In today's episode, we interview Tony Karklins, the owner of Time Bicycles. We discuss Tony's journey in the bike industry, from working in a bike shop to becoming a distributor and eventually acquiring Time Bicycles. Tony shares insights into the evolution of the bike industry, particularly the impact of carbon fiber technology. He also talks about the acquisition of Time Bicycles and the company's focus on manufacturing and innovation. The conversation then shifts to the new gravel models introduced by Time Bicycles for 2024 and the unique features that set them apart. Tony explains the importance of staying true to the Time brand while catering to the evolving needs of the market. He also discusses the future plans for Time Bicycles, including expanding manufacturing in the United States.

Time Bicycles

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Key Takeaways:

• Tony Karklins has over 40 years of experience in the bike industry and has played a significant role in the growth and development of various bike brands.
• Time Bicycles is a storied brand in the cycling industry, known for its high-performance carbon fiber bikes.
• The acquisition of Time Bicycles by Tony Karklins was driven by the desire to acquire the company's manufacturing capabilities and continue the legacy of the brand.
• Time Bicycles is focused on innovation and manufacturing, with a particular emphasis on resin transfer molding technology.
• The introduction of new gravel models for 2024 reflects Time Bicycles' commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the market while staying true to the brand's identity

Transcript:

[TRANSCRIPT]

**** - (): time_bicycles _ jan 19, 2024 001_riverside

[00:00:00 ] - (): Craig Dalton: Tony, welcome to the show.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me. Uh,

**** - (): Craig Dalton: as, as a fan of the sport and someone who's been around the sport from my bike shop days in college till now, I'm excited to talk about Time Bicycles. It's such a storied brand in the industry. And having spoken to you a little bit offline, your journey to get there, I think is going to be fascinating for the listener to learn about.

**** - (): Craig Dalton: And ultimately we want to talk about the new gravel models you've got for 2024. Sounds great. Where do you want to start? Let's start off just by a little bit of your background. Where are you located and how'd you get into the sport of cycling and what led to you working in the bike industry? All

**** - (): Tony Karklins: right.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: I, uh, I live in Little Rock, Arkansas. You know, Arkansas is the new hotbed of cycling globally now. So, uh, I've been in the bike industry here for about 40 years. I started to work in the neighborhood bike shop in the early eighties. Became a bike shop owner in the mid 80s, and I ran 2 retail stores here until 99, 2000.

[00:01:00 ] - (): Tony Karklins: It's almost made it 20 years in bike retail here, and I decided that I wanted to stay in the bike industry, but I was kind of done with retail. I'd taken my turn there, and so I started traveling to the European trade shows. Looking for bike brands that were established in Europe that maybe needed help in the United States.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: Um, and did a few small distribution and agent deals with some, you know, really neat, small artists and Italian brands and kind of 1 deal led to the next. And then, uh, late 99 or early 2000. I was introduced to this brand that I had never heard of. And no 1 in America had at that time was called. And it was a tiny little, uh, BASC company that was moving out of kind of mass production bikes, and they wanted to get into high performance, and they wanted to get their brand on the Tour de France, and they wanted to see if they could produce, you know, a leading global brand, and started as a distributor for them for a couple of years.

[00:02:00 ] - (): Tony Karklins: It went really well, uh, and then we built it into a joint venture, and I ran that joint venture as the managing director of the Americas until 2014. So, uh, yeah. And we built Orbea in that time to, you know, leading European brand selling in the United States and a true global player. And it was a really interesting time in the bike industry because I started in it right before the carbon fiber boom happened.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: When I went to work for Orbea, premium bikes were made out of really lightweight steel. Uh, or, uh, even and we advance in a really lightweight aluminum, like Columbus Starship and some of the really cool 2 pound aluminum frames and they were light and they were fast, but they wrote like crap because they were so stiff.

[00:03:00 ] - (): Tony Karklins: Right? Yeah, I mean, carbon fiber comes into the forks and all of a sudden it made the aluminum bikes ride a lot better. And so, uh, watch, watch carbon fiber hit the bike industry, and it really took the industry by storm in around 2003, 2004. There was this moment where all the best bikes in the Tour de France were aluminum or titanium.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: And within 12 months, it all went carbon fiber. And really changed the bike industry a lot because the bike industry and the bike brands, all this history brands that you know of, they were born as metal shops, right? They can cut and weld and bend, but when carbon hit, everybody was like. What is this stuff?

**** - (): Tony Karklins: Where do I get it and how do I do it fast? And so I lived in this moment where I saw all that bike production all through the United States and Europe come down in the premium categories and get shipped to Asia because they could make carbon fiber. Yeah.

**** - (): Craig Dalton: I was going to ask you from an Orbea perspective, like how did they solve that problem?

**** - (): Craig Dalton: They knew they had to get into carbon fiber, the same

**** - (): Tony Karklins: thing at the same time. You know, Orbea was Orbea is they take fast, smart decisions quick. So we were right there at the very start of carbon fiber. I remember there was this moment in America where we had a warehouse full of carbon fiber before it was really.

[00:04:00 ] - (): Tony Karklins: Hot, like a couple of months before it was hot and then Cannondale went into bankruptcy and then something happened at light speed, but spike the cost of titanium raw material. And then like a month of fearing. I would never be able to sell this inventory for a bicycling magazine being sold out for 2 years.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: That was some of the magic that happened during that time. A lot of, uh, when carbon hit, it just, it hit hard and it changed the industry and it changed where and how bikes were made. Um, and it was a, it was a boom moment for us at Orbea, for sure. We, we, we, we went through the roof, you know, because we were there.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: One of the very first real product and real availability. Yeah. So I had a great run with, with Orbea. Um, they acquired the rest of the company from us in 2014. And then I decided that, um, I wanted to get into manufacturing because I noticed at that moment in 2014, 15 and 16, that everybody was sort of cooking in the same kitchen, you know?

[00:05:00 ] - (): Tony Karklins: It was, everything started to look alike again, and there was just different colors and graphics and marketing campaigns. So I said, okay, if I'm gonna stay in the bike industry, I wanna get into manufacturing.

**** - (): Craig Dalton: That seems like a big leap, right? So you a big

**** - (): Tony Karklins: leap. But you know, I, I, I, I'd been in the industry a long time, been in a lot of the factories.

**** - (): Tony Karklins: I mean, I saw it, you know? Yeah. I'm not an engineer. Um, now I almost am. But um, at that point, I just, I knew that, I knew that there was very little chance of success if you just went to Asia and did the same thing again. Yeah, I've seen too many people try to start their own brand, um, based on just desire of having a brand and no real tech or no real, you know, capabilities and, and they all kind of petered out the same way.

**** - (): Craig Dalton: And did you see the opportunity being, Hey, if I stand up a manufacturing facility, I've got enough connection in the industry that some brand may want to come to me for manufacturing. I'm thinking back to like. Frank the welder shop and you'd have,</p