Quality Bicycle Products
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Bicycle parts and accessories distribution |
| Founded | 1981 |
| Headquarters | Bloomington, MN, United States |
|
Key people
|
Steve Flagg, founder |
| Products | Surly Bikes |
| Revenue |
 $200 million USD (2014) |
|
Number of employees
|
690 (2015) |
| Website | www.qbp.com |
Quality Bicycle Products is the largest distributor of bicycle parts and accessories in the bicycle industry, with revenues of $150 million in 2008. In addition to wholesaling bicycles and components from other manufacturers, QBP owns and manufactures several brands of its own. QBP also participates in activities which support its community through cycling advocacy and green building.
Founded by Steve Flagg and Mary Henrickson in 1981, QBP operated from a small office in St. Paul, MN. The company did $100,000 of sales during its first year. In the second year sales reached $250,000 and in 1983 the company received half a million dollars in sales. Early on, the company's main product was its mountain bikes, and QBP also specialized in importing hard-to-find mountain-bike parts from suppliers in Japan. In 1984 QBP hired its first employee and sold $1 million in parts. In 1996 QBP purchased a 67,000-square-foot (6,200 m2) warehouse on its current site in West Bloomington.
QBP purchased Salsa Cycles in 1997, a California-based mountain-bike manufacturer. The following year, QBP entered the emerging single-speed bike market with its in-house designed Singleator chain tensioner. Later in 1998, this product and the new Rat Ride single-speed frame (soon renamed the 1X1) helped launch the company’s new start-up, Surly Bikes. After that, the company continued developing brands for under-served markets, adding specialty parts with Problem Solvers, value parts and accessories with Dimension, and high-end components with Winwood. QBP also became the exclusive U.S. distributor for Jagwire, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of bicycle brake and derailleur components including pads, cables and cable housing.
Responding to the growing trend of bike commuting and “transportation-oriented” cycling, QBP created the Civia bike brand in 2007. The following year, QBP transformed Wheelhouse, its dealer-oriented wheel-building service, into Handspun, a consumer-oriented manufacturer of hand-trued and custom-built wheels. QBP also founded All-City, which offers single-speed and fixed-gear bikes, parts and accessories for urban bicycling. In 2007 QBP received the first annual Carbon Buster Award from U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar. In 2009, the company achieved Platinum-level status, the LAB’s highest designation. QBP has opened a second distribution center in Ogden, Utah in the spring of 2010 that has also been awarded LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, for its use of energy-saving techniques like smart lighting. QBP was named one of America's Top Work Places by Outside Magazine in 2011. Later that year QBP opened a third distribution center in Middletown, PA, and then moved to new facility in Lancaster, PA in January 2015.
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Wikipedia