Well; I should have gotten used to it, but I am happy to see that I am still able to get surprised and yet don’t seem to have fully learned “expecting the unexpected”. This is what happened when I was in Shenzhen with Joanne (our Asia partner) and visited Jan Kole today. After years of working for the bike industry, Jan has settled down in Shenzhen where he lives with his wife Livia and his son Sander. Altogether, they run Colossi Cycling. The surprise was meeting Paolo (every time I meet this guy, he impresses me in a new way) from Columbus there, who was visiting Jan, too, together with Carlo. It didn’t need much time until we found ourselves in a hot steel-vs-others-discussion.

Technical arguments, pros, cons, marketing related issues, how mainstream carbon has become, how mainstream steel could become, what our future ideas are, why steel isn’t being used more in componentry production (and yes, even the idea of a Columbus MAX bike polo shaft came in this moment), how technical the German market is versus the emotional side of steel and a lot more of interesting questions. It was a good and long discussion with some really interesting “rational” points. It was like if three passionated “steelists” were seeking for a rational explanation in order to have a justification for their shared passion; but it didn’t work.

The salvation was our final statement of one voice : „from todays knowledge, we must say; steel is cool“. Does it need any other reason?

(from left: Carlo, Livia, Sander, Jan, Paolo, Joanne. Yes, the hairy monster in the front is me..)