Todd Lyons

HS: And then, off the initial DC collaboration you bring back more of the old school bikes?

Todd: The DC collaboration sparked the 29-inch Big Ripper. This came from the relationship of DC to Rob Dyrdek. My boss, the president of ASI, loves Rob and Big, and about a year ago he came in here and said, “We should make a bike for Big Black.” I contacted Damon, Damon called Rob, and we made four bikes. They put them in one of the episodes, where they raced down the street. After that we decided to add it to the line. We have a bunch of pre-orders after that. It is a 29-inch wheel, flipping a BMX geometry. This would not have come about without the relationship with DC. We got swamped with emails about it, tall guys stoked we made the 29er.

HS: Also, an interesting decision to branch out from BMX to the single speeds.

Todd: That was 2 1/2 years ago. Again, my boss came in and said, “Let’s make a single speed bike.” He actually had to half explain the single speed. I come from a BMX background, three years ago single speeds hadn’t boomed to what they are today. He said there are a lot of guys out there riding road bikes, and converting them to single speeds. I checked out the bike racks at the local college and saw a ton of them. His initial plan was to make an entry level single speed that mimics the SE bronco bikes. Think of the Bronco spec, when you think of the single speed. High tinsel steel frame and fork, one piece crank set, single wall rims, all loose ball bearings. That is what we did two model years ago. We came out with the draft. It retailed at full margin, off the floor for $250. The whole bike, MSRP was $250. For the first two years we were the only company with single speeds at that price point. Call them cheap. Call them whatever. But, that is a bike for college students that wanted a single speed. Moving ahead to 2009, we made some changes. We don’t do the one piece crank anymore, we’ve introduced the Draft Light which is a little upgraded version with a fixed/free hub and alloy hubs, and drop bars.

The original idea of the single speed was to make a bike at a price point that nobody else was at. We succeeded for sure with that. Since then we have the Draft Light, which is an upgraded version. We have the Lager, which is about double the price. Then the Premium Ale, with a lugged frame, sugino cranks, a bunch of anodized parts. Pretty intricate graphics on that. This DC PK Ripper, that is a late edition to the 2009 line.

HS: Basically a special edition.

Todd: This is already done, some other specials are still in the works. We are working with a few other street brands, with some never before seen SE Bikes. Again, that has branched with DC.

HS: The DC stuff and the stuff with Gum Ball has given some attention to the brand.

Todd: Yeah about 10 months ago we brought on James Banuelos and the marketing arm of his company Digital X to handle collaborations within the tastemakers markets. James set Jay @ 5 & A DIME in San Diego up with an 26" OM FLYER which was custom painted and the bike was strapped to their car during GUMBALL. The DIGITAL X utilizing their industry contacts have also recently set us up with giving bikes to Kenna, Slash of Guns n Roses and Will I AM of Black Eyed Peas.These efforts have brought alot of attention to the brand.


HS: The singer from Virginia? Guy that works with Chad Hugo.

Todd: We just gave him a new 24-inch quadrangle looptail. It is amazing how many people in the music industry that know SE from back in the day and are collectors. So many guys, like the guy that runs Gum Ball, he is an old school BMX racer and has a ton of bikes. All these influential people have a history with the company. Not uncommon for them to be excited to find that SE is back making the stuff they used to ride.