Chromag Bikes

In 2002, when the first Chromag frame appeared, the mountain bike market was realizing the potential of full suspension designs and were putting all their effort there. Subsequently, little attention was being paid to hardtail development. The hardtails that were available were still of an old school mentality: lighter, race oriented frames with geometry and frame specifications that weren't appropriate for the progressive nature of the riding that was being realized. At the same time full suspension designs were yet to be optimized and weren't always able to withstand the kinds of riding that was being experimented with. There was a need for a hardtail with relevant design and modern features. At the time, Chromag's founder, Ian Ritz, ran the fabled Evolution Bike Shop. In the shop working everyday and sharing the trails with a core community of really progressive trail riders meant he got to see, firsthand, what was working and what wasn't. Ian gathered input and experiences from his friends, studied all the bikes that he had sold and loved, distilled it into a geometry and technical specification for his design and found a local frame builder of considerable repute to build it for him. It started with just one frame – Ian's own bike. But friends saw what he had created and asked him for one of their own. The next spring he had eight more built and they sold right away. The year after that another eight were built and were sold before the welds had cooled. At this point it just made sense to start Chromag as a business. The desire has always been to build frames that are modern and relevant, yet have a classic quality with extreme attention to detail. Essentially, Chromag has always been about making steel frames with beefy dropouts built for disc brakes, tire clearance for real world tires, geometry that compliments modern components and have a significant descending capability.