Bryson Martin Jr. shows off one of the DVO forks for photographer Chris Hatounian.

THE DVO BRAND STORY

To tell the story of DVO Suspension, we have to tell the story of its founder. Bryson Martin was one of Mountain Bike Action’s main test riders in the late 1980s and early 1990s. John Tomac had been MBA’s top test rider previously, but Tomac had to give up test riding for the magazine after his professional racing career took off. Bryson replaced Tomac as one of MBA’s main test riders and soon began appearing on the pages—and occasionally covers—of Mountain Bike Action.

Bryson Martin, now 60, was a teenager in Southern California in the 1970s when the sport of bicycle motocross, aka BMX, exploded in popularity. “We had BMX bikes back then and were pretending like we were Evel Knievel. Then, I got into motorcycles. I competed in a few flat-track races at Ascot Speedway in Gardena in the ’70s. I was on a Honda 100. I wasn’t that good, but it was incredibly fun! I also raced motocross at Saddleback and Indian Dunes as a kid. I can’t recall the years, but it had to be in the ’70s.
“I think I got my first mountain bike in 1981. I went to all the early NORBA races. The first races were cross-country, uphill, downhill and trials. The pros would race the uphill to get to the top of the mountain, then they’d race the downhill.”

Though Bryson was fast enough to be in the Pro class, he wasn’t in serious contention for the national titles the way other guys like John Tomac, Ned Overend, and future fellow DVO staffer Tom Rogers were.
Bryson knew that he couldn’t earn a living as a pro racer, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to develop a career for himself in the mountain bike world.

Bryson could feel how well the suspension worked on his motorcycle, and he took interest when that kind of technology began to enter the mountain bike world in the 1980s. Bryson was riding with Marzocchi suspension on his motocross bikes. “I can’t recall if the old bikes that I raced with Marzocchi suspension were either Husky or Bultaco,” he says now, but he recalls that Marzocchi had the best motocross suspension in the world at that time. He appreciated great suspension when he was riding motocross bikes, and that inspired him to want to introduce that level of performance to mountain bikes.

 

 

TALKING WITH DVO’S FOUNDER AND CEO, BRYSON MARTIN SR.

MBA: Where did you grow up?
Bryson Martin: I mainly grew up in Redondo Beach, California, but my dad was working for the government at the time, and I had the opportunity to live with him while he was on various assignments all over the world.

MBA: How did you get into mountain biking?
BM: I got into mountain biking around 1981 when I first went to college. I rode motorcycles and BMX as a kid, and the first mountain bikes that were coming out then had a familiar attraction to them.

MBA: How much mountain bike racing did you do?
BM: From the mid-’80s through early 2000, I did a lot of racing. I would travel all over the country racing NORBAs, and Big Bear along with Mammoth were my favorite locations. Downhill was more my specialty. I was a decent, expert cross-country racer, but downhill was more exciting.

I think my best pro downhill finish was 16th place at the Mammoth Kamikaze, which qualified me for the Reebok Eliminator. In early 2000, I started to race the Trans Alp Series in Europe. It was an eight-day stage race, which started in Mittenwald, Austria, and crisscrossed the Alps, ultimately finishing in Lago di Garda, Italy. Racing that five times was the highlight of my riding career.

MBA: How did you become a Mountain Bike Action test rider?
BM: I believe Zap asked me to help out with some testing. I met the MBA crew when I was working with Brave Cycles out of Monrovia. We did small-batch custom bikes and built a strong West Coast race presence. Testing all the latest bikes and being in the pages of MBA was a great experience.

MBA: How many years did you do that?
BM: I believe it could’ve spanned five-plus years.

MBA: How did you get the idea to start Marzocchi USA?
BM: I was at the Interbike Show when it first moved to Anaheim. I saw a man with a Marzocchi shirt walking around and asked him why he was at a bicycle show. I was familiar with Marzocchi from their motorcycle suspension products, and I instantly thought they were thinking about making mountain bike suspension.

It was an opportunity to get my foot in the door. I also got a reference to work with Marzocchi from Robb [Mesecher] and Zap at MBA. It was a while ago, and I’m sure the details are fuzzy, but I knew that suspension was the next biggest technological achievement for mountain bikes. After meeting Andrea from Marzocchi Interbike, I found myself in Bologna, Italy, pitching Mr. Marzocchi on helping him enter the MTB suspension business. After a serious dose of Southern California hubris, I convinced Mr. Marzocchi I was the man to help him, and we signed a deal. The rest was chaotic history!

Ronnie Dilan takes care of the servicing of one of the forks.

 

MBA: What happened to Marzocchi USA?
BM: To make a long story short, the financial crisis of 2008 took the entire Marzocchi organization down. In Italy, they purchased a very large forging and casting company to become more vertically integrated. After the purchase, the entire staff departed, along with the knowledge of castings and forging. We had to pull engineering from suspension to get the casting business back online, and the burn rate of cash was immense. Then the financial crisis hit, and Marzocchi Italy lost huge amounts of OEM motorcycle business.

The wheels started to fall off, and eventually the MTB business was pulled down with it. In 2010, Tenneco purchased Marzocchi Italy and Marzocchi USA. I worked with those monkeys for two years, then I quit to start DVO in 2012. It was a sad ending to building that brand for 27 years and making some iconic designs that helped shaped the designs of today.

MBA: How did you come up with the idea of starting DVO?
BM: I left Marzocchi in 2012, and my colleagues at SR Suntour in Taiwan and I worked on purchasing Marzocchi MTB from Tenneco, but after the negotiations failed, I launched DVO along with my main guys from Marzocchi USA.

MBA: What did you think you would need to do to be successful in the suspension business?
BM: I can list a hundred key points regarding this topic. At the high end, the consumer is demanding value, and the value proposition at today’s level has never been so high. Suspension is the most complicated part of the bicycle, and the baseline set by the market leaders is very high.

Everything from the quality of your manufacturing process to engineering and product design is paramount. You need to make sure your supply chain is stable to deliver quality parts at a reasonable price, then you need to support your products at a global level. I really should’ve just made surfboards in Redondo [laughs].

 

MBA: Who designed DVO’s first forks and shocks?
BM: The main guys at DVO USA who followed me from Marzocchi were all part of the design process from day one to this day. Tom Rogers, Ronnie Dilan, Josh Baltaxe, Zeke Patterson, John Pelion and Bryson Jr. were all integral in developing our first products. Zeke and Josh left some years ago, and now we have expanded our development team with engineers in Taiwan at DVO Taiwan. I would say nearly everyone in the company helps develop our products. It’s a team effort.

MBA: How did you avoid running into patent problems in the development of DVO products?
BM: We navigate around a lot of patents, which motivates us to come up with new and better ideas. I like Elon Musk’s take on patents. He says patents are for stupid people, and there’s some truth to it.

 

MBA: How did you come up with the money to start the company?
BM: I had some savings from my Marzocchi days and worked with some key suppliers in Taiwan for start-up capital. SR Suntour is an investor and offered some huge help with molds and castings.

MBA: How did you come up with the name “DVO”?
BM: “DVO” stands for “Developed Suspension.” It was a term we used when we worked on projects in the past. When we finished a design, we labeled it “developed,” so we figured it would be a good name for our new company.

MBA: What were the biggest challenges in launching DVO?
BM: Everything! Launching a new company is very challenging, especially one that involved design, development, casting molds, forgings, CNC, assembly lines, QC and global support. But, we had years of experience from Marzocchi, and we enthusiastically marched into battle.

MBA: How did you come up with your staff?
BM: JP, Ronnie, Josh and Bryson Jr. were all with me at Marzocchi, and they joined me to launch DVO.

 

MBA: We read somewhere that you earned an MBA at Harvard Business School between 1997 and 2002. Is that true? Did you have to move to Massachusetts to do that?
BM: I studied there under the Executive MBA Program after earning an economics degree in San Diego.

MBA: How important was your education in helping you develop your company?
BM: Very important, especially after studying international economics.

 

MBA: Are your key staff members shareholders in the company?
BM: Not at the moment, but key guys will be included soon.

MBA: What are the main advantages of DVO forks and shocks?
BM: This could occupy a thousand words, but in a nutshell, all our products are hand-made in smaller batches. We take the time to “hand feel” all the parts after they are assembled. We also can afford to use higher-grade materials and more expensive machining processes, which increase the overall performance and long-term durability. This will be very apparent with all our 2024 models.

 

MBA: What bike companies offer DVO suspension on their bikes?
BM: Intense, Norco, Focus, Fezzari, Cube and Merida, just to name few.

MBA: What well-known riders use DVO products now?
BM: Remy Metailler, Brian Lopes, Karim Amour, Even Geankoplis, Barbora Vojta, Michal Marosi, Blaha Vojtech and a few other top euro pros.

MBA: How many people are on the DVO staff?
BM: We have around 12 in the USA and around 30-plus in Taiwan.

 

MBA: How many forks and shocks do you sell in a year?
BM: A lot. Not as many as the big guys, but we are sitting in a good place. 2023 and 2024 will be strong years for us.

MBA: What’s next for DVO?
BM: We have a lot of new products coming out within the next few years. The most exciting part is our new designs and manufacturing processes will set us apart from the competition. For us, these will be defining performance features that were missing from what’s currently available.

For more information on DVO and its products, please visit https://dvosuspension.com/