Design

Zinn Cycles Design Philosophy

Lennard Zinn has been designing and building great bikes of all types for big and tall cyclists, small women, cyclists with injuries, and everyone else since 1982. He is one of the few bike designers in the world that has dedicated his career to improving the performance and durability of big and tall bikes and bikes for women. He has also spent a great deal of time working with Dr. Andy Pruitt to design bikes for cyclists who have suffered from injuries, reduced mobility, knee problems, back problems, neck problems, and many other ailments. There are many more factors to building a big and tall bike than most people understand. It is not as simple as just scaling up a “normal” sized frame and calling it good. When you do that, several things happen to the bike. First, the stretched-out tubes become less stiff, which results in high speed frame shimmy. This is a scary by-product of a poorly designed bike. Second, the added material makes the bike heavier, especially if the builder tries to solve problem number one with just using thicker tubes. Third, without a fork with a long enough steering tube, the handlebars will be far too low for the tall cyclist, causing discomfort in the back, neck, wrists, and arms. Fourth, building a bike for a tall or small rider with average length cranks will make the rider feel unnatural while pedaling. Proportional crank length is at the heart of all of our custom bike designs. We offer cranks from 130mm all the way up to 220mm, so we can properly fit any person in the world, no matter their size. Lennard has developed great frame design concepts to address and solve all of these issues and more. A bike designed by Lennard Zinn will be stiff and strong, while remaining lightweight. It will not shimmy at high speeds, and all of the components will be proportional to the rider. Fit, performance, comfort, and durability will all be superior on a Zinn bike than a bike from any other designer out there. We guarantee it.