What do you do if you have a failing machine shop and a love of mountain bikes? Modern Machine Shop Online has recently posted one of the best articles on small business and manufacturing I've read all year, focusing on Canadian bike parts company Straitline Components, a tiny company with a relatively large output enabled by a shrewd selection of the latest CNC machinery.

The company was initially a small contract machine shop working out of a garage and comprised of Mike Paulson and his son Dennis; but after the dot-com bubble burst wiped out their largest client, they figured they'd have to come up with their own product to manufacture if they wanted to stay in business.

After striking out with a golf putter and a kitchen accessory, then seeing small success with a rope-cutting device, the Paulsons took a closer look at their hobby—mountain biking—to see if they could improve the components.

Turns out they could. The Paulsons' experience with manufacturing, experience with bike riding in rugged conditions, and innate talent for design meant they knew how to improve brake levers, handlebar stems, pedals, and more. And their willingness to invest in CNC machines that a few people can run to produce thousands of parts turned out to be a winning strategy. "One of the Paulsons' priorities is a belief in owning manufacturing," writes Peter Zelinski, MMS Online's Senior Editor. "Straitline insources whatever production it reasonably can. It does this for the sake of understanding that production more thoroughly and perhaps winning some efficiencies from it." I don't want to quote too heavily from the article--it's so well-written and informative that you simply ought read the original, linked at the top and bottom of this entry—but there is one example I want to cite of how the Paulsons' familiarity with manufacturing led them to create a better product:

The axle of a bicycle pedal typically mounts on ball bearings. In competitive biking, though, this mounting presents problems. The free-spinning pedal might prevent the rider from regaining lost footing in a critical moment, and if the pedal is damaged on a long trail, the ball bearings confound the hope of reattaching this component in the field.

Pedals from Straitline solve both problems. Preloaded bushings take the place of ball bearings. These bushings keep the pedal in position when the rider's foot leaves contact, and they also enable the pedals to be easily disassembled and reassembled using simple tools. Leading competitive racers value the advantages, both of which can be credited to the resilience of the particular polymer bushing Straitline uses.

The company knew about the performance of this bushing for reasons having nothing to do with cycling. Instead, the shop had used this bushing on fixtures in production, and became familiar with it in this way. Without having this experience—that is, without the experience of physically making things—Straitline would never have had the insight that led to a superior product design.

Click here to read the full article. One of my favorite parts is reading about the cool CNC machines the Paulsons have integrated into their business, enabling them to do more with less.