[A small step into history]

In 1996 Bionicon founders Andi Fesl, Stefan Albrecht and Daniel Kohl bought their first full-suspension bike and only half a year later they started to think seriously about how to optimise their daily ride, as they were not satisfied with the uphill performance.

The rising front wheel on uphill sections and a hurting neck drove them insane. Lots of brainstorming, doubts over existing products and inspiration from nature showed the path towards suspension travel and geometry adjustment as a way to optimise the daily ride, apart from simply reducing weight.

Step by step theories were developed, the first basic model was created in 1998 and many versions followed. In 1999 the development was shifted to a pneumatic link system.

It was more logical to adjust the front and the rear of the chassis simultaneously as animals do. More then 20 different versions were created in their little work shop in Bavaria.

On May 1st 2000 this technology was presented for the first time to the world of Mountainbiking at the Lake Garda Bike Festival. This was the point of no return and they found themselves in the centre of attention with envious onlookers from within the bike industry.

Winning the ISPO DuPont Brand New Award 2000 for the most innovative sports product gavetons of PR and drove them to bring this system into the market.

In April 2002 this pioneering product was finally available for everybody and the company was created… [Source: www.bionicon.com]

Meanwhile Bionicon has an approx. turnover of 2 million Euros a year, 20 employees in Germany and another 10 abroad. The strategy diversifys for other areas as well. The frame adaption patents are used by renowned bicycle producers all over the world, the company invests in high quality bicycle wear and started recently to support MTB- Tourism projects…

Join a small tour through Bionicon headquarter:

[[Show as slideshow]]

Special thanks to Marco Toniolo, who authorized me to use his perfect pictures from an earlier visit a year ago. But they were so much better than my poor “drive-by-shootings” that it would be an offence to anyone’s eyes to use them in this article…

Alternatives? Do it with BAMBOO !

Anyway:

In April 2010 the brand new Bionicon TESLA will come to Portugal!

I met two exhausted heroes, dropping just in after one week of organisation and participation at Greifmasters Bikepolo.

Recep and Holger started their biz in 2004 and they did it right from “zero”. In the beginning they were the “bad boys” – being chased away from the fairground when promoting their bikes in a ”guerrilla-way” Meanwhile they are the proud holders of a Eurobike award and several design awards around the world. They turned their company from a garage story to an established brand in the bicycle market. When I was visiting them last week they proudly presented their new warehouse which sets up another milestone in logistic capability. We agreed upon an individual strategy for the Portuguese market, to allow the brand to grow as well in Southern Europe. Meanwhile we´ve got 4 dealers in the Lisbon area and we are looking for more enthusiastic entrepreneurs who are visionary enough to invest in UrbanMobility with style.. [*Marketing mode "OFF"]

Luigi Colani on his knees in front of a Fixie-Inc. Single Speed

…in 2004 the producers of the Fixie-Inc. bicycles made the famous Luigi Colani fall on his knees! It even looks like he is praying to a object of design in the shape of a single speed/fixed gear bicycle.

But it is not just any bicycle - it is the one and only Nr. 1, a prototype and the first produced bicycle ever from Fixie-Inc. Karlsruhe …

Luigi – a real hero and idealist from the 80ies – was impressed by “Cycles-for-heroes” – This is a real story and a nice side-kick for marketing , but it is a confession! Congratulations, guys!

Due to a server switch our blog was more or less paralysed in a parallel-world for two weeks. No EUROBIKE internals as I promised, no pictures, but a lot of file back up, directory re-naming and so on…

Means, that the files were on two different servers and everything has to be copied and administrated. And last not least, there were bureaucratic steps to solve, till everything was authorized.

Conclusion:

Nothing that I wish to repeat every month..

Advice: I started today to review the categories and tags of this blog, to bring them in a helpful order. Got some interesting articles about that subject, I found on the web: A + B. Anyway, this is not totally done and not every post is being new categorized, yet. Posts that are only marked as “General” are still pending to be reviewed…

What happened meanwhile?

• I continued working on the Bullitt cargobike with BionX electric engine (99% done)
• A Rohloff 14 – gear hub for the cargobikes reached our workshop (Something nice to look at and a tecnical toy of high standard – will be tested as soon as possible)
• I visited the Portugal Bike Show in Santarem. (very interesting, will write some review later)
• We did some promo tour in Lisbon to find dealers, who are brave and innovative enough to sell commuter bikes instead of MTB´s (I am still searching…)  ;-)
• I was invited to one year ciclo-via.org in Lisbon. Nice meeting, nice people, a lot of bicycle-talk and: Bike Polo.. (Target: I must learn riding a fixed gear)
• A Fixie-Inc. Single-Speed/Fixed-gear beauty was being sent by Cycles for Heroes to our workshop: A 2009er BlackJack (my favorite toy and exercise bike – see above –  for this weekend)
• I attended Critical Mass meeting of cyclists in Porto with the Bullitt (Great event, nearly 45 people joined us – including a bunch of freestyle hard-core riders, who made the show..)

I’ ll be back!