Altenburger (bicycle components)
The Altenburger GmbH & Co. KG was a German manufacturer of bicycle brakes and hubs from the Baden-Württemberg City Jestetten .
Karl Altenburger was a professional cyclist in the 1930s . His greatest sporting successes were a stage win in the Tour de Suisse in 1933 and victory in the Lake Geneva Tour, one of the oldest European cycling races, in 1935. In 1935 he developed the first bicycle rim of aluminum for tires with tubes and went from 1936 in series production. In the years to come, he himself manufactured bicycle brakes and brake levers, as well as gear shifts .
On July 31, 1940, Altenburger finally founded Altenburger GmbH & Co. KG, based in Jestetten. Until the 1980s, the company produced racing bike brakes, among other things, which were installed by many manufacturers ( Bianchi and others). Altenburger developed the "synchronous brake", a forerunner of the later dual-pivot brakes (two-joint brakes) from Shimano .
In the early 1950s, the company developed the Altenburger gearshift, which was attached to the chain stay and was the first derailleur system in the world to have a rocker arm with two chain wheels. The way the switching movement was guided by a parallelogram was also unique at the time.
In 1953 the company was taken over by the aluminum works in Wutöschingen . In 1991 the light metal parts plant in Jestetten was closed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Company website with a picture of a hub
- ↑ Hans-Christian Smolik; Stefan Etzel: Das Großes Fahrradlexikon: Technology - Material - Practice from A to Z, 1st edition 1997, Bielefelder Verl.-Anstalt, ISBN 978-3-87073-127-4 , p. 22
- ↑ Christian Smolik's online glossary of Velotechnik
- ^ The Jestetter Dorfbuch , p. 556