Country: USA

SRAM Corporation was founded in 1987 in Chicago, Illinois. The name is supposedly a contraction of the names of its founders, Scott, Ray and Sam, where Ray is the middle name of Stan Day, the company President. It’s all strangely reminiscent of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid, although one can only speculate whether Stan Day looks as good in a body-hugging, but flared, silver lamé jump-suit.

In 1988 the company introduced its ‘Grip Shift’ twist grip shifters. The first model to catch the public’s imagination was the CAT-1 version, which could be fitted to triathlon bars. Scott Molina used the CAT-1 to win the 1988 Hawaii Ironman. For a number of years I regarded Grip Shift as a specialist product for triathletes.

In 1990 Greg Herbold started to use a Grip Shift in downhill races - and the product started to gain acceptance in mountain biking circles. In 1991 SRAM decided to really go for it, opened a factory in Taiwan and introduced the Grip Shift SRT 300 model, an affordable product that was widely specified as original equipment by the likes of Cannondale, Trek and Specialized. More...