Time flies

Time flies

Would you believe it's now been 10 years since we first started taking orders? 

We spent the spring and summer of 2010 testing product and getting all the background sorted out, and then opened our online store on November 1, 2010. Mike and I marked this auspicious anniversary by forgetting about it, but it's neat to have built something that we still want to do, and the world still seems to want us to do after 10 years. 

A lot of things have changed since then. Our first clinchers had an internal width of 14 or 15mm. People still used 21mm road tires, though 23s had taken over for the most part. We sold more tubulars than clinchers (though that changed quickly). I had set up precisely one set of wheels tubeless - my 26" mountain bike wheels. You could still go to a mountain bike race and see the occasional rim brake, and you could go to a cross race and see no disc brakes - you weren't even allowed to race on the road with discs. Aero was far from everything, Strava didn't exist, your inside options were a Computrainer, a "dumb" rear wheel trainer, or rollers, and gravel? Don't know what you mean by that, ma'am.

I still ride this bike all the time, though it's had a disc fork for about 8 years now. 

Of course this anniversary coincides with our annual Novemberfest. We have some great great stuff planned for Novemberfest this year, and we'll tell you all about it just as soon as we come up with it! Just kidding - mostly. Don't worry, we'll make everything retroactive so if you want to order a set of wheels pronto, you won't miss out on the fun, games, and prizes.

We figured a fun way to mark the anniversary will be to run some of our favorite but not necessarily most popular posts through the years, so those will mix in with regular, more topical posts. 

In the meantime, today's your last day to vote. Please do so if you haven't yet. 

 

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6 comments

Thanks everyone.

AC – I can’t place it in time exactly but I remember seeing my first “Garmin chuck KOM” and thinking wow something’s different here.

James – There might be one or two that I’m not aware of, but HED Belgium+ is the widest we work with, with a few others only a tad narrower.

Sean – Never got produced. Mine’s a collector’s edition.

Dave

It’s funny seeing the pic of you on a disc-rear/canti-front HB, while I rode the reverse on mine. Was the disc rear version ever produced or is that a prototype? I cracked the head tube about 2 years ago, though. Still, it was a great bike for those 7 years.

Sean Y

Hi, What’s the widest aluminum 700 C rim brake clincher rim available? Thanks, James

James Kirsten

10 years, congrats guys! Let’s do 10 more!!

Joe

Ah, but Strava did exist in 2010, it was just not yet widely known! Back then it was still small, innovating, and responsive to customers.

AC

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