 | |
| Company type | Co-operative |
|---|---|
| Industry | Bicycles |
| Founded | 1840 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Bicycles and related components |
| Website | orbea.com |
Orbea is a bicycle manufacturer based in Mallabia, Spain. It is part of the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation and Spain's largest bicycle manufacturer. Orbea manufactures and assembles bikes at their own factories in Spain and Portugal. [1]
Orbea was founded in 1840 by brothers Juan Manuel, Mateo, and Casimiro Orbea in Eibar, Basque Country, Spain. Originally a rifle and gun producer, Orbea exited the gun business and began designing and producing bicycles as Orbea Bicycles in 1930. Orbea began participating in the Tour de France as early as 1934, with famous Spaniard Mariano Cañardo as the face of the Orbea road cycling team. [2]
In 1969, under dire financial circumstances, employees formed a co-operative and purchased Orbea from the Orbea family. [3] The newly formed Orbea cooperative left Eibar the same year to nearby Mallabia, where their first dedicated bicycle factory was built. For the next several decades, the company would focus on producing leisure bikes for consumers in Spain and around Europe.
Orbea would return to competitive road cycling in the 1980s as Gin MG-Orbea and later SEAT-Orbea, led by Spaniard cyclists Pedro Delgado, Jokin Mújika, and Pello Ruiz Cabestany. Participating in both Tour de France and Vuelta a España.
Orbea began manufacturing mountain bikes in 1989.
Orbea designs and manufactures a variety of road, mountain, triathlon, and urban bikes. More famously seen in competitions: the Orca and Avant road bikes, Rallon and Occam Mountain Bikes, and Ordu time trial/triathlon models.
Orbea has sponsored and supplied bikes to teams, including the Euskaltel–Euskadi professional team in the Basque area of Spain and the Herring Gas team [4] in the USA. Samuel Sánchez rode an Orbea Orca Carbon to win the road race at the Beijing Olympics and Julien Absalon won the mountain bike gold on an Orbea Alma. Craig Alexander, three time Ironman World Triathlon Champion (2008, 2009, 2011), rode an Orbea Ordu in his first 2 wins and although he had planned to spend the rest of his career racing on Orbea bicycles, having signed a lifetime contract with Orbea in 2010, [5] he switched to another brand for the 2011 race. [6]
The UCI Professional Continental team Cofidis Solutions Crédits raced Orbea bikes in the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
The UCI Domestic Elite Cycling Team, Rio Grande Elite Cycling Team, currently races on Orbea bikes.
Launching at the end of 2017, Orbea introduced the Gain e-bike model available in both road and hybrid model. Further to this they introduced the electric-assisted Orbea Wild mountain bike in 2019.
The Vuelta a España is an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. Inspired by the success of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, the race was first organised in 1935. The race was prevented from being run by the Spanish Civil War and World War II in the early years of its existence; however, the race has been held annually since 1955. As the Vuelta gained prestige and popularity the race was lengthened and its reach began to extend all around the globe. Since 1979, the event has been staged and managed by Unipublic, until in 2014, when the Amaury Sport Organisation acquired control. Since then, they have been working together. The peloton expanded from a primarily Spanish participation to include riders from all over the world. The Vuelta is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams, with the exception of the wild card teams that the organizers can invite.
Laurent Jalabert is a French former professional road racing cyclist, from 1989 to 2002.
Christopher Brandon Horner is an American retired professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 1996 and 2019.
Euskaltel–Euskadi was a professional road bicycle racing team from Spain, Europe. The team was commercially sponsored, but was also partly funded by the Basque Government until the end of 2013, with riders either from the Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja, and the French Basque Country, or who had grown up in the cycling culture of those regions: This policy was abandoned to enable retention of World Tour status. Its sponsor was Euskaltel, a Basque telecom company. Euskaltel–Euskadi was famous for its all-orange team kits. Whenever the Tour de France passed through the Basque Country many spectators lined the route dressed in the team's orange or the colours of the Basque flag. The Euskaltel team also has a second team inside the "Fundacion Euskadi", this team rode in a continental category, the name of the team was Orbea. This team was created with the aim of forming the young cyclist before going to the Euskaltel–Euskadi.
Time is a manufacturer of pedals and bicycles.
Cervélo Cycles is a manufacturer of racing and track bicycles. Cervélo uses CAD, computational fluid dynamics, and wind tunnel testing at a variety of facilities including the San Diego Air and Space Technology Center, in California, US, to aid its designs. Frame materials include carbon fibre. Cervélo currently makes 5 series of bikes: the C series and R series of road bikes, the latter featuring multi-shaped, "Squoval" frame tubes; the S series of road bikes and P series of triathlon/time trial bikes, both of which feature airfoil shaped down tubes; and the T series of track bikes. In professional competition, cyclists have ridden Cervélo bicycles to victory in all three of road cycling's grand tours: the Tour de France; the Giro d'Italia; and the Vuelta a España. In 2023, Cervélo achieved a historic sweep of all three grand tours in a single year.
Samuel "Samu" Sánchez González is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally in the sport between 2000 and 2017 for the Euskaltel–Euskadi and BMC Racing Team squads. He was the gold medal winner in the road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the following years Sánchez proved himself in hilly classics and stage races as one of the most important riders in the peloton. He was also known as one of the best descenders in the peloton. He finished in the top 6 of the Tour de France three times and in the top 10 of the Vuelta a España 6 times. Other notable achievements include winning the Vuelta a Burgos in 2010, the 2012 Tour of the Basque Country and five stages of the Vuelta a España.
Igor Antón Hernández is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2005 and 2018 for the Euskaltel–Euskadi, Movistar Team and Team Dimension Data squads.
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Jesús del Nero Montes is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer who most recently rode for the UCI Professional Continental Team NetApp. Del Nero turned professional with the Basque continental team Orbea in 2005 before moving to new UCI Professional Continental team 3 Molinos Resort in 2006. When 3 Molinos folded at the end of 2006, Del Nero moved to Saunier Duval, which subsequently became Fuji-Servetto. Del Nero's best results to date are third in the 2005 Euskal Bizikleta and eleventh in the 2007 Tour of Flanders.
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Joaquim Rodríguez Oliver is a Spanish cyclist, who competed in road bicycle racing between 2001 and 2016 for the ONCE–Eroski, Saunier Duval–Prodir, Caisse d'Epargne and Team Katusha teams. Following his retirement from road racing, Rodríguez has competed in mountain bike racing and formed his own mountain bike racing team, Andbank–La Purito.
Roberto Laiseka Jaio is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer. He retired in 2006, after 13 seasons as a professional with the Euskaltel–Euskadi team, after he could not recover from a knee injury suffered in the 2006 Giro d'Italia. Over his 13-year career Laiseka only achieved five professional victories, four of them in Grand Tours.
Pedro Torres Cruces is a Spanish former road bicycle racer. He was a GC contender in Grand Tours.
Caroline Sarah J. Alexander is a cross-country mountain biker and road cyclist born in Barrow-in-Furness. She was a swimmer as a child and did not cycle until she was 20. She first rode a bike in competition in a triathlon: she came second in the swimming and was fastest on the bike. She entered her first mountain bike race, which she won. Within a year she was one of the top three mountain-bike racers in the UK. She left her job as a draughtswoman in Barrow shipyards and became a full-time cyclist.
Euskadi was a Spanish cycling team based in the Basque Country that existed from 2005 to 2014. It was one of the European teams in UCI Continental Tour.
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Omar Fraile Matarranza is a Spanish racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers. He is a winner of stages in the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, and has twice won the Mountains classification in the Vuelta a España.
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