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Klein Bikes was a bicycle company founded by Gary Klein that pioneered the use of large diameter aluminum alloy tubes for greater stiffness and lower weight. Klein produced his first bicycle frames whilst a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1970s, and full production runs of frames began in the 1980s. In 1995 the company was purchased by the Trek Bicycle Corporation, and the original Klein factory at Chehalis closed in 2002 as production moved to the Trek headquarters at Waterloo. Widespread distribution in the United States stopped in 2007, and ceased altogether in the rest of the world in 2009. ==History== Gary Klein, born , attended the University of California at Davis before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).〔〔 During the Independent Activities Period in 1973, a group of students including Klein worked together under Professor Buckley to produce an aluminum framed bicycle.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Art of Bicycles )〕 After analysing a number of contemporary steel frames, and examining ones that had broken in use, they were able to determine the stresses placed on a bicycle frame.〔 Faced with limited available types of aluminum alloy tubing, the students chose to construct frames from 6061 aluminium alloy seamless drawn tube; alternatives such as the stronger 7075 aluminum alloy were discarded because of the tubing dimensions.〔 After graduating from MIT in 1974 with a degree in chemical engineering, Klein took a business course for entrepreneurs. As a keen road racer, in 1975, he started a business project with three other people and built a limited run of aluminum alloy framed bikes at the MIT Innovation Center, using a grant provided by MIT and of capital from each partner.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Gary Gordon Klein )〕〔 The prototypes, with larger diameter tubes and thinner walls than those produced in 1973, were displayed at the International cycle show in New York in the February of 1975.〔 The next year, he relocated to some disused buildings on his parents' farm in San Martin, California that had previously been used for dehydrating prunes.〔〔 In 1977, he patented use of large diameter aluminum alloy tubes to increase stiffness, and in 1980, he moved from San Jose, California, to Chehalis, Washington.〔〔 He started production runs of road bicycles in the early 1980s and mountain bikes in the mid 1980s.〔 Whilst Klein's use of aluminium for a bicycle frames was not entirely novel, his use of large diameter tubes was.〔〔 Aluminium alloys have a Young's modulus around a third that of steel, but with thicker tubes he was able to make a bicycle that weighed around 15% less than a conventional model.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Modulus of Elasticity - Young Modulus for some common Materials )〕 In 1995, Trek bought Klein bikes, after Klein found it hard to compete without the sales network of a larger company in place.〔 At its peak, around 250 people worked at the Chehalis plant, but operation gradually moved to the main Trek factory in Wisconsin. In 2001, a workforce of around 70 people produced 15,000 to 20,000 frames a year.〔 In 2002, all production moved to the Trek headquarters at Waterloo, Wisconsin.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Klein Bicycles Moves to Waterloo )〕 Bikes were still sold under the Klein name until around 2009 in Japan, but widespread distribution ceased circa 2007 in the United States.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=SPOTLIGHT ON KLEIN )〕 A green Klein mountain bike can be seen hanging on the wall in Jerry Seinfeld's apartment in the television show ''Seinfeld''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Klein Bikes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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