Episode #2: Specialized – Made for riders, by riders.

Mountain biking has changed my life. It is one of the most fun sports and a great source of inspiration. Mountain biking enables me to spend time with my friends, travel the world and meet other cool people with the same passion. For me it is the best way to wind down and stay healthy – as long as I don't break my arm or collarbone after heavy crashes. It is the perfect way to explore nature and enjoy the silence. Mountain biking also teaches me that with passion, discipline and hard work you can achieve your goals. It also shows me what it means to step out of your comfort zone and grow from it. Last but not least it is much more than just a sport – it is a lifestyle – and there is one brand that changed my way of mountain biking. 

That is exactly why this brand is my most loved brand ever and just has to be featured right here in Episode 2. I am talking about Specialized, one of the best bike brands in the world! This brand has fascinated me from the very first moment that I got involved with it. Just the name sounds like music to my ears and mountain bikers all over the world get crazy about their stunning bikes. It is a brand like a promise and with a strong heritage in the mountain bike community. They have pushed the envelope of this sport. An iconic brand full of emotion and passion for mountain biking. Ridden by bike legends all over the globe. This brand has put my bike performance to the next level. So here is my personal Specialized love story and this is how it all began.

The moment of truth

I started mountain biking in 1991. My first bike was a beautiful Gary Fisher hardtail in cherry red. It was really a bargain at a local shop in Fürth, Germany. The more I experienced this great sport and spend time on the trails with my friends, the more I fell in love with it. Soon I heard about this premium bike store called "Downhill" in Nuremberg. They had the best brands under one roof and Specialized was the best of the best at that time. I remember walking through this huge shop and looking at all these amazing bikes with shiny eyes. Beautiful crafted design masterpieces. They already looked fast while just standing there. But a look at the price tags of these bikes always drove tears into my eyes. Unaffordable for me! So years passed by riding other bike brands until 2011 – the year when my longtime dream of becoming a Specialized Rider came true! Patience finally payed off.

In April 2011 I visited a Specialized Dealer in Erlangen where they had test bikes available. When you spend 3500€ for a bike you don't buy a pig in a poke. So I had a long conversation with the shop owner and he recommended me to test the Stumpjumper model – the ultimate full suspension trail bike. This machine was the perfect do-it-all bike to unleash the full potential of the full-spectrum of trail riding. Fast in the uphills and even faster in the downhills. Most capable, control enhancing, and efficient. So I hit my local trails with this test bike. I had ridden there 100 times before so it was the perfect terrain to compare its potential to my former bikes. Wow! What a bike! It got me from the very first second I threw my leg over it. It just felt great, light and perfectly balanced. So I came to a key uphill section. Quite short but very steep and technical with lots of roots. Only on very good days I managed to pedal up there with my actual bike – let's say 1 out of 20 attempts. With the Specialized Stumpjumper I cleared the first attempt with ease. I was totally stoked. Then I repeated this three times in a row. This was insane! How was it possible? This could not be a coincidence. What an awesome bike with such an outstanding traction. It really flew up the hills and delivered in the downhills. From that moment on I knew this was my bike. This was my brand. This was an epic day in my mountain bike life. From now on I felt unstoppable. 

The Specialized brand story 

The company was founded in 1974 by Mike Sinyard and is headquartered in Morgan Hill, California. Mike is a cycling enthusiast and his journey began in the summer of 1973 when he sold his Volkswagen bus for $1,500 to start a cycling trip through Europe. During his travels, he bought handlebars and stems for road bikes made by Cinelli. These products were not available in America so he started importing them to the United States. Soon the company began to produce its own bike parts by 1976, starting with a road bike tire because Mike couldn't find anything that met his needs. In 1981, the company introduced its first two bikes, the touring bike Sequoia and the road bike Allez. Later in 1981 Specialized introduced with the model Stumpjumper the first mass-produced mountain bike on the market and continued to produce bikes under the Stumpjumper name, including both hardtail and full-suspension models. The Stumpjumper is the best selling mountain bike in the world until today. In 1989, Specialized introduced the Epic, the world's second mass-production carbon fiber mountain bike. The range got bigger and bigger.

A big part of Specialized’s success is owed to Mike‘s passion for biking which is shared by all employees working at Specialized. The company is famous for their insanely strong corporate culture and their dedicated people who want to set the standards in the bike industry. Every Friday they offer free bagels where the whole office stuff comes together to toss around ideas and strengthen their team spirit. Besides that they go on a lunch ride every day to hit the local trails of the hills around the headquarters. Specialized is made for riders, by riders – that philosophy has guided every decision since 1974 and you feel that in every bike they sell.

My favorite Specialized Bikes: It‘s not about the price, it‘s about the value!

My first Specialized Bike was the Stumpjumper Evo in moss green and black with 150 mm travel at the front and 145 mm travel in the back – bigger is better. It came with a dropper seat post, one of the hottest innovations in mountain biking which made steep descents a lot easier. One press on the lever at the handle bar was all it takes and the seat post smoothly went down. This bike was a game changer for my riding. 

Two years later the same bike was available with a carbon frame in anthracite, orange and light blue! Lighter, stiffer and just a breathtaking beauty. Hard to resist. So I sold my old one and spent all my savings for the new one. This bike offered the kind of descending performance that was once the sole purview of downhill bikes. It was just blazing fast over the roughest trails.

Over the years the search for the perfect bike continued and the new Specialized Demo in 2015 came very close. It is the ultimate downhill machine eating roots for breakfast and big drops as a dessert. This bike is made for ripping it up at insane speeds in the wildest terrain. Its 200mm RockShox Boxxer fork and asymmetric frame for rear suspension with the iconic yellow Öhlins shock – exclusively designed for Specialized – just gives you the ultimate confidence. It is always there for you when the shit hits the van. No matter if you overshoot a landing or come too short in the flat – the Demo is your life insurance. The toughest terrain always becomes less intimidating with a Demo under your butt. Therefore it is not about the price you pay for a Specialized Bike, it is about the value you get. Grin-guarantee included. 

My most inspiring Specialized Athletes

Kyle Strait won the Red Bull Rampage in 2004 on a Specialized Demo, freeride heroes Darren Berrecloth and Matt Hunter dared the biggest stunts in freeride history with Specialized Bikes and Sam Hill became downhill world champion in 2010 on a Specialized Demo. Later Aaron Gwin continued the "Demo legacy" and dominated the UCI World Cup Downhill Series in 2015. He became immortal through his victory at the Leogang Downhill World Cup in 2015 where his chain broke right after the start, and he raced chainless without any pedaling for his race run, managing to hold his speed and win the race. Nobody has ever seen something like this before. The same year Fabio Wibmer redefined what was possible on a Specialized Bike in his video "Fabiolous Escape" with 95 million views on YouTube. Three years later Fabio was topping it all off with his jump out of a helicopter on a Specialized Demo in "Fabiolous Escape 2" with 144 million views on YouTube. In "Urban Freeride lives" he was cheating gravity with a Stumpjumper in the streets of Salzburg with, believe it or not, 219 million views. Absolutely sick! Unbelievable that it is still possible to push the limits of this sport. 

Today Nicholi Rogatkin is playing tricks on gravity like not many others, Kriss Kyle defines what creativity means in mountain biking and Loïc Bruni – one the coolest and nicest riders on this planet – is the new fast in the downhill world cup.

The branding excellence of Specialized

When it comes to branding and marketing in the bike industry, Specialized is also benchmark. Their brand design looks very elegant and reduced. Less is more. They follow this proven design principle at its best. Their high quality standards are also represented in the copywriting and product texts. The whole brand is holistically designed with a seamless brand experience at all touchpoints. Nothing is left to chance. The Specialized Logo stands out as the heart of their branding and is a true design masterpiece. The dynamic curved shape of the iconic red S just looks perfect on any product, ensures maximum recognition and is the highest seal of quality. They hire the best photographers in the bike industry who make their imagery distinctive and high class – pure eye candy. Also their storytelling brings the message exactly to the point: We build the ultimate bikes. 

A great example is the S-Works product range. Every S-Works product is manufactured with the claim to be the most technologically advanced of its kind. These products are born in competition and developed together with the best riders in the world. What AMG is to Mercedes, S-Works is to Specialized. There are no limits in terms of ingenuity and innovation in the development of S-Works Bikes. Only the best is good enough. Countless victories, gold medals and world championship titles proof this philosophy.

Specialized was also a pioneer for 29er mountain bikes. They believed in the big wheels since day one and when critics said that big-wheeled-bikes can’t corner well they proved them wrong in a spectacular advertisement campaign. Pro rider Matt Hunter was cornering almost completely horizontally on a Specialized 29er and making the tightest turn imaginable on a Mountainbike underlined by the brilliant headline „elbow pads sold separately“. This amazing shot was the talk of the whole bike industry in 2014 and turned a lot of heads. 

They were also the first to see the potential of E-Bikes and created the Turbo Range - the perfect name for all their E-Bikes - which set the standards for E-Bikes on the market. Their claim “The power to ride more trails” brings it perfectly to the point what defines the incredible performance of their Turbo E-Bikes. In other words: It’s you, only faster. Because riding a Turbo E-Bike feels like you‘d grown superhero legs. I could not agree more. This is a great example of how to deliver on your marketing promises.

Another highlight of their branding excellence are the Specialized Concept Stores. With these exclusively designed stores they make sure that the brand experience meets exactly their requirements. A brilliant marketing move to push their brand attraction.

Why Specialized is a love brand for me

First of all they develop damn good products and not only superior bikes but great helmets, shoes, apparel, saddles and tires as well. Their products just meet exactly my expectations as a rider year after year and really proof their claim "made for riders, by riders". As a designer the look of a bike is also very important for me and Specialized products are always a feast for the eyes. The combination of breathtaking design and ultimate performance just makes every ride much more fun and this is fundamental for me. At Specialized they have only one goal: innovate and inspire to improve riders’ lives. And this is what they do. Or do you love your bike so much that it makes its way into your bedroom?

#lovebrands #brandenthusiast #brandmanagement #brandstrategy #brandcommunication #specialized