As promised during the live stream Q&A, we owe you an update on our full suspension frame project. It makes me sick just having to write this, as I wanted this project to succeed for so many reasons, most of them not business-related, but we have had no choice but to stop.

I know we said we'd share all our trials and tribulations, but it's hard with this one, I just don't want to type. As if it’s not really true if I don’t write it down. 

 It's not even anything that bad, I enjoyed working on the project and I really enjoyed working with the people we worked with, but we all together just had to come to the conclusion we were chasing a ghost more than having a realistic chance of success. Sometimes it is like this, everybody is of good will and wants to make it happen, but it just doesn't work out. Nobody to blame, chalk one up to over-excitement and make it part of our expensive education.

In a way it's also part of how we operate at OPEN, we want to try things, and part of wanting to try is taking a chance to fail. And so fail we do, from time to time, but when we succeed, it's something like the U.P. or the ONE+. As frustrating as it feels in the case of the full suspension bike, I guess that's a trade-off worth taking. 

So is there nothing to cheer us up? Actually there is, because we are always thinking and always working on new stuff. So part of our CrossFondue next Sunday (February 26) is to show the people who join us in Basel a sneak peek of other stuff we're working on. And for those who cannot make it to Basel that day, Andy and I will do a live stream the day after. More about that soon, so jut in the off-chance you are not subscribed yet, make sure you get the UPDATES newsletter so you'll know the details of that live stream.