Lucas from bikepacking.com recently did an interview with us and I thought this is a good starting point to bring some light into darkness. 😉
Inspired by passion:
A recurring question is: “What is Sour’s background and where do you guys come from?“
There is no short answer to that but I will try to lighten everything up. Sour is a brand from the Binova GmbH and as this is our project of passion. Binova as a whole company is a team of nine bike lovers and we would most likely describe us as a development office for transportation problems. We develop batteries for e-bikes, motor control units and try to find and develop soft- and hardware solutions for unusual clients that want to use bikes or e-bikes as their way of transportation.
Currently Sour consists of four people including myself and numerous friends and supporters. The four of us that are most involved in SOUR are the „hardware/bicycle part“ of the Binova company. We are a team of two mechanical engineers, one production engineer, and one manager of culture and economics.
From the start
We started Sour in early 2018 when I decided to go to the Berliner Fahrradschau to see how the people will react to the prototype frames and I did not really have a strategy to develop the idea much further than that.
The feedback at the BFS was amazing and a lot of people actually liked the products so I decided to make a test run just for friends. It actually took us one year from the prototype stage to running through the revisions of every single product. Mid-march 2019 we finally launched our website, set up the online shop and are finally available.
Right now Sour is at least taking 120% of our worktime at Binova but Katja, the companies owner is very confident with our products and we have to thank her for that big time!
Finding direction
When I was asked about the range of products I instantly thought that it kind of happened by accident, but the more I think about it the more I have to say that it definitely is not. The development of our products was a natural process that is surely influenced by everybody’s individual background mixed with what we want to ride today. We do not want to be seen in just one way nor do we want limit ourselves too much. We build what we ride.
Our next big step is adding complete builds to our lineup for the Clueless and Purple Haze and we are really excited to see what is going to happen.
So far we have seen a lot really beautiful builds, from super wild to super practical. Most of these custom builds were actually made by the shops we collaborate. They do an amazing job connecting with the customers, seeing their needs and giving good advices. Bike shops are very important for the bike scene, which is why we have decided to work very close with certain shops. We see them as partners, not just as a way of distribution. We listen to them and what they have to say and we cannot thank them enough for their support.
Based in Dresden, Germany, a city with its very own and unique bike scene we do get influenced a lot by our surrounding community and relationships. We do have very strong bonds here between the different places to go. Pubs, bike shops, wheel builders, cinemas, the community is big, colorful and growing.
As different as the people, so are the different types of riding and the different types of bikes we do offer. As long as you have fun on our bikes, no matter if it is on a long bikepacking trip or at your local dirtjump spot, we are happy. We design our bikes to make the most of your journey.
René, Henri, Christoph – May 2019
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