"I grew up in the north of Canada, and in the summertime, my parents used to kick us out and tell us to go do stuff, so we would end up building things," explains Factor's Mike Mcginn in answer to my question about how he became an Industrial Designer. "I guess I just kept on building!"
Today finds Mike in his basement, artfully backdropped by neatly ordered, well-used tools—a maker's space. Mike is chipper like a beaver with a whole tree ahead of him. Like many Canadians, he's warm and immediately likeable, traits that must have helped when he got lost in drawing at school. "My teachers would attest to this, but I didn't listen much in class. I was always sketching and creating things. To keep doing that as an adult with bikes is something I feel extra fortunate about."
Has it always been bikes? "Almost always," he laughs. "I just love cycling in general. Again, in rural Canada, it was kind of the only way to get around. I remember saving up for my first bike around '93, and I would ride it 40km down the Trans-Canada Highway to visit a friend. We were always biking around." My ears prick up. That sounds like a serious road. "Up here in the north, it's pretty quiet! But yeah, now I look back, I can't believe I did that."
We meander into talking about gravel riding and some of the wilder terrain that passes for dirt in North America. I ask Mike how Factor designs for an area outside its original core road DNA. "We don't think in terms of categories," he explains. "Our focus is on performance for use. We're a high-performance brand, and when we look at bikes, we don't look at a market segment and say we want to be in it, so let's make something. Instead, if we see a requirement for performance in a certain area, like gravel, we work towards realizing that." Mike offers the Ostro Gravel as an example of that process. "We saw a need for a very high-performance aerodynamic gravel bike that would save racers time. We weren't drawn to the sector to make up the numbers; that would be the antithesis of what we're all about."
It's a refreshing approach. "It's also lean," adds Mike. And creative I venture, rather than commercial, yet ironically one which may yield greater rewards. "We think so," says Mike. "Our CEO Rob Gitelis is always pushing the team and I to make sure a bike has meaning to use - the 'Never Status Quo idea'. We don't do circular conversations about product management, how we're going to compete here, or do this, that and maximize our return. We go for the bike's soul and hope people embrace it."
Although the brand's status quo line is public-facing and emblazoned on the bikes, after hearing Mike's perspective, it seems to operate more as an internal motto for the Factor team, an overarching goal, and even a talisman of sorts. It sure beats a rabbit's foot.
Our conversation shifts to Rob's influence and outsize impact on the wider industry, his revered skill at making bikes that move the needle, and his willingness to give his designers free rein. "Oh man, yeah, he's always telling us to go deep and push it, to find perfection in every little thing," says Mike. "It's fantastic. He's an icon!" Mike also mentions the positive influence of ex-Cervelo engineer Graham Shrive, Factor's Director of Engineering since 2019. "As a team, between me, Graham, my gifted designer-colleague Stu Munro and Rob, we have incredible fun making bikes."
Of course, the other element that gives Factor a clear advantage over other 'mass market' brands is its production base: Factor has its own factory and reaps the myriad benefits of supply, materials, round-the-clock iterations and so forth that not having to outsource your production to a third party brings. "We can work to put things in place and take risks in real-time, cutting tools for a new part to see what happens, for example, without having to communicate with another company that, with the best will in the world, is not going to have our best interests at heart, or even have the capability to react with the high level of agility we are used to," notes Mike.
To finish off our chat on the dirt where it began, I ask Mike where he thinks gravel bikes are heading. "Given the profile gap between your aero-heavy Unbounds and the more technical and twisty courses, I think we'll see different weapons for different races," he says. "Gravel isn't new, but it's still taking shape and branching off into different segments. Wherever it goes, though, we'll still ask the same question: why not be faster?"
Back to Journal