Adam Krefting and Dan Hallada are hoping to make an impact with mountain bike tire inserts designed to absorb shock.

CushCore, the company the men founded in 2016, has three patents pending, recently moved to larger warehouse space and established an international distribution system.

They anticipate that CushCore’s closed-cell foam tire inserts are on track to sell more than 16,000 this year. Its sister company, Kreft Moto, which makes customized suspension systems for off-road motorcycles, is poised to sell about 700 units in the coming year.

“The main purpose of this is a performance enhancer for a smooth ride,” said Hallada, grabbing from a box a gray foam loop that goes inside a bicycle tire. “It’s suspension at the tire, not the fork. It helps provide traction because you can ride with lower tire pressure and gives you better cornering.”

The foam inserts weigh less than a pound together and work to protect the wheel rims from impact.

Talk to the pair and their focus is on the performance and engineering of the product, testing the product and development of new products.

These tire inserts, Krefting said, can reduce a G-force 15.5 percent according to an independent study by Motion Instruments. These tire inserts also can reduce rolling resistance — the drag created by the tire turning — by 3.2 percent, he added.

“We’re on target with the growth that we expected for both companies,” Hallada said.

“We’ve grown really fast,” Krefting said. “There’s a lot of people out there with $150 to plunk down to improve their ride. The cost to benefit is huge.”

After just two years in business, the pair has gone from employing three people to 20. They expanded their warehouse space in August to Plateau Drive. The products are marketed through a distribution system, and some are sold directly to consumers and bicycle dealers.

CushCore had been an idea of Krefting’s long before winning the Early Stage competition at the Bend Venture Conference in 2016. With a proof of concept that was being tested in the marketplace, Krefting was awarded $15,000. CushCore won another $3,000 at Bend Outdoor Worx, an event for outdoor-products companies, that year.

Krefting said he took that money and purchased the company’s first molding machine.

He and Hallada met when they were new to Bend and looking for support at the Economic Development for Central Oregon office.

Hallada had the marketing and organizational skills with his two decades at Honda Powersports research and development in Southern California, and Krefting came to Bend as a suspension engineer from Durango, Colorado.

Both men came here seeking a work-life balance that would allow them to mountain bike in the miles of trails Central Oregon has to offer.

“CushCore mainly is an inventory management business now,” Hallada said. “Kreft Moto is a service and manufacturing business.”

Sage Brush Cycles lead mechanic Drew Barber couldn’t say enough about CushCore’s tire inserts.

Barber said the shop uses the inserts on its demo bikes, and he puts them on his own, he said.

“It really keeps you rolling,” Barber said. “When you hit a rock at high speed and blow through the tire, you can run at lower pressure and absorb the impact.”

Barber recently put this to the test when he was out on the trail and got a flat. In the days before CushCore he’d have to walk his bike back to his car to change the tire. Recently he was able to keep riding for a couple of miles until he got to his truck without ruining his carbon fiber wheels.

“The lava rock here is harsh on tires,” Barber said. “It’s great for anyone buying a bike and likes to ride aggressively.”

Barber said there are other products on the market, but none that fit snugly against the rim inside the tire.

Krefting, a suspension engineer, is all about ensuring that the product meets customers’ expectations. He recently built a drop test tower in the warehouse’s service area and machine shop to test the foam’s performance. It’s just one of the ways the company works to improve the performance, Krefting said.

“The second you ride it you are gonna love it,” Hallada said. “CushCore solves a problem that everyone has.”

— Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@bendbulletin.com

(Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. The original version misstated the price of the tire inserts and the yearly sales volume. The Bulletin regrets the error.)