FOES RACING Calls on TITAN for 5-Axis Part

I started building mountain bikes. I got into it about 25 years ago. Suspension was just starting to come in. There's a very few companies that were actually manufacturing suspension bikes. I actually had to build my own suspension because there really wasn't anything out there that I was looking for. And so my first bike that I built had six inches of wheel travel. And that was something that was unheard of back then. A friend of mine saw the bike and he asked if he could take a photograph of it. Next thing I know, I started getting some phone calls at like two in the morning from some bicycle dealers in Japan looking to buy my bikes. And I had to explain to them that, you know, I wasn't in the business of manufacturing mountain bikes. I just built one for myself. But we figured, well, we'll make 100 frames and become rich. But it didn't quite work like that. It took time to get this thing going. And from there on, it just started getting busier and busier, keeping things just improving all the time. Welcome to Monterey, California. We're at the Sea Otter Classic. It's a mountain biking event. I was invited down by my good friend Brent Foes. Brent has been making American-made mountain bikes. They're the best frames in the world. They do it all in-house, making an incredible light aluminum bike that takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Foes Racing, right here in California. Boom. Let's go check this guy out. Brent. Titan. How are you, brother? Good. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for coming down. Yes. Thanks for inviting me. Look at that. Handmade in the USA. So this place is big. I thought there was going to be just like a small little event. No, no, no. This is our van of the year. That's crazy. So how many people are here right now? Oh, we get probably 30,000 people over the weekend. 30,000 people. Yeah. So these are the bikes you build? These are our babies. So basically, you have one frame, and then you guys bring different parts for different... No, actually, we have five different frames for five different categories of style of riding. This is our downhill bike. It's called the Hydro H2, and it's built strictly for racing downhill. This thing has eight and a half inches of wheel travel, which is actually how much the wheel travels up and down. So that allows you to just to float over any kind of terrain you want to throw at it. Is it pretty smooth when you come in, and the tires are just like boom, boom, boom? No, no. It's smooth. Believe me. I mean, when you're riding this thing, you just feel like you can do anything. Just stationary. Yeah. I look at the tires, and I see all three of these bikes are very similar, right? Yes. But over here, you got this big old beast that looks like a motorcycle. Yeah. Is this for like the sand, or like what's this for? No, actually, Titan, this thing was originally designed for the snow. These things float right over the snow. So you're building the frames, you're building the bikes right here in America, and then you have different partners also to build the bikes all the way up? Yeah. We try to put as many parts on our frames that are made here in the U.S. And then you have all these CNC parts, like you said, 20-something different parts that you guys are machining that are on this bike? Yep. California built in the USA. Oh, so good. That's so good. While you're here, maybe you can help me out with something. We're in the transition of moving, and I don't have time to try to create this thing. And I know you guys got the technology and the five-axis machines up there. What I'm trying to do and what I envision is creating a new linkage that we make already, but improving it. Okay. What I want to do is we're going to eliminate six pieces, and with your new part, we'll only have two parts. Two parts. American innovation right there. Yeah. It'd be my honor to make some CNC parts also California built for your amazing bike, man. It's going to be good. Yeah, it'll be great. I think the key factors to being able to make stuff here in the U.S. is having the right people working with you. Guys that are dedicated, that enjoy what they do, they really like making stuff. We like to be able to control every little bit and piece of the bike. We can come up with a design, build it, test it, no matter of a couple weeks. We might just start out making a full scale out of a styrofoam board. It's easy to machine and manipulate to create our forming dies. And then once that's perfected, then we'll make it out of aluminum. The material that we choose to build our frames is 6061 T6 aluminum aircraft alloy. This material outperforms anything else out there. Once we test it, make sure everything's correct, then we'll put it in production. We start out with just raw tubing, flat sheets of aluminum. We design the top tube, we create our own molds, and then we hydroform it, it gives it that shape that we're looking for. After that form is shaped, we take it next door, weld them together to create our top tube. The other tubing, we manipulate and bend that. There's a lot of individual pieces that it takes to build a complete bike. All the machine parts we make in-house. Once that's all welded, then we send it out and get it heat treated. We bring it back, we check the alignment, we send it out and get it painted, we assemble it, check the alignment again, put the shock on it, and box it up and ship it all over the world. We're constantly innovating our bikes and trying to make it more efficient and better. Me and my engineer came up with a new design that we wanted to put on our new 2017 model, but it was going to take a five-axis machine, which I don't have, and I was thinking, watching the show Titan, maybe he can help us out with some ideas on how to make it. He's actually designing and building my first part, so hopefully we can have our own five-axis machine and create this own part ourselves with his help. Our assembly that we produce currently is this here, and as you can see, there are individual components that make up this assembly. We have at least one, two, three, four, five, six, several parts. So if we can utilize a five-axis design, we can reduce the amount of parts required, reduce the amount of time. Customers will get a lower price, higher quality product, higher performing product as well. So I have the Bose racing part here. Instead of having all these little brackets, they're basically taking this part and putting it right into the frame of the bike. True American quality. So I'm going to go ahead and simulate. We can see the three-quarter inch end mill dropping down, and I can watch it as it actually cuts all the way around the surface. I'll just use adaptive clearing. There's a finish pass. On the top, I had to drop into a few cavities with a half-inch bullnose. It's already creating the radius. So that entire kind of ramp up, that slope, that's what we're roughing right now. I'm going to come back with a drill. I'm going to knock out these two holes drilling right through the part. Now that the entire part is roughed out, I finish up the counterbore. You have bearings that are actually press-fitting into that cavity. I'm going to start attacking it with a ball end mill. It's basically going to surface the entire part, putting the radiuses on all at the same time. It's going all the way around the part. Now I flip my axis, my five axis. We're roughing through. I just did it in two passes. Peripheral milling. What used to be many different operations, 90% of everything is done in one operation. Now we're just going to flip everything over, boom, drop it into some soft jaws. We're going to cut off the back and run the exact same program. Fast and efficient five axis machining, boom. Hey, Titan. Brent. Good to see you, man. How you doing? Great to see you. Brought my crew with me. Troy, Scott. Nice to meet you. Alan. Good to see you, man. We got your part literally last night. I was here machining this thing and they're coming off the machine literally right now, complete. We'll assemble it, make sure everything's good. Then we'll go up in the mountains up here in Northern California. I'll show you guys where the real trails are. Got a custom bike in the van and we're going to do some riding today. So good. I'm so excited. When I had my conversation with Titan, I didn't realize it, but he is a mountain biker too. And I just said, we got to build you a custom bike because you got to be on a Foes. We took a frame that I knew was going to fit him and sent it over to Magic Graphics. Talked to my friend Tyler over there and he came up with graphics and it really, really looks cool. I know he's going to be really excited about it. What's up, Dana? What's up? How's it going? It's all right. How's it looking? Just finished. Perfect timing. This is Brent. Dana, nice to meet you. His team. The part is finished. Let's check it out. Can't wait. So yesterday we dovetailed it, did the top operation. I programmed it, flipped it around, cut it around, flip it, flip it. And then this morning, Dana and Stuart made these big jaws right here. Just cut out the profile, put the part inside. And basically what I did on the back side or the first side, just mirrored it and reran the same tools on the other side, bringing it complete. Wow. This thing is awesome. What do you think, Alan? It's amazing. It's a lot lighter than I thought. Yeah, we'll get the frame and bring it over here and see how it fits. And then I'm going to go get your bike. Oh, my bike. I haven't seen it yet. I can't wait. I can't wait to show it to you. Boom. I build every bike like it was for myself. I want to be known for dependability, simplicity, but performance. We stamp in Foes USA, and that's something that I'm real proud of. I mean, people are looking for, you know, American-made products that's developed and tested right here. And that's why I think we're still been in business for 25 years. I just wanted you guys to come over here and check it out. This is the part that we just machined on the five axis, and that's how it goes. And the part came out beautiful. It's all perfect, huh? Yeah, no, it fits perfect. It clears everything. Now, you know, you can actually see it working, traveling up and down. It works flawless. So this is, like, going to be one of your 2017 models? This is the first version. You guys are seeing it for the first time. It's our 2017 FXR. So we're going to get back to the shop, put this together, and go test it like we normally do. Put it through its torture, and then... Ship it back to me. No. So we'll put it together, go test it, and we'll keep you posted on how it's progressing. I think it's going to work really well. It was cool because we were talking about the Autodesk Fusion. That's right, yeah. You know, I started programming it over here. It was great because for the first time, I realized how awesome it was because I was programming. I literally left my computer here, went home, played with my kids, went on my computer, and everything I did right here was over there. Because it's all in the cloud, you know what I mean? So it's like I worked a little bit over there, worked a little bit over here, came in, worked a little bit, got it out there, machined it. Boom! Team Titan. Team Foes. American built. How's this American made bike right here? Hey, Titan. Awesome. Here you go. All American made. This is amazing. Thank you so much, man. You're welcome. You're quite welcome. So good. Absolutely. Want to make your part of the team? Oh, I get a jersey too. Can it fit? Yeah, it'll fit you. That's awesome. Titan on the back. So good. Seems like super light too. Yeah, it's light, but strong and dependable. It's got all the good stuff on it. It's amazing. We'll get you dialed in and tear it up. Oh, they hit the trails. Yep. Teach you how to ride. Thank you so much for coming up to my facility, bringing your team up, taking me riding on your American made bike. We love what we do and all these beautiful bikes I build in the USA. 25 years this year. That was great that you said, hey, I'll take that challenge on and do it. And seeing the finished part and putting it on the frame, it just all came together just great. Some of those bumps, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Your bike just handled it, the suspension. I can't wait to go again. We take pride in creating something that'll get you down the trail safe. Bose Racing, handmade in the USA. Boom. We're out.