About Me

I am a mechanical engineer and have been working in the sporting goods industry for ten years. I love bikes and making my own stuff. I grew up in Medford Oregon then went to collage in Klamath Falls, about 2 hours away. In collage I was president of the Mars Reach Space Club, where we made a freeze dryer and high-altitude balloon for fun. To graduate everyone had to be part of a year long project, my team built a carbon fiber - composite drift boat for $4000. I moved to Los Angles for a bit where I got a job in a hot tub factory and made an electric bike to commute the 10 miles to work, this was back in 2015 when e-bikes were rare and expensive. At that time I had a "real" YouTube channel for my projects and it was pretty great.

That e-bike got me my job at a premium bike company, Rolf Prima, when they were just setting up a new factory. I learned everything about making wheels. I started by designing the production line and getting hands on experience rolling and machining aluminum rims. Then I moved into testing designs and finally designing my own rims. Rims start out as straight aluminum extrusion and a good design has to be flexible and strong just like a shovel handle. I had to figured out several hands on test methods and correlate that with computer simulations to really understand aluminum designs.

I made all the prototypes for this project myself, it required a lot of bandsaw cutting and angle grinding. I intend to get the production plates water jet cut and a CNC machined for the spine and mounts. I still want to have hands on time making these production quality tools. I am super excited to set up an assembly line and everything for a brand new product.

Willy Reen (me) comparing a handle to bike rim

Bike rims and handles are both extruded the same way. The trick is what kind of aluminum alloy you make it from. They both need to be consistent quality with a high yield point for the impacts.

P.S. technically they are both hoops just the handle is a circle with an infinite diameter., so there really the same thing.

All prototypes were cut on a band saw

The trick when cutting the rake tines on the prototypes is to drill the 1/2 inch holes first so the band saw can stick to the straight lines.

Historic Videos

My famous DIY E-Bike video

This video is 10 years old but I just re-watched it and it is GREAT! I was really trying to be YouTube famous at the time so I put a lot of work into the editing. Whole thing was made in an apartment. That Bafang motor is still working but now on a lighter faster gravel bike.

TRIVIA: I knew nothing about bikes at the start of this project and had the break levers reversed to match my motorcycle.

My River Bike (that barely worked)

This video is not great but skip to then end and see that the bike really did float in the test ride. I was never able to finish it, and the one time I tried to ride it home from work had too much duck poop to launch and get in the water. lessons learned.

TRIVIA: I donated it to Goodwill during a big move so it might show up again some day.