Booth # 5745 Why in the BMX zone?
Where else? It's so good to have a BMX area. I wish we had this at Eurobike as well.
In general, what are the tough things to battle when developing new products?
The fear that the final sample is awesome, but production comes out totally different.
Do you fancy going to Taiwan to follow up on the development process and to negotiate pricing? I just go once a year to the Taipeh bike show. This is the time when we check the first samples of our bikes. We build them up ourselves to see possible problems/errors directly. Harry goes 6-8 times a year to Taiwan to check everything.
Who are some of the riders that give good feedback on the products that make your life easier?
All our teamriders give good feedback on our new stuff. The tech riders give more feedback on geometry, the burly riders are good to test the strength of the products.
Do you have secret product testers out there or do the team riders take care of that? The team is really important for testing our stuff, but we also give out many samples to local riders in Cologne. So we get the feedback way faster and the team doesn't have to send in the samples again.
Big tires, big bars, slammed seats, small gearing and lightweight. What's next?
Fat padded seats, higher frames, alloy pedals. Everything comes back again. I love trends, but in the end it's function before fashion and some trends just don't help make your riding better. BMX is also at the point that every set-up looks the same. This is boring, so something will change sooner or later.
How hard is it to come up with a colour for your products? My personal nightmare. It would be so easy to choose if we would make 8 different colors per product. But if you just have 4 to choose it is really hard to find the right ones. You also have to guess what colors people might like months before the stuff comes out.
Are you scared of the mandatory paint/colour testing or do you not worry about that yet?
We are not scared. If you work together with the right manufacturers, you don't have to worry.
How important is pricepoint for your products? It is important of course, but we still prefer to have our own molds for our products like the new eclat pivotal seats, than having the same stuff like 10 other brands just to get a better pricepoint. BMX needs to be original again.
Can you explain how hard it is to put an original idea into a final product?
Tires are the hardest. You can't get a sample like for a sprocket or a frame, it just has to be perfect from the beginning. There's no way to test a PC tire sample.
What is a 2010 product you designed that you are most proud of?
Our new bikes make me proud. Normally I am really picky, but those bikes just rule. Almost all of the parts are exclusive on our bikes and can't be found on any other bikes.
What's the worst design in BMX at the moment? Maybe not the worst design, but seeing 10 different BMX-brands offering the same Taiwanese Velo plastic seat or plastic pedals makes me bored.
What do you think is a clever product?
Check out the new eclat fork at Interbike.
Why do people need to look into your brand?
We try to come out with our own product designs. We will have some interesting new things at our booth that you should check out!
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.