Interview: Brent ‘Huggie’ Burrows from Avanti Bicycles

Brent ‘Huggie’ Burrows – the man behind the MTB line-up at Avanti Bicycles – chats about bike design and future trends.

MBA. What’s your background in cycling and how did you wind up with Avanti?

BB. I raced BMX from an early age and did that for a long, long time. When I started work I was in a packaging design company. At the time I was still racing BMX and had a lot of friends in the bike industry, so I wound up getting a sales job before going on to retail sales with Burkes Cycles in Wellington, New Zealand. This was a really strong BMX store in years gone by but this changed when mountain biking exploded.

I wound up managing Burkes Cycles as well as their online store but then my wife then got a career opportunity in Auckland—I’d vowed we’d never move to Auckland but that’s what we did. Avanti was based in Auckland and, when they heard I was moving, they approached me and the rest is history.

Now my official role is the ‘off-road bicycle product manager’ and this covers everything from mountain bikes through to BMX and juvenile bikes. 

What does your job entail?

Within Avanti, we do a lot of stuff in house. It’s something that not a lot of people know—even those within the industry. While I’m the product manager for the off-road side of things, we also have a road product manager, and we each have an in-house engineer that specialises in those areas. There’s also a fair bit of crossover between us and we all work together as a team. Aside from the engineering, there’s also a graphics resource, so we can take our designs to a fairly high level internally—beyond that we rely on our partners in Asia to fill the gaps.

In my role, I have to identify any gaps within the bike line-up that need filling and look for opportunities. From there I look at the criteria that needs to be met and come up with a brief. I’ll then work with Gavin Williams, my engineer, and we’ll do a study to determine things like the amount of suspension travel and the geometry that’s required. Gavin is a CAD operator; he looks at the tube shapes, works up computer-generated models and does FEA analysis. This allows us look at where things may break and design them accordingly. It’s really the engineer’s job to work with the factory to get the frame to the point where we’re happy with it and ready to hang the components off it.

Looking at the parts spec is a large part of my role. It’s a big jigsaw puzzle and there are thousands and thousands of options that you choose from. Sometimes you’ll decide where a bike needs to be positioned within the market and then build the spec to suit. Alternately, we may decide on the desired spec and price it accordingly. So I do mostly spec work for all the off-road models and lead our graphics and engineering team. It involves a lot of travel to Asia; I’d probably go there to visit our factories five or six times a year. 

Where does the inspiration come from for things like frame geometry or suspension design?

It’s very much a combined effort. Like any form of design you’re looking for inspiration. It’s my job to seek out opportunities and work with the resources that we have to make it happen.

I ride regularly, as does my engineer and we’ve got other riders within our team who we regularly get feedback from. We’re always working with different prototypes and looking for ways that we can improve our products. I’ll often be riding a bike with an angle-set so I can vary the head angle and use travel adjustable forks that allow us to play with various setups. That said, Avanti has been building bikes for a very long time and we’ve got good base knowledge on what works and what doesn’t.

In regards to the suspension design and kinematics, that’s definitely the engineer’s domain. While we have a consistent platform that’s used throughout all of our dual suspension bikes, the kinematics and leverage ratios will vary to suit the travel and design intention of each model.

We also get feedback from riders outside of the company—they’re not sponsored by Avanti. There’s a broad cross section that we draw upon; from serious recreational riders through to racers, as the needs of a racer can be very different from what a trail rider wants. 

How many people would you draw upon for opinion when testing a new bike?

It varies with the type of bike. With something like a hardtail, it’s a relatively straightforward process. We can lab test to see how stiff a frame is or how comfortable it is, measure the weight and so on—it’s much like designing a road bike. However it’s very different with a dual suspension bike. Once you add that movement to the rear end, you’ll get a wide range of differing interpretations on the stiffness or suspension performance. You can get five or six people to ride a bike and each will come back with a different interpretation.

In the end we need to put a bike out to an audience that’s wide enough to get a meaningful result. Sometimes we might have half a dozen people involved but other times it may only be three or four. Of course this can present a challenge when you’re developing something new and you don’t want too many people know about it.

Our prototypes are often blacked out models built with used parts so they don’t attract much attention. Anything close to being production ready may get the full graphic treatment. Sometimes it’s good for proto’s to be seen; it creates interest and gets people curious. 

How long is the development process on a new bike?

A hardtail can be done right from scratch within 12 months but most dual suspension projects will take from two to three years. 

The MTB market is a fast changing one, so how do you keep up with current geometry or wheel size trends when the development process can take so long?

While the bicycle industry is big, it’s also quite small in some respects—there are only so many factories that manufacture dual suspension bikes for example. We’re constantly communicating with our suppliers and factories, so we get market intelligence through them and we keep an eye on trends that are happening.

With 27.5 for example, most of the industry knew that it was going to be big and they knew well before the consumer was aware of it. We also talk to racers as well as keeping an eye on the internet chatter with various forums, Facebook pages and blogs. Of course it’s not all about following trends and sometimes we may want to try something that’s new. 

What are your thoughts on the industry-wide move to 27.5 wheels; we’ve seen a near complete turnabout within the space of 12 months—was it industry driven or consumer demand?

Well firstly, there wasn’t anything wrong with the 26-inch wheel and there are obviously a lot of people still out there who ride them and love them.

The 29-inch wheel took a long time to establish itself, and while it certainly has its advantages, it also presents a range of problems. Other product managers will tell you differently but there are fit issues when it comes to smaller riders. The front end sits very high on a 29er and there are all sorts of specially designed stems that try to compensate for this. Now I’m not saying that shorter riders can’t ride 29-inch wheels but there are compromises.

Although 27.5 had been around for some time with brands like KHS and Jamis coming along very early in the piece, retailers didn’t want to stock bikes in all three wheel sizes. As a manufacturer it’s not viable to have a full line of bikes in 26, 27.5 and 29, each in a range of different frame sizes—of late the number of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) has blown way out of proportion.

As more companies looked into the 27.5 platform, there came a broader awareness that you get some of the 29er benefits without any of the bike fit compromises. They also retain some of the agile and playful feel of 26-inch wheels. It ticks a number of boxes on both sides. I don’t see it as a one wheel fixes all situation, but right now for performance oriented mountain bikes, it’s definitely put the nail in the coffin for the 26-inch wheel. 

Do you see the industry settling down on the wheel size front now that 27.5 has been so widely accepted?

From a wheel size perspective it’ll settle down but what we’ll see is more brands offering wheel sizes to suit the size of the rider, with smaller wheels on the more compact frame sizes and bigger wheels on the larger ones.

While we don’t want to tell someone what they should ride in terms of wheel size, when it comes down to it a six-foot-seven rider is likely to have a more stable and controlled ride on a 29er and it’ll generally fit better. At the other end of the scale, the smaller rider will fit nicely on the 27.5 platform. Additionally, by taking this approach and just having 29 and 27.5 wheels, we’ll also be reducing the number of SKUs that manufacturers and retailers need to deal with.

Avanti is already doing this with some models and you’re likely to see more of it in the future. 

So looking beyond the issue of wheel size, what direction do you think product development will take in the future?

Weight is always important with bikes, so you’ll see MTBs getting lighter whilst retaining stiffness and durability. I think we’ll also see carbon come down to lower price levels—building with carbon remains labour intensive but there are a growing number of quality carbon manufacturers, and this will help to bring the pricing down across the board.

The other big area of change will be electronics on bikes—it hasn’t really hit yet but it’s coming. Shimano already has their Di2 gear shifting and others have electronic suspension but we’ll see much more on this front with the integration of electronics into the bicycle. We could see completely wireless systems with sensors at all the suspension points that will know whether you’re climbing or descending and set the suspension accordingly.

Things like ABS and stability control are common within the automotive industry, and cars are much safer as a result. With bikes it’s more about performance but the same technology could be used on MTB suspension to improve your cornering speed without compromising pedalling efficiency.

Also, with the road market picking up on disc brakes, it’s likely that we’ll see a rethink on how the brakes integrate with the frame as well as tackling issues such as weight and heat build-up. These developments may then filter back across to be applied to mountain bikes. 

If you could choose only one, which bike would you choose as your do it all MTB?

For me right now it would be a Torrent CS. It’s a 150mm travel trail bike but personally I’d set it up with 160mm travel at the front. I’d also run it with a 2X drivetrain, as it just suits me better and gets me up the hills with my beaten up knees. 

What’s your favourite trail or place to ride?

Rotorua may be one of the most popular places to ride in New Zealand but some of my favourite trails are in Wellington city. I lived there for a lot of years and there are great trails scattered all over that town. They are man-made trails but they have more of a raw and natural feel to them. Rotorua is very groomed and the trails are made for all levels but with many of Wellington’s trails you to need to be on top of your game to ride them fast, and that’s what makes it exciting.