A mountain bike hero retires

There can only be one. The one first. For 26 years now, Greg Herbold - nicknamed Hair-Ball, H-Ball or simply HB - has been the first downhill world champion in mountain bike history. And will remain so forever.

He worked for the same length of time as a racing rider, tester, developer and brand ambassador for the American component giant Sram - and even longer for Rock Shox, two independent companies at the time. Last week, his employer announced that Herbold, now in his mid-50s, is going into well-deserved retirement.

It all began in 1990, when Herbold was already a busy test rider for his bike sponsor Miyata when he was signed by Sram to ride and test the young company's only product at the time in mountain bike races: Grip Shift.

His connection with Rock Shox even goes back to 1988. Company founder Paul Turner had him test the famous RS-1 suspension fork in tough downhill use. The gifted tinkerer HB began to constantly test new ways of improving his first suspension fork on a mountain bike. This strong drive for improvement led to a long and very valuable development collaboration with Sram and Rock Shox.

"HB has been part of the Sram family since 1990, and from day one it has always been a pleasure to work with him," enthuses Mike Mercuri, Sram veteran and current Executive Vice President. "Greg's contribution to Sram's success goes far beyond simply using our products as a professional athlete. He was an active part of product development for over 25 years and will not only leave us his technical ideas, but will always be remembered for his way of communicating and his fun way of imparting knowledge."

And although most mountain bikers know him as the winner of the first downhill world championship in 1990 and the style-defining bike icon of the 1990s: His contribution to the development of Sram into an industry giant is enormous.

We have him to thank for the current spring and damping behaviour of all Rock Shox suspension elements, as he set the direction for characteristic curves and chassis stiffness. When the first fork lowering systems were developed at Sram, he helped the engineers to understand the dynamic influences of geometry on riding behaviour.

Using parts from remote-controlled model cars, he built the prototype of the first handlebar remote control for the SID fork, is largely responsible for the development of the technology called Power Bulge and was also involved in brake and drive development.

Now, after more than 25 years, Greg Herbold is finally getting out of the saddle with the now very large Sram family: "It's been a pretty wild ride, to say the least. To see how they came to me with that one product, Grip Shift, back then and where the company is today is pretty amazing. I'm so happy that they (at Sram and Rock Shox, the ed.) took the risk to sponsor me back then. Trusting that they would be successful was probably my personal career highlight in this industry."