SRAM and RockShox announced the retirement of Greg “HB” Herbold on July 26, 2016.
HB first became affiliated with SRAM more than 25 years ago, when he was signed to race and endorse the company’s only product—Grip Shift. His connection to RockShox goes back to 1988 and the RS-1. A natural-born tinkerer, HB began looking for ways to improve the performance of his fork. This desire for better products, combined with his hands-on approach, would prove extremely valuable to SRAM and RockShox product development.
“HB has been a part of the SRAM family since 1990, and it has been an absolute joy working with him from day one,” said SRAM Executive VP Mike Mercuri. “Greg’s contribution to SRAM’s success goes way beyond using and endorsing our products as a professional athlete. He’s made vital contributions to our product development over the last 25 years. His technical intuition and ability to communicate, educate and make it fun is his greatest legacy.”
Herbold is perhaps best known athletically for winning the 1990 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships Downhill.
“I was super fortunate to have parallel relationships during my racing career with both SRAM and RockShox,” said Herbold. “When they combined forces, I was truly at home. The innovative process is pretty entertaining and, hopefully, my enthusiasm and forward thinking helped to create shred-able product that riders enjoyed. We had our perfect dives and some belly flops, but the drive to innovate always kept everything super exciting. It still is… The chance I took on them being successful is probably the highlight of my career in this industry.”
Photo courtesy SRAM
