ROCKSHOX

In his teens, Paul Turner fell in love with motorcycle racing. Motocross was a blossoming sport, and many young people were pushing bikes to their limit. After establishing a company that made motorcycle components, Turner got a gig as a factory mechanic on Honda’s professional motocross team. There, he got lots of experience, and seemed to thrive on ingenuity. He later engineered heat sinks for Koni shock absorbers, which improved performance by lowering oil temperatures. In the mid 1970’s, he developed a shock absorber for the company that would later become Fox Shox.

By the time the late 80’s rolled around, Paul had taken an interest in mountain biking. Having spent years riding motocross bikes, with their plush suspension, he found the contemporary mountain bike suspension technology to be outdated. He set out to create high-performance mountain biking suspension, and largely succeeded. It took a few years to get his operation off the ground, and to get the attention of the mountain biking industry. But by 1990, when Greg Herbold won the first ever Downhill World Championship while riding a Rockshox fork, Paul Turner’s project finally got the attention it deserved.

From then on, Rockshox has helped shape the evolution of mountain biking. Their long travel suspension forks are some of the most favored on UCI World Cup circuits. Likewise, their high-performance dropper posts keep trail riders ready for whatever comes their way.