Trek was established in 1976, at the peak of the 1970s bicycle boom. As the company grew, supporting these services got more expensive and complicated, requiring more servers and IT staff at both Trek and the data center. Nishiki is a brand of bicycles designed, specified, marketed and distributed by West Coast Cycle in the United States, initially manufactured by Kawamura Cycle Co. in Kobe, Japan, and subsequently by Giant of Taiwan. Having passed competitors Specialized and Cannondale, Trek was now the clear market leader in specialty bike shop sales. In 1998, Trek established its Advanced Concepts Group (ACG), a collection of engineers and technicians dedicated to technologies development. - John Burke President, Trek Bicycle (Pictured: Dick Burke). This world needs the bicycle more today than ever before. Competition is intrinsic to our nature. You’ll have the unsurpassed knowledge of a local leader, taking you out of the guidebooks and into a world you’re waiting to discover. By this time, Trek's parent, Intrepid, had sold off its other businesses and adopted the Trek name. That visit convinced Read that Trek’s future success depended on building frames from carbon fiber, a material he envisioned could be used to make light, strong frames. Litespeed makes titanium and carbon fiber frame road racing bicycles and mountain bikes. In around 1989 also Trek expanded into foreign markets, opening subsidiary offices in the UK and in Germany. Felt produces road, mountain, track, cyclocross, electric bicycles, and cruiser bikes. In 1985 the company introduced its first aluminum road bike, Model 2000. The Trek/Volkswagen alliance went further yet, with the introduction of the Volkswagen Jetta Trek, a car that comes equipped with a mountain bike and rack. By 1993 the plant was making helmets at a rate of about half a million a year, double its total from 1992. Trek's sales grew to about $175 million for fiscal 1991, and the company had about 700 employees by that time. There were five employees on the payroll when the barn doors opened in 1976. This includes brand new bikes that are economically priced and are made out of steel. Having lived through the troubled introduction of the 5000, Trek invested heavily in in-house carbon fiber manufacturing capabilities. This page was last modified on 24 November 2015, at 15:56. In 1997, Trek helped sign former world road race champion (1993) Lance Armstrong to the Trek-sponsored United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team. And it could take from two to six weeks to install a new server at the data center, which was not fast enough to easily scale with demand for bikes. In 2003, Trek acquired Villiger, a Swiss bicycle company, and Diamant, the oldest bicycle company in Germany. Jazz bicycles were discontinued in 1993. The bicycles were first marketed under the American Eagle brand beginning in 1965 and later under the Nishiki brand until 2001. Trek also signed a long-term licensing agreement with Greg LeMond, the 3-time Tour de France champion and the first American to win the Tour—to design, build, and distribute LeMond Racing Cycles. He did at some points ride a Litespeed bike, painted and badged as a Trek. Trek was established in 1976, at the peak of the 1970s bicycle boom. To increase production efficiency, Trek stopped bonding its aluminum bikes in … [12], In March 2008, LeMond Cycling Inc prepared a suit against Trek, accusing it of bowing to pressure from "third parties" to "wind down" his brand through lack of distribution and promotion, especially in the European market. Trek continued to find innovative ways to make money during the last years of the 1980s. But the lessons learned from the 5000 would prove to be instrumental in driving Trek to develop its own carbon manufacturing capabilities in the coming years. Among bicycling enthusiasts, Trek was quickly gaining a reputation as a producer of the very highest caliber of bicycles available, and its sales reflected that reputation. In addition, the company began to focus more on the sale of bicycling accessories. Even labor costs proved to be a relatively minor problem, since making bikes was seen by young employees, many of them avid bicycling hobbyists themselves, as a fairly glamorous job, and those employees, therefore, were willing to work for rather modest wages. In October 2001, Trek introduced a custom bike program named Project One, which gave customers the opportunity to customize their Trek bike by selecting the bike's paint scheme and component mix. With more factory space available, Trek expanded its manufacturing to include complete bikes. Trek quickly became a favorite brand among that connoisseur market, and independent bicycle shops have remained Trek's most important outlet. Litespeed, along with triathlon specific bicycle manufacturer Quintana Roo, is a subsidiary of the American Bicycle Group. In December, 1975, Richard (Dick) Burke and Bevil Hogg established Trek Bicycle as a wholly owned subsidiary of Roth Corporation, a Milwaukee-based appliance distributor. The Trek OCLV Carbon 5200 he was riding quickly became one of the fastest-selling bikes in the United States. In addition to a full line of road, mountain and hybrid bicycles, it also manufactures the BIXI-brand of bicycle used in bicycle sharing schemes in cities such as Montreal and Toronto. Trek also concentrated more on sales in Europe, where it was gaining a solid reputation among bicycle buyers who had long thought of American bikes as heavy, clunky monsters built for kids. [9] [10] He set a new record of 51.110 km, beating the previous record set by Sosenka by 1.410 km. In 1992 Trek unveiled its first home-grown, full-carbon framed bicycles, the 5500 and 5200, featuring OCLV Carbon frames. The company moved to a new facility in Waterloo, and there it began mass-producing bicycles. In 1993 Trek acquired the Gary Fisher Mountain Bike Company, the company founded by and named for the originator of the mountain bike. For the year 2010, Trek teamed with multiple suppliers to provide eco-friendly products. The company had become a favorite among biking enthusiasts thanks in large part to Armstrong's star quality. In 1995, Trek introduced its full suspension Y bike, a departure from traditional bike design. Trek was never just a name. Trek’s 2011 sales totaled more than $800 million. Preceding Henry Ford’s introduction of his first automobile by two years, “driving” held a different meaning— namely, racing horses and bicycles. Trek and Armstrong experienced marked success in the early years of the new millennium--by 2005 Armstrong had won seven consecutive Tour de France races. As part of the expansion, Trek included an atrium exhibit to display a number of historically significant bikes from Trek's family of brands, including one of the first mountain bikes ever built by Gary Fisher, and seven bikes used by Lance during his historic Tour de France run (one from each year, 1999–2005). According to Trek, "In 1999, the LeMond line was one of the fastest growing road bike brands and one of the top five largest road bike brands in the United States". In 1985, borrowing technology from the aerospace industry, (and bike companies such as Alan and Vitus), Trek introduced its first bonded aluminum bike frame, the 2000[ citation needed ]. Fast forward to the winter of 1975, two gentlemen met at a dimly lit bar in a classic Wisconsin supper club called The Pine Knoll.