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FEATURES: NEILPRYDE LUNCH RIDE
Zap
January 21, 2012
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We first became aware of the NeilPryde Bikes at the 2011 Sea Otter Classic where the new-found company had a booth with their bikes on display. A few months later, we tested one of their Diablo bikes last year and didn't hear a lot more from them until we heard they were the new sponsor of the powerhouse United Healthcare racing team.
When we attended the team training camp in Palm Springs two weeks ago, we not only found a sea of NeilPryde bikes, but we also got to meet Mike Pryde, scion to the the company namesake who founded the company back in 1970. From his earliest days as a yachtsman in New Zealand, Neil Pryde was an avid sailor and eventually, performance sailing and windsurfing products were what the company fortunes were built on.
In the years since, NeilPryde also got involved in snowboarding (Flow boards), and now, thanks to Neil's son Mike and his own personal interest in two wheels, they are chasing the cycling business in a big way. At the camp we made plans to go out for a ride and try our hand with the second road model after the Diablo, the aero Alize.
BUT FIRST, MEET MIKE PRYDE
Mike Pryde is the guy that got a water & snow company tuned into cycling.
RBA: With the NP's history in all things water & sailing, what was the impetus to get going with bicycles?
Mike:
Before the launch of the bike business, we did an online survey with
our existing windsurf consumers to measure customer satisfaction and
also track the socio-economic demographic landscape of our consumer
base. We have long known that many windsurfers are also active in bikes
in both Road & MTB. In fact many of our staff and windsurf pro
athletes are very avid cyclists. The survey clearly indicated that 60% of our consumers were also into
cycling. We then looked at our internal resources and expertise and our
years of R&D in composites and aerodynamics were very well aligned
with the road bike industry.
There was also a big push from me personally because I raced at
pro-level in DH mountain biking and at Elite Level on the road and my knowledge of both
bike design and technology through my career in Architecture (practiced
for 8 years) and years of racing respectively meant that I was
emotionally invested in the project. We believe that sport starts from
the heart and winning races is a result of applying the right training
and equipment to pursuing an emotional drive.
RBA: What was your goal w/ the bikes (in terms of design,final production and brand message) in the first year?
Mike: Our goals was to make an impact in the market and gain
traction through the development of performance driven bikes that were
also elegantly engineered. There are many brands that focus purely on
engineering, typically from Focus, Canyon, Storck, Specialized and
Cervelo and then there are brands that are driven by design, such as
Orbea, Colnago, Pinarello etc. There is no reason why bikes should not
be engineered for racing whilst being beautiful at the same time. We see
that BMC are successfully doing this and our goals are to establish
credibility as a performance brand, which is why UHC is so important for
promotions and R&D and also be respected as a brand that is driven
to design beautiful products with great designers and getting
credibility via iF Awards & Reddot etc.
RBA: Could you just say a bit about the partnership with BMW design group?
Mike: The company has always used both internal and external design
resources and we have used award winning designers such as BMW Group
DesignworksUSA, Fuseproject, Thomas Meyerhoffer and Jamie Mclellan. They
bring fresh ideas to the conversation and we marry this with our
engineering resources to introduce products that make an impact in the
market.
RBA: Can you say anything about the new Bayamo TT bike in the works?
Mike: The TT Bike was also designed by BMW Group DesignworksUSA and
the Aerodynamic Computer Fluid Dynamics was done by engineers who
formally worked at Cervelo. We had a technical meeting with a select
number of UHC riders in order to fine tune the geometry and technical
details and we will have two sizes available for the riders before the
Tour of California for testing with its racing debut set for the Tour of
California ITT. We will also be working with the riders at the A2 Wind
Tunnel in the near future in order to collect valuable data so that the
final production bike available to consumers will be one of the fastest
TT bikes in the market.
RBA: What about the UHC team and the racing world - what does that mean for Neil Pryde?
Mike: NEILPRYDE has over 40 windsurfing world championship titles
and UHC is key to the ongoing R&D and product validation for the
brand. UHC and NEILPRYDE have similar ambitions and that is to be at UCI
ProTeam level by season 2014.
AND THEN THERE WAS THE LUNCH RIDE
As soon as the NeilPryde demo rig rolled-up, all work at RBA ceased - it was time to ride!
NeilPryde is another brand who has been quick to recognize the benefits of an aero road bike - the Alize. The Alize frames start at $2960, while the lighter Diablo frame starts at $3250. One very cool aspect of the NeilPryde brand is their custom frame color build program. The frames are available in six sizes.
As is par for the course, the Alize features internal cable routing and a tapered head tube.
The NP guys say the BMW Design Group inspired rubber covers on the seatpost (the lower to cover the seat clamp, the higher to, apparently mark your seat height) are "novel". We think they're just burdensome and plain silly - the result of "design group think". Luckily they can be removed.
A svelte fork (with a tapered head tube) is coupled with a non-production spec set of Enve carbon wheels and Chris King hubs.
The RBA boys (ad slime Derreck, "Young" Michael White, "Real Deal" Neil) lined up in the parking lot of RBA's palatial towers. Oh, yeah, that's RBA test rider Anthony (second from right) who snuck in for some extra training miles, plus NeilPryde rep Chris Evertsen.
Typically, the RBA Power Rangers took an early lead on the bike path.
Once out of suburbia, the ride headed out into the wilds, up and over the Vasquez Canyon climb.
While Michael helped Chris fix a flat, Derreck and Neil had a conversation about their bottom brackets.
For more info - NeilPryde Bikes
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