Project N1 | R&D: Our quest to end N+1 with one adaptable machine that outperforms dedicated road, gravel, & adventure bikes.
Project N1 Prototype | Gravel Mode
Welcome to the latest in a series of posts on the philosophy, science, and R&D behind Project N1. Join the conversation in the new r/thesisbike subreddit to share your questions, ideas, and feedback as we turn vision into reality.
0. Origins
I founded this company in 2017 on the idea that most riders on most rides would be better served by a single, adaptable bicycle that was perfectly fit to them (the thesis). At the time, the myth of n+1 (whereby the optimal number of bikes is always one more than you currently have) was already being questioned, yet seven years later bikes have become more specialized than ever. With Project N1, our team set out to prove how far our initial vision could be taken.
Riders come in many shapes and sizes. Some have long legs and short torsos, others the inverse. Some are flexible, others not. Some are constantly training, racing, or adventuring, while others just want to enjoy a chill ride from time to time. Then there are enthusiasts who want an aggressive position for road, an intermediate position for gravel and singletrack, and a more relaxed position for multi-day adventuring
To truly upend N+1, we needed to not just bridge the gap between road and gravel bikes, but encompass the ends of the spectrum and the space in between. Many brands have touted their bikes a "quiver killers" meant to whittle down a stable of bikes, but invariably those bikes sit somewhere in the interstice. From the steep head tube angles and short wheelbases of road race bikes to the slacker, longer, and lower geometries of gravel bikes, and everything in between - we wanted this bike to do it all.
This variety presented our guiding challenge for Project N1:
Was it even physically possible for single bicycle to adapt to such a diverse spectrum of riders and rides?
1. Why Do So Many Bikes Not Fit Their Riders?
While it may seem obvious, as a former product developer at Specialized and longtime industry consultant, I’ve seen firsthand how convention and bias can result in bicycles that are difficult if not impossible to fit to many riders. A medium or large geometry is generally designed first with a bias toward more aggressive rider positions, as product managers for performance bikes tend to come from racing backgrounds and market based on racing pedigree. These geometries, which already require many riders to compromise their fit, are then modified to create the adjacent sizes.
By the time you get to the extremes, proportions and handling characteristics (which we'll cover in our next newsletter) can become quite distorted. The largest sizes are often designed with proportionally low stack heights, and slack seat tube angles, leading many taller riders to resort to upturned stems, tall spacer stacks, forward-slammed saddles, and disproportionally short cranks in an attempt to relieve the resulting back pain, hip impingement, and pedal strike issues.
Smaller sizes are often even worse, with proportionally long reach figures that force riders into stretched out positions. Adding insult to potential injury, smaller riders often get saddled with overly slacked-out head tube angles (Bye-bye handling), cranks meant for longer-legged riders (Knee/hip issues, anyone?), and unnecessarily high bottom brackets (who needs standover clearance anyway?).
A shocking number of road and gravel bikes aren't designed to fit the people who end up riding them.
We want to change that.
2. Solution: Start With Actual Riders
To understand why so many riders experience fit issues, we started by collecting thousands of professional bicycle fit reports representing riders of all sizes, proportions, and disciplines. We then extrapolated a “BB→Hood Distance” and “Rider Position Angle” for each rider, which are the distance between the center of the crank spindle and a rider's hand position on the brake hoods, and the angle of that line relative to the ground, respectively. Unlike stack and reach which focus on the bike, these coordinates told us how riders should interface with the bike.
Our next step was to evaluate how various bicycle geometries accommodated these actual rider positions. For this, we started with each bike's stack, reach, head tube angle, stock stem length, and handlebar reach. We then calculated the range of positions that could be achieved by varying stem length +/-20mm, angle +/-17°, and spacer stack +/-20mm. Mapping these Fit Ranges onto the rider data made clear why so many riders struggle with fit, with the example below being typical of our findings for performance road and gravel bikes.
Most notably, inconsistent scaling and a bias toward unnecessarily aggressive (i.e. low) rider positioning results in geometries that cannot accomodate many riders despite 7 sizes.
Below is a taste of what Project N1's adaptable, data-driven geometry is able to achieve with a standard 5 sizes.
In the next part of this series, we’ll be exploring how rider fit and bicycle geometry differ between road, gravel race, and adventure bikes, how physical trade-offs have combined with limiting beliefs to constrain bicycle design, and the insights that helped us break through.
Our goal for Project N1 is to create an extension of you as a rider, enabling you to ride every ride that calls you even as your needs evolve. Your questions, ideas, and feedback are essential to our development process, so please join us in the comments of our new r/thesisbike subreddit to participate in bringing Project N1 to life.