Before an email popped up in my inbox asking if I’d like to head to Indianapolis, I hadn’t realised that the city and the surrounding area was such a hot bed of cycling manufacturing. When I think of cycling manufacturing hot spots, Antwerp in Belgium and Torrino in Italy spring to mind. Indianapolis not so much; but I was about to be surprised.
Zipp is one of the major players in the wheel manufacturing world and the company can claim a whole raft of victories and titles within both road cycling and triathlon. It can also claim to being one of the brands that led the carbon wheel revolution — in its 28-year history Zipp has helped push the envelope when it comes to wheel aerodynamics, stability, handling and performance.
Standing out amongst the cookie cooker concrete and corrugated warehouses and factories on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Indianapolis is Zipp’s manufacturing plant. Zipp’s building is hard to miss — with the brand’s logo sitting proudly at the front of the building, the Zipp plant jumps out from the surrounding grey and white buildings.

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Zipp成立於1987年，創始人Leigh Sargent當時是威廉姆斯F1車隊的工程師，他住在印第安納波利斯並參加了那一年的美國拉斯維加斯國際自行車貿易博覽會，在看台上，Lee對那些笨重且脆弱的輪組毫無興趣，憑著專業背景他認為自己可以生產出更好的輪組。第二年，他就在展覽會上向大家展示過去十二個月的成果。

 他帶來的輪組就是以它自身重量命名的Zipp900，它要比其他製造商提供的輪組輕1千克左右。為了顯示它的強韌，Lee在展示中將其放在兩把椅子中間並讓人站在上面，結果大家發現，Zipp900跟“脆弱”這個詞一點關係也沒有。

 從那刻起，Zipp企業開始逐現雛形。直到2007年，Zipp的公司一直在SRAM（速聯）旗下運行，但其龐大的工廠和辦公室都從位於芝加哥距印第安納波利斯北部三小時距離遠的SRAM總部中分離出來了。

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