A Go to To The Specialised Museum – BionicOldGuy

Specialised Bicycles has its headquarters in Morgan Hill and has a pleasant museum on-site. My Tuesday driving group had visited it earlier than in spring 2020, proper earlier than the Covid pandemic took off. We went once more final Tuesday, and this time our information was Robert Egger, who has been their inventive director for years. He designs their idea bikes, a whole lot of that are within the museum, and in addition guides future instructions of the product traces. He’s additionally an excellent and humorous man and an excellent storyteller.

It was enjoyable to listen to him inform the story of how Mike Sinyard, the CEO, based Specialised Bicycle Imports, which grew into the present firm. I instructed that story right here, however we acquired some new tidbits from Robert.

The subsequent enjoyable anecdote was how Robert acquired concerned with the corporate. He had graduated with a level in industrial design, and was working for a motorbike supplier in Los Gatos within the early 80s. A buyer got here in that Robert didn’t acknowledge and was asking questions on a whole lot of merchandise made by Specialised. Robert would say the Specialised product was fairly good, however right here is why a opponents mannequin was higher (their bike baggage are a made slightly sturdier, or their water bottles have a extra wide-mouthed opening so it’s simple to place ice in them). When he later came upon that this was Mike Sinyard, he thought he would get fired if Mike complained to the proprietor of the shop. As a substitute, Mike referred to as him up and organized to have him come all the way down to Morgan Hill for a go to. He employed Robert on the spot, and gave him his first assignment- to supervise enhancing all of the components Robert had thought weren’t the most effective.