Orbea

Orbea is a bicycle manufacturer in Mallabia, Spain. It began in 1840 as a rifle and gun producer and began making bicycles in the 1930s. It is part of the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation and Spain's largest bicycle manufacturer. Orbea designs and builds bicycles, with some of the higher-cost bikes being made in Portugal but all the others made at the Orbea factory in Mallabia; the steel-framed bikes are made of Columbus tubing.^[1]

Products

2007 Orbea Ordu carbon fiber time trial bicycle

1970 Orbea city bike

Orbea also manufactures and assembles bikes in China.^[2]

Competitive use

Orbea has previously sponsored and supplied bikes to teams, including the now-defunct Euskaltel-Euskadi professional team in the Basque area of Spain and the Herring Gas team in the USA. Samuel Sánchez rode an Orbea Orca Carbon to win the road race at the Beijing Olympics and Julien Absalon won the mountain bike gold on an Orbea Alma. Craig Alexander, three time Ironman World Triathlon Champion (2008, 2009, 2011), rode an Orbea Ordu in his first 2 wins and although he had planned to spend the rest of his career racing on Orbea bicycles, having signed a lifetime contract with Orbea in 2010,^[3] he switched to another brand for the 2011 race.

References

External links

• Orbea
• Orbea USA
• Orbea Australia
• Orbea Romania
• Cyclingnews.com - Inside Orbea: Spain's co-operative bike company