There's no mistaking Chris Singleton is a cyclist: whippet-thin with spoke-straight shirt tan on his biceps, he's tanned and taut from years of grinding on two wheels.
When I met him at an office perched above the bustling midday CBD in West Perth, he pushed a Merckx 525 road bike through the door and let me test its weight.
"That's a bit lighter normally," he said as I lifted the bike with two fingers. "But of course, with the cameras on it's just a little more."
The bike was fitted with front and back cameras called the Fly6 and Fly12: "the dashcam engineered for cyclists" that have propelled Singleton's company Cycliq from a crowdfunded idea to soaring sales around the world.
Chris Singleton (L) and Kingsley Fiegert (R) are pushing Cycliq into a global race.Credit: Dylan Urquhart
Singleton is Cycliq's Executive Chairman, driving the pace for the Perth-based consumer electronics group as it expands into cycle-mad markets like the USA and Europe.
But Cycliq is also shifting gears; co-founder Kingsley Fiegert is stepping down from the day-to-day, his work to help create the product and get it built to exacting specifications now complete.
Like Singleton, Fiegert is a dedicated cyclist, and shares the passion for taking on projects others say are impossible, like a tiny tech company in Perth making a global consumer electronic product.
Sitting together in the afternoon sun, the pair allowed themselves to look back on the road they'd travelled together, and when I ask if they'd do it again, they howl with laughter.
"There is something masochistic in cyclists," Fiegert said. "We certainly would do a few things differently, because you learn. But everything we did led us here. It all had to happen. There are no short cuts."
The good, the bad and the ugly
Cycling is one of the most spectacular sports to photograph and film - just think of a peloton cleaving through a field of worshipping sunflowers in the Tour de France.
It can also be one of the most dangerous. WA's Road Safety Commission records 32 cyclist deaths on the state's roads between 2010 and 2016.
There are scores more who have crashed or been hit by another road user and sustained serious injury. And every cyclist has stories or scars of something they walked away from.
There's intense debate over cycling safety in Australia, but new laws like WA's new minimum passing legislation and efforts to create more dedicated cycling lanes are working to make the roads safer.
But for Chris Singleton, nothing beats a camera.
"We like to say that we made our camera system for the good, the bad and the ugly," he said.
"The good is what most cyclists are keen to capture, those long rides out to the hills and all the great adventures you can have with your mates. That's what most people are keen to use them for. But when the bad and the ugly come up, the camera is there for that too."
Cycliq's cameras are promoted as the "dashcam for cyclists."Credit: Cycliq
Cycliq began as a Kickstater campaign to test an idea for a camera and light system that worked like a GoPro but was tailored to the safety and recreational needs of cyclists.
Fiegert had the idea in the Perth hills where he was enjoying an afternoon bike ride when without warning "an object was fired from passing car" and he was hit.
Around that time dashcams were emerging as a popular way for drivers to record their journeys and have a form of "insurance" if an accident occured.
But Fiegert, still smarting from the attack on his bike, set out creating a version for bicycles that combined a camera with a light, covering two major safety areas.
Cycliq's first product was immediately popular with Perth cyclists, and their demand for the first versions of the product helped propel an intense effort to list the company on the stock exchange, refine the design, find the right manufacturer and market an evolved product to riders around the world.
It had to be light. It had to be streamlined. And it had to work every time without fail.
"The key differences between a GoPro and the Fly6 and Fly12 we make is the ability for the cameras to loop over the footage and that the algorithm driving the capture is in harmony with the bike's vibrations," Fiegert explains.
"A GoPro is a one and a half hour length of battery thereabouts, and depending on your SD card there's limits to the recording time. So you'd have to pick your moment - the ride out? The hill? And hopefully you switch it on in time for the accident, or the crash, or the near miss.
"With us you switch it on and get eight hours of usable battery life for recording. If something happens, you can get it. And if nothing happens, just let it roll over."
Smile, you're on camera
Singleton shakes his head when asked if cameras on bikes made drivers more wary of cyclists.
"It cuts both ways. For me, I know that when I put the camera on my bike, it modified my behaviour immediately," he said.
"When you are on camera it changes things and cyclists do say they ride differently.
"It's like, you don't want to get in an accident and then review the footage and it shows you running a red light or something like that just before!"
Could Cycliq's cameras one day be mounted on Tour de France bikes? Credit: AP
Both men believe cyclists using cameras on the road increases safety, but Singleton points out that everyone who uses the road has a responsibility to be careful.
"I think the vast, vast majority of cyclists and drivers do the right thing and are respectful of each other on the road. There are always idiots though, and there's no side for that. So having a camera is an extra layer of safety that can give you peace of mind. And you get to capture the amazing things too."
On the attack
The company's latest Quarterly Report for FY18 showed a 46 per cent rise in revenue to $1.6M, with unit sales rising 44 per cent in the March quarter to 8631 units, a 354 per cent increase year-on-year.
This upward trend comes as Cycliq expands its European and US market drives, signing deals with major brands and distributors to get more of their products on bike shop shelves and online inventory.
The bedrock for this expansion is the completion of a JV manufacturing deal with Glory Horse Investment Holdings Limited, based in Hong Kong, and the evolution of a "connected edition" optimised for the web and the cloud.
But ever the cyclist, Singleton is also keen to see new uses for Cycliq's products - even eying other kinds of wheels.
"Imagine having one of our cameras mounted to a Tour de France bike during the broadcast, with live pictures from right inside an attack in the peleton," he said.
"We're also looking at a version for motorbikes, and also diversifying so we can make versions for dedicated cyclists, leisure riders and people on electric bikes.
“Unlike many early-stage scale-up businesses, we’re not relying on hockey-stick growth to significantly improve our operating position."
Singleton said there was an open invitation to Fiegert from the board to come back whenever he likes. But the product founder seemed happy to hand over the handlebars for now.
"Cycliq has a momentum of its own now," he said. "For a tiny company from Perth to go from a team of two to around 35 in a few short years is really impressive, and I think it's just getting started."