A visit to the special museum – BionicOldGuy

Specialized Bicycles is headquartered in Morgan Hill and has a nice museum on site. My Tuesday riding group had already visited it in spring 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic broke out. Last Tuesday we were there again and this time our guide was Robert Egger, who has been their creative director for years. He designs their concept bikes, many of which are in the museum, and also leads the future direction of the product lines. He’s also a good and funny guy and a great storyteller.

It was fun to hear him tell the story of how Mike Sinyard, the CEO, founded Specialized Bicycle Imports, which evolved into the company we see today. I told this story Herebut we got a few new tidbits from Robert.

The next funny anecdote was how Robert came to the company. He had a degree in industrial design and worked for a bicycle shop in Los Gatos in the early 1980s. A customer came in that Robert didn’t know and asked questions about many of Specialized’s products. Robert would say the Specialized product was pretty good, but here’s why a competitor’s model was better (their bike bags are made a little sturdier or their water bottles have a wider opening so it’s easier to put ice in them). When he later found out it was Mike Sinyard, he thought he would be fired if Mike complained to the store’s owner. Instead, Mike called him and arranged for him to come to Morgan Hill for a visit. He hired Robert immediately and gave him his first assignment: to supervise the improvement of any parts that Robert had considered not the best.