Grant Petersen | |
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Born | 1954 (age 69–70) |
Occupation | bicycle designer |
Years active | 1984-present |
Notable work | Bridgestone XO series |
Signature | |
Grant Petersen is a bicycle designer, author, and the founder and owner of Rivendell Bicycle Works. [1] He was U.S. marketing director for Bridgestone Cycle (U.S.A.), Inc. during the 1980s and 1990s, where he designed the XO series of bicycles. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] He is known for promoting traditional bicycle technology and materials such as wide tires, fenders, leather saddles, and lugged steel frames with relaxed geometry over modern, lightweight, racing technology. [3] [5]
Born in 1954, [5] Petersen grew up near Berkeley, California. [3] He raced bicycles in his 20's, and at the apex of his career edged out fellow racer and Olympian Norman Alvis at the Mt. Diablo hill climb in 1982. [2] [4] He worked for a time at the Berkeley REI. [4]
In 1984, Petersen began working for the U.S. bicycle division of Bridgestone Tires in San Leandro, California [4] in data entry and customer support. [3] He later became a marketing director and product manager [6] and in the early 1990s promoted the development of fat-tired road bikes inspired by emerging mountain bike designs. [3] From his time at Bridgestone, Peterson is known for developing the popular XO series of bicycles. [5] Bridgestone ended its U.S. operations in the fall of 1994. [2]
In 1994 after leaving Bridgestone, Petersen turned down job offers from bike companies, Specialized and Trek, [4] to found Rivendell Bicycle Works out of his garage. [1] [3] [5] There, he continued to hone his ideals of traditional, high-quality, all-around bicycle designs. [3]
Petersen has been a contributor to major bicycling and outdoors magazines and has written four books. [5] The first, Roads to Ride - A Bicyclist's Topographic Guide to Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin Counties, written in collaboration with Mary Anderson, his future wife, [4] was published in 1984 [7] (the dedication reads "Dedicated to B.F. Skinner - who must be the most misunderstood person of all time - and Bob Dylan. It's the least I can do and the only thing I can think of.") The second, Roads to Ride South - a Bicyclist's Topographic guide to San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties, with John Kluge, was published in 1985. [8] The third was titled Just Ride and was published in 2012. [6] The fourth was titled Eat Bacon, Don't Jog and was published in 2014. [9]
Petersen is a regular bike commuter to his shop located in Walnut Creek, California. He married Mary Anderson in 1985 and has two daughters, Kate and Anna. [5]
Bicycle touring is the taking of self-contained cycling trips for pleasure, adventure or autonomy rather than sport, commuting or exercise. Bicycle touring can range from single-day trips to extended travels spanning weeks or months. Tours may be planned by the participant or organized by a tourism business, local club or organization, or a charity as a fund-raising venture.
Trek Bicycle Corporation is a bicycle and cycling product manufacturer and distributor under brand names Trek, Electra Bicycle Company, Bontrager, and Diamant Bikes. The company has previously manufactured bikes under the Gary Fisher, LeMond Racing Cycles, Klein, and Villiger Bikes brand names. With its headquarters in Waterloo, Wisconsin, Trek bicycles are marketed through 1,700 independently owned bicycle shops across North America, subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, South Africa, as well as distributors in 90 countries worldwide. Nearly all Trek bicycles are manufactured outside the United States, in countries including the Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan, and China.
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John Forester was an English-American industrial engineer, specializing in bicycle transportation engineering. A cycling activist, he was known as "the father of vehicular cycling", for creating the Effective Cycling program of bicycle training along with its associated book of the same title, and for coining the phrase "the vehicular cycling principle" – "Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles". His published works also included Bicycle Transportation: A Handbook for Cycling Transportation Engineers.
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Sheldon Brown was an American bicycle mechanic, technical expert and author. He contributed to print and online sources related to bicycling and bicycle mechanics, in particular the web site Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info. His knowledge of bicycles was described as "encyclopaedic" by The Times of London.
Kogswell Cycles, Inc. was a small bicycle frame company with its headquarters in El Dorado Hills, California. Kogswell frames were designed in the United States and manufactured in Taiwan. Kogswell frames often ran counter to mainstream bicycle industry trends. According to Biking.com, Kogswell "focuses on creating bicycle frames that lean more towards utilitarian design rather than speed and rough roading."
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The Idaho stop is the common name for laws that allow bicyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign. It first became law in Idaho in 1982, but was not adopted elsewhere until Delaware adopted a limited stop-as-yield law, the "Delaware Yield", in 2017. Arkansas was the second US state to legalize both stop-as-yield and red-light-as-stop in April 2019. Studies in Delaware and Idaho have shown significant decreases in crashes at stop-controlled intersections. In France and Belgium, some intersections use red-light-as-yield signs.
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