[Interview by Alix Giboulot - find the full article in the Ahooga Magazine]

Thomas is often in his running outfit. At lunch, he usuallly runs a breezy 8-10 km loop. Maybe that’s the secret to his calm aura that survived the storm of this thunderous project: engineering and producing a completely new bike in less than three years. Thomas was hired out of Toyota, where he had a 15 year long career split between design and production. A chunk of those years was spent working 80% to accommodate the practice and study of his hobby: classical guitar making.

ALIX: Shall we start with your role at Ahooga?

THOMAS: I’ve been here almost 3 years now. I was hired as an engineer to develop the new models, we immediately zeroed in on Max. Before that I was in the automobile industry, I did half of that in product design and half in production - from quality checks to setting up an efficient and cost-efficient process. So it was interesting coming into this position because it allowed me to piece together all my knowledge across this spectrum. I became in charge of the product team and focused on the R&D side, but I did a deep dive into our previous model since that was the one we were improving on. I also focused on our new way of producing our bike - we internalized the whole design and industrialization process so we had to go upstream and handpick our suppliers. That was a lot of work to make sure the product was perfect not only at a scale of 1 piece but also in batches of 300. We quickly realized the best way to assemble the bike was to do it in-house, which was also a challenge. Before Max, we barely had any assembly work done at HQ, and now we do 100% of it with Max. Big jump.

ALIX: What made you switch to a small bike company?

THOMAS: At Toyota, I saw the full process from ideation to production. It was great and I gathered a lot of experience. But big companies are not for me, I knew from the beginning I would not finish my career at Toyota. It was fascinating, I learned a lot, they are world-class in a lot of fields - but I wanted to find a smaller scale where people are taking on a broader spectrum of tasks. I get bored easily, so at Toyota, I already switched places quite frequently. The bike industry is also warm and human, which is a contrast with the automotive industry. All the way up to suppliers.

“Max is very special. It was difficult to find a supplier that was capable and willing to take on the challenge. We had to create new ways of manufacturing bikes, different from the usual practices. We are very happy to be working with a top tier supplier.”

ALIX: But you could have gone for a small car company. Why the move to bikes?

THOMAS: I’ve never been a huge car fan, although the production process is very interesting. But I wanted to contribute to a more positive impact on the environment.

ALIX: Do you cycle regularly?

THOMAS: Everyday. We don’t have a car, we do it all on our bikes. We have a membership for a car-sharing service for when we really need a car. I have a Modular bike I take my daughter to school with, everyday.

ALIX: What was the biggest difficulty in going from concept to production with Max?

THOMAS: The frame. Max is very special. It was difficult to find a supplier that was capable and willing to take on the challenge. We had to create new ways of manufacturing bikes, different from the usual practices. We are very happy to be working with a top-tier supplier. There was also a challenge for everything to fit together in theory, but even more so at an industrial scale. Making sure all frames come out right so that all the other pieces align, and with the right clearance, and to achieve that repeatedly, is a huge challenge.

ALIX: We have quite some custom pieces as well. Was that part of the challenge?

THOMAS: It’s less complex than the frame but yes, there was quite some development work there too.

ALIX: Is there a part of the process you’re particularly proud of?

THOMAS: The timeframe, It’s a little miracle, doing all this in just under 3 years. Going from a vague concept to designing, finding the suppliers, designing the machines, launching production... Usually, that’s the time a company spends in frame design alone. It’s an incredible achievement.

ALIX: What was the feedback loop like between product and design teams?

THOMAS: Tight. No choice, we’re a small team so it was a real co-creation. Luckily Romain, the designer, is already very familiar with the intricacies of concrete design and production, and I was well-versed too in bridging that with industrialization. So we worked it out together. Full credit also goes to the entire product team, I’m thinking of Federico Zavala Cuevas for the electronic and quality engineering, and William Kies for mechanical engineering. I look forward to seeing what our new engineers, Nicolas Sabbagh and Eliot HAMM , will bring to our new developments.

Find the full article and more interviews and insights in the Ahooga Magazine.