About Asylum Cycles
Asylum Cycles is no more, but some people are still interested in knowing about where these wonderful bikes came from. It all started when a guy at a bike shop (Chris, the former owner of Speedgoat Bicycles), convinced a guy at a bike company (Chris, formerly of Titus Cycles) to build him a one-off 29" wheeled Titus Racer-X. This first bike was titanium with an aluminum seatstay and chainstay, and built around a rough guess at how to improve on the horribly low bottom-brackets and whacked out handling of most of the 29ers that were available at the time. The bike was fabricated and began it's life as the main Asylum testbed on the rocky trails of Laurel Mountain in Pennsylvania.
Speedgoat Chris had a desire to slacken the angles even more than they were originally, and a hankerin' to try to convert a Marzocchi Shiver SC into a 29er fork. The result radically changed the ride of the bike. And it was good. Titus Chris visited, rode the bike, and agreed. Something was going on here.
Four or five years and a few ideas later, the lighter and more affordable aluminum-framed Asylum bikes were officially born. Asylum Cycles sold the bike, officially named the OCD for only a few years, until Titus introduced their own 29" version of the Racer-X around 2005. Speedgoat and Asylum continued to sell the OCD for a year or so as remaining inventory dwindled, but for all intents Asylum really ceased to exist as a company sometime in 2007.
Asylum History
2005
Among a number of impressive finishes, Ernesto Marenchin rode his Asylum to 2nd place at the 2005 24-hour Solo World Championships in Whistler, BC.
2006
In what might have been the fastest, most competitive 24-hour Solo Worlds ever, 2006 found Ernesto Marenchin and Asylum finishing a very strong 5th overall.
Visit Ernie's Sologoat blog to find out what he's been up to since his Asylum days.
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