See also: Stronglight documents

Country: France

Stronglight is based in Saint Etienne, traditionally a centre of the French cycle component industry.

I think the Stronglight story goes something like this. The Stronglight brand was introduced in 1933 by a company called Verrot Perrin which primarily manufactured chainsets. The iconic Stronglight 49D chainset was introduced in 1949. In the 1970’s Verrot Perrin was taken over by Haubtmann (Solida), another venerable French chainset manufacturer. In 1993 the company went bankrupt and was bought out by some of its employees. Then in the late 1990’s (possibly 1997?) the company was bought by IRCOS, a management buy-out from SRAM of some of Sach’s French factories, including the old Huret factory at Incheville. In 2000 IRCOS went bankrupt and Stronglight was bought by the Zefal group - which owns it to this day.

I think the Stronglight derailleurs date from the IRCOS period in the late 1990’s. IRCOS had all the factories needed to put together a groupset, and used the Stronglight brand, as this was the only brand name that it owned (all the other brands were owned by SRAM). It’s derailleurs were Sachs designs that were manufactured in the old Huret factory at Incheville. I know of the derailleur in this collection and a road model called Asphalt - but there are probably others.

After Zefal took over Stronglight they (wisely) only used the brand for chainsets and headsets.