Trek Bicycle Corporation is a major bicyle and cycling product manufacturer and distributor under brand names Trek, Gary Fisher, Bontrager, Klein and until recently, LeMond Racing Cycles. With its headquarters in Waterloo, Wisconsin, Trek bicycles are marketed through 1,700 dealers across North America, subsidiaries in Europe and Asia as well as distributors in 90 countries worldwide.
Trek's domestic high-end frames are manufactured in Waterloo, Wisconsin with assembly in Whitewater, Wisconsin — with the majority of company's bicycles manufactured in Taiwan and mainland China.
The name “Trek” derives from the Afrikaans word for “journey.”
History
1975-1979 The Early Years
In December, 1975, Richard (Dick) Burke and Bevel Hogg established Trek Bicycle as a wholly owned subsidiary of Roth Corporation, a Milwaukee-based appliance distributor. In early 1976, with a payroll of five, Trek started manufacturing steel touring frames in Waterloo, Wisconsin, taking square aim at the mid to high-end market dominated by Japanese and Italian made models. Trek built nearly 900 custom hand-brazed framesets that first year, each selling for just under $200 . Later that same year Trek Bicycle was incorporated. In 1977, Trek opened its first retail distributor, Penn Cycle in Bloomington, MN. Within three years, Trek sales approached $2,000,000.
1980-1984 Trek Becomes A Business
Hampered without additional manufacturing capacity, Trek sales plateaued in the late 1970s. In just a few short years Trek had outgrown its original “red barn” manufacturing facility—a former carpet warehouse. Recognizing the need for expansion, in 1980 Trek broke ground on a new 26,000 sq ft (2,400 m 2 ) corporate headquarters on the outskirts of Waterloo. Company co-founder Dick Burke would later recall that “it wasn’t until we built the new factory that we became a business.” With more factory space available, Trek expanded its manufacturing to include complete bikes. In 1982 Trek entered the steel road racing bike market, introducing the 750 and 950 models, and in 1983 Trek built its first mountain bike, the 850. In 1984 Trek ventured into the aftermarket parts and accessories business, launching its Trek Components Group (TCG) department.
1985-1991 Technology Frontier
In 1985, borrowing technology from the space industry, Trek introduced its first bonded aluminum bike frame, the 2000. The introduction of bonded aluminum to Trek’s production line proved very problematic for a company that had built itself on manufacturing hand-brazed steel frames. Manufacturing ground to a halt as Trek worked to figure out how to build bonded frames in a production environment. A year later Trek followed up the success of the 2000 with a 3-tube carbon composite model, the 2500. Thus began Trek’s foray into carbon fiber. That same year, to keep up with rapidly growing sales, Trek added another 75,000 sq ft (7,000 m 2 ) of manufacturing space to its Waterloo headquarters. In 1988 Trek introduced “Trek Wear,” marking the company’s entry into the cycling apparel business. A year later Trek expanded into foreign markets, opening subsidiary offices in the UK and in Germany. That same year Trek introduced its Jazz brand of bicycles, a collection of entry-level and kids’ bikes designed by Trek but manufactured in Taiwan. Jazz bicycles were discontinued in 1993.
1989 was a pivotal year for Trek, marking the year that the company unveiled its first molded carbon fiber frame, the Trek 5000. The 5000 frameset (monocoque carbon frame plus bonded aluminum fork) had an advertised weight of 3.3 lb (1.5 kg). Designed by Trek but built by an outside manufacturer, the 5000 suffered enough quality problems that it was discontinued after just one year. 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.
In 1990 Trek developed a new category of bicycle that combined the comfort features of a mountain bike with the quick ride of a road bike: MultiTracks, Trek’s first line of hybrid bikes, were born. That same year Trek also introduced its first line of kids’ bikes. In 1991 Trek opened its first company-owned retail store in nearby Madison, Wisconsin. In addition to showcasing a full-line of Trek products, the Trek Store served as a hands-on sales training center for employees from Trek's headquarters who lacked retail experience. The store also provided an outlet for Trek to test merchandising and marketing ideas before expanding them to its network of independent bicycle dealers.
1992-1996 OCLV and Acquisitions
In the early 1990s Trek’s director of technology, Bob Read, attended an aerospace industry trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah, eventually meeting up with a closed mold tooling company called Radius Engineering. 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 the lightest, strongest frames the world had ever seen. Having lived through the troubled introduction of the 5000, Trek invested heavily in in-house carbon fiber manufacturing capabilities. In 1992 Trek unveiled its first home-grown, full-carbon framed bicycles, the 5500 and 5200, featuring OCLV Carbon frames. OCLV stands for “Optimum Compaction, Low Void” and refers to Trek’s proprietary process for creating carbon structures that exceed aerospace standards. Weighing only 2.44 lb (1.11 kg), the 5500 frame was the world’s lightest production road frame. To make room for its new OCLV manufacturing facility, Trek expanded its Waterloo headquarters again to a total of 140,000 sq ft (13,000 m 2 ). 1992 marked another first for Trek: its first full suspension mountain bike, the 9000-series, which featured Trek’s T3C (travel is three times compression) suspension system.
Following on the heels of the wildly successful 5200 and 5500, in 1993 Trek introduced its first OCLV Carbon mountain bike frame, the 9900, which at 2.84 lb (1.29 kg) was the world’s lightest production mountain bike frame.
In 1993 Trek also acquired Gary Fisher Mountain Bikes, named after Gary Fisher, one of the inventors of the mountain bike and one of the most popular names in off-road cycling. Fisher had founded Gary Fisher Mountain Bikes in 1983 and sold his company in 1991 to Taiwan's Anlen company, remaining on as President. In 1992, Howie Cohen, who had previously imported Nishiki, Azuki and Kuwahara bicycles, assisted Gary Fisher with his brand — 18 months later brokering the acquisition of Fisher by Trek (in 1993).
In 1994 Trek entered the growing home fitness arena, introducing Trek Fitness Exercycles. In 1996 Trek discontinued the Exercycle line, spinning off its fitness division into an independently-owned company, renamed Vision Fitness.
In 1995, Trek introduced its full suspension Y bike, a departure from traditional bike design. The Y bike sold well, and won an “Outstanding Design and Engineering Award” from Popular Mechanics magazine. Also in 1995, Trek made a number of business moves in order to diversify its product offering and gain market share, acquiring Klein Bicycles, a Chehalis, WA, manufacturer of premium aluminum-framed bicycles, as well as Bontrager Cycles, a Santa Cruz, CA-based manufacturer of bicycle components and hand built steel frames. 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. 1995 was also the year Trek opened a state-of-the-art assembly facility in Whitewater, Wisconsin, leaving the Waterloo location free to focus solely on frame production.
1997-2005 The Armstrong Years And Further Expansion
In 1997, Trek helped sign former world road race champion (1993) Lance Armstrong to the Trek-sponsored United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team. Armstrong won his first Tour de France in 1999 aboard a Trek 5200, becoming the first American to win the Tour on an American team riding an American made bicycle. Armstrong went on to win a record-setting seven-consecutive Tours de France, all of them aboard Trek bicycles. He did at some points ride a Litespeed bike, painted and badged as a Trek, due to Trek not having a suitable bike available at the time. Most notably at the 1998 Vuelta
In 1998, Trek established its Advanced Components Group (ACG), a collection of engineers and technicians dedicated to technologies development. The leading edge of Trek’s design and engineering efforts, ACG is perhaps best known for a number of products introduced and used by Lance Armstrong during his historic Tour de France wins, including the original Trek Madone (2003)—named for the Col de la Madone, a 12K climb that starts in the French village of Menton and used by Armstrong to test his fitness—and TTX time trial bike (2005). That same year Trek opened its first European manufacturing facility, a frame and wheel assembly plant in Carlow, Ireland. The Carlow facility stayed open until late 2004, at which time Trek transferred its European production to a manufacturing facility in Hartmannsdorf, Germany.
Responding to the unique needs of female cyclists, in 2000 Trek introduced Women’s Specific Design (WSD) bicycle and accessories. WSD products are designed to fit women riders, and feature sizing and proportions appropriate for women riders. In October 2001,
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