unlocking anytime soon. Can you repeat

[00:31:18] David Toledo: again? The, the question please? Because I, I was some cut

[00:31:21] Craig Dalton: in this. Yeah, no worries. No worries.

Yeah. You would've, you, I would've assumed a year into the pandemic that the supply chains would've been unlocked at this. But there certainly hasn't been any indication from people I've been speaking with that. That's the case. No, it's not the

[00:31:35] David Toledo: case. It's not the case. This is still struggling. The thing is that it, it has somehow it's like the perfect storm, right?

Because, um, with the co and in, in the whole world has been locked down in their homes for really, for months, at least in here in Europe, it was like pretty crazy because we were in our homes. We can't even not go out for anything, basically. Can go to the mall to buy some foods. And that was all. So the people was at their homes and they were really suffering.

And once the people started to go again, out to the streets, they, they appreciate more than ever before the, the freedom to go out the freedom to practice the sports. That was part of why all this boom is coming from because the people wanted to keep practicing sports and enjoying their life. And also in, in the big cities, the people.

Concern about using the, the public transports or the VA or the subway, whatever. So there's a lot of people that also they are buying bicycles to do commute. And so this is this together with the, with the, the whole stop that the production in, in Asia had the first, uh, quarter of the year. And even until the mid 20.

And plus all the demand that all the, all this action industry is putting right now onto the, onto the production in, in Asia and in Europe. That's what is making this perfect storm and seems that it's not going to change in the short time. Definitely. We think that probably until 20 22, 20 23, this is not going to be better.

Definitely. Yeah.

[00:33:08] Craig Dalton: As you and I were talking offline, I think there there's gonna be this new reality post COVID and I, I do hope and I'm optimistic. The sheer volume of people out on bikes is going to start to transform a lot of our communities and make cycling even safer and better. And products like this that have the versatility to deliver you maybe farther than you'd normally want to pedal on any given day, I think are really exciting changes in modality for transportation that we're in front.

[00:33:39] David Toledo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. This, I, I saw somehow the whole COVID thing has forced to speed up some changes in the world. Right. We were spec talking before about the, the new way to work and where the people is, where the people is located, working. They are right now working in different places or from their home.

And now the, even the companies have discovered that, okay, maybe. Working from home is not that bad. And, and so the people it's changing their, um, mentality the way they understand the, the world. And this is somehow, this is because of the. And also the cycling industry. It's getting some profit from that because, uh, the bicycle is the perfect transport solution for a lot of people, but they didn't discover so far.

So right now the people is discovering. Yeah. Wow. The bicycle is not that bad. It's great. I even go faster or I can, I spend less time that with my car because. Before that I was in a traffic jam and now I don't need to look for a, I don't know, half hour when hour looking for a parking to, to park my car.

And now with a bicycle, I even, I go, even I reach my, my, my job happier because I'm, I'm practicing sports because before going to the office and. I arrived to my office with a, with a smile. And I, before that I was arriving really mad in a bad view, uh, in a bad news because I was tired of, uh, being for a long time in traffic jam.

And this, this is changing. This is absolutely changing.

[00:35:08] Craig Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. Some of the many reasons I'm excited about the project you're working on with Crow bicycles, for the listener, I'll put links to crow's website and their launch campaign. that you should check out. Yeah. And I very much look forward to trying one of these bicycles, myself and getting a perception on how it opens up.

Yeah. Gravel cycling in my community for. .

[00:35:29] David Toledo: Yeah, we're looking for that too. We have the truth is that we have right now, one bicycle on the us, it arrived last week and we're gonna have soon the motor and the battery system, because we needed to send it separately for, uh, different reasons. But yeah, it's gonna be ready for you soon.

So we are looking forward to, to, to handle the word you and, and see your, your reaction to that bike. I think you're gonna, you're gonna love it. I'm enjoying this bike probably more than any other bike before. I'm appreciate that. A lot of people is going to discover a new work with this, uh, new concept.

[00:36:02] Craig Dalton: Awesome. Thanks for all the time today, David. I appreciate the overview.

[00:36:06] David Toledo: Thank you very much for your time and congratulations for your work and this, this podcast.

[00:36:11] Craig Dalton: Big. Thanks again to David for joining the show and telling us more about Crow, bicycles, and their exciting lineup. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can find them online.

I'm keen to get your feedback. So if any of you are e-bike riders or have thoughts on the subject, feel free to shoot me a note or join me in the ridership forum. You can simply visit www.theridership.com. That's our free global cycling community. So jump right in and have a conversation.

It's a great way to connect with me and other gravel cyclists from around the world. If you're able to support the show, simply visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. And remember to go check out that hammerhead, kuru to offer, use the promo code, the gravel ride. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels