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Mike Sinyard in the early days of Specialized.
Specialized
1974: President Nixon resigns as president, Muhammad Ali beats George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle, The Troubles roil the U.K., and shows like Happy Days and All In The Family dominate a pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-streaming TV landscape. In the U.S., kids are begging parents for the latest innovation in bicycling: a “ten speed.” My sister had one while I stuck with my BMX bike.
Meanwhile, in California, a group of cycling enthusiasts and innovators raced down the dirt roads and trails on Mt. Tamalpais in San Francisco on a motley assortment of custom-made bicycles with fat tires, heavy-duty brakes, and reinforced frames. These unusual but robust bikes caught the attention of Mike Sinyard (top and below, back in the day), a dedicated road cyclist and world traveler who had started a small import company a few years earlier, supplying American riders with sought-after European bicycle parts and custom bikes that were not readily available domestically.
Mike Sinyard set to do some miles back in the 1970s.
Specialized
Those “specialized” parts inspired the name of Sinyard’s importing company, for which he sold his beloved VW van to help finance and launch.
“Specialized Bicycle Components” got traction at what seemed to be just the right moment. After shifting to bike manufacturing, Sinyard’s company, now better known simply as Specialized, launched the Stumpjumper in 1981. It was the first mass-produced, purpose-built mountain bike. It gained immense popularity and established Specialized as a key player in a rapidly evolving bicycle market, and fueled the popularity of mountain biking. Specialized makes Stumpjumper models to this day. I owned a Stumpjumper during my college years in the late 1980s.
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