Wānaka designer Alex Guichard became famous in his own backyard in 2016 when he produced an award-winning flax-fibre chair for his family business, Revology Concept Store.
Fast forward eight years and he’s still working in his backyard and has turned his creative mind to revolutionising e-bikes.
Cycling was Mr Guichard’s sporting love.
He started with bikes when he began his design engineer career in France when he was in his early 20s but then moved on to designing other things.
He also met and married New Zealander Monique Kelly and they have two children, daughter Romy and son Carter.
In 2014, after arriving in Wānaka, the couple immersed themselves in the local entrepreneurial start-up scene.
Returning to bikes is a logical step. More about his new Wānaka e-bike business, Le Velo Studio, soon.
First, his junior partner in the home workshop.
Carter, now 17, would like to be a design engineer too and enjoys suggesting how his 52-year-old dad could fine-tune his prototype e-bike.
"For almost two years, we’ve been designing concepts for it," Carter said.
"I was into it when the whole thing was just an idea.
"Design is my passion and he needed someone to help.
‘With a mutual love for bikes, it just seemed like a natural thing to do with each other and after cycling, I would like to do something in terms of design engineering," Carter said.
But for now, the Mount Aspiring College (Mac) year 13 pupil is travelling another road.
He is partway through a two-year contract as a professional junior cyclist in Europe, while studying NCEA with the college by correspondence.
"Nearly everyone asks me that question of how I am handling that and pro cycling.
"The school has been really great with it," he said.
"I’ve got NCEA level one with excellence endorsed in 2022 and am waiting for my level two results."
Carter spent his first seven years in France, but is a true Kiwi kid, enjoying everything Wānaka’s bigger backyard has to offer.
"I took up cycling at 10. Dad use to be a cyclist and passed on that love of cycling to me.
"At first, it was for fun, just when I wanted to.
"Then I discovered the love of training and working hard.
"Once I got the bug, I couldn’t get rid of it."
He met other Wānaka teens with a passion for cycling: Hugo Sinclair, Max Good and Mackay Watson.
The Southern Junior Development Team was born, other young lads from Invercargill and Queenstown signed up too and the team registered with Cycling Southland and various dads began driving the youngsters to races everywhere.
Decathlon AG2R then offered him a junior contract for 2023 and 2024.
Carter is the only New Zealander in the team of teens from France, Norway, Estonia, the United Kingdom, United States and Belgium.
Last year, he was selected in the New Zealand junior men’s team to represent New Zealand at the 2023 UCI World Championships in Glasgow.
He trained hard for his 2023 season, but his Glasgow performance "wasn’t great", he said.
He got everything going in the lead-up to the worlds: heat stroke, flu, food poisoning, crashes.
"That is often the thing with junior cycling.
"You have a crash or you are sick.
"I had a few months of not performing really well and then I bounced back."
His peak was third overall in the Junior Tour de Causses, the second-biggest junior race in France which has a field of up to 160 riders.
He also felt he performed strongly for his team in other end-of-season races.
Carter said French culture was familiar and fluency in the language helped, but the cycling culture required a big shift in mindset.
He felt glad he was experiencing the lifestyle now and getting time to grow into the cycle culture, rather than waiting to find out when he was in his 20s.
"AG2R is the biggest junior team in the world.
"It is ranked No1.
"They do all the UCI classified races, all the big major races, the 30 biggest races on the [junior] calendar in the world.
‘I don’t think I was expecting how intensive it would be.
"Especially over in Europe, it is extremely competitive.
"It was a bit of a shock at first but I got stronger as I went on."
This season, he will be away for longer and when he’s not with his team, he will stay with his godparents in Villefranche, Central France, near where AG2R is based.
But before he gets too far down that road, his eyes are on the New Zealand Elite Road Junior 120km title in Timaru next month.
Carter is also aiming for national selection for the Zurich world road championships later this year.
With Carter now familiarising himself with AG2R’s Christmas present, a new Van Rysel road bike, dad Alex is preparing to go to Asia next month to further his goals for Le Velo Studio.
Challenging international supply chain issues and unsustainable costs of materials, transport and importing mean the Revology flax-fibre chair is on hold.
When Alex first pivoted to creating a super-light e-bike, he initially considered using flax for that too.
"I decided not to go for that. It works very well for a chair but doesn’t work for a bike.
"To be solid, you would have to double the thickness [of the flax fibre] and that would make it too heavy.
"And with flax, we were making an indoor chair.
"An outdoor bike has to go in the rain or sun, on the car.
"To protect it, you would have to paint it, which doesn’t make sense."
He has gone with carbon fibre — a material he has worked with before, but not with bikes.
With the help of top cycle technician Graeme Pearson, of Rotorua, who builds cycles for Olympians, Alex has produced a 12kg prototype e-bike, about half the weight of a typical e-bike.
He wanted to design an e-bike that was easier to lift on to a bike rack and comfortable to push using muscular energy if the battery went flat.
Everything is carbon fibre — the handle bars, the seat post, the wheels. And it is a one-size-fits-all design.
The Guichard family has been enjoying riding Le Velo Studio’s prototype around town and on tracks.
They say it is suitable for everything except downhill mountainbiking.
Carbon fibre is light but, to be super-light, Alex’s goal was to reduce the bulky frame where the batteries are normally set.
Wanting to keep as many e-bikes out of the landfill as possible, he focused on just one disposable (or replacement) part — the rear wheel.
"It is all in the rear hub. It has been designed with circular design principles to last, evolve, be repaired."
The rear wheel can be easily exchanged for a push wheel (one with a normal hub), dropping the weight of the bike to about 9kg.
"If you do the Dunstan Trail you can choose the e-wheel and if you are riding around town, you can use the push wheel," he says.
Simplicity was important, so he dispensed with exposed wires and cables.
There is a bluetooth button to connect to devices and a button to reduce or increase the battery boost.
The gear changer on the 11-speed machine works the same as those on a normal performance bike.
Because China and Taiwan have cornered the world market for producing carbon bike components, Alex says he had no choice but to source from there.
His first job in Asia in February is to seal deals on the manufacture of steel production tools.
The tools will take about three months to make.
They will then be used to make carbon fibre bike components for Le Velo Studio.
After the e-bike has been tested and validated next spring, the components should be arriving in Wānaka next summer, ready for assembly in Alex’s garage.
"This first year, I want to make sure it works well here.
"I know some pro-bike mechanics who I hope can work from my backyard maybe two or three days a week.
"But the plan is to have one or two pro mechanics full time.
"I don’t want to be in my backyard too long," he said.
