In 1885 Johann Winklhofer and Richard Jaenicke established 'Chemnitzer-Velociped-Depot Winklhofer & Jaenicke' a bicycle shop in Chemnitz, Germany. In 1887 they adopted the 'Wanderer' brand for the bicycles that they were building. Over the next several years they added motorcycles, cars, machine tools and typewriters to their product range. Wanderer is one of the great German bicycle brands of the first half of the 20th century. The Wanderer Werke factory in Chemnitz was a massive marvel of 1930s architecture. Following the Second World War, Chemnitz was in the DDR, and the brand started to fade away. Today the Wanderer brand belongs to the ZEG buying group who use it as a slightly retro e-bike brand.

Wanderer appears on this web site because:

• In 1932 Wanderer patented one of the earliest German derailleurs. This was a rod operated three-speed system - and it actually made it into production.
• In 1937 Wanderer built bikes using the J.Wi.S derailleur system. This was a fascinating fork type derailleur system, but it had no chain tensioner. Instead the chain itself stretches and contracts under the influence of a built in spring. J.Wi.S is the brand name of Johann Winklhofer & Söhne - a bicycle chain manufacturer owned by - you guessed it - the same Winklhofer family that founded Wanderer.

Two fascinatingly random facts about Wanderer are:

Firstly...

• When Johann Winklhofer was looking for a brand name for his bicycle brand he was most impressed with John Kemp Starley's Rover brand.
• So Johann translated 'Rover' into German and came up with 'Wanderer'.
• We often forget the influence of Starley's brand. The Polish word for 'bicycle' is 'rower' - pronounced 'rover'.

And secondly...

• In the early 20th century, like many bicycle manufacturers, Wanderer added motorcycles and motor cars to its product line up.
• In 1932 Wanderer sold its motor car division to the newly formed Auto Union AG. Auto Union AG was formed from 4 existing brands: Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer.
• The Auto Union logo was a line of four overlapping rings - with each ring representing one of the founding brands.
• When the VW group resuscitated the Audi brand they retained the iconic four ring logo.
• So the ghost of Wanderer lives on as one of the rings in the Audi logo!