06

I spent a week in January at Brompton in Brentford, London doing an internship (I like this word better than work experience although this is technically what it was). While I was there I was shown around the factory, developed part of a live project, saw the lengths the designers there go to in terms of fatigue testing and learned how a Brompton is built by stripping down a circa-2000 bicycle and doing a 'sympathetic resoration' on it. I had an absolutely fantastic, interesting, challenging week in London, and cannot thank Brompton enough for welcoming me so warmly.

I'm not going to go into detail here about the content of the project, I am going to write a report on the subject for my tutors. However, I will say that although it was not directly related to my research project, I found that I gained a huge amount of insight into the industry and the ways in which designers work. Brompton is an excpetional case in the bike industry since they do not settle for parts, machines, jigs that aren't quite perfect. Other brands in the industry will buy in available parts for the drivetrain, handlebars etc. but Brompton will design their own to accommodate the unique way a Brompton bicycle works.I like this ethos, and think that in a roundabout way it applies to my project, since my project is about not settling for male or unisex products. I want to design a brand that gives women products that make them feel great, and perform better.

Thanks Brompton.

05

New Year. Whilst I don't intend to set New Years' Resolutions for this project, I am going to outline what I have done and what my next steps are going to be.

I have:

> Established my area of interest and focus: women's specific mountain bike components

> Established some initial contacts: Manon Carpenter, Georgia Gould, Micayla Gatto, Caz Rands, Diana Brucclieri and Trish Bromley (Diana and Trish along with fellow member of "Shegnarnigans" Erica Lawson are currently getting a lot of exposure on Pinkbike for their videos "The Girls" and "Causing a Ruckus")

> Determined product areas of interest based on initial contact responses: grips and saddle, but mainly pedals - there are women's specific shoes for a different shaped foot but nothing to connect that differently shaped foot to the bike. Women will also place different forces and stresses on a pedal that is essentially a lever, so the platform should be designed so as to accommodate this

> Began to think about style: I know that style is going to be important in the brand that I ultimately want to develop, and I have determined what I do not want in terms of style, but have not yet pinpointed what I do want

My next steps are:

> To continue to receive and analyse general responses from riders

> To develop questionnaire to send to respondents

> To look at other extreme sports: skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing   to determine style and colour trends in women’s products

> Through more discussion with research respondents, determine which   products would be most beneficial to develop

> To start to research manufacturing processes of shortlisted products

> To begin to prototype to determine manufacturing feasibility

> To begin to think about brand names and identity