Market: With Opelit Bikes, the Opel family is returning to its roots: the Hessian manufacturer had its first bicycle in 1886 and more than a million Opel bikes were manufactured and sold up until the 20s. After production was temporarily stopped in favor of cars, in 2016 bicycles from Opel are coming back onto the market for the first time in more than 80 years.
The beginnings of the Opel company, which most people only know today as an automobile manufacturer, go back to the end of the 19th century. A bicycle was one of the first products made by the Hessian company – long before the car. In the meantime, Opel was the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world and in 1926 it broke the million mark in bike sales. However, production stopped before the war. Now, more than 80 years later, the manufacturer dares to advance again in the field of bicycles.
Gregor von Opel, great-grandson of company founder Adam Opel, is launching a whole range of bicycles for 2016 under the Opelit name. Opelit was founded by Georg von Opel in 1947 and developed primarily for boat building, sports equipment and vehicles of all kinds. Initially, there will be six models under the Opelit umbrella - the spectrum ranges from the noble racing bike with Dura Ace Di2 to mountain bikes , trekking bikes to city e-bikes.
Each model is available in three trim levels (Active, Sport, Comfort). In addition, the configurator on the Opelit website makes it possible to select certain special requests such as more elegant wheels or other suspension forks when ordering. Individualists also get their money's worth: there is a choice of 28 colors for the wheels - from subtle black or white to bright yellow or bright red.