See also: Zeus documents

Country: Spain

Zeus Industriale SA was established by Don Nicholas de Arregui in Eibar, in the Basque region in 1926. Zeus initially produced small parts, then components and finally complete bicycles.

I recently read some PR blurb describing Zeus as ‘one of cycling’s most storied brands’ or some such meaning-lite nonsense - but it’s true that you can’t write about Zeus without getting caught up in a tangled web of stories. It is, after all, only appropriate that a brand called Zeus should be surrounded by fantastical myths and legends.

The first of these stories is that Zeus invented the parallelogram derailleur in 1931, many years before the 1951 Gran Sport produced by that Johnny-come-lately called Tullio Campagnolo.

There could be something in some of this story; Nivex had a production parallelogram derailleur in 1938 and I have a 1946 Super Inax Sport parallelogram derailleur in this collection. Parallelogram designs were definitely in the air in the 1930’s and I suspect that there were any number of prototypes being fettled by eager zealots in gloomy sheds. More...