The Mad Genius Behind the World's Most Boundary Pushing Bikes

Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming back to another episode of the Velo podcast. My name is Mike Levy, and today I'm talking to a guy who has built and modified some of the most batshit crazy bikes over the years. Now, if you ride a mountain bike, you might recognize the name Danger Holm, otherwise known as Gustav Gullholm. He's a guy who likes to spend his spare time, I don't know, maybe 30 hours scraping and sanding the paint off an already light Scott frame. Or maybe you know him as the guy who believes that no cable or brake line should ever be seen, to the point where he's had one-off handlebars and heavily modified carbon fork steerers made for him. Or maybe you just know him as the guy wearing the jorts with the huge quads. And now, Gustav is also the guy who wanted to set up gravel rims with a 42mm inner width and 70mm height. So today, we're going to talk about his crazy new gravel wheels, and we're also going to talk about his two new modified gravel bikes that were recently shown at the 2025 Bespoke Bike Show in the UK. Gustav, hell of an intro. Thanks for coming on. How are you, and where are you in the world? Thanks for having me. So I'm in a small town in Sweden, so dark and awaiting winter. So this is time for bike tuning and sort of like why this got started anyway, you know, too much spare time in the winter. Yeah, this is the best time of the year to be in a cave, slowly scraping paint off a frame, right? Exactly. That vision of, you know, sunshine and spring on a new bike, that's all That's all that's keeping me sane. Yeah, exactly. So the last time we talked was way back in 2021. And you were doing a bunch of mountain bike stuff back then. But you told me that you're probably going to do some gravel projects in the future. And now here we are, you've done, you did a flat bar gravel bike, and now you've done two drop bar gravel bikes. So just for some people listening, when did you get a gravel bike first? And like, how often are you riding gravel bikes? Yeah so I mean I got into cross-country riding I don't know a dozen or 14 years ago or something and at least half of that riding and training was on gravel roads anyway so you know sort of already riding a lot of gravel like so many other people and then in 2021 I got my first Scott Addict gravel like the proper I think by modern standards gravel bike and of course I enjoyed it a lot but I still Kept that love for mountain bike gravel style. So I've been doing a bunch of those builds as well, you know, trying to squeeze on a huge chainring on those mountain bike frames, which is always a bit of a pain in the ass, so stuff like that. Yeah, no doubt. So for people that might not know you, the way that I might describe you is like the close to like the final evolution of a shop rat, you know, like when you... When you work in a bike shop, you're often working on your own things, you're often tinkering, you're often working on projects and stuff, but you have taken things to the next level. So just for everybody listening, some background info, you started as a bike mechanic, right? Yeah, exactly. So I started working extra, you know, after school hours when I was 14 years old and in a small town local bike shop. And that's how I learned to wrench on bikes. And like I said, every long winter, you worked on a project for next year. And then you sold it in autumn and started over. And it just spiraled from there, you know. Out of control. Exactly, so you know. Ten years later, you know, I found myself building the world's lightest cross-country mountain bikes. And yeah, it really got out of hand in the best possible way. But a fun side note to that is that shop was actually one of the first Scott dealers in Sweden. It was like customer number six or something like that. So I essentially grew up around Scott bikes. And, you know, as a shop rat, you know, I was, you know, of course, we sold all the brands too. So you were buying some frames here and there. And it was back in 2016-17 that Scott released, at the time, the lightest cross-country bikes, cross-country frames out there, which won the Olympics and stuff like this. And at this point in my life, you know, I was single, I had some savings, I was like, okay, screw it, I'm gonna build my proper dream bike. Nothing but spare time. Time to order the heart and frame and the, and the fully and, um, I had read on some obscure German forum that you know to save the final bit of weight you need to strip the paint as well. So there was a brief description like yeah you take a knife and you hold it like this and you just scrape. So I started at the bottom of a chainstay so that if I messed it up it wouldn't be so visible. But yeah it all worked out and those bikes were then I featured on Pinkbike, which was my, you know, sort of like... A stroke of luck and that had this snowball effect and the bikes went all over the media and I was like, okay, ----, people actually enjoy seeing this kind of stuff. And I was already planning my next bike, which was going to be another Scott bike. So I was like, hey, let's just see if I can keep this momentum and see where it goes. And, you know, maybe. Scott sees this at some point, I maybe get a better price on some frame or something like this. And it just, you know, went from there. So it's like still at this point, it's like, yeah, let's see where this goes. But essentially to describe what I do is that... Yeah, like you said, the ultimate shop rat stuff, you know, I do bike tuning, so what I do is that most of the time I take some existing component or frame or whatever and try to tune it, I repaint it and just do a really nice custom build out of it. I wouldn't, I would go farther than that. Like a really nice custom build is like, yeah, I'm in my workshop and I bought, I bought some expensive things that I put them together. Oh, look at this thing. This is really cool. You, you are, you are having people like heavily modify like carbon parts for you. You're doing some molding stuff, um, all sorts of crazy stuff. And actually let's just get into these wheels. Cause now you've had a set of custom wheels made for you. Um, Gravel rims, the gravel world is actually, it's an interesting place. Gravel wheels are slowly getting wider. There's some options out there right now. Actually, I just got a set of, what are they? Light bicycle WG55s with a 32, 32 millimeter inner width. And here I am. Here I am thinking I've got these big wide ribs and then I see what you've made 42 millimeter internally, which is a huge jump. And I guess one of my first questions is the gravel world or the drop ball world in general, I feel like moves slower. They're a little, maybe more resistant to big changes like this. So from your perspective, how have these wheels been taken by people? How has the reception been? No, but this is a really funny topic to me because I find it interesting that gravel bikes, I mean, if we're honest, it's like a really new thing. I mean, the proper gravel bikes haven't even been around in 10 years. It's like, it's a new bike type. If we're talking, you know, with a drop bar, 45 millimeter tire, a typical gravel bike. So to me, it's a little bit interesting that people get so defensive about labeling stuff and categories. And, you know, if I do something, I have half the comments telling me, you know, that it's that that's not a gravel bike. It's a mountain bike. And if I would say that it's a mountain bike, it would be the other way around because it didn't have a dropper or because it has a drop bar. So, to me it's like, yeah, you always get a lot of... opinions and voices on the web as such but to me it's like I still think that gravel is super interesting because it's like sort of like I imagine that you know mountain bikes were in the in the early 90s. I mean to me the category isn't it's not finished so to say it's not it hasn't evolved a lot so there's like a lot of experimenting going on from big brands and from Stupid people like me, you know, just trying different things, you know, and it's like, I mean, the big thing that I see is that people think about gravel bikes as one single type of bike, but I sort of see it more like, you know, mountain bikes, you have cross country bikes, you have trail bikes, you have enduro bikes, and I think we will see a similar type of categorization evolve in the gravel category. So you will have the proper like race gravel bikes. Which will be more closer to the road side of things for the fast and smooth races. You will have the more mountain bike based, more capable gravel bikes and you're going to have the bikepacking, the flannel shirt, the fun steel builds and all of that. So it's like to me it's just exciting times and I mean I'm just doing this because I want to ride it myself. I want to test stuff, I want to experiment and I want to try and... Take stuff to the next level and sort of like the only way to do it is to, you know, test new stuff. So as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, I mean, I'm just going to go ahead and do it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I found an interesting quote from you. You basically say that going from 45 millimeter internal width, it's pushing it to the extreme end of the spectrum, but you'd rather test the max size option right away, learn from it. And then, you know, go backwards, take a step back if you want to. That makes all the sense in the world to me. Um, Just get there already. And it seems like the gravel world, they are a lot of times like it's just moving slower. Everything is a bit more cautious and there's all sorts of good reasons for that. But I also think that you're right. Like right now, gravel bikes, to me, like they're this neat spectrum. Whereas mountain bikes right now, it's a bit more defined, these categories. Obviously, it's not. You could be whatever you want it to be. But gravel riding, it's wide open. You know? What's going to happen? What's going to... Yeah. It makes it such an interesting place to be. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I'm a mountain bike guy at heart as such. But, you know, I currently find the gravel, gravel scene More interesting because it's so much more, you know, experimental and going in all sorts of different directions. So I absolutely love this. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so 42 millimeter internal width, 52 to 70 millimeter external height because they're stepped. Let's stay with the width first. What is the goal here with this tire width or with the rim width? Sorry. Yeah, so there are actually 45 internal and 52 external and 70 millimeter deep at the deepest point. Point. So I mean the thing for me is that personally when it comes to like all sorts of bikes is that I really dislike the feeling of a squirmy tire. Like if I push in a corner hard and I feel the tire folding over. Or if I'm doing a sprint and it feels like the bike is unstable because the tire is moving too much in itself, it's not for me. So for the gravel bikes, like my normal 40-45mm tires, I tend to run way higher pressure than my friends because I just can't stand this feeling. And of course I lose a lot of the low pressure benefits then. So last year when I got to ride the Zipp Explorer wheels with a 32 millimeter internal then, paired to 45 millimeter tires. Because of this, how it alters the shape of the tire, you get a lot more stability in this sort of scenarios. So this sort of like, yeah, completely transformed my riding experience because I could go down in pressure and still You know, have a stable ride. But the thing is that now we're also seeing this, of course, this trend with the wider tires for gravel for certain types of races or people just enjoying that kind of bike. But the rims are still staying the same. And to me, it's like, yeah, I mean, sure, I get why you go big volume tire because of all those benefits, but then how it rides on the rough terrain. But also if you keep the rims the same and you go from, you know, 45 to a 54 millimeter tire, that's sort of like if you go from a 25 millimeter internal rim width back down to 19. So you get one benefit, but you also go backwards in another type. So this is why I sort of set out to create a wheel set that would have similar dimensions and proportions. to the Explorer wheels, but optimized around the mountain bike tires, so 54, 57 millimeter tires. And to achieve that, then you need to move up to 40, 45 millimeter internal width. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's almost like the tires exist and you have just designed rims to match the tires that you want to use. That doesn't seem too crazy. No, but people are losing their minds over it, it's like, I don't know, it's like some sort of gravel sacrilege, I don't know. Oh yeah, I love it, I love it. But the thing is that, like you said, it's like, I really wanted to try and push it to the max and see what happens. I've been riding a Honda this summer on 40mm internal with 2.1 tires, which is 54mm, and... I've been loving it. I mean, it's been so good for me and for my... Riding terrain and riding style that I generally don't want to go back down to 30 millimeter rims like I was using in the past and that is coming from one of the biggest weight we miss out there so I'm literally like going I have some mountain bike wheels that are you know 870 grams but I'm rather choosing my 1500 grams wide rims wide wheels for gravel just because the The riding gets so much better and and the thing also that is important to say is that I'm not saying that wider is always better that that's not not the point with these wheels it's more like if you are going in this direction with wide tires you should follow along with with the with the rims and maybe 45 is too big I personally believe that maybe 40 42. Internal width is perfect for 57mm tires, and then you add some wide rim walls to still have a big external width for the aero properties, but then you run into the next discussion like, okay, but how much aero do you actually get out of that when you have some super wide knobby tires on there, but yeah, you gotta try it. Yeah, it's funny. So here we are, two mountain bikers talking about these gravel wheels. And I am so glad that you didn't start the conversation or the benefits of these wheels off by talking about aero gains. Because in the drop bar world, a lot of the talk about rim width is specifically to do with aero gains. Like once you combine a wide tire with a wide rim. It's a smoother transition and all this. And it seems like the industry and a lot of people are so focused on the arrow gains that you're going to get. between your rim and your tire. And I'm not saying that doesn't matter. It definitely does matter. But what I do believe is that the ride quality improvement that you get from a wider rim with a gravel tire or a relatively narrow mountain bike tire is much more important and much more beneficial for a lot of people, not everybody. Especially because a lot of these tires that we're using, like not only do we have less suspension, but a lot of the tires that we're They're not awesome. They're just not, you know? So having that bigger volume there from the wider rim and the wider tire can completely change how a bike rides and it makes everything so much better. That's my opinion. And what do you think? No, but this is a super interesting topic. I could talk for hours about this. So, I mean... Just to sort of set the tone here is that when I was riding these, you know, 40mm internal and 54mm tyres, some of the like, aha moments I got is that, hey, this is absolutely perfect for beginner gravel bikers. Because, you know, if you don't have a road background, so you're already used to the drop bars and everything, it's actually like... For beginners, it's quite difficult to get into gravel because, you know, going fast on the descents and some 40 millimeter tires, it's super scary for them, you know, where do they put their hands and, you know, it's like, it's just like, it's quite a learning curve. And this is something, I mean, I was working all my life in a bike shop, so I was selling bikes to beginners. So I definitely get this as well. So one of the things I realized early on is that, hey, this is perfect for entry-level gravel bikes to go with wider rims and wider tires, even if it's heavier, because those bikes are already quite heavy to begin with. So if you then have the performance benefits in stability and comfort and feeling comfortable on the bike, that's worth a lot. And then you also have this. sort of gravel bikepacking aspect that you get a more stable setup for heavy loads. So, I mean, to me, it's like, sure, this is like one type of fast gravel riding that, you know, I'm feeling and enjoying the benefits of this wide tire, wide rim setup. But I definitely think that there's a lot more to it. And I see this all the time, you know, on social media that people are so focused on, you know, just what they are riding themselves and the kind of bike they prefer that they sort of like lose the big picture a bit because it's like one of the big, I mean, counter arguments against the wide rims for gravel is that It's a little bit easier to get some sidewall cuts and punctures because of the more exposed tire sidewall. But I mean, depending on where you ride, this might actually not be a big problem. So I mean, it's like here in Sweden, you know, we have I don't know what it's called in English, but it's the inland ice went over the country a few hundred thousand years ago and they sort of rounded all the rocks. So, you know, we don't have those super sharp, sharp sniper rocks in the same way like you may be having in other places. So why should I, you know, for the writing I do here, stay on narrow rims just because someone else, someone... in a completely different part of the world where it's about sidewall cuts so to me it's like all about if you have the options out there to ride so the riders can choose whatever is best for them then sure why not have the options so yeah it's if a bike can fit tires and wheels wide tires and wheels can transform a bike and and i mean a lot of these gravel bikes to begin with like they don't Like they don't handle that great. You know, like what are these, like some of the geometry numbers. Yeah. Like what, what, it just seems to me like some of these gravel bikes, the geometry numbers have been decided by retired roadies and there is 100% a place for those bikes too, you know? But a lot of people I see, you know, actually I'll just use myself as an example. I've never been more scared on a bike than when I'm descending a gravel bike. It's so, it's scary. And as soon as you put a wide tire on, you get not just more traction, but just more forgiveness. Like a tire is suspension. There's just so many upsides to it that it just makes like all the sense in the world. Fellow Scott athlete, Robin Grimpelli, I hope I pronounced his last name right. I'm pretty sure he used 2.4 inch wide tires to win the Tour Divide. And I know that use case is obviously a very different use case, but I mean, he's going really far and he's going really long and he wants to be efficient. He wants to be comfortable too, but he, he also still needs to be efficient and, you know, and be safe and all of that. It just makes, yeah, it makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah, but this is, I mean, to go back to what I said about categories, that, you know, story, you're going to have this, like you said, the aggressive geometry numbers, like the road bike style gravel bike that has such a big place. And, you know, I enjoy it myself a lot. I mean, it's like a few weeks back, I actually got to try a gravel bike that has a much more relaxed geometry and, you know, slacker head angle and everything. And I realized like, hey, okay, this is actually a little bit. I mean, stable for me, like, geometry-wise. I actually like that, you know, quick and nimble feel from a more, like, road bike-style gravel bike in that 40, 45-millimeter tire category. So it's like, I'm not saying that, you know, gravel bikes has to turn into mountain bikes. It's like, you just need the options for whichever rider. And it's like you said with that long-distance stuff, and one of the... One of the most surprising revelations I had when riding this wide setup was that when you hit potholes, it still hurts, it still makes a big bang, but usually with a normal gravel setup you... It's quite common that you get a bit of a, you know, sort of wobble out of it. Because it's like, you know, you just hit that rear end and you just hold on and like, whoa. But, exactly. But, you know, with these super wide rims and tires, it was sure the bang was there, but it was super stable. I guess my highly unscientific guess is that, you know, with the narrow setup, you actually get the tire folding a bit because usually the pothole... isn't perfectly straight against the wheel, but the wider rim just helps it better, so you keep more stability. So that's the point, you need to test stuff and see what actually works, and maybe it's not for you, maybe it is, but gotta try it. Yeah, let's talk about tires for a second. With a 45 millimeter internal width, That's going to do some strange things to a gravel tire. Like, so for everybody listening, as soon as you start like taking the bead and spreading it, like basically making the rim wider, the tire cross section isn't going to be shaped maybe the way that the tire designer intended. Yeah. Like a round shape. I'm speaking in generalizations here, but a round shape, generally more predictable, you know, a flatter top, square with edges, might have, could have more cornering bite, but possibly more of on-off feel. Thank So what sort of tires have you been using on these rims? What sort of tires do you think would be ideal? Maybe tires made for the wheels? I don't know. Yeah, and that was like... The one thing missing from this rim development project you. is that we didn't work directly with a tire manufacturer because obviously it is a system so to squeeze out the best performance and also learn the most we stood as a next step you know if we were moving forward also work with the tire manufacturer because like you say once you start stretching the profile like this I mean just to put some perspective in numbers is that If I install the 54 millimeter tires, they actually measure 58 millimeter wide on this. I love this. And interestingly enough, the 57 millimeter tires aren't three millimeter wider. They're only one and a half millimeter wider, but they have a bigger difference in diameter. So you still get that volume, extra volume, just not in the width. So there are interesting things happening with the tire and obviously you might want to alter the tread pattern a bit. I mean move the side lugs down a little bit. But one I mean one of the most common questions I get about this setup is like yeah doesn't the tire profile become too square so that you don't have any cornering grip? But what I realized is that for mountain biking, you do a lot of really sharp cornering, you're riding off camber sections, so you have a very aggressive lean angle on the bike, which requires you to have these big side knobs and they are placed quite far down on the side walls. And on a road bike, obviously you have a ton of grip, so you can also lean a lot. But on a gravel bike, you actually don't reach a very aggressive lean angle, because no matter how tight, you will still slide out. So when I was testing this this summer, it was actually cornering really good, and I didn't run into any surprises where you suddenly lose grip or anything because you lean over too far, because you're just not reaching those Angles. So it works surprisingly well. So I would say that a bigger issue is that if the profile is too flat, depending on the tread pattern, you might have too much of a contact area with the surface if you're riding straight. So if your side knobs are then touching the ground, you have more rolling resistance than ideal. So it's more a matter of like rolling resistance than cornering to adapt the tire for me, Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't actually thought about that, but that makes complete sense because you're obviously, to get the most from such a wide setup, you're probably running a relatively low tire pressure as well too. Big old contact patch, which has all sorts of benefits. But when I've got to do 50 miles of pavement and then another 10 miles of gravel to get to some sort of trail that I want to ride. Maybe that might not be ideal. What sort of tires were you using with these things? Yeah, so this summer I was exclusively riding the Schwalbe Thunderbirds in the fast rolling variant. So those, for anyone who doesn't know them, they are like a traditional semi-slick mountain bike tire. So you have fast rolling with some good side knobs. And that is essentially what I had in mind when... We were working on the rims. Yeah. Have you, now that you've got these things out there, people have seen them. I don't know, maybe you can't tell me, but has anything moved on with a tire manufacturer? Like has any tire companies come to you and said, Hey, Gustav, what's going on? No, well, let's say that I actually reached out to Schwalbe and asked if they wanted some disclaimer on my communication, because obviously this is way outside the measurements that the tires are actually developed for, because normally if I do some modifications to frames or whatever, I usually say that, hey, don't do this, it actually might result in a failure. But this is actually, I mean, for these tires, you're running super low pressure. I highly doubt that there's any risk of popping a tire off the rim or such, but the next step now is that they will actually probably head into the the wind tunnel this winter, so we actually get some proper data if there actually are any aero gains or not, and I mean... Aside from that, I have no clue. That's the fun thing with this project is that I simply got the opportunity to work with Faction Bike Studio and Alex Lab in Canada to have these developed essentially just out of curiosity. I mean, I get to test the idea and see how it looks and everything and how it rides and they got a bit of a... and you know some value out of it just from the learning experience in developing the rims. You know, if there are aero gains here, like let's just say you put them in the wind tunnel and there are a bunch of aero gains, they will instantly become the next big thing. Everybody will forget, you know, but as soon as there's aero gains, everybody's going to be all in. No, but I mean, that's so funny. I mean, with the comments that has been about the wheels, it's like everyone is saying how it's so stupid with aero and, you know, it's not going to work and it's not worth it for gravel or gravel tires or whatever. But still, I mean, if you actually look at the gravel bikes that are being sold and being developed, I mean, all of them have some air elements and everyone is riding on deep profile wheels. So it's like, I mean, if this actually works, maybe we won't see something fully as extreme as this, but something similar to it. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the RIM design and Faction. Who is Faction? Who is LX? What did they do? And tell me why this is actually a RIM inside of a RIM. Yeah, so I mean, as a little bit of background information is that, you know, I've always done this customization of stuff, but, you know. I'm not a designer or engineer and I don't have a CNC machine or whatever so what I do personally is everything you can do in your home garage it's like I sit there like a neanderthal with a with a Dremel or a file or something and you know take something existing and modifying it but as my audience has grown and I have more help from you know actual partners and brands I'm starting to I'm starting to come with some ideas and actually get the help to have them. professionally and properly developed and this is the the story with Faction Bike Studio. So they're a brand that not many people know about because what they do is that they help other bike brands develop and design you know frames and components and whatnot. So maybe you're actually riding something from Faction Bike Studio but you don't know it because it's not their name on it. So that is what they do and they are based in Quebec, Canada. And LX Lab is actually, it's two companies. So we have LX Sim and LX Lab. And one side does all things related to, you know, advanced engineering simulations and everything related to that. And LX Lab is sort of like the prototyping workshop where they actually make the prototypes. So for this project, Faction and their designers did the actual design of the rims, and LX Lab did the manufacturing of the four prototype rims that we did for the project. And because from the start there were zero plans of making this into an actual product hitting the market, so obviously we were a bit limited in how much resources do we actually pour into this. And developing a rim from the ground up would have been a huge undertaking. So the rims, actually, we got some old carbon fiber. 29 inch plus mountain bike rims, so they're actually strong enough for enduro riding, so I can put them on my my 170 millimeter travel enduro bike. It turns out 29er plus actually does have a use after all. Exactly, exactly. It's just that we were way wrong with the 2.8, 3.10 tires. So yeah, essentially they're still quite, you know, it's not as simple as just, you know, doing some Carbon fiber sides and just glue them on top of it. It still was quite the process to making the rims, even though we had the base rim at the heart of it. But yeah, it all worked out in the end. So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's an existing carbon rim, 45 millimeter wide. And then what Faction or LX did is basically design and manufacture a fairing, sort of. Yeah, exactly. You can call it. It goes over top. Yeah, so that is molded on top of the existing rim, so I mean that's also a few of the questions I got about the rims are like about the spoke count, it's 28 spokes per rim, which obviously isn't optimized for aerodynamics, but this is because we had to use an existing rim and those rims only exist with 28 holes. And also about, since they are sort of seven-sided in the shape, the arrow wave shape, also got a bunch of questions about the spoke tension and whatnot, but the spoke nipples, they actually sit on the... on the sort of like internal rim the standard rim so it's still the same spoke length all around for for all four sides and it just holds in the in the fairings where the spokes go through but that's one of the things you know when you think like oh yeah but how do you actually managed to make the holes in the exact right place in the aero fairing. So for example, Faction had to build the wheels with the standard shallow profile rims, 3D scan the wheels, and then design the the aero fairings and use that 3D model to have the holes for the spokes in the right place. So there are some things like this that complicates it a lot. Interesting. Okay. Interesting. To true the wheels, let's say you had to add a bit of tension or something. I imagine you're accessing the spokes through the underside of the rim. The fairing is bonded on is what I'm getting at, right? Yeah, exactly. So it's bonded on and I'm just using regular DT Swiss Squॉर्क nipples that you access from the outside of the rim. Yeah. And are you just using like a foot-long valve extender to pump these things up? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Sort of. No, so I mean, for testing reasons, just to make it easy to swap tires. And honestly, if I'm not racing, I'm happy with the marginal loss in rolling efficiency. So I use a lot of TPU tubes. So I mean, the rims can be set up tubeless, but so far I've only... I've been installing them with TPU tubes and valve extenders. Yeah, okay. I assume, because you're a mountain bike rim, I assume these are hooked rims, of course. But do you have any thoughts on hooked, hookless rims for gravel? It's a touchy subject. Careful what you say. All right. No, actually, the rims are hookless. Yes, so... But to me, it's like, honestly, I've sort of just dealt with it. But, you know, my... My main complaint on a personal level when it comes to hookless is that I still have so many old super fast tires that are not tubeless compatible and definitely not, you know, like approved in any way for hookless that I would like to run. It's like I have some old generation Continental Speed Kings. They are like 460 grams and I swear. on everything wholly that they are faster than any gravel tire out there but you know you can't run them on on hookless oh well maybe you can but it's a bit of risk so so there's that aspect like the compatibility aspect and that i don't like about hookless otherwise i sort of get this you know aero profile topic i mean to to get a better And like transition between the tire and the rim and stuff like this. Sure. I mean, if you're chasing marginal gains and that's the only way to do it, then it sort of is what it is. But I personally hope that there will be some sort of, you know, I don't know, micro hook system or standard so that it's not completely hookless, but maybe not like the full on super thick hook that was in the past. Yeah, I have a story. I have PTSD from a tire. I've had multiple tires come off rims years ago, not related to hookless at all, but I was on a road bike. I got a front flat. It all happened very quickly descending and the tire came off the rim and I was doing 70 kilometers an hour, maybe. Maybe. That was it. And. The tire comes off the ******* rim on a road bike and like I'm going through a corner and like my feet blew off the pedals and I managed to not crash somehow but when my feet blew off the pedals like I wasn't in control of anything and my ankles rolled and the pavement wore holes through both my Carnac shoes before I was able to stop by like skittering off into a ditch. And like, thankfully it was like a marginally straight section. And obviously that has nothing to do with today's modern, much better built hookless rims. I understand that the hook doesn't really I do understand that. But mentally, you know, when you're descending on a gravel bike, I just, you know, it still makes me nervous, the idea of hookless, to be honest with you. Yeah, but I completely get it. I mean, my opinion with this is that, you know, if there are marginal gains related to it, like the aero properties, then there is a place for it. On those specific wheel and tire setups. So, for example, if you're building a triathlon or time trial bike or super aero-focused build with really deep section rims or whatever, I mean, sure, if there is an advantage, they could offer hookless. But it doesn't make sense to do it across the range, to me. I mean, because... It's a little bit like in the mountain bike world, obviously you have the heated discussion about headset cable routing and stuff like this. And to me it's like, it's absolutely fine if you do it on high end bikes that are still using, you know, wireless. shifting and droppers and suspension and whatnot, so you're essentially only routing a brake line, a brake hose through the headset, it's no big deal. But once you have it on entry-level bikes and you start up having four mechanical cables going through the headset, then I understand that, okay, maybe not everyone will actually see the benefit here or enjoy it. And to me, it's a little bit the same with hookless, that, you know... They could have it on the high end and like really specific stuff in that direction, but I mean it doesn't really make sense to use it all around. Yeah, that makes sense. Before we talk about the two bikes, what is the next step with these wheels in this whole process? Yeah, I mean, so the next step is shipping one set off to hopefully get tested in the wind tunnel then, and otherwise it's essentially just for me to ride and evaluate and, you know, just, you know, enjoy them. So, like I said, it's... I really went to the max with 45 millimeter internal. I'm already thinking that, you know, 442 maybe would have been the better choice, but I mean, that's something that I'll find out when I get to ride them. So now it's just the good part left, riding. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, two bikes you showed at the Bespoke show in the UK. I want to talk about this Scott scale, sort of. Yeah, sort of. I don't know. So besides the gold paint job, you apparently took the seat cluster from a foil, which is Scott's aero road bike. Is it, am I completely wrong, but is it upside down? Did you flip it upside down and put it upright on the scale seat tube? No. So actually, well, the backstory is that obviously with these air wheels, I wanted a bike to match. It was going to be based on the Scott scale hardtail or gravel frame version then with a rigid fork. And I just wanted to, you know, try and, you know, add some aero elements. I mean, if only for the looks, I mean, sure, it's not going to be like raced at an elite level, but it's funny if we can make it look cool too. So what I did is that I asked Scott for a crash damaged foil frame. So they shipped one off to me. I cut out the sort of like seat post section from the frame and then I did a matching cut out in the scale mountain bike frame so that it sort of fits together like Lego pieces. And the reason why it's shaped like it is, is that you have the integrated seat post clamp at the front. So from the side it essentially looks like the letter P. And this didn't look very aero, so yeah, I took another piece of a crash damage frame, a bit of a seat stay, and sort of like put at an angle on the front, which created this shape that you see on this frame. And then we just, you know, wrapped it all in carbon fiber to, you know, make it work. Oh, very cool. Does Scott just say yes to everything or do they, does Scott ever say, no, I don't think so. You shouldn't do that. I don't think so. Actually I've only ever been, I mean, I've had some really. good dumb ideas over the years but but so far the only note i've ever gotten is that i was gonna build one bike with a with a flat bike with a with a flat handlebar and they wanted me to use a drop bar because there was already a flat bar bike in the lineup with a different model name so they wanted to avoid like the confusion like okay what bike is he actually building is he building the flat bar bike or the drop bar bike So that is the only wish I've gotten from them. And of course, to maybe put a disclaimer in there to not strip the paint off your frame. As you say that, it's cool, the relationship with Scott, because to me it just shows that even on a really... In a really big bike brand like that, you still have some proper nerds and bike people working there who actually enjoy seeing the wild stuff that I do. So it took a couple of years to get started and gain the trust, which is completely understandable because, you know, who am I? Fine, you know. chopping up frames and should we actually be supporting this because as you can imagine, I guess that the guys in the warranty department were a bit like, hey, are you actually going to support him to destroy our frames? Sometimes. So... But I mean, here we are a few years later, and yeah, the bikes happen two ways, essentially. Either it's them releasing a new model, and they ask me, hey, you want to do something cool with this new bike we have coming? And obviously, I do, because it's a new bike, I want to do it. And the other way is that I have some idea, and they arrange a frame for me. Yeah, I definitely do have to say that, I mean, they... There's a world where they say no to all of this. Yeah. Like most bike companies would say no to this, I would think. And yet there's Scott that is just saying, hey, have at it. Do you have access to their engineers? Like, do you get any engineering help from them at all with any projects? So. Up until now, I haven't really. I mean, we did one big project last year where they actually helped me develop a mountain bike handlebar with new ways of integrating. We had the electronics hidden away like a SIM card on a phone and stuff like this. So it was a 3D printed aluminum carbon fiber handlebar. That was essentially, I did a model in wood, you know, because that's what I do and show them like, hey, can we do something like this? And they put their own design and engineering team on it. So it's moving in that direction. And I mean, that's sort of what I've been doing with Faction as well. So hopefully we will do some cool things together because obviously that opens up some doors for me to level up once again. But the funny thing about the whole thing is that sometimes we're sort of working in the same direction. It's just that, you know, I can do it sooner than they can because, you know, maybe they are working on some bike, you know, three years away and I have no clue what it is and I have some idea. It has been like that with integrated cable routing, you know, they've been moving in that direction and we've managed to like. We released similar ideas just months apart, both having worked a few years on them. But yeah, hopefully we'll work closer together in the future. And I'm really looking forward to that. Do you own these bikes? Like when you're done with them, do they go to Scott or do you have them in your garage? Do you ride them? What happens to all these crazy project bikes? Yeah, so the really good thing about my job is that, you know, I have my own business and the bikes become... my business is bike so so it's every bike is built for me to to ride and that's like still the sole purpose of the bikes and and why i build them the way i do so they're not going to clients and not something like that so it's it's all for me to ride so so the only problem is that in in recent years you know building up the business side of the whole Daniel thing. I've been working way too much and riding way too little. So that's why people don't really see the bikes getting used as much as they deserve, but hopefully that will change in the coming years as well. Out of all your crazy creations, what are you riding the most? You know, if you were, let's say right now it was a nice, sunny, warm day outside where you live. It's definitely not, but let's say it was, and you were going to go for a good bike ride. You could grab any of your bikes. Which one would it be? What type of ride would it be? Also, the last few years, I mean, I've been essentially going between my regular hard gravel, like traditional gravel bike, and some lightweight mountain bikes, which I used then, you know. 50% gravel and 50% trail, so you can do the fun loops. and sort of like the The thing about riding in Sweden is that we have this huge forest industry, so you end up having a lot of gravel roads being made just to haul timber out of the woods, and sometimes you need to link these up with some trail segments and stuff like this. So that is part of why I enjoy these super light cross-country bikes as well, Well, because then, you know, you can sort of combine the... The trail and gravel aspect of it. And that's sort of what I do with these new bikes as well with the drop bar. It's just that it focuses even more on the gravel aspect of the riding. Yeah. I'm in BC and I would say that logging is the best thing that has ever happened to mountain biking and gravel riding. I love it. Exactly. Actually, it's like... It's the key to everything. Yeah. Give me those logging roads, boys. Chop them down. Yeah. Yeah. Am I safe to assume that you have a pretty nice workshop to work in? Yeah, I mean, I do. I have essentially my garage is my workplace. So half of it is like a regular bike workshop setup. And the other half is for, you know, sanding or painting or whatever. So yeah, I have the full Park Tool and Jagwire toolkits and things like this. But this is a... Fun side note, it was such a huge deal for me when I actually bought my first proper Park Tool floor stand with a big metal floor plate and everything. I'm looking at it right now. It's so good. Growing up, essentially, in a bike shop, and you got used to having that, and sure, you sometimes had to work on your bike at home, and you didn't have a nice work stand. And I mean, that was like... Almost like, ----, I've made it. I got my own proper work set up. So yeah, I have a really good workshop. And obviously I needed to build the bikes, but also since a big part of what I do is, you know, shooting build videos, assembling the bikes and things like this. So I also need a good setup for that. Yeah, speaking of that, actually, before we started recording, I'd asked you about the Scott bikes that you just showed at the Bespoke show, and you said, oh yeah, they're going to come home, and then I've got to take them all apart and make a video. Yeah. Can you explain that there's much more to this than just building up a bike, taking a few photos, and riding it, eh? Yeah, I mean... Essentially, I'm my own media team as well, because I do all the photos and video stuff myself. And for every bike I build, I also record a build video of it to go on Instagram and Facebook and such. And sometimes the timing just doesn't work out, because if you have a bike show coming up, it's like some sort of... Really can't get away from that there was always going to be stress ahead of the show and you finish the bike in the morning before you're leaving and stuff like this. And this was the case with the two bespoke bikes. So they were literally finished like with no sleep hours ahead of leaving. So I didn't have time to actually shoot the build videos. So now when I got back home, I have to take the bikes apart and only to reassemble them again just to get the video shoot done. So, I mean, in the past, or like, you know, for, what should I say, regular shop rats, I mean, you build the bike and, you know, as soon as you get off from work or... You're done. You're done and just, I'm going to ride this until it gets dark, you know. But that's not the case anymore. Now I have to do the video shoots, the photo shoots while the bikes are still new and nice looking and before they get used. So usually there's a gap between a finished bike and my first ride from a couple of weeks to a month or something like that. But still, I mean, I'm not complaining. Stable of amazing bikes to ride. So it's a good trade-off, but it is a difference in mentality. Yeah, exactly. You're not just building bikes, dream bikes. You're also a small business owner, Dangerholm. Yeah, exactly. As As weird as that feels sometimes. Yeah, yeah. a In your workshop, do you have a 3D printer or a little mill you or do you do anything like that? So funny thing is that way, way back in school, very I actually studied design a bit because my dream was to study industrial design and work in car design and stuff like this. much. But yeah, school wasn't that good. And as soon as I graduated, I was working full time in the bike shop. And that was, you know, how it all ended up. But the thing is that I never really like got around learning. CAD design or keep up with what I learned in school. So at this point, you know, I work with paint, essentially, if I do anything. So So for all these bikes that I do, I never have any like paint scheme designs or anything like that. It's all just in my head and I paint and pray. And hopefully it looks good when I assemble it. So no computers for me. Yeah, exactly. I like it. Yeah, I like it. Okay, before we wrap up here, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm sure you must have thought about this before. Money and time, no object. Let's just say you have all the money and you could push pause on the time. What kind of project are you doing? What is it? Oh, that's a good one. I mean, the thing for me is that Of course, it's just not money actually buying existing parts, because to me, when I get that question, it's like, okay, what parts could I have developed? I mean, in sort of like a spirit with the rims and stuff like this. So at this point, you know, I would just like to continue on this path with a sort of like... Gravel, mountain bike, aero, fast hybrid stuff, because obviously the frames I'm using now, even if I modify a seat post section, the frame itself isn't very aero or aero looking. And also there will be geometry changes that I would like to see, like perhaps, you know, having the bottom bracket a bit lower and things like this. So, you know, developing sort of like the ultimate gravel hybrid sort of bike, you know, Blending these two categories together, that would be the dream. Or I would simply, you know, call some cool, I don't know, I would love to at some point, you know. go as crazy but with some steel frame or something like like this or you know maybe you know just have some fun you know just get a Scott mountain bike frame from the 90s and weld on a 29 inch rear end and some stupid stuff like this so it's either like the performance based project or it's like the the creative stuff that appeals the most to me. Yeah, it almost sounds like you would want Even deeper, even like more from scratch and have more control, you know, like gravel bike geometry. Yeah, but it's a rabbit hole. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Gustav. Thank you so much for your time. I am going to reach out to you again after you've ridden these wheels a bunch of times. And I want to know how they feel. I want to know about those aero gains. And I want to know if anything production wise might come for them way down the road. Who knows? Thanks a lot for having me. All right, everybody. This has been a good podcast with Gustav Gullholm, a.k.a. Dangerholm, talking about his crazy wheels and bikes. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and we will see everybody next episode. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye-bye.