Blader Union - What the heck is Fruit Tech Hardware?

Introduction and Interview by Travis Stewart
Photos provided by Fruit Tech Hardware

With 2020 in our mirror and the huge amount of unexpected growth across the inline industry, new and exciting prospects have been popping up from every crack in the cement. Around the turn of the year into 2021, an exciting new venture sprouted from one of these cracks. Fruit Tech Hardware was founded by Jonathan Hayes and seeks to bring new options to your skates for the ever growing section of aftermarket skate hardware. We take a dive into who Jonathan is, just how many skates is to many skates to buy on BTO, and what Fruit Tech can do for you.

(Travis) Hey Johnathan, thanks for diving deeper into Fruit Tech with me. Can we take a moment to understand more about yourself, who you are, and your background in skating?

(Jonathan) Ok, so I’m a Back to blader, just like I think most everybody that's funding the industry right now. Rollerblading is something that I did three solid years in high school maybe? And then I just sort of forgot existed. I know that that sounds terrible, but it's just the path my life took. Across my life I've done all types of different things. I got into cycling. I was bike commuting. Then I moved too far away from work to keep that up. But I’ve really done all types of stuff.

So, November of 2018, I was starting to get kind of bored looking for an outlet and I ran across a video of Bill Stoppard on YouTube and I was like “Holy shit if that old man can can shred Toronto or wherever he is, let me see what else is out there.” And then I found Lawrence. And then I was like “Well, if that old man can do back farves, I have no exclude but to still skate, too”. Then turns out like it's this thing that I regret that I forgot about because since 2018 I have done something, or talked about, or purchased skates every single day; seemingly 24 hours a day, which is weird for me. Personally I usually get tired of stuff to be honest, and I just can’t, like I love it. I love it down to my bones. It's so weird.

(T) Lawrence is a force to be reckoned with. He has almost single handedly brought blading back. Him a few other key players. The way he’s gone and inspired an entire group of people to get out, get motivated, and doing crazy things like start a new blading company in 2021.

(J) Like I'll be honest, I'm just wholesaling some screws, right? Really just putting it bluntly. I can't believe that Lawrence does what he does. Because I get exhausted and say I’m taking Friday off, nobody talk to me, you know. Haha. This dude skates every day. He does the podcast. He's got his videos. He does gear reviews. He’s gone from “hey I’m going to bring back this frame” to look at all these new parts. Now it's like “I’m going to completely revolutionize the frame design industry”.

(T) And you leave out the craziest part of Lawrence in that he has two kids, a wife, and a full time career outside of blading.

(J) Yeah it's crazy. I've talked to him about it a few times and he's just like “yeah, make every minute count” and I'm like come on dude, that's not it. That's not the only path to success. Haha

(T) There is a healthy line in there somewhere between skating and life, and I guess Lawrence has found it. Or at least I hope he has. But we’re here and talking to you and want to discuss Fruit Tech. Now we’ve known one another for some amount of time now through the Slack channel, but I was shocked when Biiz talked about Fruit Tech on TWIB and I pop into the Slack Channel to see the Master Fruiter himself hanging out. Tell me about this thing you’ve created.

(J) Alright, so it was the January before Covid. I went to go visit Lawrence for the first time. This was before the 50/50 warehouse. It was for my birthday and I've now gone twice in a row. A couple friends and I go out to North Carolina and we hang out with Long at the [Oak City] shop and we hang out with Lawrence and get to meet everybody in that scene who skates. I left there feeling like the community itself has been really good to me, either in personal relationships or like you know the way the rollerbladers do when you sell stuff and you get a few extra goodies. From my very first pair of razors Genesys on BTO where somebody threw in shred till you're dead on DVD, it's just been such a welcoming and and giving back community.

So after that trip I decided that I wanted to be part of that somehow. I didn't know how that was going to work really. I was just brainstorming a lot of things. So I spent the majority of Covid time really trying to just let my brain figure out what could be there, what would work. One of the things that plagued me as a skater and an avid BTO user, and seemingly everybody else is soft metal holding your skates together. You get halfway through changes some soul plates out and one of those screws is stripped beyond recognition. You have to go to Lowe's and you have to get a strip repair kit and all kinds of stuff.

I’ve been a relatively handy guy my whole life. I work on things, I fix things. My dad and I used to drive race cars in the SCCA back when I was like 15 or 16 years old. So I'm mechanically inclined even though it's not my profession. I was like, “well, I wonder how hard it would be to put this idea together”. I keep mentioning Blade Trade Outpost (BTO) because I've owned 42 pairs of skates the last two and a half or three years. I told you, I love this thing. But trying to figure out what fit me best or what differences were between skates from today and what I remember when we were kids. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but you know they all had the same problem in my eyes. To not to knock any skate manufacturers, but it's just cheap screws and little pieces of hardware that constantly have problems. And I was like “that's that's my in”.

Oh quick caveat. I think it was also 2019. There was a company called Save, Inc. that was doing something very similar from Germany. They just sort of stopped. Their Instagram dried up. No response to an email. I don't know what happened because there was some momentum behind them at the beginning. With them fully out of the market, I felt like there was a void that I could step into and that's what I did.

(T) You brought up some good point. I think there will always be a value in being able to produce a high quality product at a price point. I understand those small cost cutting measures, like riveting the cuffs on a Sways. I’m sure using a hardened alloy over the softer black screws you get with ever new skate drastically adds up that cost over time.

(J) 100%.

(T) So what sets the Fruit Tech’s hardware above everything else on the market? Is your secret sauce really that much of an improvement over what comes stock?

(J) Correct. These are stainless steel. So instead of using whatever cheap alloy was available at the time of manufacturing for the skate, these are all stainless steel metric thread. We’re using Torx heads. Pretty much everything is a T20 or T30 Torx drive. And we do that because the application of pressure with those six point stars spreads it all out.

For whatever reason there's no real good standard in Phillips heads. So if you have a number 4 Phillips head and you have a number 3 on your skate for some reason, you're going to end up stripping that thing, even if it was going to come out kind of OK in the first place. We're trying to standardize a better product and one that will distribute full force evenly. So even if you get one that's kind of sticky, you'll be able to really wrench on it without the fear of stripping it out the first two turns you get into it.

(T) After switching all of my personal screws and stuff around the house from Phillips or Allen to Torx, it’s made such a difference to get things together and apart again. Allen is great, but the amount of times I’ve stripped something, or had to sick a rubber band between the tool and screw to try to salvage it just isn’t fun.

(J) And you will find the good Allen wrench and you keep that forever. You'll treat it like it's gold, but even that eventually is going to start to fade. The edges get a little smoother and then you go into change UFS bolt and it was tight so you give a little bit of extra torque and bam…Now they're both screwed forever.

(T) What’s the scope of your aftermarket support for skates?

(J) So it's every major boot. Let me make sure that's right. I think I was missing one or two at the very launch that I was upset about. The Sway in particular, and the Cult because it has so many different size screws on the soleplate that I couldn't launch those boots at the beginning.

The community being so awesome, I've had some awesome people like my friend Mario up in New Jersey, who sent me a busted pair of cults that he had so I could build a kit for that. Now the Cult kit is live thanks to that. I wanted to wait and make sure that I had everything I needed for the Flying Eagle and the Enkidu and the one that B Free uses, the Origami skate, so that's now live too. I held off a little bit on the Adapts. I've got Kennan Scott testing out some different UFS Bolt sizes for me because as soon as the website went live, I got an email from Pieter from Adapt letting me know that the UFS sizes that I had listed were much too short for his standards. So I tried a few different things out. It looks like we've settled on a proper size for that. So the Adapts are good now.

What I'm trying to do is offer a complete hardware kit for every boot that you can think of. Even at this point, I've got so many freaking screws. Haha, I’ll have hardware for the rest of my life.

Garrett O’Brien’s Fruit Tech USD Sways- @garrett_obrien88

(T) Can you define what a complete hardware kit means?

(J) Yeah, it's everything. So soul plate screws, UFS screws, the screws that hold your buckles and straps together. If you have a 45 degree strap, the screws that hold those on, and the cuff hinges. Those have been the most tricky because there's almost a standard I found among the industry when it comes to the diameter of the cuff bolt. It's around 22 millimeters, but sometimes it's 21 and sometimes it's 23 because you know how rollerblading is. So right now I'm sitting on a sunken cuff washer that is 20 millimeters in diameter. That's a that's a little bit short for my liking, but it's where I am right now. But yeah, we are looking to provide replacement Torx head stainless steel screws and hardware for every skate on the planet.

(T) Wow. Do you support Oxygens? Haha

(J) Listen, if somebody wants to get me an old boot, we can do it. Yesterday I received an old busted Solomon so I can make a cuff kit for it. We can start getting rid of those rivets and have something that will work to hold everything together even well past what would have been their lifespan.

(T) I’m sending you some OUT Poppies to have you build out a kit for me. Haha

(J) OUT Poppies are on my list of like dream skates and when I was a kid that and the Fila Crusty. Haha

(T) I heard a rumor that this was started this idea was funded by cryptocurrency. Is there any truth to that?

(J) So that is 90%…Well, I'll take that back. That's 80% true, yes. Again, Covid gave us the opportunity to be home a lot and to be with the family to spend time doing what I love doing, which for me is rollerblading. And it let this idea sort of percolate. The stimulus money that has been sent out this year has let me get in a position where I could take the risk. And I was like, “what if I completely fail? You know the start up cost isn't going to be that great, and I got this chunk of money sitting aside.” So that gave me the cushion. But at this point, the gains in crypto and the returns on my first few kits and stuff have have have let me break even and is letting me do more which will be coming up here this next week or so.

(T) Not trying to be condescending, but is your hardware just some generic hardware, or is this custom designed hardware with your logo or name on it?

(J) I have a dream board and that's on there, but no, this is a generic properly sized Torx head stainless steel screws. I'll be totally honest. You can probably get all of this yourself, but you don't know all the sizes.

(T) That makes sense, and there is a lot of different sized bolts and screws on a skate. And you really do ship a kit, not just a baggie of parts. Can you maybe describe what all comes in a complete kit besides just the screws?

(J) I'm also providing a hand drive tool and an Allen head bit along with the two Torx bits that you'll need for whatever your skate happens to be. There are two caveats to that. Like I said earlier, every almost every screw was either at T20 or T30. The Adapts use a T25 on their straps and the Flying Eagle and some other free skates use a T40 because they have a big M8 bolt for the frame Bolt. But again, all that is provided depending on the kit.

(T) So this really is one kit with everything your need to upgrade your complete skate? That’s amazing. You brought up Pieter reaching out from Adapt. I’ve seen him called Master Pieter on the Slack channel for the quality of work he does with his Masterpieces.

(J) Those masterpieces are what inspired the master fruiter.

(T) You really seemed to land in a sweet spot of this growing marking. Yes, you’re a niche product in an already niche product contained in a niche industry, but this seems to be a booming time for the aftermarket. I’m hoping that things are getting better than expected and you’ve had a lot of interest?

(J) That is correct. I have directly sold 51 kits directly through the site. There's a handful of local kits but I'm not going to count those though, so 51 kits since the website went live. Long from Oak City purchased 60, so we're also now available at Oak City. So there's there's 100 plus kits sitting out there and 50 of those should already be on skates.

I've also been getting feedback. One of the important things is that as someone mentions it that this thing or that thing could be a problem, I'm going to address it. This is something that I care about. I want people to buy a kit for their skates and never have to worry about these types of problems with stripped bolts or whatever happening again. For example, if something strips, I’ll replace it forever. If there's a problem, then write an email and I'll send you some free ones.

(T) That’s incredible. And it’s awesome you stand so strong behind your product. I did noice that all your hardware photos show that your products don’t have that little blue smudge of Loctite on them. Is this by design? Does your stainless steel hardware not need Loctite?

(J) So you sometimes need it. I think the little painted on blue Loctite patch, which sometimes is Loctite and sometimes it's just paint, is something that I didn't feel like I had a bunch of control over. It's shipped as just raw hardware. You do have a new option as of about a week ago with a relationship I’ve got going with a company called Vibra Tite. They're based out of Detroit, but it’s just a Loctite competitor. They have a Vibra Tite 121, which is an equivalent to Loctite 242. So you can buy a little tube of it and it treats 20 to 25 screws. So if you wanted to Loctite everything you can do that for $3 with your kit.

(T) Ok, got it. I had no idea it was just sometimes paint. Haha, they’ve had me fooled for so long. I did have a specific question on your kits and dealing with THEM Skates. I have a bunch of friends who skate the THEM 909’s, but they have constant issues with the cuff hardware coming out. Does your kit fix this problem, or do you know what the problem is there?

(J) So in my experience, and I try to be careful because I'm not a product developer notrone of these geniuses like Kyle Sola. Kyle Sola is the man and there's almost nothing wrong with the 909 design. But the flip washer on the THEM skate is just a flat piece of metal with some threads in it. From what I've found myself and from talking to people who have tested this stuff for me, if that flip washer could go back and meet into the negative space and meet the screw, where it can hold more threads, it wouldn't have that problem of backing out. I don't think it should impact the actual design of the flip washer at all. I think the issue with those isn't the screw length or anything, it is that the flip nut just doesn't have enough teeth that catch on the screw.

(T) So is your hardware different?

(J) No, we don't change the flip nut. We just provide a different screw. Honestly I would recommend whenever people get the THEM kit, that they use their THEM washer and then use our screw. That exact same kit, if you put it onto the 908, it doesn't back out nearly as often. It has a mouth on the receptor, that that goes back towards the screw and thus grabs more of the threads.

(T) Ok. I don’t skate THEMs myself, but I trust you on it. Speaking of cuffs though, USD Carbon Cuffs. Unless I removed the small plastic ring under the cuff on the post, I felt like they would fall out all the time too.

(J) I got a buddy who's having the same issues. I bought some carbons just to test my kits on them and didn't have the same issue pop up. He has an older pair of carbons and he's getting a lot of wobble in his cuff for that same reason. I'm trying to come up with something to solve these little problems too. I don't know if I'm going to do it before the actual industry does, but you know I'm always tinkering and working.

David Urick’s Fruit Tech Razors SLs - @david.urick

(T) So you solve all the hardware issues on skates, you solve stripped screws, cuff bolts no longer fall out. Is that it? Have you reached the end of your market already?

(J) So, no. Haha. I recognize really early on that one of the problems is once you get the people who care about this kind of stuff and they purchased some kits, and once they get them on their skates, they're kind of done. Ideally they should be finished. So I've been trying to diversify a little bit. If you go to the website you’ll have a few additional options. I have some soft goods that are now available. I’ve got bearings that are on a pallet right now in Novato, CA just waiting for FedEx to pick him up. I'm actually antsy about that, because I know that they're here, but I can't do anything about it. In about a week or so we will announce our first Pro Rider.

One of the great things about the Slack to Blading group is having all these conversations with Long and other people who have had experience in the industry and seeing what kind of needs there are. And then me being like a nobody lets me sort of do whatever I want to try move the pendulum a different direction. I'm also trying to benefit everybody on the team, not just a handful of pros. I say this because on our team bearings, I'll be doing a dollar from every eight individual bearings sold into the team fund which as far as I know, only S9 gives any kind of royalty for bearings at all. I’m just a hardware company, I’m not going to have wheels or anything like that. Once I name this pro and see how successful this first run of bearings are going to be, I plan on doing a pro bearing for anybody that I get under the umbrella.

(T) Being disconnected from the core industry is a blessing in disguise. It really does give you that freedom to explore and try something new. And I’m appreciative that you are find ways to give back to the team, even if they aren’t just the pros on the team.

(J) This is one of the conversations we had at some point last year talking to Lawrence. I may not always want to buy the design and the Stefan Brandow wheel but I do want to support Stefan, right? So how about tips when you check out. Maybe I want the regular 50/50 wheel and to give Stefan a $5 tip or something. So when you check out you have the option of doing a tip and you tell me who you wanted it to goto, and that will expand as the team gets bigger. Tell me who deserves it and it goes right to them. Our first team rider is Jeremy Troya and he's made like $27 on tips alone. I haven't even paid him out of the team fund or anything yet. This is just one of the ideas that I had like that.

(T) It’s great that you’re sponsoring someone like Jeremy too. He’s a good skater with a great style who would never be a pro in the traditional sense, but his professionalism is what carries him into that kind of “pro” light. He’s done so much work helping keep that Slack community together and cohesive. People often forget that it’s not just stunts or contest wins that make someone a pro or worthy of a sponsorship.

(J) Yep! And we all know those people who are so good at rollerblading that they're always going to have the pro products until they get too old to skate. But there is also guys out there who have shredded thousands of hours and put in hundreds of hours a year on their P rail in their driveway who aren’t traditionally pro but put in the work like Jeremy, and I think they should get something too. That's we have a three tier programs as Pros, Team, and then what I've called the Sprout Initiative, because it sort of fit the whole fit the whole fruit vibe. That's really turned into finding kids to sponsor, and cycle them through sponsoring them for a short period of time to give them a boost to grow and shine.

The first guy that we sponsored, his name is Brice Butler, who's up in Alberta, Canada. He’s part of the Shredmonton crew. I sent him a little hardware kit. I sent him some softgoods and some T shirts, wax, and a few other things. For a kid who's passionate about skating to realize they're getting some recognition from any part of the industry, just imagine what that could possibly do for them in the future. It’s enormous. How many of us as kids were like “if we could just get seen man, we could get sponsored.” And now it's easy to get seen, but it's not easy to get sponsored, so I'm trying to flip that make that easier.

(T) I love it. That’s the foundation of the future of our sport. All of us old timers are going to age out and with no backfill coming back in, it’s only a matter of time before Blading fizzles again. So knowing that, and knowing your direction, how can we get in touch and support you, your team, and Fruit Tech?

(J) You can always shoot me an email sales@fruittechhardware.com. Write us on Instagram. I'm on Instagram 24 hours a day unless I'm asleep. Haha. I’m super responsive.

I'm also very transparent and I'm not going to lie to you. If I can do something, I'll do it. If I can't, I'll tell you that I can't. I've turned people away before because they want some T nuts and while I have some T nuts, but I can't guarantee that they're going to fit everywhere you want to put them yet, so I'm not really selling them. People have asked for buckle hardware or the especially the screw receptors, and I'm like “listen the best ones around are the ones that razors makes and they're like $4 so you can go give that money to anybody else out there.” And yes, www.fruittechhardware.com.

(T) Incredible! We’ll everyone take a moment to swing by Fruit Tech’s site and socials and check out what the Master fruiter can do for you.

(J) And in just about a week I'll have more colors coming, too to take your setups even further.

(T)Ooohhh. I gotta check that out. Thanks again for your time Jonathan!

(J) Thank you so much, Travis.