We make thingsbetter, and we makebetter things.

The History of mountain biking

The history of mountain biking is spattered with ingenuity and lathered in innovation. From the peaks of Marin to the Slickrock trail of Moab, the threads that make up this indelible tapestry of…

You know what? Enough. It’s all been said before. Written, celebrated, evangelized. Mt. Tam, Repack, Klunkers, blah blah blah.

Here’s the truth about our origins.

We were getting bored, so we made things interesting. What we wanted didn’t exist, so we created it. Once it did exist, it was never good enough. So we kept making it better, and better, and better. Ever since we first started riding sketchy, ill-equipped cruisers down Mt. Tam back in ‘82, we’ve built things better because life is better with bikes. We believe better bikes make for an even better life, so we’ve continued to make components that improve every aspect of the riding experience.

We’ve been doing it for over 40 years.

It hasn’t gotten any easier, but luckily it hasn’t gotten any harder. We still do it simply because we love doing it. We’re not perfect, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’ve seen trends come and go. We’ve seen wheel sizes evolve. We’ve witnessed brakes go from “meh” to “wow”. We’ve even watched mountain bikers ride drop bar bikes. We’re proud that we've built each and every thing we've ever made. They taught us how to build things better.

What we’re getting at is...

We’ve been doing this for a while. We were here in the beginning and we’ll be here for many years to come. We only say this because we want you to have peace of mind and confidence in your WTB experience. We say this because we love what we do. We make things better and we make better things.

1982

WTB WAS BORN

Created by Mark Slate, Steve Potts, Charlie Cunningham and Lance Wyeth in Marin, California.

1983

PRODUCTION STARTS

WTB begins producing brakes, hubs, fork crowns and small accessories for early mountain bikes.

1991

“PHOENIX”

WTB begins building “Phoenix” steel bike frames.

1997

“BON TEMPE”

WTB produces “Bon Tempe” full suspension frames with licensed technology from John Castellano.

1999

29” TIRE

WTB introduces the first 29” tire to the bicycle industry designed to roll faster and improve traction and control. WTB builds and launches the 29” tire specific titanium frame at Interbike.