History
The company was founded in 1971 by Joe Montgomery, Jim Catrambone and Ron Davis to manufacture backpacks and bags for camping and later bicycle trailers for bicycle touring. One of the most successful products was the Bugger, a child trailer, although Cannondale's marketing department seemed unaware of the connotations of the name in British English (some were, nevertheless, exported to the UK). Today, Cannondale produces many different types of high-end bicycles, few of which are handmade in USA, specializing in aluminum (rather than steel or titanium) and carbon fiber frames, a technology in which they were pioneers. The name of the company was taken from the Cannondale Metro North train station in Wilton, Connecticut.
In the late 1990s Cannondale attempted to move into the motorsports business, producing a line of off-road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. According to an interview with Cannondale Communications Director, Tom Armstrong, the company was unable to drive down the cost of their motor vehicles fast enough. Sales took off when the company was still losing money on each motorbike they shipped. This gap drove the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 2003, and to sell off the motorsport division. Cannondale's bicycle division was purchased in 2003 by Pegasus Capital Advisors, which supported the company's renewed focus on bicycle production. In February 2008, Cannondale was purchased from Pegasus Capital Advisors by Dorel Industries. In April 2009 it was announced that all production would be transferred to Taiwan.
Read more about this topic: Cannondale Bicycle Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)