INNOVATE OR DIE

Designing bikes has been a lifelong passion for Robert Egger, and on occasion a necessity, transforming bikes that others had discarded into his childhood ride, to now creating concepts for one of the biggest bike manufactures in the industry.

“I started designing bikes when I was five years old. I have 10 siblings, and when I wanted a bike I was given one of my sisters’ bikes. I kept complaining that it was a girl’s model until one day my dad came home with his truck piled high with bikes from the dump. He gave me pliers, a crescent wrench, a screwdriver and a few other tools in a little metal toolbox and told me to make my own. I’ve been pretty much doing that ever since.”

Robert’s toolbox is a little bigger these days. His workshop at Specialized’s Morgan Hill, California, HQ is about the size of a football pitch, fenced off with ceiling-high corrugated steel topped with razor wire. Inside there are state-ofthe-art CNC machines, an enclosed and ventilated spray shop, a myriad of benches and tools, and Robert’s office, a caravan he fabricated from sheet aluminium, where he does most of his blue sky thinking.

“I love bikes, and I never wanted to do anything but design them. I’m having fun, but know that we need to get serious sometimes. Bikes have to weigh a certain amount, the ride character has to be a certain way, they have to be slippery in the wind tunnel and on the road, and appeal to 40 markets worldwide.

“Mike [Sinyard, company founder] has run this company like it’s a race every day. We go out to win, and yet peer pressure plays a part. If I design something I want everyone here to like it, they don’t have to understand it, but the acceptance and appreciation is important. At the end of the day, you always need to remember that we design and build fun stuff.”