To this day the company is still owned by the employees, and it’s something which I think helps make the company what it is. It might sound corny to say that it felt like a family, but it did. Many of the staff have been there for over 30 years, and they’ve made it through some tough times together too. About five years ago they had to have a bit of a downsize which meant that everyone had to start wearing several hats. Rather than complain about it they all just got on and did what was needed to make the company succeed, and it’s paid off because now they find themselves growing again at a healthy rate. I also thought it said a lot about the priorities of the staff when I found out that a while ago they had considered spending a load of money doing up the undeniably dated offices, but in the end all of them agreed that the money would be better spent on things that would actually benefit the end consumer.

Anyway, enough of the history, what about the present? Well as I just said the company is now in a period of healthy and stable growth, but that hasn’t just happened by accident. Last year marked a pretty big change for the company because up until that point it’s probably fair to say that they could have existed on headset royalties alone. The side effect of this was that they could almost have been described as resting on their laurels. Peter Gilbert, the VP of sales, is a man who knows more than most about the company after starting in 1988, was pretty straight with me, he said that it wasn’t that long ago that they didn’t really think too much about spending some money here and there, but the looming end of the patent has meant that the company is now much more focussed and efficient. They know all too well that in order to carry on succeeding in the future they need to keep coming up with great products and ideas. The Angleset is a perfect example of what that new drive has resulted in, and I didn’t think I was going to be allowed to say this, but thanks to Orange springing the leak there’s now another great new product that I can tell you about…the DBair. As the name suggests this is an air version of their incredible Double Barrel, and although I only got a quick spin on a prototype I was impressed to say the least. It’s clearly aimed at taking on the likes of a RockShox Vivid Air rather than a Fox RP23, and when I asked them how come they’d gone down that niche route I got an answer that basically sums up Cane Creek’s current way of thinking. They know that if they made a trail air shock today it’d probably sell like hot cakes, but currently they just don’t have the ability to cope with that kind of production. Well at least not to their exacting standards. The majority of their products are made in–house on those two CNC machines, so to release such a product now would require rapid growth, and that doesn’t seem to be something they’re keen on, so we’ll just have to wait for some things.

Talking of the two CNC machines, I ended up feeling a bit sorry for Josh because it turns out that those machines are pretty much flat out all day making parts, so normally the only time he gets to use them for prototype work is in the dead of the night. I can’t imagine his Mrs was too pleased about the amount of twighlight hours he put into making the 1 1/8” Angleset look ‘prettier’, but the good news for me was that he somehow got to use them during more sensible hours to churn out a couple for testing back home. It’s looking like that ‘campaign’ might have worked! To be fair I reckon he has got a pretty sweet job, because as far as I could see he basically just gets to dream up cool things and then try and make them work. Oh, and he might not have a whole pile of other employees to help him out, but he does have two in the form of design engineers Devon Sullivan and Jim Morrison (his parents clearly have a good sense of humour). Devon is the shock tinkerer, and it’s safe to say I’ve never seen someone look quite emotionally involved with a shim stack. No doubt he’ll hate me for saying that, but if it’s any consolation I think Jim was even worse when it came to his headsets. The funny thing is though that when he originally got offered the job he thought it was a great opportunity but was worried that it’d be a bit boring, because after all how much is there to know about a headset? I was thinking the very same question. He soon discovered though that there’s an endless amount to learn, and I’m sure he admitted that he dreams about headsets. Crazy maybe, but then isn’t that the kind of person you’d want making your headset? And would Cane Creek’s insanely light bearing–less AER headset exist without him? Probably not.

Both of these guys though are perfect examples of what helps to make Cane Creek such a great company, they’re just full of passion for what they do, and everyone else there seems to be the same. Bikes litter every corridor, racing trophies grace desks, cycling history is treasured (by Peter in particular!), there’s a quality pump track out the back…basically they love riding bikes, and they want every single one of their products to be as good as it can possibly be. I think they’re doing a bloody good job too, and after getting to meet all the people behind the products and discover the real Cane Creek I’ve got to say I love their stuff even more than I did before.