Assos

Assos began almost by accident. In 1976, founder Toni Maier took a radical bike design, a teardrop-tubed carbon fibre frame with a bullhorn handlebar into a wind tunnel in Zurich for testing. The prototype became the world’s first aerodynamic carbon fibre bicycle frame, but the real discovery was what was slowing riders down most: their standard wool cycling kit.

Maier turned his attention from bikes to bodies. Looking to the race suits worn by the Swiss national ski team for inspiration, he developed the first Lycra cycling shorts and anatomical skinsuit, working alongside his wife and a single seamstress from the family home in Ticino, southern Switzerland. Skinsuits weren’t an immediate sell, early Lycra made riders look like aliens, and wool was still the professional standard. But word spread through the professional peloton, and by the early 1980s the shorts were dominant enough that Daniel Gisiger won the 1981 Grand Prix des Nations time trial wearing an early Assos skinsuit.

That obsessive, science-led approach to fabric never let up. Assos went on to pioneer the first sublimated jersey, the first bib short, and the first elastic chamois insert, innovations that became industry standard rather than staying proprietary. Today, with around 140 employees, 40 of whom work directly on partnerships with WorldTour racing teams, Assos remains rooted in the same principle Maier started with: what wins in the pro peloton should filter down to every rider.