Soft ride
Softride is a bicycle carrier and former bicycle manufacturer based in Bellingham , Washington, USA .
Company history
Softride was founded in 1989 by the brothers Jim and Mike Allsop to introduce a bike concept that is easy on the back. Initially, trekking bikes and MTBs as well as spring stems based on the parallelogram principle were manufactured. Successes have been achieved in international competitions. For example, Greg Welch won the Ironman Hawaii in 1994 with a bike from the company, while Jürgen Zäck improved the discipline world record for the Ironman bike course several times in the years that followed, which was only broken in 2010. Softride also concentrated on products for the on-road sector. After a change in the UCI regulations in 2006, the use of beam bikes was no longer permitted at most cycling events. As a result, Softride stopped manufacturing bicycle frames and now produces high-quality bicycle carriers.
technology
Softride bikes are among the few racing bikes on the market that offer rear suspension without a breakaway torque . Other companies that also offer such a chassis are z. B. TitanFlex, CarbonSports , Trek and AFH. The suspension is made of either a unidirectional CFRP with a 90 ° decorative layer, which slides on a PU layer in an aluminum holder, or a sandwich construction of two CFRP-coated glass fiber parts with a structural foam core. The spring stiffness (measured approx. 36 mm behind the rearmost point of the beam, which from the point of view of technical mechanics represents a cantilever arm ) is approx. 22 Newtons / millimeter.
design
Softride attached great importance to an extravagant design of the products. A frame kit from the year 2000 is even exhibited in a Nuremberg museum as an example of successful product design.
Company structure
Softride is a subsidiary of the Allsop Group, which sees itself as a family company.