Ibon Zugasti y la nueva familia XC Orbea I Orbea Factory Team

You have proved to be a good rider. But you are also a good Product Manager and I know you are also an engineer. But tell me what is your job at Orbea, because you look really young. You are what? Like 30? I’m like 25, right? No, I’m 31. Well, you look younger. What is your role at Orbea? I am the Product Manager of the Cross Country category. This means I’m in charge of managing three products: the MX, Alma, and Oiz ranges.

01:08 - Spain must be the quintessential land for cross country, right? Spain… racing… Always full gas… Just look at all the races taking place every weekend here. At first, when I started mountain biking, for the cross country category there was only one bicycle available. A rigid frame, no fork even. Then the front forks came and also double forks. Then there was 27.5”, then 29”… Now there is a wide range of options. How have you experienced this evolution? Cross Country has evolved a lot over the years because users have done so too.

01:49 - The trails we ride today are unlike the kind of mountain biking in the 90s or in the early 2000s. Today it’s different. Think about yourself a few years back. The way you used to go through a tricky area and the way you do it now. -Sure. -The bike has evolved, and so have you. When it comes to options, we have the MX range, the basic one, almost 400 euros; Alma, aluminum or carbon; and the Oiz range, up to 8000 euros. So when getting a bike, how do you advise people? Because, in my day, there was only one bicycle available. There was just one bike with four groups. I always say: “To get a bike, think about where you spend 90% of your time.” Every ground has different needs. It depends on the orography of your area.

02:45 - Taking all this into account, you can see if you need a rigid or a double fork, if you like to race cross country, or if you prefer marathons or take a bike ride with your friends and do some descents. Users have evolved a lot and different bike models have been created because there is a wide range of users. How have bikes been evolving over these past few years? You said earlier that, in the 90s, there were rigid forks… Not so far back. For example, from the 2016 Alma to the 2020-2021 Alma, where is the market going? What is being done? I kind of know because he told me all about it. But I’d like you to explain it. These are more capable and reactive bikes. We always try to make them lighter.

We try to balance these advanced features 04:17 - with extra lightness. Because, when it comes to weight, since bikes were 26 inches, they have only been increasing in weight. From 26 inches and super brake to what we have today. There used to be 8.5 kilo mountain bikes. I remember forums featuring sub-8 bikes. Now, a bike under 10 kilos is a rocket. -Full suspension bike. -Yeah, a full suspension bike. We have lost some things along the way, and we have tried to make up for it as much as possible, but we see that, for mountain bikes, some things are more important than weight and are more valuable. I can really see the evolution in mountain bikes, and you are totally right, there is a clear improvement, in fact, from the 2016 Alma, which is not that old, to the 2020 Alma, I’ve noticed a huge difference: absorption and stiffness, comfort, safety, because it is longer, with a sharper angle, and I’ve noticed that, riding the Spirit, which is light as a feather, in compact tracks I feel faster than with a full suspension bike.

05:34 - And even though the bikes are heavier than those sub-8, bikes are a lot faster and help bad riders like me to become almost decent. Because the bicycles we have nowadays make your life easier. Even if you make mistakes, you can go downhill, uphill, through tricky areas… You said it yourself. Full suspension bikes have evolved a lot. There has been a long learning process for those. For each new model, new things have been learned. They have evolved. They are lighter, more capable, more efficient, etc. As I said before, there’s no perfect bike. But there’s a perfect bike for each user. And full suspension bikes are a perfect example of this evolution. Since we are talking evolution, you guys are like three years ahead of us. How long does an Orbea department like yours take to create a bicycle until it arrives to the store? -About two years. -Two years. Some projects take even longer.

06:39 - And after all this process, when it is at the store and you talk to Gonzalo, Ramón… How the sales are going… Is this just like me watching our YouTube videos? -Or you just launch it? -Kind of. You must be under a lot of pressure, right? We recently launched the Alma bike. We’re seeing how people take it, the reviews, what people are saying… What people around you are saying, which is also important. It’s kind of like when you checked your grades at university. You covered the screen like this to avoid seeing it. Or kind of like when you get a letter from the tax office. Shall I open it or not? And now that you are a two-time best-selling author, because the highest selling bicycle in Spain is the Oiz bike, you’re under a lot of pressure for the next one. -Improving it must be difficult. -Each project is harder that the last. Also, improving the product is one thing, but it’s quite another getting it to sell as well as the last.

07:41 - Because the highest selling bike in Spain is yours. Yeah, that’s right. Oiz is a benchmark not only in Spain, it’s the benchmark for the cross country category. Going back to the evolution of the Cross Country range, where bikes are getting more and more innovations and travel, there are now 120 mm Oiz bicycles. Where is the limit? When do they become trail bikes? Why is 120 mm a cross country bike and 140 mm a trail bike? These ranges sort of mix together, right? We’re going back to users. Users are evolving and are demanding a product between pure trail and cross country.

09:12 - When the concept of Oiz was created and we started working on the new Oiz, we were among the first to bet on the new Oiz having either 110 mm or 120 mm of travel. Nowadays, we see users moving towards… Percentages are getting even for pure cross country users, 100 mm, and users of 120 mm, which don’t need to be trail users. These can be the same cross country users that realize they can do that extra of travel faster. -I ride with 120 mm. -You ride with 120? -Yes, 120 mm and seatpost. -Right, I saw that your fork was thick.

09:55 - Stiffness with a 120 mm fork has nothing to do with that of a 100 mm. Exactly. Do you think you’ll get to see Zugasti racing on a bike with a fork of 120 mm? We’ll see. Zugasti likes evolution, developments, innovation… If you try it and see that there are benefits, you’ll be the first to ride it. -Definitely. -We’ll also see how users evolve. I often say that we make products for users. They decide what they want or not. It’s not like we want to sell this or that product. This tendency is already a reality.

10:38 - We still have a pending visit to your territory so you can teach me how to place my body with a telescopic seatpost. I don’t know much about it and there are only 300 extra grams, but they bother me. Only 300 extra grams, but… But I can’t ride it. We’re going off track. Ander Corral, Product Manager at Orbea Mountain Bike, Cross Country range. It’s the highest selling range in Spain. It’s a big deal, boss. All right. Thank you. We can both share that treat, right? Okay, dude. .