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cycling industrial design
new product development
design process management
Innovation.
20 years helping visualize the future of cycling.
Hundreds of functionally, aesthetically, and commercially successful products.
Passionate about advancing the state of the cycling art, balancing creative innovation with real world experience.
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Experience.
32 years of new product development. 25 years consulting, 7 years in-house. Specialization in carbon fiber frame design and 3D CAD sculpting.
Stephens-designed frames have raced in Kona, Moab, and on the Champs-Élysées with podium finishes on the WorldTour, World Enduro Series, and others.
Frame Design.
Primary specialty - sculpting carbon fiber with automotive surfacing software. Shaped one of the first hydroformed aluminum frames in the industry with Electra in 2004. Experience in steel, titanium, and thixoformed magnesium. Road, MTB, TT / triathlon, urban, cyclocross, gravel, & electric.
Expertise.
Personally designed products for over 150 brands. Product design, project management, and liaison to engineering and manufacture. Product development workflows for multidisciplinary teams involving market & product research, design resources, various engineering disciplines, rapid prototyping, and design for manufacture.
Software.
Fluent in advanced surface modeling and concept visualization in 2D and 3D. Expertise in class-A surfacing with Alias Studio; experience blending sculptural surface models (Alias) with your engineering team's CAD to create complex assemblies not possible with either tool alone.
Road.
Road bike experience from pro-level racing frames to fondo-friendly endurance rigs. Experience with international teams on pioneering superbikes optimized with computational fluid dynamics, and experience with daily cruisers retailing for a fraction of that cost. Mostly carbon but also steel, aluminum, magnesium (!) and Ti.
MTB.
Have shaped hardtails, cross-country racers, all-mountain cruisers, enduro frames, downhill rigs, off-road singlespeeds, gravel bikes, and cyclocross frames. Whether rigid, flexible by design, or fully suspended, the goal is to maximize structural integrity, optimize dynamic performance, and look great doing it.
Electric.
Experience with mid- and hub-drive systems from Bosch, Shimano, Pinion, Fazua, Bafang, and Mahle. Initially a skeptic, now a convert. Getting more people on bikes!
TT / Triathlon.
Personally a triathlete with experience designing both a non-UCI-legal integrated triathlon superbike with ergonomic features new to the industry and a major brand UCI-legal time trial bike currently raced on the WorldTour with podium finishes at the Tour and several national championships.
Urban.
Experience designing commuters, cruisers, and e-bikes. Some for utility, for efficient commuting practicality. Some for style...beach cruisers, retro designs...nostalgia for a simpler day. All with the idea that a bicycle should combine thoughtful design with healthy dose of cool.
CAD Surfacing.
For those who already have a layout but need it executed in CAD - carbon sculpting in Alias is a skill developed over 20 years. Automotive A-class surfacing, ready for tooling.
Because no matter how good you are with Solidworks, it's not the appropriate tool for this:
Accolades and Reviews.
Named on 20 patents and 10 international design awards including 4 Eurobike Gold Awards. Podium finishes at the Tour de France, World Enduro Series, and several national championships. Niner Air 9 named one of the 25 most important bikes ever designed by MBA magazine.
But don't just take my word for it...
“The LeMond Prolog is a bike that we could almost run out of superlatives in describing, and it has easily made our list of bikes that are in the running for our Bike of the Year honors.”
- Electric Bike Action
“One of the most beautiful upright-style bikes, electrified or not, I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
- Wall Street Journal
“The Prolog comes closer to being perfect than eny ebike I’ve tried before.” “There is...one very good reason to buy this bike, and that’s if it makes your heart sing. The Prolog does this to every bike person I know, including me.”
- Wired
Components + Accessories.
Experience designing products across the cycling industry - components, computers, headlights, helmets, bottles, cages, crankarms, trainers, indoor cycles, tools, scales, pumps, dropouts, chainrings, fenders, aero bars, cargo boxes, spin bikes, taillights, packs, racks, hubs, saddles...
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Clients + Brands.
Some of the 150+ brands for which millions of dollars of product has been personally designed in 20 years:
Personal.
Underpromise. Overdeliver.
Colorado based. Occasional triathlete. Extremely proud dad.
Passionate about creativity, personal integrity, and being easy to work with. Request the same of my colleagues and clients.
Portfolio | Road + Gravel
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Portfolio | MTB
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Portfolio | Urban + Electric
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Portfolio | Cycling Related
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