Approach again within the misty yonder days of 2021, Bikerumor’s protection of Eurobike 2021 included a blurb about Personomic — a scrappy little startup with desires of bringing customized 3D-printed grips to the lots.
Quick ahead two years, and the German firm made good on its imaginative and prescient. A profitable Kickstarter marketing campaign led to 1,000 pre-orders from over 30 nations, and now the grips can be found on demand from Personomic’s web site. The key sauce is their materials selection, mixed with the person match made doable by Personomic’s proprietary smartphone-scanning know-how.
The design is now getting extra eyeballs — a 94,000-person German survey ranked Persomic on the prime of the checklist when it comes to bike grips. On prime of that, the corporate simply struck a cope with sizable German biking wholesaler Paul Lange & Co. (a serious Shimano distributor all through Central Europe), that means riders in Germany can now order Personomic merchandise instantly from their native bike store.
That vary may additionally quickly embrace an entire different class of custom-made biking touchpoint merchandise — Schulz and his co-founders informed us growth into the saddle market is true across the nook.
‘Digital Twins’ and Saddles within the Wings
Right here’s how Personomic’s know-how works. Place your hand on a sheet of laptop paper and snap a photograph. Ship that picture to Personomic as part of the ordering course of — the place it’s also possible to select from 5 grip and locking ring colours, in addition to your most popular texture sample.
The corporate makes use of the paper as a reference level and creates a “digital twin” of your hand — an precise 3D mannequin. Personomic then makes use of this digital twin to print a plastic mould of your customized grip, then fills in that mould with silicon. When the silicon is ready, workers take away the mould, package deal your grips, and stick them within the mail.
Personomic claims its use of silicon over rubber or plastic leads to grips which can be hard-wearing, vibration-dampening, and non-sticky. Pair that with a grip that completely matches your hand, and also you’ve bought a seemingly profitable combo.
“The entire thought behind utilizing 3D printing is {that a} customized bike grip will match every bicycle owner’s palms completely, which is able to result in higher distribution of stress throughout the palms. This prevents widespread points comparable to numb fingers when biking,” Personomic co-founder Andreas Schulz defined to BikeRumor by e-mail.
Now, it goals to resolve different frequent ache factors for cyclists.
“Though presently we solely promote bike grips, we’re a 3D-printing start-up at coronary heart,” Schulz mentioned. “We’re presently additionally creating a customized bike saddle that’s tailored to the person bicycle owner and need to turn out to be the go-to biking model for custom-made, ergonomic bike equipment.”
Customization and the potential comforts therein do include a worth: a pair of Personomic grips begin at round $97 MSRP, and delivery exterior the EU prices one other $4.
