Company type | Private Limited Company |
---|---|
Industry | Bicycles |
Founded | December 2010 |
Founders | Benedikt Skulasson, Gudberg Bjornsson |
Headquarters | Reykjavik, Iceland |
Products | Bicycles, bicycle forks, handlebars |
Website |
Lauf Cycles is an Icelandic bicycle brand based in Reykjavik, Iceland. They specialise in gravel bikes.
The Lauf Forks idea was born over a cold bike-ride aprés beer in a cramped basement apartment in Reykjavik around Christmas-time 2010. Avid mountain biker and engineer Benedikt Skulason, at the time working as an R&D engineer for a high-end composite prosthetic feet company, pitched his idea of a super-light revolutionary bicycle suspension fork to his good friend and industrial designer Gudberg Bjornsson.
They are most commonly known for their invention of the Lauf Spring: a pivotless trailing link fork. [1] A set of glass fiber [2] springs are attached between the wheel set and the forks of a bike. [3] Manufacturing is done in Iceland, with subsidiary dealers found in both Europe and the United States.
The company gained media attention when Canadian Cyclocross National Champion, [4] Michael Van Den Ham [5] used Lauf bikes for his successful competition wins in 2018. [6]
In 2023, Lauf launched the Úthald (meaning "endurance" in Icelandic), marking their first foray into the road bike market. [7]
A bicycle frame is the main component of a bicycle, onto which wheels and other components are fitted. The modern and most common frame design for an upright bicycle is based on the safety bicycle, and consists of two triangles: a main triangle and a paired rear triangle. This is known as the diamond frame. Frames are required to be strong, stiff and light, which they do by combining different materials and shapes.
The Cannondale Bicycle Corporation is an American division of Dutch conglomerate Pon Holdings that supplies bicycles. Its headquarters are in Wilton, Connecticut, with engineering offices in Freiburg, Germany. Frames are manufactured in Taiwan. Bikes are assembled in Taiwan, as well as in the USA and in The Netherlands for the local markets.
Serotta is an American bicycle builder located in Saratoga Springs, New York. Named after founder Ben Serotta, the company was founded in 1972.
A bicycle fork is the part of a bicycle that holds the front wheel.
Colnago Ernesto & C. S.r.l. or Colnago is a manufacturer of high quality road-racing bicycles founded by Ernesto Colnago near Milano in Cambiago, Italy. It remained a family-controlled firm until May 4, 2020, when it was announced that the UAE-based investment company, Chimera Investments LLC, had acquired a majority of the Colnago shares from Ernesto Colnago, although the headquarters will remain located in Italy after the acquisition. Instead of following his family's farming business, Ernesto Colnago chose to work in the cycle trade, and was apprenticed first to Gloria Bicycles at the age of 13, and subsequently taking up road racing. After a bad crash ended his racing career, he began subcontracting for Gloria, and opened his own shop in 1954, building his first frames the same year. While building frames, he remained much in demand as a racing mechanic. He was second mechanic on the Nivea team Giro d'Italia under Faliero Masi in 1955, eventually being employed as head mechanic for the Molteni team of Belgian cycling legend Eddy Merckx in 1963.
29ers or two-niners are mountain bikes and hybrid bikes that are built to use 700c or 622 mm ISO wheels, commonly called 29″ wheels. Most mountain bikes once used ISO 559 mm wheels, commonly called 26″ wheels. The ISO 622 mm wheel is typically also used for road-racing, trekking, cyclo-cross, touring and hybrid bicycles. In some countries, mainly in Continental Europe, ISO 622 mm wheels are commonly called 28″ wheels or "28 Incher".
SRAM LLC is a privately owned bicycle component manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, founded in 1987. SRAM is an acronym comprising the names of its founders, Scott, Ray, sAM,. The company produces a range of internally developed cycling components, including Grip Shift, separate gravel, road, and mountain drivetrains from 7 to 12 speed. SRAM developed the Eagle line of mountain bike specific drivetrain components intended to improve shifting performance. SRAM was also the first to release a dedicated "one by" drivetrain with a single front chain-ring.
Felt Racing is an American bicycle brand based in Irvine, California. Felt produces road, track, cyclocross, electric bicycles, and cruiser bikes. All design is completed in the United States and the majority of production comes from Asia. The company also has a strong reputation in the time trial/triathlon bike area and for several years provided bicycles to UCI teams in the Tour de France. Felt still supports several professional level race teams including Hincapie Racing and Team Twenty 16.
Jonathan Page is an American bicycle racer specializing in cyclo-cross and road racing. He was the USA Cycling National Cyclo-cross Champion in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Page won his fourth national championship in 2013. He lives in Underhill, Vermont, when not based in Oudenaarde, Belgium during the cyclocross season.
Bicycle suspension is the system, or systems, used to suspend the rider and bicycle in order to insulate them from the roughness of the terrain. Bicycle suspension is used primarily on mountain bikes, but is also common on hybrid bicycles.
Focus Bikes is a bicycle manufacturer that has its administration in Stuttgart, Germany and production facilities based in Cloppenburg, Germany and builds sport bicycles such as e-bikes, racing bicycles and mountain bicycles.
Barry-Roubaix is a classic-style road/off-road cycling race featuring a variety of terrain and surfaces to test cyclists of all skill levels. Named to the Global Cycling Network's Top Five Gravel Events and Nine Coolest Races of 2018, the event is known as the World's Largest Gravel Road Race.
Kaitlin Keough is an American professional racing cyclist who has found success in cyclocross and road bicycle racing despite her young age, winning multiple national championships in both cyclocross and on the track.
Santa Cruz Bicycles is a manufacturer of high end mountain bikes based in Santa Cruz, California. They sponsor the Santa Cruz Syndicate, a downhill racing team. The company moved premises from 104 Bronson Street to 2841 Mission Street in 2013. Formerly owned by NHS, Inc. On July 3, 2015, Santa Cruz Bicycles was sold to Pon Holdings, a family-owned Dutch conglomerate with a bicycle division including brands such as Cervélo, Focus and Royal Dutch Gazelle.
Femke Van den Driessche is a Belgian former cyclo-cross cyclist, mountainbiker and road racing cyclist. As a junior, she became national cyclo-cross champion in 2011 and mountain bike champion in 2013. In 2015, Van den Driessche won the European Cyclo-cross Championships in the women's under-23 category, and in 2016 she became Belgian champion in the same category, but she was later stripped of both titles.
Michael Van Den Ham is a Canadian cyclo-cross cyclist. He competed in the men's elite event at the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Heusden-Zolder.
Salsa Cycles is an American bicycle brand based in Bloomington, Minnesota. The company produces touring, mountain, road, and gravel bicycles, as well as bicycle components. The Salsa Cycles brand, along with its sister brands Surly Bikes and All-City Cycles, is owned by the Bloomington-based Quality Bicycle Products. The Salsa brand is widely recognized by winter biking enthusiasts in cold climates.
Gravel cycling, gravel biking or gravel grinding is a sport, or a leisure activity, in which participants ride bicycles mostly on gravel roads. Sometimes, specially designed gravel bikes are used; in other cases, any bicycle capable of covering the terrain can be used.
A gravel bicycle is a type of bicycle intended for gravel cycling, including gravel racing. They are also sometimes known as "adventure bicycles", particularly ones intended for harsher off-road terrain.