Alex Desmond on Designing a Better Adaptive MTB (Ep.84)

Alex Desmond is an engineer, and when a friend of his suffered a stroke and was no longer able to ride a bike, Alex decided to do something about it. Six years later, the fruits of that project are here — as the Orange Phase AD3. Not only is the end result remarkable, but the story of how it came to be might be even wilder, so we sat down with Alex to get the rundown on the project including a whole lot of the technical details; getting the likes of Martyn Ashton and Lorraine Truong involved; the limitations of other adaptive mountain bikes; and how Alex ultimately used the project to land a job at Orange.
Alex Desmond with the Orange Phase AD3

Alex Desmond is an engineer, and when a friend of his suffered a stroke and was no longer able to ride a bike, Alex decided to do something about it. Six years later, the fruits of that project are here — as the Orange Phase AD3. Not only is the end result remarkable, but the story of how it came to be might be even wilder, so we sat down with Alex to get the rundown on the project, including a whole lot of the technical details; getting the likes of Martyn Ashton and Lorraine Truong involved; the limitations of other adaptive mountain bikes; and how Alex ultimately used the project to land a job at Orange.

TOPICS & TIMES:

  • Origins of the AD3 project (1:40)
  • AD3 design (3:39)
  • Early prototyping (13:15)
  • Getting Lorraine involved & Alex’s job at Orange (26:42)
  • Plans for the AD3 (32:49)
  • Alex’s Big Idea (37:07)

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