COMPANY PROFILE | EVENTS UPCOMING EVENTS SPOTLIGHT COMPANY PROFILE
RWD JAMES HALL, CO-FOUNDER
Tel: 01403 711 611 (via Upgrade) W:
www.rwdbrakes.com
to see how it unfolds, but we’ll be ready with a suitable friction material formula when the time comes.
IRISH CYCLING SHOW Saturday May19th to 20th RDS, Dublin
hugh@maramedia.ie May 2012
VELO FRANKFURT Saturday May 12th to 13th Frankfurt, Germany
www.velofrankfurt.com
IRISH CYCLING SHOW 2012 Saturday May 19th to 20th RDS, Dublin
hugh@maramedia.ie
June 2012
BIKE WEEK 2012 Saturday June 16th to Sunday 24th Nationwide, UK
www.bikeweek.org.uk
PRESS CAMP 2012 Monday June 18th to 22nd Deer Valley Resort, Park City, Utah
https://bikepresscamp.com
YORK CYCLE SHOW Saturday June 23rd to 24th The Racecourse, York
www.yorkcycleshow.co.uk
VELO-CITY 2012 Monday June 26th to 29th Vancouver, Canada
www.velo-city2012.com
DEALER CAMP 2012 Tuesday July 24th to 26th Deer Valley Resort, Park City, Utah
www.bikedealercamp.com
August 2012
EUROBIKE DEMO DAY 2012 Tuesday Aug 28th Friedrichshafen, Germany
www.eurobike-show.de
EUROBIKE 2012 Saturday Aug 29th to Sept 1st Friedrichshafen, Germany
www.eurobike-show.de
September 2012
INTERBIKE OUTDOOR DEMO DAY Monday Sept 17th Las Vegas, USA
www.interbike.com
INTERBIKE 2012 Wednesday Sept 19th to 21st Las Vegas, USA
www.interbike.com
CYCLE SHOW 2012 Thursday Sept 27th to 30th NEC, Birmingham
www.cycleshow.co.uk
For more cycle trade dates:
www.bikebiz.com/events
THE BIBLE IS BACK!
64 BIKEBIZ MAY
Tell us about RWD’s origins: It was one of those moments of inspiration in the pub. I grew up in the brake industry – I’ve got friction material running through my veins. My Dad started selling brake linings for trucks back in the early ‘80s before I was born. The business grew into the car and motorsport industry in the ‘90s and our products – particularly the racing brake pads – became widely regarded as the best on the market. The RWD business is technically a
separate legal entity and it started in 2010 as a partnership between myself and the marketing manager for the main business. The idea came to us after became involved with the Nutcracker cross country race series in the North and witnessed its immediate popularity. We thought “wouldn’t it be great if our hobby became our job”?
Is it a case of taking a pad from your motorsport catalogue and making it miniature for a pedal bike? It’s not quite that simple. Friction materials are designed for specific applications and as a rule you can’t just take a material from one and apply it to another. It’s almost a black art in knowing which materials will work in which applications – and then having the capability to take a catalogue of raw materials and mix them together in the correct quantities to come up with the optimum friction mixture.
Any road bike disc pads in the works? Of course. It’s only a matter of time before the UCI sanction the use of disc brakes in competition and the technology exists to allow the system manufacturers to integrate hydraulics into their STI shifters. It’ll be interesting
Which brands do you manufacture pads to be compatible with? All of them. RWD Brakes is a supplier of all-makes aftermarket disc brake pads. We try to provide as much coverage as we can.
Any plans for expansion into non-disc
pads/anything else? Friction material is what we specialise in. We’re not into taking off the shelf products from another manufacturer and re-branding them. What we won’t rule out is expansion into other related braking products – we’ve been working with brake fluid and might take a product to market in 18 months or so.
Tell us about testing: Testing on RWD products is done by real riders, on real bikes on real trails. We’re very lucky to be based in the Yorkshire Dales and we have a handful of trails identified in Swaledale that we use for testing different product elements. Once a new material is at testing stage, we listen carefully to the feedback of our test riders and then it’s a question of tweaking the formula to try to improve the characteristics. Once we’re happy we’ll ask our team to try the pads in a race situation and we value their feedback. It’s a process that comes naturally – the regulations and restrictions in the automotive sector are very tight given the safety critical nature of a braking component and as a result we invest a lot of time and expense testing.
How’s things going since you’ve partnered with Upgrade? Really well. We specifically targeted Upgrade after we watched the growth of the Lezyne brand in the UK. They’ve done a great job there and with all of their brands – and if they can achieve even half of that success with RWD then we’ll be happy. It’s a breath of fresh air to do business with a company like this in comparison to some of the hard-faced and cut-throat vehicle and brake manufacturers that we deal with in the automotive sector.
For additional copies please contact:
Gemma.Messina@
intentmedia.co.uk
BIKEBIZ.COM
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