Celebrating 15 Years of Kinesis

Celebrating 15 years of Kinesis - It started with a fork

In the fifteen years since KinesisUK was created a lot has happened. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved to date and excited about the future. Kinesis has grown from modest beginnings to being a well loved and respected UK brand.

For many years, Dom Mason was the most visible part of our brand and Dom did a fantastic and key role in developing the brand. We were obviously sad to see him leave recently but we’re also excited for him and we wish him every success in creating his own brand.

We also thought it would be a great time to look back at how the KinesisUK brand began and why, as well as look at some of the other people who’ve made a difference to the brand. We also thought it might be fun to reflect on some of our favourite Kinesis models and perhaps look to the future too.

To begin though, we want to look back to 1993 when Matt Ryley and Damian Mason who began Upgrade Bikes and later KinesisUK were working in Taiwan in a frame and fork factory.

One of their colleagues Michael Tai later went on to work for Kinesis which at that time [and still is] one of the biggest Aluminium frame makers in Taiwan.

Following their stint in Taiwan Matt and Damian came back to the UK and set up Upgrade in 1995. A few years later in 1998 Michael contacted them about a front fork project and how Kinesis had decided they wanted to sell into the aftermarket.

Many people in the UK still don’t realise how big Kinesis International is – making around 1.5m aluminium bike frames a year for many, many different bike brands.

The main business for Kinesis then as now is as a frame maker. The front fork business was a way they could enter the aftermarket (or retail market) with a simple product with universal fit under their own brand. The frame business is much more complicated!

So KinesisUK as we know it today, started very small and simply with one or two fork models.

Classic-Kinesis-Forks-snip

At the same time Damian’s brother Dom joined Upgrade Bikes and this was a project he got involved with from the start.

It didn’t take long, even at those early stages to see that there was also an opportunity to sell the other bit that goes with forks … frames.

However, at that point Kinesis didn’t have frames of their own design to sell, so we started working with them to design a road bike frame.

This early design evolved into the ‘winter bike’ frame line we know as the Racelight, which has become a firm favourite for UK riders who want a winter frame that’s fun to ride and dependable over the long term. Over time other models were added for cyclocross (Crosslight), Mountain Bikes (Maxlight) as the range and brand steadily grew under Dom’s direction.

Kinesis-Racelight-T

More to come in some future blog posts. If you have any specific questions, please let us know in a comment.

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