DO: I’m speaking with Ed of Phat Cycles. Your bikes caught my eye as they are appealingly different from the traditional road bike. Who are the users of Phat cycles?
Ed: Thank you, We have a full spectrum line. It’s the novice cyclist coming in looking to get out or to commute all the way to the avid cyclist who doesn’t want to take their US$2000-$3000 piece of sports equipment that they use for competeing and ride it to the coffee shop.
DO: From what I see here with all the sizes shapes and colors, it looks like the whole family could own one of these.
Ed: Absolutely, we make bicycles in size 20, 24, and 26 inches, some in matching colors so you can put moms and daughters on matching bikes. How many families have an avid cyclist...where the opposing spouse isn’t going to go out and do a 100 mile training ride but that enthusiast wants to bring their whole family into cycling an hopefully graduate them up through the ranks. We offer a product that will allow anybody to do that.
DO: That’s excellent. Where can our readers learn more about Phat Cycles?
Ed: The best way would be at www.phatcycles.com. There’s a full display of our products and a dealer link so people can go in and put their zip code or phone number and find delers in their area.
DO: Thank you for your time Ed, I sure appreciate it.
Ed: You’re very welcome, thank you.
eSoles
DO: I’m here with Glen Hinshaw, CEO of eSoles available at www.esoles.com. I walked by eSoles and saw a big crowd. That’s usually the sign of something good. What is eSoles all about?
Glen: eSoles is a custom insole system that has been in development for the past six or seven years. I used to ride for the US Postal Team and the Discovery Team. Part of our problem was finding insoles that we could rely on and that matched each of our feet. Through our own aspirations of developing the right alignment for the best performance we came into digital imaging of feet ... both in weight bearing and non-weight bearing. We developed that into what is now eSoles. We are in our 3rd Tour de France. We have a couple of Tour de France winners who wear our product. We’ve had countless world champions and Olympic athletes medal in our product. Its now spreading everywhere, anywhere you use your feet.
DO: From what I understand it might be good for someone standing around interviewing somebody at a trade show?
Glen: What we found out was that we ended up taking the product out of our cycling shoes and wearing it in our runners. We started realizing there’s a need for this for the consumer for general comfort and alignment. We are going to start rolling out commercial scanners not only to the medical field but to the general retail market. We will continue until we have hundreds or perhaps thousands of scanners around the world digitizing people’s feet and recommending a custom insole.
DO: I can say that I’ve gone through the scanning process and it is simple, quick, and painless. When asked what I thought, I said this is easy. What’s the difference between an eSole and something you can buy at a shoe store?
Glen: On the surface, they may look similar but behind the scenes you go through the weight bearing/non-weight bearing mathematics. We take three dimension imaging. We can cover about 95% of the walking population with the combinations we have. You’re getting a digital imprint which you can go online and see. You can use it for other services such as buying socks or shoes. A retailer has a very affordable product that they can sell to the consumer that is truly custom to their feet.
DO: I think the key here is obviously you know it's going to fit because it's a scan of your foot.
Glen: That’s right...we have a three dimensional shape to it.
