History
As a start-up company, SRAM introduced the Grip Shift (or twist shift) gear-change method and technology to the road bike market in 1988.
In 1990 the company sued Shimano for unfair business practices, noting that Shimano offered, in effect, a 15-percent discount to bicycle manufacturers specifying an all-Shimano drivetrain and that few companies in the highly competitive industry would be willing to forgo such a discount to specify Grip Shift components. SRAM received an unspecified out-of-court settlement from Shimano in 1991. More importantly, it won the right to compete in the lucrative OEM bicycle components arena.
The years after the Shimano settlement were marked by dramatic growth for the company, as it increased sales greatly and added other companies to its portfolio. SRAM is a good example of the recent trend within the high-end cycle-component segment of the bicycle industry, where companies seek a position as a "one-stop shopping center" for bicycle frame manufacturers/bicycle brand owners, supplying all or most of parts needed to complete the bike. SRAM now incorporates the former bicycle division of Fichtel and Sachs, Sachs-Huret, and recently acquired component makers RockShox, Avid, Truvativ, Zipp, and QUARQ (see below).
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“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)