BMC - the Bicycle Manufacturing Company

BMC was founded by American man Bob Bigelow in 1986 to assemble bikes for wholesale distribution under the Raleigh brand. However in 1995 he lost Raleigh licence and the BMC brand (Bicycle Manufacturing Company) was born. Like many of his Swiss competitors BMC was slow to begin producing mountain bikes when the well established companies made this important development in the bicycle industry. BMC's only success was with a few niche products in the Swiss market and the company failed to reach the critical size required to ensure its continued existence.

In 2001 came a turning point thanks to the involvement of current owner Andy Rihs who set a whole new direction for BMC. Investment was directed into engineering, design and marketing to position the brand as a high-end leader with Swiss roots that embraced the company philosophy of Style I Passion I Precision.

Style I Passion I Precision

Style is synonymous with a typical independent design through which BMC differentiates itself from its competitors. You can instantly recognise a BMC bike even without the logos applied by its characteristic technically inspired crosslock frame shape. Style also stands for BMC's simple and clear colour concepts and the way the company communicates with their stakeholders.

BMC products stand for pure passion: On one hand the passion of the staff and external partners who put their heart and soul into the BMC products and continually extend the boundaries of possibility through unbridled innovation. On the other hand passion stands for the dedication of sponsored teams and their performance as worldwide ambassadors for BMC, as like the BMC Racing Team, the BMC MTB Team and the Raelert Brothers in Triathlon.

Precision defines the philosophy of absolute innovation and the manner in which BMC converts its ideas into reality. In our own test laboratory, BMC develops and tests the bikes itself.

BMC has been developing legendary bikes since 2002. It all started with the teammachine SLT01 developed for the Phonak Cycling Team, a bike that defined the BMC product range for many years, right up to the present day. This was followed in 2004 by the timemachine TT01, a time trials bike that is still one of the fastest and most successful of its kind in the world, along with the promachine SLC01, a bicycle frame built entirely with revolutionary Easton carbon nanotube technology. Bikes that have won international design awards.
Cutting-edge technology has been applied not just in developing and designing BMC racing bikes, but also in the mountain bikes and the urban lifestyle products. The Fourstroke range successfully launched in 2004, with the efficient VPS damping system, was a defining, pioneering move for BMC in the full-suspension mountain bike category. The hybrid pioneer models alpenchallenge and carborazor have been the mainstays of the lifestyle series for many years.

More recently, too, BMC has impressed fans and team athletes with some truly exciting products. 2007 saw the appearance of the first trailfox TF01, a full-suspension marathon bike that is made even better by the year and now, for 2012, will also be available for the first time as an a full carbon bike. In the domain of racing bikes, the teammachine SLR01 launched by BMC in 2010 has an a full carbon frame that offers incomparable design, comfort and rigidity.

The journey continues... BMC has always epitomized Swiss precision, passion for perpetual innovation and unmistakable design. The Swiss company based in Grenchen demonstrated this again in launching the impec, the first fully machine-made frame built in Switzerland.

BMC. Engineered for Excitement.