Diamondback Bikes

History of Diamondback

Diamondback Bicycles started back in Camarillo, California in 1978 as a radical new BMX brand and it wasn't too long before the brand expanded into the brave new world of mountain biking.

Since that time hundreds of riders have successfully completed under the sponsorship of Diamondback, either as a BMX riders or as mountain bikers following the creation of the famous Diamondback Racing (DBR) team in 1993.

MTB
It all started for us with the Diamondback Ridge Runner (1982), which, along with the Specialized Stumpjumper, was one of the world’s first production mountain bikes.

Following the launch of DBR (Diamondback Racing) in 1993 we dominated the global mountain bike scene, winning the US men’s national XC championships, a silver medal at the 1994 World’s Women’s XC, a bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in Women’s , the 1996 Men’s Downhill World Cup Championships and in 1997 the World Championship Men’s XC, helping to launch the careersof notable riders including Cadel Evans, Susan DeMattei and Helen Mortimer.

Further into the 2000’s Diamondback was represented by trials legend Martyn Ashton and his Ashton / Diambondback team, who propelled dirt and slopestyle star Sam Pilgrim onto the world scene. This multi-talented mix of riders also put Diamondback in front of millions of consumers at the famous Animal/Relentles Bike Tour.

Over in the US at the same time Diamondback sponsored Development Force 5 (DF5) team, which comprised some of the most influential and progressive riders in the sport, including Kelly McGarry, Billy Lewis, Eric Porter and Kyle Thomas.

Over the years Diamondback has been constantly striving for mountain bike perfection, always being associated with innovative mountain bike designs such as the Dual Response, WCF bikes and Knucklebox suspension design for cross-country and all-mountain use. This patented Knucklebox suspension platform now features on a number of high-end Diamondback mountain bikes.

To trulkly state the credentials of the bikes, Diamondback returned to professional downhill racing in 2013 with the sponsorship of the UK-based 44Racing / Rockstar team.

Keep an eye on our news pages to see where Diamondback bikes are going next.

BMX
In the late 1970’s and early 80’s Sandy Finkleman of Wheels n’ Things was taken on to led the Diamondback BMX race team and product development division.

Under his leadership ‘Scary’ Harry  Leary and Eddy King won many of the top US BMX races in the 1980s and helped develop new models and that had unique features like the Turbo dropout and Diamond gusset.

With the success of the race team Diamondback took to the screen with the release of BMX Bandits in 1983 which featured one of the characters riding a Diamondback Senior Pro bike.

Also 1983 saw the introduction of the Viper model, a name that has been in the Diamondback BMX line up for over three decades.

Today Diamondback has a renewed focus on dirt and street BMX styles with riders from the UK, Europe and USA competing in major events such as the X Games and Dew Tour.