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Norland Cycles Downhill Bike Project

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Here is the story of my project.
My Name is Maximilian-Peter Werner. I’m from Viña Del Mar, Chile.
My country now is better known because of the miners than because of the innovation
or people who decided to do something different than the rest.

Maximilian-Peter Werner is an industrial design student from Chile and he has vision: he wants to produce Chile’s first modern downhill bike. To accomplish this he’s going to have to overcome a great deal of adversity. Frame materials are scarce, bureaucracy is stifling, and financial support is lacking, but Werner has drawn some media attention to his project, pinned down a couple sponsors, and, from the looks of his recently updated Facebook page…things are moving forward.

Read his story and check out a bunch more photos and diagrams after the break…

Disclaimer: English is not Werner’s first language. His mission statement is presented here in its original form with minimal editing.

Here is the story of my project.

My Name is Maximilian-Peter Werner. I’m from Viña Del Mar, Chile. My country now is better known because of the miners than because of the innovation or people who decided to do something different than the rest.
I’m industrial design student, and as thesis project I decided to join the club of the
ones who decided to do something different, and risky. Instead of making a quick project that will take few months to get graduated, I decided with everything against me to do something in relation with my passion for the latest 10 years, a Downhill Bike, the most advanced of the Latin-American Continent, and the first one on using of the same material you can find on the F-22 Raptor, Eurofighter Typhoon and Airbus a 380 airframe.

When I say everything against me, is not just the director of career who wanted I do some
most average project, was also the country, with tons of technologic, materials, market,
taxes and burocracy limitations. A county where the best way to get aluminium or cromoly
is importing it yourself, because is not stock here, but well that is just little part of the story.
I am also a poor student who live by himself with very limited financial resources, so, making a
project of this level with practiclly no money was also bigger part of the challenge, but I did it.
I started by making a very good design for the technology middles that were available at the moment,
the idea of my project caught the interest of people from Pinkbike.com, downhillberlin.de, and the
Bike Magazine from Spain, and consecuence of that caught also the attention of Elka Suspension and Race Face.
Then everything started working as clock, one sponsor brought the other, more middles in the web
and printed magazines got interested and also some national authorities, and the ressult is a
project sponsored in almost everything was needed (See Sponsor list at the end) The project itself consist in 2 technologic and design innovations applied to the Downhill Bike/Frame I’m designing. First one consist on a re-design of the late ninties double chain sistem used to eliminate the pedalling-suspension interference. The design innovation will consist on make this sistem much lighter and compatible with all kind of cranksets available in the market, without limitate it to just the heaviest cromoly DJ/BMX cranks.

The second and Most important innovation is the development of the application of the aerospace material denominated GLARE (GLAss REinforced) widely used on the latest generation Jetfighters and Stealth bomber, by first time on a downhill Bike. The tests on the material lab are prommissing a success on the using of this material on Mountainbikes, letting them achieve an incredible ressistance at low weight.

This prototype will be eqquipped with the best of the best components available in the market given by my sponsors. For example, the Suspensions are Provided by Kowa suspension in the front and Elka suspension on the rear, assisted by a Ti spring given by Diverse Suspension products. Race Face will eqquip most of the components while Formula Brake will put the frame, Spank Industries the rims and continental the Tires. In the Middle of the project Joined the sponsor list a company that is making water jet Cutting, that will produce CNC cutted parts with that modernistic technology, and that sponsor opened doors to produce a really High end Prototype.

The list of sponsors who trusted in my project are:

-Elka Suspension
-Racooz Software
-Race Face
-Diverse Suspension Products
-Motorex Oil
-Kowa suspension (Japan)
-Formula-Brake
-TNT Cargo (Chilean division)
-Mozartt Components (Poland)
-Jetstream Chile.
-Spank Components
-Continental Tires-Downhill Berlin Club.
-Pernos Soto
-Kaoz Bikes (Bikeshop-Chile)

Here is the list of Middles where is shown my project, and their Links:

TV:
La Tarde y Usted (in spanish): http://raceface.com/riders/?p=6495 (Chile)
Loco TV (Chile) Comming Up Soon with prototype done
Ciclo-Pro (Chile) Comming Up Soon with prototype done
Avances 24

Magazines:
Revista el Mundo de la Mountainbike (Spain) (see attached PDF’s)
Revista RGV (Chile) Comming Up Soon with prototype done
Tell Magazine (Chile) Comming Up Soon with prototype done

Best Regards from Chile

Maximilian-Peter Werner

Norland Cycles Project
Industrial design student on thesis project
DUOC UC
Chile

Disclaimer
Please do NEVER send me stuff by DHL Express, they are Cheaters and thieves, taking money from “Ghost Items”.
We have a sponsorship by TNT Cargo that is managing with all postages, customs & taxes payments.

Norland Cycles Project on Facebook

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Maximilian-Peter Werner
Maximilian-Peter Werner
13 years ago

Great! Thanks People from Bike Rumor for Posting about my project.
The Non Made in China, and the Made In Chile with a Homer were images uploaded by Fans of my project in Facebook
I would prefeer you edit those on this article, cuz may be sourse of some misunderstandings with some people and/or hit the feelings of Chineese riders.
Also I dont want to be sued by Matt Groening hehe.
Thanks a lot for supporting my project!

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