123 – Making MTB Innovations with Gnartec

Todays Guest

Luke Appleby – Founder and Owner of the UK based MTB Innovations Company Gnartec

On episode #123 it was my pleasure to get Luke on the show and chat about his very exciting Tec company Gnartec. Gnartec is an MTB innovations company that focuses on protection, styling, and customisation. Luke has a passion for seeking out and creating products that help, that solve a problem, that make things easier. May it be protecting your bike or getting that better film footage on your ride, that is what Luke does, he finds problems and solves them helping us enjoy our riding that little bit more.  

We didn’t know it, but during our conversation we found out that we have a few mates in common through the podcast and Luke even travels to Northern Ireland often to visit family at one of my local surf spots. The world sure is a small place and the mountain bike community is even smaller. Luke is super passionate about Gnartec and with the hours he works he would have to be. This is not Luke’s fulltime gig but he works fulltime hours validating new ideas, working on making his products better and refining the production process to bring you the best quality product available on the market.

So tune in and learn more about what it takes to bring a Tec company to life, we chat about, trends, products, passions, bikes, the start of Gnartec, the vision for Gnartec and exciting news for the future of the business.

Enjoy the show!

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Find Out:

  • How Gnartec got started
  • Why Luke decided to take the challenge to make a mountain bike innovations company
  • Luke’s background
  • What Gnartec do and what they produce
  • Luke’s vision behind Gnartec
  • What Luke’s day is like and the hours he spends on Gnartec
  • Why producing in-house is of huge importance to Gnartec
  • Why Luke listens to his customer wishes very closely
  • How you can get involved and have your say of what gets made
  • Why Luke funded the business from his savings
  • Why Gnartec sold out of their chin camera mounts so fast
  • What new and exciting products Gnartec are looking at for the near future
  • How you can help
  • How you can keep in contact and see what Gnartec are up to

Luke and his business partner Mark do everything from start to finish. They design the product, make prototypes, test the product, produce the product and that is all on top of maintaining a website, chatting to customers and dealing with the day to day issues that may arise. Gnartec still make and produce everything in-house in the UK. In fact we had to delay the recording of the show as Luke was taking delivery of new equipment that would be required to manufacture a part for their new product line.

This is a massive outlay of cash but it shows Luke’s passion for the products they are producing at Gnartec, he and Mark are super dedicated on making this work and for the business to grow and be a success. And from the quality of product they are making, their backgrounds in this type of production and being mountain bikers themselves we are about to see some really cool product on the market very soon.

You can’t do any of this without a great team around you who all share the same drive, passion and commitment, and that is something Gnartec is lucky enough to have. As well as Luke and Mark, Meg plays a huge part in the operations of the business and from what I can see, being a adrenaline junkie and one hell of a bike rider she is also well set up to test the product to its fullest. Also helping out is Will, the in-house racer and tester. Will has been riding bikes from age three, so he knows a thing or two about what makes a good product great and obviously try’s his very best to see how he can test Gnartec products to their limits.

It was great to get Luke on the show to chat about all things Gnartec (we also have a great chat about mountain biking in general, as you do). He is a very intelligent young man with a solid background in all forms of production and with his passion for making great mountain bike related products, I can only see good things happening in the very near future for Gnartec.

If you want to get in early, get money off some Gnartec product and help out Gnartec you can get involved with Gnartec’s Kickstarter Campaign. Find out more information here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/gnartec/mountain-bike-fork-protectors

Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the show!

To Connect with Luke and Gnartec:

Website: gnartec.com

Instagram: gnartec

Facebook: Gnartec

YouTube: Gnartec

Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/gnartec/mountain-bike-fork-protectors

Resources in this Episode:

To Share Your Thoughts or Get In Contact:

  • Share this show on, Instagram or Facebook
  • Leave a note in the ‘Contact Us’ section on the website

To Help Out The Show:

Thanks so much to Luke for coming on the show and sharing his story about his tec company – Gnartec

And thank you once again for Listening!

Join me next week for another MTB TRIBE Podcast show!

Did you enjoy this episode and want to hear more? Check out the episodes below: