Mister S-Works

Tomek

· 24.08.2006

Photo: Unbekannt

Mister S-Works

A bicycle trailer, 1,200 dollars and a name - that's how Mike Sinyard founded his company 32 years ago. Today, Specialized is the most successful brand in the high-end sector.

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It's hot in Morgan Hill, California. 40 degrees, sometimes more. So hot that the air shimmers above the tarmac. At lunchtime, the employees of software companies leave their air-conditioned offices only to drive to air-conditioned restaurants in their air-conditioned cars. In one company, however, the clocks tick differently. As the entrance gate to the Specialized headquarters opens at 12 noon, a few racers push their bikes outside. Leading the way is a lanky, well-trained man in his mid-fifties. "Sorry, we'll have to talk later, it's lunch ride time now. Let's see how fit my guys are," smiles Mike Sinyard.

Mike Sinyard (56), boss and founder of Specialized, is serious about this. So serious that he makes fitness a recruitment criterion for new employees. Jan Talavasek knows this too. The German engineer was responsible for engineering at Votec when Mike Sinyard called him personally and invited him to a recruitment interview in Silicon Valley. "It's really important to him that you sit well on the bike. That's part of his company philosophy."

Sinyard has always been about cycling, he has always subordinated his life to this passion. After graduating from university in 1972, he travelled all over California. "I was never really good at selling myself. So I had to make sure I did my own thing." Sinyard collected scrap bikes, refurbished them and sold them as best he could. Cycling was also the reason why he sold his old VW bus in 1974. It was all he had at the time, but the sale brought him 1,500 dollars. And with that, the 23-year-old financed a bike trip across Europe. Of course, Sinyard had no idea at the time that this 1,500 dollars would set the course for the rest of his life and perhaps also for the entire sport of biking: "For me, that was adventure capital, not venture capital," says Sinyard.

But what began as an adventure took its course as a success story. Today, Specialized is the leading international mountain bike manufacturer in the high-end sector. With over 500 employees worldwide and a turnover of more than 200 million dollars, the company is one of the heavyweights in the bicycle industry.

From day labourer to millionaire

The Specialized Museum is located directly behind the entrance gate.

Here you will find the milestones in the company's history and some highlights from 25 years of bike history: the first handwritten catalogues by Mike Sinyard, prototypes of the first Specialized tyres, all the years of the cult bike "Stumpjumper", the dirt bike by Shaun Palmer, old race bikes by Ned Overend. It is the documentation of a modern fairytale: from day labourer to millionaire.

When Mike Sinyard cycled through Europe back then, he knew where he wanted to end up at the end of his trip: in Italy. With its rich cycling culture, Italy was the promised land for him. He wanted to make contacts here. The starting capital was the 1,500 dollars from the sale of the Bulli. Packed with saddlebags, Sinyard travelled from north to south on his touring bike. He slept outdoors or in youth hostels. And in one of these youth hostels, Sinyard met a young woman who happened to know the god of bicycle components personally: Cino Cinelli. A meeting with the master took place and the young Sinyard was able to convince the old Cinelli to allow him to import his components to America. "In the early seventies, American bicycle components were just a pile of junk," Sinyard recalls. "Everything of high quality, everything that was classy, came from Italy. But these parts were hard to come by in the USA back then."

At the end of his trip to Europe, Mike Sinyard had 1,200 dollars left over. "It's hard to believe, but I really didn't need more than 100 dollars a month to live on back then," Sinyard recalls with amusement today. He used the 1,200 dollars to buy a bag full of components and flew back home with them. In California, the racing cyclists ripped the parts out of his hands.

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