Wilderness Trail Bikes

Wilderness Trail Bikes (usually shortened to WTB) is a privately owned company based in Marin County, California, USA. It was founded in 1982^[1][2] as a company that specialized in mountain bike components. Today, WTB sources and sells its product worldwide supplying bike manufacturers and bike shops with components including tires, saddles, rims, wheels, grips, and accessories.^[3][4]

Wilderness Trail Bikes logo

History

Electric city bicycle with WTB tires

Marin County is the birthplace of the mountain bike, which had its origins in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Steve Potts, who was already building bike frames in Mill Valley^[5][6] in 1980, teamed up with Mark Slate to help meet demand.^[2] Charlie Cunningham, in Fairfax, had been building mountain bikes since 1979 with heat-treated aluminum frames which had unique Type II forks, roller-cam brakes, custom-made hubs and other components that were among the first of their kind designed specifically for mountain bikes.^[2]

Steve Potts, Charlie Cunningham and Mark Slate worked together informally from 1980 on limited production components, almost exclusively for the bicycles that they produced individually. In 1982, they founded Wilderness Trail Bikes, or WTB. Increasing demand and per-unit price advantages had led the three to form WTB to produce components for the new and fast-growing sport of mountain biking in the mountains of Marin and to market the components that they were producing.

In 1988, Patrick Seidler, began working with WTB. ^[2] This new company focused on licensing technology developed by WTB to mainstream bicycle industry manufacturers. Examples of technology developed by WTB that were produced under license include designs for tires made by Specialized Bicycle Components, the Blackburn B-52 water bottle cage, geometry for the 1987 Trek Bicycle Corporation mountain bike line and the use of Greaseguard in the top-end Suntour XC Pro component group.^[2]

In 2002, Cunningham and Potts ceased to be part of WTB, leaving Mark Slate as the sole original member.^[2] During this time WTB began selling its components as OEM to major manufacturers like Trek Bikes, GT Bicycles, Cannondale, Marin Bikes, and many other large and small mountain bike companies.

Over time, WTB evolved to become a leading supplier of tires, saddles, rims, wheels, grips and other parts. Today, WTB components can be found on bikes all around the world and are used for transportation, recreation, adventure and racing.^[1]

Corporate advocacy

Wilderness Trail Bikes also runs a non-profit organization called Transportation Alternatives for Marin, or WTB-TAM.^[7] WTB-TAM helps develop safe bike routes for transportation, recreation, mobility, and biking to school. The group promotes international best practices in bicycle and pedestrian design, and has led many study trips from the United States to the Netherlands to learn from the best. WTB-TAM's work demonstrates that investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure is the optimal transportation solution and that integration of non-motorized transportation with transit is the cornerstone of a sustainable transportation system.