Chloe Hosking is not any stranger to constructing success from scratch. The Australian former professional bike owner began racing as a junior on the observe and rapidly discovered success with a sequence of silver and bronze medals on the nationwide stage. She then made the swap to highway racing, the place she amassed quite a few accolades, together with a Commonwealth Video games gold medal, stage victories within the Giro Rosa and a dash victory at La Course by Le Tour de France, earlier than retiring in 2023.
Whereas racing, Canberra-based Hosking acquired her undergraduate diploma in journalism and is now pursuing a legislation diploma, whereas additionally persevering with to construct her legacy in biking.
In 2023, Hosking launched her personal bike model, the eponymous Hosking Bikes, which is the first-ever bike model based by a feminine skilled highway bike owner and goals to ‘disrupt the established order’. Distinctive in her method is the truth that she went all in on alloy, as an alternative of carbon, with the purpose of manufacturing high-performance bikes from steel with a extra inexpensive pricetag.
“I’ve seen that alloy bikes might be simply as aggressive in a peloton as carbon ones. The overwhelming majority of individuals don’t must spend 20 grand on a carbon bike.”
Chloe Hosking
Introducing: Hosking Bikes
(Picture credit score: Hosking Bikes)
Transport this spring, the Hosking Bikes assortment presently consists of two base fashions: an alloy aero highway bike with built-in cable routing and a carbon fork, and an all-road mannequin designed round 40mm tires with flat-bar and drop-bar builds accessible.
The alloy frames are available 5 inventory sizes, starting from an extra-small (42-44cm) to extra-large (57cm), and all bikes are made-to-order.
On the highway aspect, clients can select from 4 SRAM-equipped builds, and for the all-road vary, there are seven construct kits accessible, once more all SRAM-based.
Why Alloy?
A Hosking Bikes body being constructed
(Picture credit score: Hosking Bikes)
Made to go quick, the frames had been designed and engineered in collaboration with the dash queen herself, one prototype at a time.
For the preliminary design, Hosking mirrored on each bike she’d ridden in her 13-year professional profession, highlighting what she preferred and what she needed to alter. She labored with an skilled designer and engineer to show these designs right into a rideable prototype, which she then rode and examined herself in Canberra, taking notes and requesting modifications for brand spanking new prototypes. This went on for months till the body carried out as she envisioned.
However with prototyping comes bills. Every spherical of prototyping value between $4,000-8,000 USD — not an insignificant funding for somebody making a model from scratch, but a fraction of the price of carbon prototyping, which require costly molds.
Along with saving prices by going for alloy bike body, Hosking was additionally in a position to truly check journey each prototype.
“At Hosking Bikes, we’ve truly ridden the entire frames we promote. We didn’t depend on a software program to foretell what the bike would really feel like for the rider, in order that’s one good thing about utilizing alloy: it’s extremely adjustable within the prototyping stage,” Hosking says.
“We nonetheless have the massive upfront value of buying the entire alloy tubes and dealing with our producers, however alloy permits us to have a way more versatile manufacturing and design course of than if we had been working with carbon.”
Chloe Hosking wins the 2016 La Course by Le Tour de France
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Design-process apart, Hosking select alloy as a result of she needed her bikes to be world-class by way of efficiency but additionally sturdy and inexpensive.
“We wish our bikes to value about the identical in 5 years as they do now, so we choose supplies and parts that give us the perfect likelihood of that,” Hosking tells Biking Weekly.
Along with preserving the associated fee down, Hosking believes that alloy frames supply the rider a way of safety. Ought to the rider crash or fall, an alloy bike is much less prone to crack or chip than a carbon bike.
“I’ve witnessed elite riders right here in Australia journey gorgeous carbon bikes twice earlier than crashing out, snapping their body in two, and now being and not using a bike,” Hosking says. “Alloy bikes are far harder in relation to withstanding normal put on and tear or a crash, and so they value much less, too.”
“I feel biking business advertising and marketing has been very efficient at convincing individuals they should spend an insane amount of cash on carbon frames when the truth is you should buy an alloy body that weighs about the identical and is much less prone to crack.”
Chloe Hosking
Usually talking, carbon purists flip up their nostril at alloy bikes as a result of they’re seen as heavier, clunkier and less-comfortable than carbon frames.
Hosking begs to vary.
“Alloy doesn’t equate to ‘heavy’,” she says. “We’ve been in a position to deliver the burden of our frames down and we’ll proceed to take action. I feel biking business advertising and marketing has been very efficient at convincing individuals they should spend an insane amount of cash on carbon frames when the truth is you should buy an alloy body that weighs about the identical and is much less prone to crack.”
Hosking Bikes’ top-of-the-line bike, the HR4 AXS highway bike, ideas the scales at 7.91kg in a measurement small. By comparability, a full-carbon Trek Madone with comparable specs weighs in 7.5kg,
Hosking notes that for some, a carbon bike stands out as the proper selection, and acknowledges that it’s certainly s troublesome to make an alloy bike that weighs in at or under the UCI’s 6.8kh weight restrict. Carbon additionally doesn’t fatigue or corrode the best way alloy may after being uncovered to the weather in the long term. Nonetheless, Hosking stays agency on the precept that Hosking Bikes will press on with alloy frames.
“Now that I’m not using professionally anymore, I’ll in all probability by no means purchase a carbon bike once more as a result of I’ve seen that alloy bikes might be simply as aggressive in a peloton as carbon ones,” Hosking says. “The overwhelming majority of individuals don’t must spend 20 grand on a carbon bike.”
Whereas many carbon race bikes simply surpass the $10-grand mark, Hosking Bikes’ most costly steed is the HR4 AXS highway bike, which is spec’d with a SRAM Crimson AXS groupset, Imaginative and prescient’s Metron 30 carbon wheels and the Metron 5D ACR carbon bars —a race-capable bundle that retails for ‘simply’ $6,745 USD.
Why Now?
Hosking Bikes’ dropbar All-Roads bike
(Picture credit score: Hosking Bikes)
The biking business information hasn’t been excellent recently: gross sales down, income falling, layoffs impending, product strains shrinking, and so on. But amid this rocky panorama, Hosking couldn’t be extra certain that that is the correct time to get Hosking Bikes rolling.
“I really feel that Hosking Bikes has an unbelievable likelihood to do one thing higher and in another way proper now,” Hosking says. “We imagine that we’re structuring Hosking Bikes to be a long-term, sustainable enterprise and are taking notes —each good and dangerous— on what’s happening within the biking business presently, so we are able to be taught from it as we develop our enterprise.”
She notes that based mostly on her analysis, the excessive worth tags of huge manufacturers’ merchandise come from passing company prices onto the buyer.
“We’ve deliberately created a brilliant lean firm and that’s why we are able to ship world-class bikes at an inexpensive worth level,” Hosking shares. “In case you have a look at some main bike corporations, solely 12% of their headcount goes to engineers, which implies that they should worth their merchandise in such a approach that it sustains the opposite 88% of their enterprise corresponding to advertising and marketing and social media. We’re not going to try this at Hosking Bikes.”
When Hosking began Hosking Bikes, she knew that, no less than for now, her worker rely could be two: herself and her husband.
This enables Hosking to restrict markup of the bikes – she nonetheless must make a revenue, however by opting to make use of grassroots advertising and marketing methods and declining so as to add a 3rd particular person to the payroll, Hosking retains her “company prices” fairly low, which interprets to cheaper sticker costs.
Hosking is assured that by preserving her workers restricted to 2 and sticking to natural advertising and marketing along with utilizing alloy for her frames, she’s going to beat the doom and gloom plaguing different massive bike corporations.
Supporting the following technology
Chloe Hosking on the sidelines on the seventh annual Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race in 2023
(Picture credit score: Hosking Bikes)
Among the first cyclists to swing their legs over a model new Hosking bike are the members if the U.S.-based Skyway Domestique Racing, a Cat 3 improvement groups Hosking Bikes is supporting this 2024 season.
“The fact is that many elite cyclists usually are not being sponsored with 15-thousand-dollar bikes and we hope this partnership exhibits that really, you don’t should be [in order] to achieve success within the peloton,” Hosking says.
“It’s my hope that by making bikes which might be extra inexpensive and modern in another way than most manufacturers, we are able to attempt to deliver extra various views and opinions into the biking neighborhood.
“I hope that my legacy is that Hosking Bikes helped to interrupt down obstacles and get extra individuals on bikes, whether or not you’re simply cruising round city or have World Tour aspirations.”
