Right at that time when you started your reporting a few young engineers chose to join the cycle industry due to the fascinating varieties of using the bicycle, such as mountainbiking and triahtlon, among them the three Peters (Denk [Hot Chili, later Scott, Cannondale, now Specialized], Schlitt and Böhm [both ADP Rotwild]). The long-established manufacturers had concentrated on ever cheaper products and lost ground as a result. New players with fresh ideas could successfully enter the market.
At “TOUR - Das Radmagazin”, Germany’s most important road bike magazine, I met Robert Kuehnen, another bicycle-enthusiastic engineer. End of 1994 we had finished the first test machines, so to say the big bang for measured values to become part of serious bicycle development. Today, no one would seriously pretend that this engineering procedure heavily criticized by many long-established companies had not an enormous impact on bicycle development. In major technologies, such as carbon or electromobility, the masterminds of the cycle industry have left behind other industrial sectors like the automotive sector today. What I am particularly happy about as a bicycle and e-bike expert is the fact that both safety and lighting technology have made a giant leap forward in the past two decades. There is already today as well as in future no argument any longer against using a bicycle or e-bike.
