Reading news of his passing made me recall the early days of my career in bicycle product development and reflect on today's bikes.
Redline's Conquest was groundbreaking. Released in 1994, it was the first widely available cyclocross bike in the United States. With the Conquest, racers didn't need to chase down a cyclocross-specific frame from Europe or modify a road or touring bike to fit wider tires and cantilever brakes. Redline's bike fueled a cyclocross boom and got thousands of racers into the sport.
Within a few years, cyclocross became "the next big thing," and every major bike brand began manufacturing 'cross bikes and marketing them with sponsored athletes. Most of these cyclocross bikes never got raced between the tape, but many were ridden on gravel and farm roads. And this helped gravel emerge as a bike category and cycling discipline.
While I designed bikes for downhill mountain biking (bicycles at the opposite end of the cycling use-case spectrum from cyclocross), I often studied and referenced the Conquest when developing and marketing bikes like the Iron Horse Sunday. Rutledge and Redline distilled a unique, disciplinespecific bike into a product and price that more riders could access-and then backed it up by racing and winning on the product.
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Denne historien er fra Summer 2024-utgaven av Bicycling US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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ONE MAN'S OBSESSIVE CRUSADE TO Take Down Zwift Cheats
Indoor cycling and virtual racing are booming, and so are the ranks of digital dopers abusing the platforms.
WHAT I LEARNED WHEN LOST IT ON A MOUNTAIN BIKE
A lifelong roadie tries singletrack for the first time. It did not go as planned.
THE UNLIKELY HERO WHO RECOVERED OVER 200 STOLEN BIKES IN ONE AMERICAN CITY
It was a sunny day in the summer of 2022. There were some things I had to move into the house, so I left the garage door open. I was gone less than 15 minutes.
YOU CAN BE MORE THAN JUST A CYCLIST
I'VE ALWAYS HAD A LOVE FOR SPORTS, starting with the usual team ones such as football and baseball. But that faded in favor of more individual pursuits. Watching my dad roll down the driveway to go for a ride, I wanted to do the same. The bike was my first taste of freedom, a freedom to do it my way.
THE RIGHT SADDLE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
UP UNTIL RECENTLY, I WAS, AT BEST, A TWICEa-month cyclist.
HOW TO SAY GOODBYE TO THE RIDER YOU USED TO BE
CYCLISTS OF ALL LEVELS GO THROUGH various phases or eras over the years they spend in the saddle. For the vast majority of riders (myself included), these things happen privately, without fanfare.
BIKES MAKE THE WORLD A MORE INCLUSIVE PLACE
LIFE'S A BEAUTIFUL PUZZLE THAT COMES in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD CYCLING SCENE, ANYWAY?
I'VE HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF INVOLVING myself in a few populous and dramatically different cycling communities.
CHOOSE GEAR THAT INSPIRES YOU TO HAVE FUN E
EVEN THOUGH I TEST LOADS OF CYCLING gear for a living, sometimes I get locked in on particular items and find it difficult to enjoy competing products, even if those products have obvious advantages.
WHY YOU DESERVE A CUSTOM BIKE
Custom. The word evokes passionate opinions about what constitutes a custom-made bike and who gets to ride one. There's this idea that they're wildly expensive pieces of functional art meant only for the fittest, fastest riders.
