Knog are a proud bunch – and rightly so. For over two decades, we have introduced product after product that has reimagined bike, running, and outdoor accessories.

We’ve broken Kickstarter records, partnered with industry behemoths, sponsored the world’s best riders, and continued to move through uncertain times with both poise and an unshakable confidence. One of our triumphs has been the “Oi” bell – Over 4 million units sold, a mountain of positive PR, and adoring fans over the globe.

But even with that great success, the desire to innovate is a thirst never quenched. It has almost been a decade since we dropped the Oi Classic, an appropriately named, industry stalwart that has served as the gold standard in bells. However, we’re proud to now release the “Oi Prima”. A Classic Reimagined.

It's a cliché, but behind each one of our products are a team of incredible people. One of whom is our Design Director, Anton Van Maanen, who proudly led the teams endeavour to reimagine the “Oi”. In this, our inaugural “The Lab” article, Anton sits down to discuss the Oi Classic, the Oi Prima, and his role at Knog.

“I started as an intern in 2012 and was only meant to be here for two weeks. 18 months later, I had deferred my honours year at University (Studying industrial design). That was my first stint, but I ended up back at university, worked a couple of jobs, and eventually got a call from Hugo (Davidson, CEO) asking whether I’d be interested in stepping back into a designer role” Anton recalled. “The second stint has just recently ticked over 10 years”.

“I was actually involved when we first started designing the Oi Classic. Hugo essentially came into the office with a rough sketch of an extruded circle and said, “we’re doing this”. So, we got to work”.

Many of Knog’s great ideas have had a similar inception. Our best ideas spawn over a beer, in the shower, stuck in traffic. Glimpses of an idea spawn on the back of loose receipts, scrunched napkins, or purely exist in the mind of their creator. But, as any designer will tell you, the proof is in the pudding – and once an idea is born, the next step is bringing it into real life.

“The Classic wasn’t like any other bell. To begin with, we just got stuck into hands on prototyping. We spent many hours in the workshop banging different materials and trying out different shapes. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we knew what we were aiming for”.

“We’re a small team and we work closely. We help each other and this rings (pun intended) true when we design a product for the first time. A lot of things happen verbally between team members so it’s all out in the open, everyone comes along for the ride regardless of if you’re in the R&D team, finance, marketing etc. There’s a lot of crossover and a lot of collaboration. The “Classic” was exactly that”.

Anton goes on to describe the difference when creating the “Prima” – “The thing now is, we know a lot more about bells. To go one step further, we know a lot more about our style of bell. The first time around we had to explore a lot of fruitless avenues but with the Prima, it was a more focused development because we knew the principal was there. We just had to build on top of the foundations we had already established.”

The new Prima is thousands of hours of embedded knowledge; it has taken the efforts of many sets of hands to get to this point. Anton describes the Prima as a “simple thing that is actually much more complicated”. This is in large part to the technical elements behind the updated “Hammer” design. “There are a heap of different materials, tuned to quite high tolerances so it (The hammer) strikes at the right speed and the right angle, as well as produces the right sound”.

“We knew what worked, but more importantly we knew what didn’t. We could focus our efforts towards making the product better for our customer”

The Prima is an excellent encapsulation of why Knog do what we do. And for our team, the pride in our ability never fades – Anton describes the feeling “like Christmas when we get a new box of product. You have this intimate knowledge of the product as you’ve seen the entire process”.

“You’ve been there when it was a sketch, a CAD model, a 3D printed prototype; and then you get to hold the same product that the customer will receive. It’s a finished product, in beautiful packaging. It’s incredibly satisfying to make something that not only works but looks great. We don’t do ugly”.

To summarise, Van Maanen puts it like this “I don’t understand why others don’t go the extra mile. It doesn’t cost much to make something look nice, and your customer will always be more appreciative of the effort you’ve put in. To me, my bias is towards craft – I’m in this role to do exactly that. And with the Prima, we’ve made a product that performs the same way it looks; beautiful. We make products that do a function, and do it well.”

The Oi Prima is available to purchase now from us.knog.com and from all good bike stores.