Interview— Ola Stenegärd
Childhood and Choppers: How to become an Astronaut with legendary motorcycle designer Ola Stenegärd of Indian Motorcycles
“you pour a lot into that vehicle because you know its going to mean a lot to the person who buys it”
“there will always be room for two wheels”
Transcript:
What it Taks: becoming an Astronaut with legendary designer Ola Stenegärd
Andrea Hiott: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to forever motoring. Part of the ecological motoring channel.
Today we have Ola stenegärd w ho is the director of product design at Indian motorcycles. I've heard. So many good things about Ola from so many different people. So I wasn't surprised that when we posted the video. On the YouTube channel, it immediately got thousands of views. A lot of people know him from the BMW years and the R 90. And of course from his most recent work. At Indian, which is really impressive. In this conversation, we talk a lot about his early years and the chopper scene in Sweden. He grew up on an island called Gotland in the Baltic sea. And we talk about what it was like to grow up on a farm there. And this chopper scene. That was part of his life from his earliest memories. He remembers being on a, on a bike when he was like three years old because his brother rode sort of back in the easy [00:01:00] rider years. It's a really interesting conversation about how. People can really change your life with what they say to you when you're young. This really runs deep in Ola, this work that he's doing, it seems like it was what he was made, made to do as you'll hear. In this conversation. We also talk about the changing scene of transportation. And his sort of take on what it means to design an electric vehicle. That's more towards the end of the conversation. But we do get to this idea of sustainability and what it means. Uh, but before we get there, we, we talk a lot about, what it means to design a bike and. We talk about how, when you grow up with a machine and when you grow up creating machines and working with engines and things like this, that. They start to feel alive. Um, Ola says something about when you breathe life into an engine, it really does feel like you're giving it a soul. There is something about, about these machines that become really part of us, almost like extended parts of us. So we talk about that and how that. [00:02:00] Fits into his life. Um, it is a kind of philosophical talk. Which is a little different for Ola. I think. But I really appreciate him talking to us. There was a little bit of a audio issue. at the beginning, but we work it out. And I've already heard from a lot of you that you want more because we didn't get to. A lot of his. More recent designs. So I'll have to do that someday, but for now I hope you enjoy this and getting to know Ola a little better. Uh, and I also hope that you all have a wonderful new year in 2024.
Let's go. Okay. Hi. Got it. Thanks for being on Forever Motoring. It's great to see you.
Ola Stenegärd: for, for having
Andrea Hiott: me. So this podcast is about what moves us and the ways we move. And I always start with a [00:03:00] question about, tell me something that's moved you in your life. A moment when you remember being moved.
Well, of course you have your first memories when you were were in a car somewhere or whatever.
Ola Stenegärd: But those are not as vivid as actually the first time I was on a two wheeler. So My brother is much older than me. He's um 14 years older. So he was always into motorcycles. He's, he's the one that influenced me the most, I would say with, you know, the whole chopper lifestyle and motorcycles. And so back here, back in those days, everyone, they had mopeds, and of course, back in the 70s, they built choppers out of those too. And once he took me on his moped, just took me up in the city. So I think I must've been like, maybe three or something like really young, but I remember so strongly sitting on the seat, holding on to the tank and it was a moped chopper, but it still had a [00:04:00] long fork and it had high bars and I was basically sitting in his lap, right, holding on to that blue metal flake tank with white pinstripes and the tall bars and Of course, no helmets back then, right?
So if I was three or four, it must have been in 73 or 74, right? Because I'm born in 70. But it was it was just absolutely exhilarating. That image, I remember exactly. I have a couple of very strong images just when we enter our little village and basically going to the gas station. And I just, yeah, it is so vivid in my mind.
In my mind, like I can tell all the colors and everything, right?
Blue metallic, yep. White pinstripes. Yeah, it was super, super strong. So it wasn't a big motorcycle or anything, but it was two wheels. It was a long fork, high bars and, it was super, super rad.
Andrea Hiott: And I guess your brother being so much older, you probably were,
yo
Our senses were probably [00:05:00] heightened that he wanted to take you with him on this bike, too
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, they were kind of my babysitters, right, he and his crew, so to speak, and they were all that kind of just coming off the Easy Rider the whole hippie era, they were still totally hippies, right?
Like, no doubt about it. So I was just, they were my babysitters, basically, because my parents, they were super busy at the farm. And I was always with them. And they were all They all look like, you know, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
Zeppelin and Sabbath and Uriah Heep and all of that. That's the kind of the soundtrack, and yeah, they were into motorcycles and hot rods and V8s. And that kind of just came with it. And, that got me really into motorcycles and choppers too.
I mean, it's Sweden choppers, it's just. Part of the whole system
Andrea Hiott: here, I guess when you're, yeah, For American listeners, maybe you can tell me or us like, where were you growing up? And what was it? Like I guess yeah I'd like to hear [00:06:00] about what the chopper scene was like in Sweden.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, so I I grew up It's actually the biggest island of Sweden. So it's right in The Baltic Sea, basically right in between, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, right in the Baltic Sea, smack in the middle there. So it's the southern part of Sweden, obviously. And, uh, the chopper scene and motorcycle scene and hot rod scene customizing scene has always been super, super strong in Sweden. And I think the connection was made very early on.
There was a lot of people that traveled to the States just to be part of the scene already back in the fifties, working for Dean Moon and these kind of legends and. And then Boyd Coddington had a bunch of Swedes employed and it was like a constant back and forth between the motorcycle hotrod scene, custom scene, chopper scene.
So [00:07:00] very early on, people built really cool hotrods, choppers, customs. And I think also the, uh, legal system here is quite good. Now it's super good. Back then it was also, I think it was okay. could do that. They could be very creative and they could ride their bikes, hot rods, choppers, customs without being too hassled.
So it grew into a really big scene. And I think there's also just a fascination with America, anything American, um, sometimes it feels like its the 51st state because We just love everything American.
Andrea Hiott: And that's funny because American is a mix of everything from all over the place and definitely also from Sweden and Europe.
I mean, even Indian. Oh yeah. It all goes back and forth. It's like a constant creative exchange.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. So part of the story is living on this island. This island is kind of a vacation spot for a lot of people. And when I [00:08:00] was a kid, also for all these motorcycle gangs, it wasn't when I say gangs, it wasn't outlaws.
It was, but it was clubs. It was chopper, chopper clubs. But they were more focused on building and hanging out and partying. It wasn't really the outlaw scene. It came much, much later. So you had a lot of this really cool chopper gangs coming down for vacation and they all rode without their helmets and long forks and, you know, super cool paint jobs.
And it's like every summer, that was the coolest thing ever. You just, I was just laying, in the ditch next to the road, waiting for these bikes to come by and all open pipes and. They just all looked so happy, totally at ease with life. They were probably stoned out of their mind, all of them, I don't know it was just, it was a really cool experience.
Like every, every summer, this was the highlight, right? And you could hear them from far away. So I [00:09:00] would usually run out and, and, had my favorite spot in a ditch where I could see them really well. And then they all passed by , waving and yeah, it was, it was cool. It was super.
And actually now like years after I, I met a lot of these guys, right? Cause they're still riding and a lot older now, but You know, you recognize them from the photos and you rec, you, I remember the names of the, the gangs, um, remember, even remember some of the choppers very vividly.
So yeah.
Andrea Hiott: So that little boy, so there was like a ditch by the road or something or
Ola Stenegärd: yeah, it was just, the, the bank of the road in the garden, in our garden, it was like that perfect spot. That's where I would like just, lay down and I
Andrea Hiott: could take it all in. DId you have any dreams could you imagine like one day you might design the bikes that those guys would ride on?
Ola Stenegärd: Well, I wanted a chopper. Like all me and all my friends, that's what we wanted. It [00:10:00] was like the coolest thing ever. As soon as you had a bicycle, you chopped the fork and extended the fork and then you got a moped and did the same thing and then you got a motorcycle.
Andrea Hiott: What, why not just buy one and ride it? Why did you have to chop or bob? You had to make it your own. Yeah, why? You had
Ola Stenegärd: to make it your own. It was, it just went without saying, like you couldn't ride anything stock. Like it was clear. We saw all these guys, like no one had a stock bike.
So obviously you were not supposed to have a stock bike. It was supposed to be chopped. It was supposed to be bobbed, custom painted. And then when you, like even when you started on the bicycles and you actually get it together, I learned how to weld when I was super young, but super shitty, but at least it kept the parts together.
So I was like welding stuff for all my friends. We're all from farms out here and all the farms have good workshops and all our parents just let us use it. Yeah, no one really cared if it was dangerous or not, or if you could set anything on fire, it was fine, but it was that.
Like very quickly when you actually [00:11:00] put something together that you can ride, even if it's a bicycle, moped, motorcycle, and you made it your own. And you, and later with engines, you talked about engines before when you can get an engine to work, it's like, it's just the most amazing thing. It's like you. Breathe life into something that you created and now you can ride it and that's, you know, that rocks it more than anything. It's super cool.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. Before we came on, we were talking about this kind of the way that, I don't know, you can progress from bicycles to motorcycles and engines and so on. But when you were just talking, I was also thinking about skateboards because Growing up in the States, I was around a lot of older kids, like cousins and stuff, and they were all on skateboards.
And it's similar to what you're describing. You always had to make it your own. And I remember doing that as a little kid, and it feels so special to actually, you start to become kind of at one with this, with this vehicle in a way.
That's it.
Ola Stenegärd: I think that's it. [00:12:00] You, you become one with it. We tried the skateboard thing, too. Did you? We lived on an island, we saw all these, read these magazines, and we saw on TV this whole skateboard thing. So one of the, one of my friends, he actually ordered a skateboard. It took forever for it to arrive.
And he built like a makeshift ramp, and we were all super, super excited because we've seen all the kids on TV, and this must be like the coolest thing ever. And, I remember just Everyone tried to get up on that skateboard and ride that makeshift ramp and it was obviously impossible. We all got super hurt and like really bad and then we're like, this thing is fucking stupid.
It doesn't work.
We were breaking bones and like, it was so bad and we're just like, this thing is stupid. And we just gave up on it. Back to bikes. Back to this. Back to bikes. Bicycles and mopeds. Yeah, it was such a fiasco. We [00:13:00] just didn't have the patience.
Yeah.
Andrea Hiott: Was your brother, doing all this too, when you were really little?
Ola Stenegärd: I think he, he was more into music, but like all his, he was, he always had a motorcycle. It was always somehow modified. And then they got also his whole crew. It was like, my, my neighbor was into cars and always, doing something to it, modifying it, fixing it.
Um, there was a lot of creativity. It felt like no one really questioned it. It's just how it's supposed to be, so I never questioned it either. It's like you can't have anything stock. You have to build it. You have to work on it and it was great because you did all the trial and errors and you learn and, yeah.
Andrea Hiott: It must be really deeply ingrained in you, this working with tools and riding bikes and all this. If you started so young, I mean, you have these vivid memories from age three. That's pretty
Ola Stenegärd: young.
Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you're growing up on a farm, you're, you're kind of like, Us, all us kids, it, it was easy, right? Because you have [00:14:00] all the tools, you have welding machines, you have grinders, everything that a farm needs to have the machinery running. So in a way, there was a lot of other stuff. We didn't have like money, like none of us had money ever. It was just the way it was, but you had all this stuff, right. And there were always, you know, trash laying around that you could turn into something else. So, but it was like all the farms too around here like even my brothers, like the tractors, every goddamn tractor we had had a big truck motor in it.
Because investing in like a full blown, super expensive new machine, it was like, it was not even on the radar. You couldn't do it. The farmers back then couldn't afford it. So they just did their own stuff, bigger motors, bigger wheels, everything was modified and it was normal. So
Andrea Hiott: I really know what you mean. You're talking about Sweden and I grew up in the American South, but my grandfather had a big farm. So I know what [00:15:00] you mean. There's always scrap metal. There's always machines. There's always like, you're basically always trying to turn old stuff into other stuff.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. Yeah. And it was just cool to be part of it, to see like how creative everyone was, sometimes it felt like some of the farmers, they probably enjoyed more being in the workshop, creating stuff than actually being out on the fields, but that's what we love to do, to hang out and, see all this stuff. It was just totally natural. Like no one bought new stuff. Is it similar
Andrea Hiott: for your kids today? You have two boys or three boys and a girl? I have two
Ola Stenegärd: boys and a girl.
Andrea Hiott: Do they feel as free as you did, do you think? Because you're also on a farm, right? Your family?
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have a, like a little horse farm. I don't know, my oldest kid is totally into motorcycles, he's also building and wrenching and modifying. Like, he and his friends, they are, remind me a lot about myself. My younger boy, he's racing motocross too, but he was never interested in wrenching [00:16:00] whereas Isaac.
My oldest boy, he always did all his own stuff. Uh he wanted to do his own wrenching. He wanted to understand how the motor works, suspension works. And he does all of that himself. He did it. Already years ago, uh, but Grimm was more just he wants to ride everything should be prepared he's actually a really fast rider, but he just wants everything done
saga is of course the horses but she does everything herself, right takes care of all the horses and she just takes care of everything. She's very self sufficient, right? Something breaks in the stable, she will take care of it and fix it.
Andrea Hiott: That's a lot of responsibility. It's interesting because it's similar, right? Yeah. It's like writing. Like, we were talking about the machine becomes like a living thing to you. And I think as a kid, the way I felt about horses, it's not so dissimilar from the way I felt like when I was putting quotes on my skateboard and kind of making it special.
There's some weird connection that happens, especially when you're a kid and you're still have your guard down.
Ola Stenegärd: Oh yeah. [00:17:00] And even like Kasaga rode motocross for a while and she was super natural on the bike Was just jumping back and forth between horses and the motocross bike and it came super easy to her, like motocross is tough, right?
You're jumping and ruts and. But it was like supernatural and even the boys spin on the horses and same thing there. Like I rode a horse once. I sucked. I was scared to death.
Andrea Hiott: They do have their own
Ola Stenegärd: personality. Oh yeah. No, it scared the hell out of me. But for them, it was also very natural. They're just, they jump on their horse and they figure out the braking, just, you know, start, brake, clutch kind of thing, and how to, I think motocross, you also work a lot with the pegs, right? Which you do on a horse too, with the stirrups. It came very natural to them. It's like an afternoon out in the paddock and it's like, Holy shit, they can ride a horse too? What the hell?
Andrea Hiott: Both of them connect you to the world. Oh, yeah. In a strong way. With the horse it's more, I [00:18:00] guess, more direct to nature of course because it's living, breathing. But the bike starts to feel like that too and you start to feel connected to the environment around you.
Like the, the bike starts to sort of breathe as the environment in a weird way.
Ola Stenegärd: No, absolutely. And especially when you work on the motorcycles yourself and engines, it's, you know, I, I, yeah, that's why I always say that when you. When you breathe life into that engine that you put together yourself, and it's like you're breathing the soul into it, right?
And it comes alive and just, just like Saga takes care of the horses and they got to have the right food and they got to have the right this and right that, and you know, the right environment and you've got to take care of it. It feels like a motor is the same, right? Because you, you got to take care of that thing, otherwise it will kick, kick back on you.
Right. And I've always been very, very fascinated with that. . The more
Andrea Hiott: you know about how it works, you know how that's the more intimate, it becomes very intimate, I guess that's the word.
Ola Stenegärd: It becomes, oh [00:19:00] yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And especially when you're dealing with big American v twins that are stroked and bored and tuned and you know that if it's like kickstart and you mess up one or two kicks, that thing will never fire up.
It's like you just have that window or you gotta know it like perfectly well. Otherwise you're gonna soil the plugs or whatever. But. That makes it really fascinating, like figuring that out, what makes it tick, it's awesome. I love it. It
Andrea Hiott: is, it's this balance, which is similar to riding itself, like that.
Absolutely. When you're in this kind of flow where, I don't know, you feel like you're taking part in something really special. I mean, you are, but you can actually know that you are. Absolutely. But that reminds me, I was, of course, reading up on you a little bit, and I think that you, when you were pretty young, did build a chopper, when you were, what, like 14 or 15, didn't you kind of plan your own trip to some, you Chopper.
Ola Stenegärd: That's funny that you, that you [00:20:00] found that story. Yeah, that, that, I built a bunch of mopeds early on because mopeds was like the thing that you could, that was the first thing that you can get your hands on with wheels and the motor.
Um, None of us could afford a fully functional running moped. So in the beginning, we used to get our hands on old chainsaws that we stripped because on the farms there were plenty of old chainsaws. So we put those in bicycles, bicycle frames or moped frames that we found or got for scrap. But eventually, yeah, you're right. When I was, I think it was about 14, I felt like I messed around enough with. All these other mopeds and some parts were good. Some were bad, but I felt like before I go to motorcycles, I want to build like a really nice moped chopper. So it just became this fixed thing and I wanted it to be part of, back then it was called the Hot Rod Show, [00:21:00] very plain and simple.
It was every year in Stockholm in the winter time. And they had a moped class, they always had the moped class. So I was, I've always seen this super cool, rad moped choppers and builds. So I'm like, okay, that's what I'm going to do. So yeah, I spent, I probably spent a year, building that, that moped chopper.
And it's the only two- wheeled bike I still have that I never sold. I just poured my heart and soul into that and tried to make. Like everything perfect because when you build the other bikes that have built before some parts were good Some were bad, but you just never really took the time to go all the way this one I was like, no, I'm gonna go all the way. So I did you
Andrea Hiott: remember Conscious choice like okay.
I'm gonna go all the way you're thinking. Yeah, that's quite something to think when you're like 14 You were focused.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. Yeah, it was probably one of the first times I felt like When you really, yeah, like you get [00:22:00] into the zone, right? But it was also the first time because, you know, it's the first time I connected drawing with making something.
Because I've always been drawing and sketching and painting, but it was totally separate from motorcycles. I was only drawing motorcycles, but I never thought of drawing anything that I could build. That concept hadn't even occurred to me. I didn't know what the designer was. Obviously I didn't know that it existed a job like that. But I started sketching on that moped that I wanted to build, how it should look. And I remember I was just blown away by the whole idea. It's like, dude, this is super fucking cool. I like, I can like actually draw what I want to build. And the brilliant thing in my mind was that now I don't have to build it twice or three times and screw it up two times before I get it right,
I can actually sketch it out and then I can, turn it into metal and I only have to build it [00:23:00] once. This is a brilliant idea. I thought I was the first one who had ever thought about this kind of,
Andrea Hiott: but I love that, but it was super cool. Yeah. We were talking a little bit before about how I'm a philosopher. So for me, this is really an interesting moment where you suddenly kind of externalize or realize you can represent something with a drawing and how that actually changes, what you can do,
increases your skill. So was it just you just started sketching or did you see somebody else do it or you have no idea?
Ola Stenegärd: No, I, I can't remember what triggered it. I still have those sketches, like that one sketch. I still have it and I have the moped, but I was always drawing engines, motors, motorcycles, cars.
But you always drew something that already exists. It's like I never. Thought of the concept that you can draw something that doesn't exist and then build it the revelation was Really that okay This is this is great because I don't have to build it once or twice because when you're just in a workshop and you're building stuff Before that [00:24:00] I would screw up, you put a lot of time and effort into something and then you put it on the bike and it's like This looks like shit.
Damn it. I gotta do it again. And you do it again. And it's like always just thread and error, right? But this was the Coolest thing for me. It's like I only have to do it once now and I I made it to scale So I could like measure from it To to the real bike and yeah, it was like I thought it was just the coolest
Andrea Hiott: thing ever just and it worked I you you made quite a work chopper.
Didn't you didn't you win or something in your class? I
Ola Stenegärd: I won the show. Yeah
Andrea Hiott: First time you were there anyone
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, it was like pouring fuel on fire, of course, right? If I hadn't, yeah, and like all the effort it took, because I live on an island. It's expensive to go to the mainland. Um, my dad was absolutely not interested in my plans.
But the show itself [00:25:00] had an allowance for traveling. So, I got a little bit of a budget. I got a couple, I think it was like 150 or something which was plenty back in those days. It was like in 1985. So that was a lot of money So I just like I knew if I don't get everything sorted my dad is not gonna do this so I went ahead and I rented a VW pickup And back then it was fine, you didn't need a credit card, right?
So, as a 15 year, 14, 15 year old, I, I rented a pickup. I got all the tickets. Um, I got everything booked, everything done. And then I went to my dad and I was like, okay, this is the situation. I have this, I built this bike, you know, I poured like a year into it. I've been accepted to the show. Um, yeah, I, I. I got a pickup truck that I rented.
I got all the tickets done. We gotta go. And he was totally surprised.
Andrea Hiott: He must have been really [00:26:00] impressed. That would be such a shock.
Ola Stenegärd: He didn't show it. He was more very farmer pragmatic and it's like, okay, well, then I guess we gotta go. Oh, sweet. And we
Andrea Hiott: went. That's the perfect way to react, I guess,
Ola Stenegärd: actually.
Yeah, but it's such a like, grounded way, too. It says everything about my dad. It's like, well, then I guess we gotta go.
Andrea Hiott: I'm sure inside he was very impressed. I hope
Ola Stenegärd: so. You know how it is. Like, especially when you're in Sweden, you don't
Andrea Hiott: show it.
Ola Stenegärd: But anyway, yeah, I was there. And for me, winning the first prize was absolutely, I was stoked. And it was like, pouring fuel on fire. What was even more it was like you just, I don't know, like all these builders I read about in all these magazines, they had their bikes there, you know, the hot rods, the bikes, the cars, the, the, and just.
All of a sudden, you're walking among these heroes. It was unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. That sounds [00:27:00]
Andrea Hiott: like a moment that's hard to live up to, because even now, walking around through those hallways can be inspiring, but at that age, when it's almost like, it's almost like you're in a dream or something, or you.
I don't know. It
Ola Stenegärd: was the first show I've ever, before that, I only took part in all the shows in magazines, right? I never, I had never been to a real show. And no, it just answered all my, all my dreams. It was amazing. I guess it set you on a path, you know, Oh, for sure. I mean, I just, I just wanted to belong to that scene forever.
That was like, that was it.
Andrea Hiott: You went to art school, right? So was that the kind of beginning where you wanted to connect those things or how did you end up?
Ola Stenegärd: No, it took another 10 years till I actually connected the dots for real, almost 10 years. Uh, I kept drawing and sketching more and more. I had no idea what to do with it, if the only thing. That I knew about, or it was like, okay, advertising and [00:28:00] illustration.
It's like, you got to be good to draw. And my dad always told me to, and my mom too, okay, you, you have a talent. Do something with it. Because not everyone can draw. It's true. I remember both of my mom. It was, I got it from her, right? She, she was just a hobby artist, but she could draw and paint.
And so all that stuff was always there for me to use. So that made it easy.
Andrea Hiott: You grew up with the farm and the mechanics, but you also had the art resources around too. That's quite a nice connection.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. And it was great, but they always said like, you have a talent and not everyone has it.
Like do something with it. They had no idea what to do.
Andrea Hiott: So great. They told you that though. Sometimes people don't just say the obvious and that they told you, that makes a big difference at that age.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. And especially you know, growing up in a farm and with all the stuff that comes with it. Being in the countryside. Yeah. Even for my dad to say that now when I think about it, it was like, that's [00:29:00] almost like weird that he would, because it's so far from kind of the life you're living here. And later when I was in school, it was like the opposite. I remember you had this studio. So what do you call it? Study counseling, whatever it's called. Oh yeah. Student
Andrea Hiott: counsel counselors, student
Ola Stenegärd: counsel. Yeah. And he was just out of the way around because I had good grades in, in drawing and art. bUt I also had pretty good grades in chemistry and physics, but the only reason for that was we were a couple of kids that started competing because actually I'm not very good in it, but we started competing and that pushed me to try to keep up.
So I had fairly good grades. And he was like, Oh, you're going to be a mechanical engineer. It's like, okay, but, but look here, I have good grades in art too. It's like, yeah, but like, seriously, you want to be like an artist? It's like, no, no, no, no. You're going to be an engineer. That's what you're going to do.
And he basically just filled [00:30:00] in the papers for me and sent it in. So I started off studying mechanical engineering. Which was not the right thing for me, but
Andrea Hiott: but design is a pretty new thing.
And the idea of the combination of art and engineering nobody was thinking about that.
Ola Stenegärd: No, you're right, actually. Now, when you say it, he probably didn't even have it in on his radar that there's anything like design or industrial design, right? He just saw it's either, science or art and art, you're going to be an starving artists, you know, doing something, and he was like, no, no, you're gonna be a mechanical engineer
Andrea Hiott: in a way, you were already being an artist with with the choppers and the, I mean, that's kind of art in a way, or would you say, or is that just something else?
Ola Stenegärd: No it's a form of course it's a form of artistic expression. Yeah, absolutely. It's creative. It's just the thing, the really cool part is you can, you can actually ride it and use it too.
Andrea Hiott: I think that's what I love about it and in a way it's good to have that [00:31:00] mechanical engineering knowledge or understanding or just knowing what that mindset is like, though I guess for a creative person it's too constrictive as a discipline maybe.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, but it's like all the paths you have in life and all the steps you do, right? But the cool thing there is like, I was completely on the wrong path. Um, but there was one teacher and he saw that this is not, you shouldn't be here basically. And he was the first person, that told me like, Hey, you should be an industrial designer. That's what you should be. I was like, what the hell is that?
I don't know. I don't really know, but they do what you do because I was always sketching stuff in class. I was just doodling stuff, sketching class. And if we have a drawing exercise, I loved it. Like technical drawing. And I'm, of course, that's where I felt at home and I was like, no, you're going to, [00:32:00] you're going to be an industrial designer, like very matter of fact.
And then. That set me off just looking for more information about what is that because there was no internet, right? This is way before any of that. So but you have a word you go to library and then you start reading up on it and this teacher was also amazing because to you had a final project to finish up your three year studies, basically and most of The other students that make a small technical project, like I know one guy made a padlock and he made all the constructions and drawings, but of course not the real one, but do all the theory behind it. I was like, I'm going to build a motorcycle. So I went to him and it's basically just one term and only his class. So of course, I have a lot of other classes, but it's like, I want to build a motorcycle, which is completely fucking insane when you think about it. And he was like, that's right. That's [00:33:00] exactly what you should do.
Okay. He said, yes. Well, that's what I'm going to do. Perfect. Make a plan. Show me what you want to do and how you want to do it. Um, like basically make a daily process plan, right. And product management and all of that stuff. And again, the hyper focus, right. And, uh, I built a motorcycle, I built a chopper in this class.
Because you had, you know, when you had in school, no one used it, but there were lathes and milling machines and welding machines, everything was there. It's just, no one really used it. So I just took ownership on all of that stuff and every evening, every spare time, I was just making parts. And he also taught me how to make like a, uh like a schedule on, okay, you have all these parts you need to do to get a running motorcycle.
Okay. How when do you need to do what in order to get done for what time? I'd never done that before. That was amazing too. So [00:34:00] he taught me a lot of stuff. And by the end of the semester, I had a running, chopper, all done. I completely wasted all my other grades, made just into oblivion, bad, but um, I had a running chopper.
Andrea Hiott: But it was exactly the right thing to do because all those skills are what you would eventually use. Teachers change our trajectories, right? Like this one person says this one thing. Like if just that one little moment in time hadn't happened,
Ola Stenegärd: and also that he let me do that crazy project, which was absolutely
Andrea Hiott: insane.
Yeah, and he encouraged you. It's so important. So, so important.
Ola Stenegärd: And I think that's the most important role that teachers actually have, right? Finding that right path and giving you that little knock in the right direction. Because as a student, or a kid, you just don't know. I had no fucking clue.
I didn't know what to do. But to get on the right path, I mean, that's to see the talent or [00:35:00] interest or you know, what makes someone, really burning for something and put them on that track.
Andrea Hiott: Absolutely. When we're that age, we can't see ourselves. We're not like thinking about our own thoughts so much, even though we might be stuck in them, but when you have someone who sees you and just says it. It can make such a huge difference and also when they encourage you Do you see that with your kids today?
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah, but there's a big difference. At least when I see my, like Like Isaac, my oldest kid, he's also a designer, he's studying design and he's, actually right now he's doing an internship with Stark Future, so he's also on the motorcycle side.
But the thing is, he's 23, and I mean, even when he was like, I don't know, 15, 16, 17, he was like way, like 5, 6, 10 years ahead of me. It's not only with him, but like all his friends and my other kids too. They just have so much more access to information, find out earlier, I think what they want to do [00:36:00] and it allows them to focus. You know, iF you're focused and if you practice like you, you can really get far, which was, it was just impossible, right. When I was a kid. All these sources of information just wasn't there
you have access to so much more material, right? And you can learn if you want to. So yeah, what took someone my age, probably 10 years to acquire and to learn and to hone, you do it in maybe a couple of years now, which on one hand makes them way better than we ever were, which is pretty damn cool.
Ola Stenegärd: But, um, yeah, it also gives a lot of pressure, right? That you have to figure out what to do. I mean, I didn't start working until I was, well, I graduated when I was 28. Now I don't know. I mean, it feels like everyone is so much younger and so much more focused.
Andrea Hiott: When you were a kid, it sounds like you had a desire, a passion and you were motivated and you were being creative. In a kind of natural way and that sometimes [00:37:00] people today look their whole lives to find that kind of, I don't know what the word is.
It's not like comfort because, but it's a kind of grounding or something,
Ola Stenegärd: you know? Yeah. Well, it helps when you suck at everything else and you're only good at one thing for sure. So for me, it was like, I'm just so happy that, that yeah, people pushed me in the right direction and saw that there was a path that. Could work for me because, like I said, when I was a kid, you just don't have any clue, right? I wouldn't have patience for anything else and I wouldn't be good at anything else either. Like, this is what I'm good at and I'm so happy that I'm on this road because otherwise I would really struggle. I was actually really happy to get away from school because it was just, I'm not, I can't, I'm not good at studying like numbers and stuff, I'm just not good at that.
So, after that, I just spent most, most of my time, Working on motorcycles, building motorcycles and sketching and drawing a lot of freelance stuff. [00:38:00] But I didn't really have a plan at all because I didn't know. I, there was this word industrial design. I didn't really know what I mean, meant deeper though.
It felt so far away, like being, becoming an astronaut or something. But I got really into the chopper scene, building a bunch of bikes, going to shows and once in a while in the magazines back then, there would be an article about car design, motorcycle design,
um, there were also a couple of designers like cheap foos, um, who they were designing hot rods, right? Custom cars. They all went to this school. Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. So, it's like, okay, this seems to be like a really cool place to go to. But it was, again, so far away.
It was like NASA. Like, how do you get in? How do you even get a prospect? Like, I couldn't. It was there in the back of my mind, but I [00:39:00] didn't really know. But the other big thing was a couple of my old teachers from, from school, they also live here locally. So I would see them all the time and they kept bugging me. It's like, Hey, you can't just, mess around with bikes and you, you gotta take the next step, you, you gotta do some art study. You got to go to art school, at least you have a foundation and then you can, can move on and decide, but you can't waste that talent.
I'm like, Hey, I just got to, you know, I just got to build another motorcycle. I got to go to the States. I got to look for parts and, and then I do it. And it just kept going one year, two years, three years till I was 22. Then I met them here in our local grocery store. And, One of them, Harriet, said, So, here's the deal.
I, um, I applied for you. To the local art school. Oh my gosh. And, uh, now you have to go in and show your portfolio. I was like, whoa, wait, I, I, but I have another motorcycle I need to build. And I'm supposed to go to the States again. It's like, yeah, sorry about [00:40:00] that. Fuck that. You have to go show your portfolio because this doesn't work.
It just goes on and on. She was like actually a little bit pissed at me in a cool way. Cause she was super cool. Yeah. It was. Another one of those teachers, right? So it was Harriet and it was Ronnie. They were my art teachers when I was like 14, 15, 16. So they had actually, filled in the application and sent it in for me.
Which is like such a weird but cool thing
Andrea Hiott: to do. That gives me hope in humanity in a weird way. I mean, Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's so cool.
Ola Stenegärd: And
Andrea Hiott: I guess you got in.
Ola Stenegärd: I got in. I wouldn't say it was very hard, but it's still a commitment, right? You're going to show up on time and you're only going to do the stuff that you really like to do.
I was going to draw all day, which was for me like, this is crazy. Like, how could this be possible? And it's like the, then the pieces start to come together. Like when you're in a preparatory art school, part of their job is to help you find the next step in your [00:41:00] education.
And that's when this word industrial design showed up again, because they were like, this is what, this is what you're supposed to do. It's like, Oh shit. Here's like the second teacher that tells me this is what I'm supposed to do. Now I have to take it serious. And then fast forward, I applied to Industrial Design University in Stockholm, and I got in there.
And there, I started meeting students that had been to Arts Centre College of Design in Pasadena. And now we go full circle, right? So now you have the connection. I was like, holy shit. Yeah. If they can do it, I bet I can do it. Like, I can become an astronaut. Like, that is
Andrea Hiott: fucking insane. I love it that you compare it to the astronaut.
Ola Stenegärd: But it was that far away. Like, that's the only way I can explain it. Like, being a car designer, like, sketch, or a motorcycle designer, sketch all day long. Someone is going to pay you for it. It's insane. How can that even be possible?
From that point, it was just full, full focus again. I did an exchange program at arts in the college of design, so half [00:42:00] of my master's study I did at Art College of Design in Pasadena, and, uh, So you
Andrea Hiott: made it happen, or other people helped you make it happen somehow?
Ola Stenegärd: Well, it's always about that little push, right? You gotta have a teacher That pushes you in the right direction and inspires you and motivates you to take that step. It makes you believe that you can do it, right? Because it feels like you're skating out on pretty, pretty thin ice every time.
And it's hard to believe in yourself that, can I be an astronaut? It's like, dude, you're supposed to go to the moon. That's pretty damn hard. It's like, yeah, but I think you can do it. It's like, holy shit, really? Okay, well let's go for it. Yeah,
Andrea Hiott: it makes all the difference. It opens the path that, you know, I actually can take that path.
That is a path. It actually exists.
Ola Stenegärd: I took it. And of course it's a, sometimes when I tell this story, people that know me very well, they also like, They keep reminding me it's yeah, you make it sound [00:43:00] so easy, but I remember how much you worked for this. So of course you have to work too, right? There's no discussion. You just have to tuck your head down and there's, there's no easy way like you have to work and work.
And I was like 110 percent focused. I didn't do anything else. It's all I did 24 seven. For many, many years, right? So I guess it's all about those 10, 000 hours or whatever people keep referring to.
Andrea Hiott: It gets too easy to tell it just as this kind of grace where everything just happens and it's so easy and in a way there's definitely that. A friend of mine used to say, you know, the doors might open, but you have to walk through them or you might find the path, but then you have to walk it.
And that is actually a lot of work and time. There's a lot of time of working really hard to make, to make that happen. When you say you worked all the time, do you mean like you're sitting in your room sketching
Ola Stenegärd: Sketching, studying, sketching, building the models in school like. You know, I don't know how to put it, but of course, some students go home [00:44:00] at five o'clock, right? We, we were a bunch of students, we, we never went home. You basically sleep in school, you know, and you work 24 7.
You just work and work and you're just trying to master the craft, right? And, and learning and doing mistakes and doing it again and, yeah. It's a real passion. Honing your skills. It's, yeah, it's a, it's passion. Almost obsession. Um, but when you. Yeah, total obsession and anyone who's been to ArtCenter knows exactly what I talk about because for each step I did in my education it just gets harder and harder and more and more work and you just skip more and more of your Normal life if you know what I mean but you also know like it's this is for a limited amount of time and Once I got into ArtCenter that is the fucking craziest education I've ever been to But everyone was like set the same way.
You started out this, with the nerd word. [00:45:00] And that's what we were. We were all completely obsessed nerds. And when you're in that environment, it boosts you, right? And everyone helps you and motivates you and you spend all your time honing your skill, understanding the skill, learning more. You're so hungry for knowledge, right? And you know it's not going to last forever. So you have this window of opportunity and you better fucking use it.
Andrea Hiott: It's kind of important that you knew that, that you realized that it's a limited moment. That's kind of a big realization.
We don't always know that. I mean, I,
Ola Stenegärd: I paid for my education myself, but back then, actually a lot of us did at Arts Center too. It wasn't a lot of grants and you know, you had to pay for it, right? So I knew exactly how much it cost every day. I sold all my motorcycles. Every one of them to be able to afford school.
So It was like, you want to go to a movie tonight? No. Not interested. It's like, no, no. Do [00:46:00] you want to go out for dinner or should we go do this? No. No, no, no, no. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta
Andrea Hiott: work. I gotta do homework. I gotta study. I was telling you I was a nerd, uh, in philosophy and it, it's a similar thing where you're doing this thing that maybe other people might think is crazy, but not in that little group, right? You found your environment where people know, okay. It's worth the time and the effort and that's so important to have this community, where you feel like, okay, I can just put everything into it and I'm not completely crazy.
Ola Stenegärd: And you're allowed to be obsessed. It's fine.
You know, your teachers are the same. It's, no, ArtCenter was super, super cool. And, one of my teachers from ArtCenter is my boss today. So, Wow. That's the other part of it. Like Greg Brew, he's, he's our vice president of design and he was my teacher at
Andrea Hiott: Arts Center. That's amazing. Motorcycling, like particularly, it is a world of people who really are obsessed and passionate for the [00:47:00] most part, right?
And they do, they don't go away. So in a way, during those years you were building a family, like in a different sense. Yeah. And I mean,
Ola Stenegärd: transportation design as such is, is, you know, pretty small industry, but then motorcycles, it's like even smaller, like you say, it's, it's almost a family, right? and to get into the motorcycle side, you gotta be so focused and so passionate.
Otherwise there's just no room for you and you're going to work really hard and you have to understand. What you're working on, because it's a very, very complex machine, right? It is. It's a kind of insane machine
Andrea Hiott: if you think about it. It is. And yeah, big responsibility that you build something like that for someone.
Yeah.
Ola Stenegärd: And there's so much passion in it. Like, very few people these days buy it just to get from A to B. They buy it because it's, it's the way. They reflect themselves. It's it means so much to them. And uh, so when you're working on it, it's yeah, you, you just, you pour everything [00:48:00] into that vehicle because you know, it's going to mean a lot to the person that buys it.
He's going to, he's probably gonna save up a lot of fucking money to be able to even afford it, to realize his dream. Right. And it's not just something that he's using to get from A to B, it's way more than that. Definitely.
Andrea Hiott: It's that intimate thing we were talking about at the beginning, you're kind of extending your body and your mind in a way with these machines, and when you know that, and you're building them for people, it's a very, it's a big thing.
Ola Stenegärd: No, it's huge. Um. But the payback is when you meet these customers and they are, you know, they're super stoked.
They're super happy. They're like, all this passion just flows over. And yeah, that's
Andrea Hiott: what you live for. Definitely the hero. So many people I saw online when I was looking around, it's amazing. There's a lot of, that passion overflows into the people who build the bikes too.
Ola Stenegärd: And grow, I mean, you know this, growing up on a farm on a little island will always keep you grounded,
Andrea Hiott: so that's a good thing about that, right? Yeah, [00:49:00] yeah, it is. You have the perfect beginnings to be able to handle that, but when you were the nerd in the nerd mode setting, were you still building stuff to like with your hands?
I, I wasn't building bikes. I didn't have time for that. But, you build your own models, right?
Ola Stenegärd: You have
Andrea Hiott: to realize, so it's clay and stuff, or you're actually, it's,
Ola Stenegärd: uh, clay, it's hard models today, of course. Uh. CAD. The students are doing, yeah, they're using a lot of CAD and, but you have to turn it into two models, right? Somehow, like physical realizations of your design idea. And back then we, we didn't do so much. I mean, all the CAD programs were still really stone age, to be honest, and slow and cumbersome. So everyone was building models.
Like you're sketching something, but now you have to take it from a flat piece of paper into 3D reality. And that's what piece is, what makes you a good designer or a bad designer, right? [00:50:00] If you can do that step, there's a lot of designers I met that they can make amazing sketches, beautiful sketches.
They would win any sketch competition, but then to bring it into reality. it's really difficult for them. They just, that connection, they might cheat the sketch a bit too much. So once they turn it into reality, it starts to look like a brick, you know? Uh, but the designers that master that skill. To know exactly how to exaggerate the sketch to get everyone excited and show them the vision to make that sketch win the competition or convince the leadership team that's where we're going to go.
And then actually turn it into 3D so they still recognize it and they still feel the passion. That's the trick.
Andrea Hiott: That's where you also have an advantage just naturally, in a way, because you have this embodied, first visceral experience [00:51:00] of building before you even learned the drawing and the design
Ola Stenegärd: no, but you're absolutely right, because I, I started building stuff first, so good or bad, like, I think, The bad part is I can never be a Syd Mead or this super visionary designers that do things that are absolutely out of this world. That's probably not me because it's so hard to get my foot away from the reality part. Because at some point I, it's hard for me to design something that I cannot see become reality.
Andrea Hiott: So it's hard for you to push beyond what you think is practical sometimes.
Ola Stenegärd: Yeah. Or maybe not what's possible, but I just want to see, I want to experience and I want to see it on the road. I see. And that always brings me back a little bit.
And sometimes I'm really envious. Like, even if I look at my kid, Isaac, He, he does a lot [00:52:00] of entertainment design for fun, like spaceships and robots and he has that ability that I don't really have, he, he can just picture something, well, you know, Star Wars, like that kind of movie design that doesn't have to become at some point, something that you can ride on or in, I just want to see it on the road at some point, and I want to ride it. And that connection, probably brings me back a little bit to reality. But, uh. Yeah. But
Andrea Hiott: that's also what you're doing.
You are building things people are going to ride. You're not building like a spaceship kind of, I mean, there are different things, right? He's kind of doing what you do, chopping creatively, but it's in a virtual world where, I mean, if it's for entertainment at least, then it's.
You know, you're, you're taking people somewhere, but it's, it's not like on a literal vehicle, you're building a literal
Ola Stenegärd: vehicle. But I've always been a bit envious, too, of those designers that can, like, just totally space out and they don't have to think about, I would love, love to ride in that in three years, because [00:53:00] I'm just, it's so hard for me to disconnect that.
When I do something really Exciting or see something exciting from my team. I'm just like, I want to ride that thing in three to five years. I want to ride that, that's what gets me going.
Andrea Hiott: That's that motivation is probably why you've been so successful too, though, that, that you, that you have that drive or what do you think?
Ola Stenegärd: I guess it fits the industry very well, if you know what I mean, because there's very few places in the industry where you can be Star Wars, futuristic, right? There are far better designers for that in that
Andrea Hiott: space. This is, this is interesting because it makes me think about this transition. We're all sort of going through in terms of our vehicles and how we move, like, is it going to be?
I mean, obviously we have. We have to do something. We can't keep doing what we're doing with the ICEs with the internal combustion engines. Even though we love them. so there's a transition happening. And sometimes I think some [00:54:00] of this virtual thinking or what Isaac your son is doing is might be necessary for Imagining like a new way to move but we also have this. We need practical solutions too. So, I don't know, do you think about this much? Like when you're all the
Ola Stenegärd: time, I mean, I think this is, this is the essence of our job, right? Like how far can you throw that ball and someone would still catch it, or if you throw it too far and no one will catch it, obviously you have a product that's going to fail, but it's always that balance, right?
And especially when you go into. Uncharted territories, like now, I think every, everyone is, spending a lot of time. We are too, of course, on the whole EV side, everyone knows something's got to change. It's not just it's not just the combustion engine as such and fossil fuel, but it's, it's noise pollution.
It's like, it's everything, right? It's a whole package and it's [00:55:00] changing. Um, and we have to be a part of it. There's no discussion. Um, but I think right now everyone is trying to crack that code as well. That's what everyone is struggling a bit. I think the cars are. Way ahead of us. Um, I think a lot of the electric cars have found the formula that is acceptable.
Um, and the customers like and enjoy, but I, I think the trick is I'm always a little bit hesitant when you start to, when you start to go too far away from what a motorcycle customer, a motorcycle rider with what will get them excited and you make the excuse out of it, that it's electric.
Basically, it becomes so weird that the normal motorcycle rider doesn't you know, get excited about it. And the electric is just an excuse for being weird. Then it's like, I [00:56:00] have a little bit of a problem with it. So it's that balance again, like how far should you push it? I think a lot of the automotives have found a good balance, right?
You can tell that the electric cars are different, but they're not crazy different. They're not spaceships. So normal customers can still relate to them. They recognize them. It's electric, but they can recognize them and a lot of like the good automotive manufacturers. And I think this is a trick they're using it to launch a lot of other inventions too.
They might not have had room or space for on, on the traditional automotive product. But now they, it's like Tesla, all of a sudden they can launch things that. They use it as an opportunity, electric as an opportunity to have a huge, display in the car or have the pop up, uh door grips or stuff like that.
This I think is super cool, you know, but when you push it too far and it just becomes a really weird sculpture and it's like, Oh yeah, but it's electric. Well, [00:57:00] now electric just becomes an excuse to do really strange stuff. I'm, I'm not sure that's the right path, at least
Andrea Hiott: not yet. Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up because some of the people that I've talked to, we've talked about how maybe it's about thinking strange, like maybe we need to completely change how we think about what two wheel driving is.
Why does it have to fit? To what we've known before and that's quite often the discussion we've had and but this is interesting because this is a complete you're pushing back on that and I know you have this test, right? I ICE test. I don't know if you still do. Yes. Yeah,
Ola Stenegärd: it's so funny that you heard about that. Yeah, I always I have my little ice test where Uh, when I see, when I see a new electric product vehicle car or bike, whatever it is, I always picture it. Okay. What if it has another power plant? Is this still a really good vehicle? Or if you put, uh, I don't know, this sounds weird, but if you [00:58:00] put like a, a thousand liter in line four in it, does it just become a weird? Thing that makes no sense because just because you make it electric It doesn't mean that you can throw out things like ergonomics you still have to break these vehicles, you know, if it's a super bike you still have to but you still got it like the tank on a super bike doesn't look the way it does just because it holds fuel.
Most of them actually don't hold fuel anymore, right? But it's also a very ergonomic sensitive area. You use it to, to grip your knees. You use it to rest your, um, your arms by hanging off. It's like, it's, it's a tool and people almost forget it. So just because you make it electric, it doesn't mean that you can just run it.
Flat fly line, because if it's a super bike and you're on the track, you still going to need to hang off. You still got to have to do braking up to one G or maybe [00:59:00] even more. And a lot of that stuff that made a motorcycle, what it is, it's actually independent of the power plan. So for me, it's like, okay, if you put a normal, if you put a nice motor into to an electric vehicle, it's a good, it's still a good vehicle.
And, and to me, it's usually, that's the way, at least when I talk to friends and, and stuff that they go, Oh, now I know what you mean. No, it's actually not a really good vehicle, because again, electric shouldn't be an excuse to do weird and wonky stuff that makes no sense. Um, so I think, yeah, that's my ice test.
And I think Tesla, if you talk automotive, like look again, look at Tesla. You know, it doesn't matter what engine you put into that car. It's still a really beautiful car. It's well designed didn't throw the ball too far, but it's also loaded with a bunch of innovations
Andrea Hiott: When I think about tesla, I see I think you're right but at the same time [01:00:00] How does that fit with this kind of fact that we have to maybe think of something that we can't imagine yet In terms of what transportation could be
Ola Stenegärd: I I think you have to do steps, And it's okay. It's part of the evolution right and we're gonna get there But also if you look back, how the vehicles have evolved over the last, 100, 120 years, it's, it's quite a constant evolution. You have your kind of jump shifts every now and then, but very few are like absolutely crazy, outrageous.
It doesn't become spaceships, if you know what I mean. I always challenged my team with, and I was challenged with that too, from my bosses when I was sketching, but I would sketch like something completely weird, outrageous motorcycle. They're like, cool. Now take that bike that you just did. It's really cool.
It's super advanced. It's very futuristic, but put it into the evolution of this particular model. It could. Could be a bike that's [01:01:00] been around for 30 years. So pick all the important bikes from that model, uh, portfolio. Now add your bike in five or 10 years. Does it fit? Does it make sense? Does it look like the DNA is carrying through?
If not, where would you put it? So it makes sense. And sometimes it's that bike. I was like, Oh shit, no, it doesn't fit, you know, in five years. And I would push it further out and like 10 years, uh, probably still too. Too futuristic and then you put it even further out and you maybe landed like 20 years and now it's like, okay, now I understand what my boss is telling me. I'm throwing the stone way too far. We will get there, but you need a couple of steps in between. And I think that's when you kind of have to, calm yourself down a little bit and be, yeah, put one foot back in reality, right?
Andrea Hiott: So you're, you're not saying we shouldn't dream big and dream, think of strange things, [01:02:00] but at the same time you have to realize we're here where we are now and we have to find the path to that place, maybe, rather than just thinking it's going to suddenly appear. We want to make a paradigm shift, but you always need a path actually from any one place to any other,
Ola Stenegärd: I really believe you have to give normal people out there that, that are using these products for whatever reason, whether it's out of passion or whether it's get to A to B, you have to give them the opportunity to catch up on the story. Otherwise it's, you're going to lose, you're going to lose people. You're going to throw the ball too far and you have, yeah, evolution takes its time with everything, right? Art.
Music. You know, engineering, whatever it is, it takes this time. And if you come up with this brilliant idea, you might need a couple of pieces of the puzzle to fill in, to lead people there. I think that's important. Sometimes you forget it, right. You actually designing stuff for, customers that they use it every day in their daily [01:03:00] life for, for whatever reason, that's important not, not to
Andrea Hiott: forget. It's that intimacy that we were talking about in that relationship. I like it that that's the real priority for you. Of course, you love the machines and building cool machines, but you seem to keep bringing it back to that actual physical relationship between the rider and the bike and how that's the most important thing.
And you're right, I mean, we can be exciting artists and come up with some crazy ideas and there's a place for that. But if you're really thinking about today, the person with their machine, it's different. It's like what you're saying. how is that person going to still have their motivation and passion and love, and still that we change towards something a little more sustainable.
Ola Stenegärd: I think for me, I, of course, I have, just the fact that I kind of live and breathe this life every day. Like all my friends are into motorcycles, they're into a lot of different motorcycles.
I'm not just choppers, I used to spend a lot of time on the track. I, [01:04:00] I've done a lot of adventure riding. I've been with, my, my kids were competing motocross for many years. Like that you have, that you really live and breathe, actually, you live and breathe the customer experience every day. Right? So on one hand, I go through the gate to work. I basically put myself into a context that is five to 20 years in the future. That's where a designer lives, right? That's what we do. It's a parallel universe. It's really weird. That's where we live. You go through the gate to work, and now you're 5 to 20 years in the future, and that's all you work on.
Now you step back through the gate, and then it's really important, I think, that you get back to reality. And it's, for me, it's really helpful to, that I, I, yeah, that's my life. I only, I only live motorcycles, so all my friends are somehow involved in motorcycles, and that keeps you grounded.
Right? You, you, you get a [01:05:00] feeling for when you push them, look too far or, or when you can push it a bit more, you, I think you develop a kind of sense for it. You become a sponge, right? That just. You, you suck up all these impressions and comments and feelings from friends and experiences. Um, and then you get through the gate at work and that's when you, you get it out on paper.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, and we didn't even get into it. We're gonna have to do a second show at some point to talk about your actual work
Ola Stenegärd: now. Time runs really fast. I'm sorry. This is super interesting. I know, we didn't
Andrea Hiott: even get into it.
There's so much more to talk about. But it's, it's time to go for now 'cause I know you have to start working another time zone. Yeah, sorry. Um, sorry we've been talking too much.
Ola Stenegärd: I've
Andrea Hiott: been talking too much. No, no, you haven't. It's been great, but I just wanna say it's.
I think that's so important, what you said, and that being grounded and actually having that connection, because you're connecting a lot of different worlds, and that seems very important. And just before you go, I do want to talk about this forever and forever motoring. I guess it's [01:06:00] connected to that, what you were just saying, but when you think about the future and what motoring is going to be, what comes to mind,
Ola Stenegärd: the first thing I thought about was my, my friend, Jeff Wright, who runs Church of Choppers, he has this, uh, FTW, but he turned it into Forever Two Wheels. tHat's the first thing I thought about. But if, if you think of that on a bigger scale, I think there will always be room for two wheels for a lot of different reasons, but one, especially now when we're talking more about autonomous vehicles, um, you know, the cars. Being more just a transportation part from A to B and that kind of stuff, the motorcycle becomes the polar opposite to that, right? It becomes, your, your freedom machine for real, right? Kind of a decompression tool in a way that takes you away from the daily grind. It becomes an even more passionate thing, right, where you can really get out of, [01:07:00] yeah, you get out of the grind, like someone said, you, at the, the one mile mark, you leave all the, all your bank loans and all your problems behind, when you're on a bike, it just takes that like one mile to leave that all that whole backpack that, you know, always in the back of your mind, right? You just leave it behind and you just, you just go on a motorcycle trip and it's amazing, right? You can disconnect. And I think with all the connectivity that's going on and, and all the autonomous discussions and it just becomes more and more important that you have that.
Like that vehicle becomes something else, you know, yeah, decompression tool or whatever you call it.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. It's opening up this other, other world. That's actually your most familiar or real world. It reminds me of going back to the very beginning of our conversation and like Easy Rider and Zeppelin and that feeling of freedom.
It's like that's, yeah. That
Ola Stenegärd: connection. It's, it's in a way, it's such a cliche, but I don't mind [01:08:00] because there's a reason you're all like, everyone always say that, right. It's the freedom of two wheels. Well, that's what it's about, right? It's, it's an amazing feeling. And on a motorcycle ride, you go through so many, so many feelings, right?
You're, you're exhilarated. You're scared. You're, you're pumped. You're excited. You go through sunshine and rain and you're so close to the elements. It's like all of that stuff in one ride, like nothing beats it. So I think there's, there will forever be a place for, for those two wheels. Um, Yeah, that gives me hope.
Like you said before, it gives you hope for humanity and that gives me hope for two wheels. Yeah. Me too. There will always be space, place for it.
Andrea Hiott: And that feeling of being alive and that we want to feel it and be alive and motorcycles give us that. So yeah. Thank you for the work you do towards that.
It's appreciated.
Ola Stenegärd: Thank you so much. I really appreciate, uh that you wanted to, uh, yeah. Have this [01:09:00] talk.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, definitely. It's an honor. So thanks.
Ola Stenegärd: Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it.