We are really excited to be celebrating 40 years of building bikes. So much has happened in the past 40 year journey inside and outside of Zinn Cycles. We have watched our business and our families grow, and we have met so many amazing people through cycling, racing, and building bikes. The friendships and partnerships we have formed have helped mold us into what we are today. Scroll down to check out our history timeline followed by a summary of the history of Zinn Cycles at the very bottom of the page. We hope you enjoy reading about us.

After having studied bicycle stability for his physics degree senior seminar at Colorado College and experiencing high-speed shimmy on his team bike on descents in the 1981 Durango-to-Silverton Iron Horse Classic, a race he had won and set the course record on the year before on a different bike, Lennard Zinn decided to build bike frames himself. He built one while at the US Olympic Training Center as a member of the US Olympic Development Team and, following an injury late in the 1981 season, learned how to build them more efficiently when working in California for Tom Ritchey building his fillet-brazed mountain bike frames and Ritchey Bullmoose steel handlebars. 

Lennard started Zinn Cycles https://zinncycles.com in 1982 in Boulder building fillet-brazed and lugged steel mountain and road bikes. As manager, mechanic, and soigneur of the Zinn/Alfalfa’s/Shimano women’s racing team and with his wife, Sonny, painting the frames and racing on the team, Lennard developed a loyal following of women buying his custom road bikes. Eventually, with the big brands determined to tap into the lucrative women’s bike market, he gravitated toward another market natural to him with his 6’6” height and in which the big brands have little interest, namely building bikes for very tall people.

Along the way, Lennard developed a devoted following from readers of the technical articles he has been writing consistently in VeloNews magazine https://www.velonews.com/byline/lennard-zinn/ since 1988 as well as in the books he has written, most of which explain in detail how to repair and maintain bicycles.  Since 1995, he has written 11 different editions of his two best-selling titles, Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance https://www.bigandtallbike.com/Zinn-and-the-Art-of-Mountain-Bike-Maintenance-6th-edition_p_473.html and Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance https://www.bigandtallbike.com/Zinn-and-the-Art-of-Road-Bike-Maintenance-5th-Edition_p_427.html. He has published 17 books in total while continuously also designing and building Zinn bikes and now also Clydesdale bikes https://bikeclydesdale.com. Until he developed a heart arrhythmia in 2013 at age 55, Lennard also devoted decades of his life to competing in cross-country-ski and bike races (road, cyclocross, MTB, and track). With a cardiologist and another journalist, he co-wrote The Haywire Heart https://www.bigandtallbike.com/The-Haywire-Heart–By-Lennard-Zinn-Dr-John-Mandrola-and-Chris-Case–Paperback_p_452.html, the first book to delve into the research on the relationship between long-term endurance training and racing and heart health. 

Almost 30 years ago, Lennard started building titanium frames and fell in love with the material, for both its ride quality and its longevity; he found it to be the perfect material for making long-lasting bikes for big and tall people that also ride great and weigh less than one would expect for such a bike. He remains fond of steel, the material he started in, as well as aluminum and carbon fiber, and he continues to design and build custom Zinn bikes in all of those materials and Clydesdale big and tall bikes exclusively in titanium. To still take the glorious rides in the mountains he so adores despite his heart arrhythmia, Lennard started building e-bikes, which now constitute a large percentage of Zinn custom and Clydesdale sales, all strictly in titanium.

In partnership with Nick Wigston, with whom he has grown Zinn Cycles the last 16 years, Lennard is celebrating 40 years of doing what he loves—making bicycles that fit their riders and give them a wonderful riding experience. Stop by our new shop at 1655 Cannon Circle in Louisville, CO 80026 and see what 40 years of pouring love, passion, and experience into bicycles has produced!