 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Triathlon |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States |
Key people | Dan Empfield |
| Products | Tri-specific Bicycles and Wetsuits |
| Parent | American Bicycle Group |
| Website | www.quintanarootri.com |
Quintana Roo (QR) was the first company to create a triathlon-specific wetsuit over 25 years ago, and then a tri-specific bicycle two years later. The company was founded in 1987 by Dan Empfield of Ironman fame and is currently owned by the American Bicycle Group. [1]
The company's flagship product in 1987 was the first wetsuit made specifically for triathlon, designed by Empfield. This new wetsuit was more flexible and more buoyant, giving it swim-specific characteristics that were not found in the diving or surfing wetsuits used by triathletes at that time. [2] In 1990, Quintana Roo discovered and pioneered the use of Yamamoto Rubber #39 in its high-end wetsuits. This new rubber was more buoyant and more flexible than any other rubber that had previously been used in any triathlon wetsuit, and it was followed the next year with Yamamoto SCS (Super-Composite Skin), an outer coating that added even more buoyancy and protected the rubber from fingernail tears. [3]
In conjunction with the first tri-specific wetsuit in 1987, Scott USA created the first aerodynamic handlebar for standard road bicycles. It was clear triathlon had created a niche market, requiring new products that focused on all three disciplines contiguously rather than separately. In 1989, Empfield made a bicycle specifically for triathlon, the Quintana Roo Superform. This custom bike was called the first bicycle "built from the aerobars back." With a steep seat angle of 80 degrees, its design was said to help prevent leg fatigue before the run. Ray Browning rode the Quintana Roo Superform to a new overall course record at the 1989 Ironman New Zealand. [4]
In 1993, Quintana Roo released the Kilo, the first production bicycle to successfully be made from Easton #7005 aluminum tubeset, and it replaced the Superform as the flagship bike. The bike was named the Kilo because it weighed only 2.2 pounds, or 1 kilo, as opposed to chromoly steel bicycle frames, which weighed considerably more. [5]
During the early 1990s, while testing bicycle aerodynamics at the Texas A&M Wind Tunnel, Dan Empfield was introduced to the concept of interference drag between the bicycle fork and the front wheel. The first idea to overcome this was to make a front wheel with a narrow hub, 60mm instead of 80mm. This increased the amount of space air had to flow between the wheel and the fork. However, by 1996, Quintana Roo had developed a fork with "wide" blades, further increasing the space between the wheel and the fork. This was the QR Illuminaero fork, made out of aluminum. The next year Quintana Roo introduced the QR Carbonaero fork, which was made out of carbon fiber and much lighter than the QR Illuminaero fork. [6]
In 1999, Quintana Roo released the QR Redstone, considered by many to be the first triathlon "superbike." Named after the Redstone Missile, the bike had modern design cues such as internal cable routing, a bottom-bracket mounted rear brake, and a fully faired rear wheel. [7]
When JHK Investments bought Quintana Roo from Saucony in 2000, it was relocated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it would share facilities with its new sister company, Litespeed. This new relationship provided Quintana Roo with the opportunity and resources to develop and produce titanium triathlon bikes, using its triathlon-specific geometry. [8]
From then until 2005, Quintana Roo's flagship bike was the Ti-Phoon. However, in 2005 Quintana Roo released its first full-carbon fiber bike, the Lucero, followed the next year by its sister bikes, the Seduza and the Caliente. These three carbon bikes all featured the same geometry, but with a different carbon weave for each bike, providing various price points and unique ride properties for each. The mold that these bikes came from now forms the basis of Quintana Roo's current FIT Series of bikes. [9]
In 2009, Quintana Roo introduced the CD0.1, a bicycle designed with Quintana Roo's unique SHIFT technology. The bike was named after its drag coefficient (0.1) from wind tunnel testing. The downtube of the CD0.1 was offset 18mm in order to direct air away from the drag-heavy side of the bike (drive-side) and towards the clean side of the bike (non-drive). This resulted in increased stability in a crosswind, increased stiffness in the bottom bracket, and increased aerodynamics in the traditionally drag-heavy side of the aerodynamic drag-curve. It was hailed as "the most innovative bike over the past decade" and received the "Gold Design Award" at the 2009 Eurobike Show. [10]
Two years later, in 2011, Quintana Roo officially announced its Project Illicito, a new bike that improved on the already impressive aerodynamics of the CD0.1. The difference, though, between the two bikes was that Illicito featured a missing seat-stay and a massive chain-stay on the non-drive side of the bike. This non-traditional rear-end created a "sail" effect across certain degrees of yaw, as the air would flow along the massive chain-stay. It was completely UCI-illegal, hence the name "Illicito." In 2011, the year that it was released, the Illicito received the "Triathlon America Most Innovative Product" award. [11]
In March 2014, Quintana Roo released the PRsix. Called "the SuperBike Reconsidered," the PRsix featured a simplicity and ease of fit and maintenance not found on other "superbikes," as it could be quickly assembled with only a pedal wrench and two sizes of hex wrench. The PRsix featured SHIFT+ technology, combining the SHIFT technology of the CD0.1 and Illicito with a "boat tail" tube-section that further increased the aerodynamic advantage of SHIFT technology. The bike was compatible with any standard diameter aerobar, as well as any brake produced by Shimano, TRP, Magura, or TriRig. [12]
A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the disciplines included. The word is of Greek origin, from τρεῖς or treis (three) and ἆθλος or athlos (competition).
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.
A bicycle wheel is a wheel, most commonly a wire wheel, designed for a bicycle. A pair is often called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready built "off the shelf" performance-oriented wheels.
A velomobile ; velomobiel, velo, or bicycle car is a human-powered vehicle (HPV) enclosed for aerodynamic advantage and/or protection from weather and collisions. Velomobiles are similar to recumbent bicycles, pedal go-karts and tricycles, but with a full fairing and are not to be confused with purpose-built mobiles for racing or speed records fully faired vehicles with two wheels, generally called streamliners. Streamliners have set many speed and distance records.
QR may refer to:
Cicli Pinarello S.p.A. is an Italian bicycle manufacturer based in Treviso, Italy. Founded in 1953, it supplies mostly handmade bicycles for the road, track, E-bikes(NYTRO), mountain bikes and cyclo-cross. The company also produces bicycles under the Opera brand name, and has an in-house component brand – MOST.
A racing bicycle, also known as a road bike is a bicycle designed for competitive road cycling, a sport governed by and according to the rules of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
A track bicycle or track bike is a bicycle optimized for racing at a velodrome or outdoor track. Unlike road bicycles, the track bike is a fixed-gear bicycle; thus, it has only a single gear ratio and has neither a freewheel nor brakes. Tires are narrow and inflated to high pressure to reduce rolling resistance.
The World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) is a sports event promotion company owned by conglomerate Advance Publications, that produces the Ironman Triathlon, Ironman 70.3, the 5150 series of triathlon races, and other sports events.
Due to the nature of triathlons as a race consisting of multiple sports many pieces of technical equipment have been borrowed from other sports, or developed specifically in an effort to race faster and improve a competitors safety.
Dan Empfield is an American entrepreneur in the world of multisport, creator of the triathlon wetsuit in 1987, and the triathlon-specific racing bike in 1989. The original designs were manufactured by the Quintana Roo, which he founded in 1987.
Zipp is an American company that is best known for designing, manufacturing, and marketing carbon-composite bicycle wheels for road cycling, triathlons, track racing, and mountain biking. The company's product range also includes handlebars, stems, seat posts, tires, inner tubes, handlebar tape, and bags.
Litespeed is a U.S. bicycle manufacturer founded in 1986 in Ooltewah, Tennessee by David Lynskey. Litespeed makes titanium and carbon fiber frame road racing bicycles and mountain bikes. Titanium bicycle frames are famed for their ride quality. Litespeed, along with triathlon specific bicycle manufacturer Quintana Roo, is a subsidiary of the American Bicycle Group.
A bicycle handlebar is the steering control for bicycles. It is the equivalent of a tiller for vehicles and vessels, as it is most often directly mechanically linked to a pivoting front wheel via a stem which in turn attaches it to the fork. Besides steering, handlebars also often support a portion of the rider's weight, depending on their riding position, and provide a convenient mounting place for brake levers, shift levers, cyclocomputers, bells, etc.
Competitor Group, Inc. (CGI) is a privately held, for-profit, sports marketing and management company based in Mira Mesa, San Diego, California. The company owns and operates over 40 large scale running, cycling, and triathlon events; of which includes the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series.
Time trials have been part of cycling for more than a hundred years. The first time trial was run in 1895 after a ban on road racing was imposed by the National Cyclists' Union. It wasn't until 1939 that the time trial made its world stage debut as an official stage of the Tour de France. It was originally used as a method of drawing more people to listen to the Grand Tour on the newly available radio broadcast of the 1939 race. The main thing that distinguished the first time-trial from the traditional form of road racing was that the riders started at intervals instead of one large group and they raced against the clock instead of each other. Unlike road racing where the a rider can hang in the peloton and draft off of other riders to conserve energy, time trial races put the rider out alone on the course. There are no breaks and no one to draft off, causing a rider to push as hard as they can the entire race. Bicycles have also evolved to accommodate this new form of racing, with most of the breakthroughs occurring in the last 40–50 years with the introduction of triathlons.
Softride was a manufacturer of bicycles located in Bellingham, Washington. They specialized in bicycles for triathletes. The bicycle frames were distinctive for their lack of seat tubes and seat stays. The idea was to reduce aerodynamic drag and improve ride comfort. The company no longer manufactures bicycles, and focuses on bicycle carriers instead.
Trenton Joel Tollakson is a US triathlete, ironman champion and North American champion (2014).
American Bicycle Group (ABG) is a manufacturer of bicycles based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. The company operates under a consumer-direct business model: selling their made-to-order bikes online and shipping them direct to the consumer.
