Introducing myself
Hey,
I’m Tommi Riite (25) from Finland and here to tell you a story.
I finally decided to join the discussion rather than just observing what others have been up to.
I am the co-founder of Kovabikes and excited to share my perspective and side of the story how we, two mechanical engineers built a few prototypes from a simple passion to mountain biking and building something of our own. I have a great passion in building stuff and exploring ideas. Lately that passion been mountain bikes. We finished our bachelors 2 years ago and promised ourselves that after hard work on our thesis for Kovabikes prototypes, we could relax and enjoy riding for once.
Fast forward 2 years after our bachelors, and the madness hasn’t stopped. I am now studying product development and am still highly interested in building bicycles. I believe that what i have learned and accomplished could one day be for the benefit of others (eg. producing bikes for others too).
Before we jump into the story, here is a quick photo to visualize what we are dealing with:
The story
DISCLAIMER: I want to be transparent and start with that everything we accomplished and built is not our original ideas (we didn’t invent the wheel again). We got help from others and we helped others by sharing the knowledge. My philosophy is to keep things transparent!
During the 4 years bachelor programme i really got into mountain biking. I had my trek roscoe 7 hardtail from way back and got really hooked up on e-bikes at the same time. I was a poor student but still somehow always found the money for this new passion of mine.
First thing i did was that i converted my hard tail with a bafang mid drive, just to get the feel of driving an actual electric mountain bike. How exciting that was, i was hooked. Before this (pre-engineering era) I was doing my internship at a local motocross dealership / maintenance and remember vaguely trying out a Husqvarna e-bike. I wasn’t impressed as e-bikes were not that advanced and i only cared about speed and that is exactly what bafang offered.
Few years went by and i enjoyed my converted trek, trying to save money for an “actual e-bike”. I got into full suspension bikes which felt the natural progression as the biking sickness kicks in and ordered a dengfu bike with lyrik and some cheap parts. I assembled that bike and it was great. I had way too much fun at some local jump trails and was just fantasizing about modifying my bike.
During the first and second year of my bachelors i really got the hang of different CAD softwares and began exploring the possibilites of making all kinds of interesting stuff with it. We had a kinematic simulation -course and i noticed that full suspension bikes have kinematics and conveniently started to model my first bike. I remember taking the geometry from my trek roscoe as i really enjoyed the geometry of that bike. I passed the simulation course with high grades, but i was not satisfied. It wasn’t real before i could touch it with my own hands.
Probably two courses later i started modeling an e-bike with Catia v5 CAD as it was the only CAD software we used back then. The focus was to test my skills and to learn. If the outcome is a working bike, i have achieved something more than what i was set out to do.
I made the models, i fabricated the battery (72v, near 10kw 
), i tried manual milling and held a tig in my hands. It wasn’t perfect but it was my own and it worked.
At the time this bike was finished, I had planned on selling my Dengfu as i was lacking storage space as a student and found it very inconvenient to use my bikes. I dreamt of having the one perfect bike to do it all.
Long story short, i sold my bikes. Mountain bikes were now more than a hobby. I had proved that i can give birth to an idea from my brain to the computer as digital models and also manufacture it. It really all clicked together at this point. We are probably approaching the timemark where i really thought of doing something extraordinary that would fill the void inside me.
After selling my bikes, including the one i made for myself, I got really excited about machined bikes and decided on a Pole Voima. I still have that bike to this day and I love it. As a bonus, it was made here in Finland and i want to support local businesses as maybe someday others will support mine.
I had started talking to my teachers back at the university about my passion about bikes. Many of them knew my passion and were really supportive, as they allowed me to use machines and gave guidance on what i should pursue. It was probably one of my last CAD courses at the university as i was approaching majoring studies for production and manufacturing methods when i started looking at photos of Atherton bikes and pole bikes with my persuasive teacher when he just told me that i could probably make one of those back at the school. I thought he was mad about even proposing such things, but one thing lead to another and Jere joined our discussion about this common sickness we had.
We kind of just let the other students model something that was a part of the course and went to the lab to measure the machining areas of our Quaser and Haas machines. I got goosebumps just leaving the class with my teacher to actually go measure a machine that would become our best friend in the future. I think after this class, whenever we met each other in the class or at the hallways, we only spoke about bikes and how cool it would be to actually produce one at the campus.
Giving birth to our new babies
We had been ideating on what we wanted to do and first of all explored the possibilities of metal 3D printing bikes (we looked at Athertons methods). It was a time when both me and Jere had started finishing our majors and were nearing the thesis. I was working at ABB and knew it wasn’t for me as i was only interested in actually making something of my own rather than being a cog in an already perfect corporation machine.
We proposed that we want to combine our interests to give life to something we can be proud of and to prove all the haters wrong (i know it sounds corny, but very few people believed this project was possible). I was fueled by the opportunities the university had to give as others rarely used their potential to build or design anything. Covid was a hard thing for a lot of the students and maybe the reason why many talents were wasted. I didn’t let it bother me at all.
Our proposal was to embark doing a thesis for the university about choosing materials / manufacturing methods in modern bicycle manufacturing. Our teacher who had guided us accepted without hesitation. It was just the right push we needed as making something of this scale was truly overwhelming in the beginning.
We both had strengths that were just waiting to be used. Jere had spent most of his days fidgeting linkage and riding downhill, and i had spent my days building, fixing and holding tools. Match made in heaven id say . Many considerations and long ideation processes later we we decided on a concept. A lugged 7075 T6 aluminum and carbon fibre bonded frame that had the correct sizing and geometry, correct manufacturing methods and all best things combined. We wanted to make a bike that is per-fect.
We spent most of our days designing and ideating on what the bike should be and how to implement those to CAD. I had studied designing for manufacturing and Jere knew a lot about FEM’s and kinematics. Of course we both had taken those courses to know at least the bare basics of all the subjects.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours later the only thing to do was to figure out a name for our creation and to truly enjoy it, we decided to test drive it no more than 2 years. All of the “prototypes” are running in perfect condition. Prototype is an understatement btw, i feel that its a lot more than that.
I am writing this to reflect on our journey and to spark a new chapter in the Kovabikes brand we have built along these years. I think i left some information out from the story but there is some storylike threads about the thesis we did, please make sure to read it if you found my perspective interesting.
What next?
I want to design more bikes. As a hobby or a job, it fills the void inside.
I’ve learned a lot and what is even more exciting is that there is still much more to learn. Let me know what you would like to see happen next and share your thoughts on what you think we did right and what we could’ve done better!
Wish you the best,
Tommi