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It perhaps goes without saying that if you’re in the market for a nice carbon fiber road or gravel bike these days, there are so many choices that it can push anyone into full-blown analysis/paralysis. So if you were to make the bold – one might even say borderline-foolish – decision to start up a new bike brand, what on earth can you do to stand out?
One would be to claim you’re going to make them better.
Another could be to make the matching fork yourself, too.
You might also strive to still offer those new bikes at comparatively reasonable prices.
Oh, but you want to actually manufacture them in Canada? Now wait just a minute here.
Despite all of those things seemingly not adding up, that’s exactly what upstart brand Bridge Bike Works is trying to do – partially because co-founders (and proud Canadians) Frank Gairdner and Mike Yakubowicz believe it just makes more sense to keep all of your operations under one roof instead of spreading them across multiple continents and time zones, but also because they want to prove a point.
“I think it’s really important for every country to build skill sets,” explained Gairdner, who was born and raised not far from where Bridge is headquartered, in an industrial corner of Toronto, Ontario. “A lot of people are growing up just behind computers, or basically just learning how to direct other people to do things, whereas I think it’s absolutely incredibly important to build those skill sets locally. Aside from that, it’s about quality control. It’s about being able to understand what you’re making, how you make it. And I think you can – almost by definition, and assuming you’re doing things right – make a better product because you know everything about it. There’s no other possibility of a better outcome in my mind if you control it all. Again, this all assumes that you’re doing the right thing and making the right choices. But if you have a team and you have leadership that’s dedicated towards making the best thing possible and are obsessed with it, the outcome is going to be a better product. I think the industry deserves that. And I think people want it.”
Interestingly, Bridge being based in Toronto didn’t just boil down to it being a convenient location for Gairdner and Yakubowicz. Cervelo was headquartered in Toronto just a few short years ago, and not surprisingly when the company relocated to California, not all of the company’s talent went with it. Fun fact: You know the Caledonia all-road model from Cervelo, right? Well, Bridge is located on Clarkson Rd – which turns directly off of Caledonia Rd, from which that model derived its name.
Bridge’s lead engineer, Thanos Drivas, is formerly a senior R&D engineer at Cervelo. And Bridge senior engineer Richard Matthews was apparently one of the driving forces behind the Cervelo R5ca and P5x. Bridge also employs a few folks from Multimatic, one of the foremost leaders in the motorsports world in carbon fiber composites, and which is barely a half-hour drive away.
Currently, Bridge offers just a single bike model: the do-it-all Surveyor, featuring a sub-1 kg frame and burly fork – both made start to finish in Toronto – and designed to work with tires from 28-40 mm. Is it “the best” bike in its category? That depends on your definition of the word, of course, but regardless, I don’t think Bridge would even claim that. Best-riding? Best-looking? There are certainly lighter options out there, ones that are more aero, less expensive, and so on. But regardless, there’s an interesting story to be told here, and my guess is it’ll resonate with someone.
Stay tuned for a members-only Geek Warning podcast from Bridge’s co-founders (I promise it’ll be a good one), as well as a full bike review – whenever they get around to making one in my size. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at how the company is doing things.
Most carbon fiber frames – Bridge ones included – start out the same way. Rolls of unidirectional pre-preg carbon fiber fabric are loaded onto a CNC table where individual pieces are cut out. According to Bridge, each Surveyor frameset is made up of 777 separate pieces of carbon.The plotter also marks each piece of carbon it cuts. And it has very, very good handwriting.The pieces of carbon fiber are sorted into various subassemblies and packaged in plastic bags.The machine bay at Bridge also houses two freezers.The smaller freezer is where subassembly kits are stored until they’re ready to be laminated.Laminated subassemblies are also stored in the mini-freezer if, for whatever reason, they’re not quite ready to be cured.Bridge currently holds on to all of its pre-preg scrap. What is it going to be used for? For now, little bits of it are used to make the compression molded fork tips. But otherwise, the company just doesn’t want to throw it away yet, if for no other reason than in hopes that it can be recycled someday.Every one of those 777 pieces of carbon fiber has to be applied in a very specific location and orientation according to the prescribed lay-up schedule. It’s sort of like papier-mâché, but you’re making a bike frame or fork instead of a piñata, and there are a lot more consequences to getting it wrong than candy spilled everywhere.Looks kind of ragged before things go into the mold, eh?Working with pre-preg is… weird. Bridge actually had me apply a few pieces on a steerer tube (sorry, whoever ends up with it!), and it’s certainly not as easy as it seems.One distinguishing feature of the Bridge Surveyor is the molded carbon fiber bottom bracket threads. Bridge didn’t want to divulge too many details, but these metal inserts are a big part of that. By my understanding, UD material is somehow wrapped around it to form a sort of subassembly, which is then incorporated into the rest of the bottom bracket shell.This mold is more complicated than it might first seem. There are at least eight separate metal components here, and two different materials, too.There’s some resin flashing fresh out of the mold, but all in all, this part looks pretty clean.Bridge says the R&D process for making its own fork was… painful. There are good reasons why very few companies make their own forks, the biggest one being it’s very challenging to pass the requisite safety testing.Humans are technically animals, remember? Behind the glass in the lay-up room is composite technician Thomas Polutnik, who previously spent time playing with carbon fiber race cars at Multimatic.The process of building the carbon fiber fork tips isn’t quite as precise as the rest of the frameset, but there is still a specific number of little bits that need to go into each one.Seems kind of random, eh? Actually, that’s more or less the point with the compression molded fork tips.Junior engineer Dilum Chandrasiri gets the final steps going on a fork tip.The compression molded fork tips are formed and cured separately before being bonded to the fork blades. Each section has only one of the threaded holes required to mount a brake caliper, which might seem for a recipe for misalignment except that Bridge machines the whole thing afterward to ensure everything is square.Laminated parts are cured using heated platen presses, using both interior and external pressure.Parts look pretty good straight out of the mold.The bottom bracket threads themselves apparently need nothing once the metal inserts are removed.Carbon fiber frame manufacturers with particularly high volumes (think companies like Giant and Merida) will typically use steel molds as they’re more durable and hold up better over time. But smaller-volume brands like Bridge can easily get away with using aluminum ones, which are not only less expensive to produce, but also easier to handle.Certain areas of the mold still use steel inserts, though.Molds don’t just provide compaction from the outside. They also provide outlets for internal bladders that create pressure from the inside, too.Even though the molds are mostly aluminum, they’re still heavy!Bridge spent the first couple of years of its existence producing nothing but scrap. However, it was only through all that testing and R&D that the company finally arrived at a product it’s confident selling to the public.Bridge pours its own internal pre-forms using these 3D-printed molds.Bridge does a lot of 3D printing, mostly for tooling and R&D.This latex rubber bladder applies outward pressure during the curing process when it’s pressurized, but it also serves as a mandrel earlier on in the process, too. It’s filled with glass beads and then a vacuum pulls all the air out, thus forming a semi-rigid structure to build around. The glass beads are poured out before the curing process, and pneumatic lines are then hooked up.Bridge uses a mix of soft inflatable bladders and harder rubber preforms depending on what’s required inside the part. Regardless, there is an awful lot of tooling required in general.Frame parts look like this only once they’re cleaned up a bit and trimmed.The rear end of the Surveyor frame thankfully isn’t as size-specific as the front triangle.These brake mounts supposedly don’t require any post-molding milling for proper brake caliper alignment.The top and down tubes on the Bridge Surveyor sport very generous proportions.How big? This big – at least for the down tube, anyway.Frames that are in progress are sorted into these plastic bins. Many have nothing but paperwork in them, but it still establishes a placeholder for where the frame parts will eventually live.Frame parts fresh out of the mold head here to have the ends trimmed as needed. And it turns out circular saw blades that are primarily meant to grind through porcelain tiles are also well-suited for carbon fiber.Bridge has a wide range of cutting guides on hand to ensure a straight cut. All of them were 3D-printed in-house.Senior engineer Richard Matthews gets a new Surveyor frame ready for bonding.These so-called “staircase” joints are first bonded with epoxy before going through two rounds of overwrapping with additional layers of carbon. And why this particular geometry? Because it’s been proven over the years (by multiple brands, not Bridge) to be stronger than other types.Staircase joints, a closer look.Epoxies are first held in a vacuum chamber to help pull out any trapped air bubbles.Co-op engineer Zach Fine said he once got epoxy in his hair as he was bonding up a frame. That was … not a good day.Epoxy is applied to both sides of the bond joint to help ensure there are no gaps. Glass beads (of a known diameter) are also added for precise spacing between the two parts.All glued up and ready for curing. The electrical tape makes for easier cleanup since any smeared epoxy will just come off with the tape.Getting closer …Where individual frame parts are cured on the heated platen presses, bonded frames mostly only require heat so they’re loaded into this much larger oven to cook. Compressive force is provided by the shrink tape that is applied around the overwrapped joints. I’m still waiting to hear how well it can bake a pizza, though.The bond joints are reinforced with multiple layers of additional carbon fiber. And remember that staircase geometry I mentioned earlier? It’s stronger because it loads the overwrapped layers in shear, which prevents peel failures.Any required holes are reinforced with layers of woven carbon fiber to prevent crack initiation and propagation.Holes are drilled in the individual parts before the frame is bonded.Fork tips are bonded on to the ends of the blades much like how the frame is assembled. The forks get their own dedicated jig.Overwrapped joints require a fair bit of sanding to produce a flush surface, as handled here by junior paint technician Sara Stanworth-Cunane.Bridge is very, very big on process control and information tracking.These so-called “travelers” accompany every frame subassembly.Seriously, these things are everywhere.Eventually, all of those individual pieces of paper are recorded digitally so they can be more easily accessed via a QR code.Parts are individually weighed as one method of quality control. A figure above or below targets can reveal various flaws, such as inadequate resin infiltration or poor compaction.Bridge certainly could have taken the (much) easier route and went with a carbon fiber fork from a third party. Developing its own fork was more inline with what the company is trying to do with its frames, but the project was apparently sufficiently challenging that it nearly put the company into the ground.Ever wonder why more brands don’t make carbon fiber forks? The testing requirements are pretty insane.Bridge acquired this test machine for a song, and swapped the old dial gauge for a much more useful load cell. And in case you’re wondering, the sticker on the dial says it was last calibrated in 1988.Drop tests are performed on this homemade jig, made of 80/20 aluminum extrusions.Bridge has a complete machine shop on site, including its own Haas CNC mill. Manning the controls on this day was Bridge lead engineer Thanos Drivas, who was previously the senior R&D engineer at Cervelo.While it likely would cost less to pay someone else to machine tools like this, doing it in-house affords Bridge the ability to rapidly make changes or test new ideas.I have to admit I’m a pretty big fan of Bridge’s color palette right now.Completed frames, ready for paint.This isn’t the finished color; it’s just the tinted primer.Colors are mixed by hand in precise proportions – almost like baking a cake.Lead painter João Souza is apparently a magician with a spray gun. He previously was at Velocolour, which is also located in Toronto, just a few minutes away from Bridge.Bridge’s paint booth is essentially a big plastic room, which is hooked up to a giant bank of filters (the dark blue appliance in the middle of the image) to scrub the air. It might seem low-budget (which it is, as compared to a hard-sided structure), but it gets the job done and is also somewhat portable if and when Bridge needs to reconfigure the space or expand.Forks waiting for paint are held in clever homemade racks made of 3D-printed bases and sections of PVC pipe.Want your bottle cages, headset spacers, and cockpit painted to match? Just have to ask.Designer Evert Lamb carefully inspects a freshly painted frame for any imperfections.Tyler MacNamara, your chariot awaits!Many of us take for granted that you can just buy complete bikes like this off-the-shelf. But it’s also good to be reminded how much happens behind the scenes to get to this point.I can’t decide if I love this graphic or if it hurts my eyes.Dear Bridge: bravo for the conventional external aluminum seatpost clamp.Bridge uses Enve’s system for concealing control lines. It’s not my personal favorite since everything runs through the interior of the stem, but even I’ll admit that it looks sweet. Bridge can also build with other systems such as Deda, though, which at least gives you the option of running lines outside of the stem.Logos are important.Why made in Canada? Partially because co-founders Mike Yakubowicz and Frank Gairdner wanted to prove it could be done.The Bridge Bike Works crew, on a rare sunny winter day in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Considering all the people involved and everything it took to get Bridge to the point of actually making sellable product, the Surveyor frameset’s CA$5,500 asking price seems more than reasonable.
