Country: Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)

Founded in 1895 in Schweinfurt, Fichtel & Sachs (F&S) was one of the great European bicycle component companies. In the 1970’s F&S decided to use the ‘Sachs’ brand for their derailleurs, perhaps to differentiate them from their hub-gears which were still branded ‘Fichtel & Sachs’.

In 1980 F&S bought a controlling interest in Huret, and gradually changed the ‘Huret’ brand into ‘Sachs-Huret’.

Then in 1987 Mannesmann, a giant German engineering conglomerate, bought the F&S group and restructured it. Mannesmann was very unimpressed by the quality of marketing in the European bicycle industry, and, for clarity, decided to change the brand back to plain ‘Sachs’, with the Huret  name (and the F&S group’s other French brand names) disappearing from about 1991. Finally in 1997, Mannesmann sold the Sachs Bicycle Components unit of the old F&S to SRAM. SRAM dropped the ‘Sachs’ brand from 1999, but continued with some of Sach’s designs under the ‘SRAM’ brand name. More...