Wer kann etwas über GT erzählen??

[mäxx]

Servus,

ich habe gestern den Zuschlag für ein GT bei ebay bekommen.
Es soll mir lediglich als Winterrad zur Arbeit dienen.

Wer kennt sich mit GT`s aus?
Ich kenn Die nur von "No Way Rey".

Bin euch für Infos sehr dankbar!!!

mäxx

[mäxx]

Servus,


hatte den link vergessen!!



http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?...oDisplayType=2

mäxx

[schwinn]

A very brief history of GT

Early 1970's

Moto Cross takes off and MX racing is big. Between moto's parents allow the youngsters to race bicycles on the big dirt tracks. Dad's get involved and Bicycle Moto Cross was born.

1973

Gary Turner is one of the dads that goes to Moto Cross races and watches the kids racing including his own. He notices that the bikes are heavy, slow and fragile. Gary is a professional drag racer and has vast experience welding and building cro-mo "rails" or chassis, for drag racers. With the high grade aircraft cro-moly tubing used for dragsters Gary starts to make frames for his son to race at the MX track. His son's bike gets noticed and Gary starts to supply the frames to other kids and building his reputation one frame at a time

Product Highlights
4130 Cro-mo Frames / Forks

1974 The beginnings

Richard Long owns and runs a bike shop in Orange County, California. He notices Gary Turner and his frames. He notices that they are selling and that people want to know how to get them. Richard calls Gary and asks him if he can stock and sell the frames. Gary agrees and the most famous partnership in BMX history starts.

1975-1980 Building a brand one frame at a time.

Things happen fast and soon Richard and Gary invested in a shop dedicated to making top quality Cro-moly BMX frames in Santa Ana. In 1979 they incorporated into GT Bicycles, Inc. Richard sold his bike shop and began selling frames as fast as possible to bicycle distributors across the USA and into Europe. Business is huge and so is BMX. GT begins to sponsor BMX racers. Richard is the business and marketing genius and Gary is the engineer and craftsmen. Little did they know that in 20 years they would build together one of the most well known bicycle companies in the world.

Product Highlights
4130 Cro-mo Frames / Forks
4130 Handlebars
Forged Stems
4130 Seatposts


1980-86 The glory days of BMX

GT expands exponentially every year and enters the new off shoot sport of BMX, Freestyle. The first frame designed by Gary for freestyle, the Perfomer, becomes a legend in freestyle and, still today, in 2002, is one of the most recognized brand names in juvenile bicycles. The company moves into new digs on 2300 Container Lane in Huntington Beach Calif. Soon they grow from one office into 4 separate buildings that handle welding, warehousing, shipping and administrative. During this period GT would come to dominate BMX racing as the sport matured into a worldwide phenomena. GT establishes itself as the preeminent racing brand in the sport and begins to dominate the race venues that would lead to the nickname "the firm". For better or for worse GT goes from garage to corporate in a big way.

Product Highlights
Full assortment of USA made BMX frames and parts
Full assortment of USA made Freestyle frames and parts
Performer frame and GT Freestyle parts challenge Haro for dominance in the market place.
Some Taiwan parts sourced such as saddles, stems, pegs wheelsets and handlebars


1987-1994 BMX dies while GT builds the dealer channel and moves into mountain bikes

As the late 80 's approached BMX racing tapered off and the BMX business got hard. In light of this Richard turned his focus onto the sport of Mountain Biking although he never forgot BMX and in fact turned up the heat on his competitors. In November of 1987 GT showed its first line of 5 mountain bikes at the young Interbike Show in Reno, Nevada. 5 years into the MTB boom many said that GT was too late and too BMX to make it in this market. Those that knew Richard Long thought other wise. Within 5 years GT came to dominate the sport of Mountain Bike racing as it did in BMX with a massive marketing effort led by a large international race team that raised the brand to a high awareness level on a global scale. In 1988 GT moved from the 4 separate Container lane buildings into a specially built facility on 17800 Gothard street in Huntington Beach for the next 5 years. Many would say that this was the high water mark for the company in terms of culture and profit. In January of 1988 GT bought its way into dealer direct distribution with the acquisition of Riteway products in Placentia Ca. Within 4 years GT purchased 3 more distributors across the country and became a national force in the IBD market. During this period GT started to make and assemble complete bikes. The complexity and scope of the business increased yearly and soon GT was a 125 million dollar company. In 1991 GT signed World Champion Julie Furtado to it's international racing team. Julie would go on to win more World Cup's than any rider of her time. On the men's side GT signed up Junior World Champion Nicholas Vouilloz who would dominate DH like no other rider in history and has yet to be dethroned. Also signed was Rishi Grewal, a pioneering MTB racer that had style and flash to match the GT image. Many other world class racers would join the stable of Team GT in the early 90's to form one of the most powerful MTB teams in history. Also implemented at this time was Project '96. A "no holds barred" attempt to design and produce the fastest track bikes in the history of the sport for the US Olympic Track team. This would be a multi million dollar effort and would eventually lead to the UCI banning most aerodynamic design aspects from bicycle racing due to the revolutionary bicycles that resulted from this award winning and medal winning venture.

Product Highlights

1988: Full assortment of USA made 4130 BMX and freestyle frames, components and
accessories
Complete BMX bikes sourced from Taiwan, range expands to over 10 models
Introduction of MTB line with 5 models: Outpost, Timberline, Tequesta, Karakoram, and
Avalanche all featuring triple triangle technology. This would become a GT hallmark of
frame design
Dyno brand name introduced to market place as a hard core freestyle brand.
1990: MTB range expands to 12 models including the Titanium Xizang LE and the ill fated 700D
series of trekking / cross bikes.
Dyno brand name introduced to market place to be a less expensive line to complement '
GT.
1991: The legendary USA made Zaskar (frame only ) is introduced. This is one of the first USA
made aluminum frames that can withstand the rigors of offroad use. The Quatrefoil off
road tandem is introduced.
1992: Huge proliferation of GT innovations such as the Groove Tube, Flip Flop stem and 2 x 4
forks are introduced. GT "Tech Shop" concept introduced to allow GT shops to buy
custom USA made Titanium, Aluminum and Cr-Mo ATB frames. Adult Line
grows to 15 models. Taiwan aluminum arrives in the form of the Pantera
Juvenile grows to 15.
1993: RTS hits the market and GT becomes a leader in full suspension. GT USA begins to
assemble complete adult bikes with the RTS-1 and Zaskar LE. 22 models in the adult line
and 15 models in the juvenile line.

1994-July 1996 Tragedy kills the dream
As GT prospered and grew the competition could do little but watch. Many wondered what the secret formula was to GT's run away success and wondered when it would end. As the fall of '95 approached business was better than ever. BMX racing was coming back and GT was on top. Richard had crafted GT into one of the few, if not the only, bicycle company in the world that was a top supplier of not only BMX bicycles and products but adult bicycles as well. Combined with the might of the Riteway parts business GT was the dominant US cycling company in the USA in 1995. That year GT left the old building on Gothard and moved into a sprawling warehouse back in the original town of GT, Santa Ana, California. With twice the space for both warehousing and office GT kept growing and growing. In October of 1995 GT Bicycles Inc. went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange with the help of Bain Capital, a well known investment bank in Boston, Mass. Richard and Gary were turned in multi millionaires over night. As the 1996 Olympics approached the company was at full throttle and hitting on all twelve cylinders just like Richard's BMW 850i. Life was good and Richard lived it to the hilt. Motorcycles had always been a passion of Richard's and with his new found wealth he indulged his habit of speed by owning no less then six high performance cars and four Harley Davidson motorbikes. A particular model caught Richard's eye, the new monster bike made by Honda called "Valkyrie". Built on the Gold wing platform it was basically a horizontally opposed 4 cylinder car engine stuffed into a motorcycle frame. It was huge. Richard took delivery of the bike a week before the 1996 NORBA national at Big Bear. With a few rides under his belt Richard blasted off toward Big Bear on the bike to watch Team GT crush at the races once again. However, Richard never arrived. On the way up the hill to Big Bear, on the winding route called the "back way", he was killed in a wreck with a pick up truck that turned left across his lane in front of him. Thousands of stunned spectators and racers listened in disbelief as the announcer read the news. The man who was bigger than life, who almost single handedly built a 250 million dollar public company was dead at 46 years of age leaving a wife and two sons. From that point on GT would never ever be the same. There has always been and will continue to be speculation of the role that the big bike played in that wreck. But it cannot change the fact that Richard Long, the life force behind GT, was gone.
The very next day a Board of Directors meeting was called by Bain Capitol, who had control of GT (much to the dismay of Gary Turner) and told Gary and the other members that GT was to be sold as soon as possible for the highest possible price. Only they would know of this plan.

Product Highlights
Juvenile
1994: "Fueler " frame introduced, at the time it was one of the only dirt jump specifc frames in the market. The Fueler featured massive over size cro-mo tubes with plate cut drops and 1 1/8" headtube.
25 models in the combined GT / Dyno line

1995: Fueler is offered as a complete bike, Power series tubular cro-mo cranks introduced. Line grows to 27 models and over 20 framesets. Powerlite and Robinson lines are also introduced with a combined total of 16 models.


1996: Aluminum hits the track with the all new "Speed Series Team" . This is a huge step for the former Cro-mo driven BMX product line. GT applies lessons learned with Zaskar production into BMX technology. GT and Dyno both feature price point Taiwan frames to capitalize on the trend. There are now 50 models between GT/Dyno/ Powerlite and Robinson.
Adult
1994: RTS becomes a complete line of suspension bikes. GT is the first company to
mass produce a functional full susp. Bike in Taiwan. GT introduces a line of road bikes.
High end custom bikes are ridden by the US Olympic Team and will GT is the official sponsor of the US team through the Olympics in Atlanta. 28 models in the Adult line. The ground breaking LTS 4- bar linkage frame is introduced in the January of 1994 The LTS wins the 1994 "full suspension shootout " among all the major brands.

1995. LTS ruled the MTB line up and GT is the first to supply dealers with a fully functional 4 bar linkage MTB made in the USA and damped by the infamous ALPS 5 by Fox.. The Karakoram won "1995 bike of the year"

1996: Adult line features two complete suspension platforms in the LTS and RTS. RTS dies a quick death at the hands of the functionally superior LTS platform. LTS-2 and 3 is the attempt to bring LTS technology to an affordable price. The Rock Shox coil sprung 2 is a hit. The elastomer sprung 3 is late and a dud.


July 1996-1998 The sale
Even Richard's death could not at first slow the massive inertia that GT generated. Business kept growing and GT soon purchased distributors in the UK (This deal was actually consummated in the months prior to Richard's passing) , France and Japan in the months after Richard's death. GT moved to an even larger 300,000 square foot facility a few miles down the road in June of 1997. This latest location was a fully integrated manufacturing, assembly and warehousing facility. The stock price, after a dip following Richard's accident, soared as high as $22.00. However chinks in the armor started to show and the weak organizational fabric that was previously held together by Richard's sheer force of will was starting to rip apart. By the fall of 1997 a few corporate suitors had secretly come and gone. The focus of sr. mgmgnt was not on the company and the internal forces within were often at odds. Sales goals were missed, forecasts were wrong, product delivered late, massive recalls occurred. The numbers slipped and so did the stock. However the money kept flowing like water out of a broken dam and to all outward appearances GT was as healthy as ever. In the summer of 1998 GT introduced a new suspension platform called "I drive" that was the next step in suspension technology. The global press, 60 publications in all, were given the royal treatment at an all expenses paid junket to Las Vegas, Nevada and Brian Head, Utah to view and ride the new bikes. However the party was spoiled when on the first night of the press intro the surprise announcement was made that Schwinn had just bought GT for 175 million dollars.
Stunned GT employees walked around as though in a daze and wondered what their fate was and what would happen to their world.

Product highlights
Juvenile
1997 :Monocoque constructed "Box series" chainstays appear for the first time on the
Speed series team, Shimano V-brakes are used for the first time on a GT BMX bike, Spin wheels are introduced to BMX.
1998: Aluminum is introduced to freestyle by the groundbreaking " Show" flatland frame. With close input from legendary flatlander Rueben Castillo, Robert Kahler and Jeff Soucek designed a frame specifically for the discipline of flatland that has yet to be equaled in the business.
Adult
1997: With the massive press of the 1996 Olympic Superbike 2 and the revolutionary "STS" technology GT threw out new model after new model on the adult side. Carbon fiber and aerodynamics drove the Mountain and Road lines respectively. In 1997 GT introduced 3 new carbon fiber high end LTS full susp. MTB's and 3 new Aero road bikes including the alien looking Vengeance triathlon bike. The Vengeance was based on the old SB-1 or first generation superbike and turned out to be a template for almost all TT bikes in used in the world today due to the enforcement of stricter rules governing aerodynamics brought about by the SB-2 and others.
1998: STS technology drove the product line and GT introduced the LOBO DH bike. Full
suspension represented almost 80% of the models over $1000.00. The LTS -2000 won "Bike of the Year" . GT hires Steve Peat for DH and Team Saturn rides our bikes on the road.
Summer of 1998, I drive is introduced to the press with one of the most controversial launches in the history of the bike business.


10/12/98 - 9/11-2001 The Questor years

In reality Schwinn had not purchased GT. An investment company, not unlike Bain Capital, Questor had purchased Schwinn bicycle from Scott USA in 1997 as Scott sought to escape the US bike business and focus on Europe. The mighty Schwinn Organization had been downsized to virtually nothing but a marketing organization by then. They had no manufacturing, no global presence and more importantly they had no big factory and no huge Riteway parts business. From the onset of the purchase Questor underestimated both the power of the GT brand, the intense pride of it's employees and the complexity of it's operations. However Questor Senior management did instantly alienate large amounts of vital personal upon their first few visits to the Santa Ana plant. Instead of conserving needed senior talent, they disparaged and denigrated key players that left the company headless and open to the whims of the top dogs at Schwinn. Schwinn Sr. management, having had time to get close to Questor over the past 15 months, then moved into the power vacuum and asserted control and used influence to make sure that GT was cast in the worst possible light. From the start Questor could not control the strong personalities and internal factions of Schwinn and GT. They sought "synergies", they wanted to "leverage strengths", they talked management speak better than anyone but could not understand bike culture and what motivated bike people. At the same time the US bike business and European businesses continued to tank. The market had matured and problems previously masked by double digit growth were exposed by thinning margins, massive overheads and dropping sales. Rah, rah speeches, and gung ho memos were replaced by cost cutting, lay-offs and closures. As Questor desperately tried to stem the red ink the business suffered and so did the brand. In spring of 2001 it was obvious that Questor and the banks had decided to get out. Spending was frozen, payments to vendors and subcontractors were stopped. The writing was on the wall. Questor through their holding company, Schwinn-GT inc, declared bankruptcy on 6/27/01. Five years to the day that Richard Long had died. The once mighty duo of bicycle companies was sold to Pacific Cycle through bankruptcy court on 9/11/01 for 86 million dollars. This represented an almost 175 million dollar loss to Questor and a much larger blow to the bicycle community.

Juvenile

1999: Niche takes over the line with the products firmly going into three categories
BMX racing: Speed Series sets the tone for all the models
Trails: Fueler, Bump and Thumper mark a new segment for GT
Freestyle: Dominated by the Show platform and "Vert" bikes
2000: ULTRABOX !!!. An all new creation by PM Robert Kahler and Industrial Designer Alec Tam blows away the BMX world. With super exotic monocoque technology the Ultrabox gives GT a much needed boost in the BMX market place. Fueler and Show platforms carry on in their respective categories
2001: In an effort to catch up to the rider owned companies GT switches the focus to the x games crowd and starts to market their athletes more aggressively with an all new model line up. Vert legend Dave Voelker and new schooler Jamie Bestwick are the centerpieces for the new line of jump bikes. Ultrabox leads the charge in the shrinking BMX category and the Show carries on unchallenged in flatland.
2002: Basically a bust due to the bankruptcy.




Adult

1999: I drive is born and marks a new chapter in MTB suspension technology. Suspension guru Jim Busby invents a whole new way to suspend the bicycle. The buzz is huge and so is the hype. GT features the technology on 7 models for an across the board roll out designed to leave the competition in the dust. LTS carries on in it's last year and the final model, the XR-1000, with sealed bearings and FOX air shock is actually the finest LTS ever made and sets the stage for light weight cross country full suspension bikes.
2000: GT acquires the Syncros brand and gets into the Tour De France. With a vastly revamped road platform GT does what only Cannondale has accomplished and is the second US bike brand in the Tour de France. The new line of triple triangle road bikes is as light or lighter than the competition and has a much smoother ride making it a natural for team Lotto to use in the brutal classics of the spring. The I drive line is refined and lightened. The world beating DH-I is used by the team to replace the aging Lobo platform. In August Roland Greene pilots a prototype I drive to a silver medal at the 2000 world championships in Madrid, Spain. It is the highest ever finish for a suspended bike in a UCI word championship.
2001: The new I drive Team (inspired by the bike Roland raced) weighs in at about 24.5 pounds and brings I drive onto the race courses of the world in numbers. The Dh-I is released as the most affordable and highest performing DH bike to date. The emerging extreme category is addressed by the Ruckus hardtail. The Zaskar Team weighs in at an unbelievable 22.5 pounds.
2002: The only real news is the Ruckus I drive which is the new standard for free riding.

[virus]

ich fahre seit 6 (oder sinds schon 7?) jahren ein gt avalanche. ich bin damit x touren in den alpen gefahren, treppen runtergeheizt und gesprungen was das zeug hält. dabei habe ich vom lenker bis zur felge schon ziemlich jedes teil zerstört, das an dem bike dran ist. aber der rahmen ist unkaputtbar. obwohl ich vorhabe mir nächstes jahr ein neues bike zu kaufen - mein gt geb ich nicht mehr her. damit werd ich noch viele jahre durch die gegend radeln. ein bike für die ewigkeit.