Crank Brothers originated in Southern California, specifically Laguna Beach. Founders Frank Hermansen and Carl Winefordner met while working in the scuba diving industry; both had backgrounds in engineering and product design and shared an interest in cycling.[2] Rather than beginning as a conventional bicycle component manufacturer, they initially experimented with designing products for licensing. One early design was a hydration system that eventually became associated with HydraPak.[2]

Their cycling business formally emerged in 1997. The company initially operated on a small scale, with the founders developing products from their homes and relying on outside manufacturing assistance. Their first Crank Brothers product was the Speed Lever, an innovative bicycle tyre lever designed to simplify installation and removal.[2] Consequently, the company’s early history is defined less by corporate investment and more by industrial design, prototyping, and solving specific problems faced by cyclists.

The Speed Lever officially established Crank Brothers as a bicycle product company. Designed as a compact mechanism rather than an ordinary tyre lever, it made tyre removal and installation significantly easier. This product helped establish a core tenet of the brand: taking a familiar cycling product and rethinking its fundamental design.[2] Introduced at the Interbike trade show in 1997, it attracted considerable attention despite the company’s small size, demonstrating a market for their unconventional approach.[2]

While the Speed Lever established the company, the product that brought Crank Brothers international recognition was the Eggbeater pedal, introduced in 2001.[3] The Eggbeater differed radically from conventional clipless pedals of the era. Instead of using a large pedal body surrounding the mechanism, Crank Brothers developed a minimal structure based on a four-sided retention system.

Key characteristics included:

• Extremely minimalist construction
• Low weight
• Four-sided entry
• Excellent mud clearance
• Simple mechanical architecture
• Easy engagement from multiple directions

The four-sided design allowed riders to clip in from multiple orientations, which proved valuable in cross-country mountain biking and cyclocross where mud, rapid accelerations, and frequent remounts made pedal engagement difficult. The Eggbeater became a defining product in the company’s history and established Crank Brothers as a serious player in high-performance cycling components.[3]

Engineering significance

The Eggbeater demonstrated the brand’s fundamental engineering philosophy: removing unnecessary elements to concentrate on essential function. While traditional designs incorporated substantial platforms, Crank Brothers minimised material and structure while retaining functionality. This resulted in a skeletal aesthetic that became a key part of the company’s identity, serving simultaneously as a functional innovation, a weight-saving design, and a visual symbol of their engineering ethos.

Following the success of the Eggbeater, Crank Brothers expanded its pedal portfolio into several distinct families.

Eggbeater

The minimalist clipless pedal that established the company’s reputation. It remains associated with cross-country, cyclocross, trail riding, enduro, and weight-conscious riders.

Candy

The Candy series combines the Crank Brothers clipless mechanism with a larger surrounding platform. Developed for riders wanting the advantages of the Eggbeater mechanism with additional support, it is particularly suited to trail and all-mountain riding.

Mallet

The Mallet family was developed for aggressive mountain biking, including enduro, downhill, gravity, and trail riding. Compared to the minimalist Eggbeater, Mallet pedals provide a significantly larger platform.

Stamp

The Stamp family represents the brand’s presence in flat pedals. Using a large platform and strategically positioned pins rather than a clipless mechanism, these pedals provide traction for flat-soled mountain bike shoes. Crank Brothers continues to develop Stamp products alongside its clipless families.[1]

A major distinction of the brand is its proprietary clipless pedal system. Unlike Shimano SPD, Crank Brothers uses its own cleat and retention architecture featuring a four-sided entry system. This allows engagement from multiple directions, which is useful in mountain biking when stopping suddenly, putting a foot down, restarting on technical terrain, clipping in while accelerating, or re-engaging after obstacles.

Mud clearance is another critical characteristic. The open construction allows mud and debris to escape more easily than enclosed designs, contributing to the system’s popularity in cyclocross and muddy mountain bike environments.[3]

Crank Brothers has expanded well beyond pedals. Its modern catalogue includes clipless and flat pedals, cycling shoes, wheels, dropper seatposts, hand pumps, CO₂ equipment, multitools, tyre repair equipment, handguards, apparel, and accessories.[1] This represents a significant evolution from its original tyre lever product.

Wheels

The company entered the wheel market with the Synthesis range. Rather than treating front and rear wheels as identical, the design emphasises different requirements: the front wheel is optimised for steering, tracking, and compliance, while the rear wheel is built to cope with higher loads and impacts while transmitting power. This reflects a philosophy of designing components around actual use. The brand now offers wheels for mountain biking and gravel.[1]

Dropper posts

Expansion into dropper seatposts allowed riders to change saddle height while riding via a handlebar remote. This is essential in modern mountain biking for climbing efficiency and descending freedom. Crank Brothers has developed several generations of dropper posts, including the Highline family, making them a key part of the mountain bike component portfolio.

Tools and pumps

Consistent with its origins, Crank Brothers produces compact bicycle tools and pumps designed to make essential functions efficient and portable. The current range includes multitools, tyre repair products, pumps, and CO₂ equipment.[1] Specific families include M-series multitools, SOS tools, Cigar plug kits, tube-storage tools, bottle-cage tool systems, and hand pumps. The catalogue also includes dedicated gravel equipment combining tools and ride-support products.[1]

Cycling shoes

The footwear range is designed to integrate with the brand’s pedal systems. Crank Brothers produces both clip-in and flat-pedal shoes, including the Mallet and Stamp footwear families.[1] This allows the company to operate as an integrated cycling equipment brand.

Although Crank Brothers produces products for various disciplines, mountain biking remains the centre of its brand identity. The company describes itself as an engineer of mountain bike components and emphasises performance tested by professional athletes.[1] Relevant disciplines include cross-country (XC), trail, all-mountain, enduro, downhill, freeride, gravel, and cyclocross. The gravel collection, for example, encompasses pedals, shoes, pumps, tools, dropper posts, and wheels.[1]

Design is central to the Crank Brothers identity. The company’s philosophy is to “start with a clean slate” and develop products that improve each ride.[1] This manifests in several recurring characteristics:

• Minimalism: Removing unnecessary material, mechanisms, or visual complexity, as exemplified by the Eggbeater.
• Function-first engineering: Solving specific riding problems such as mud clearance, tool compactness, dropper post adjustability, flat pedal grip, and wheel compliance.
• Distinctive industrial design: Products often look noticeably different from conventional components, aiding brand recognition.
• Iterative testing: R&D involves prototyping, testing, modifying, and retesting based on design hypotheses.[1]

Frank Hermansen

Frank Hermansen is a co-founder with a background in product and industrial design. He previously worked in the scuba diving industry with Carl Winefordner and was heavily involved in early product development and the company’s product culture.[2]

Carl Winefordner

Carl Winefordner is a co-founder with an engineering background who worked with Hermansen on the earliest products. The combination of engineering and industrial design perspectives became fundamental to the brand’s development philosophy.[1]

The name Crank Brothers reflects the company’s cycling orientation and the relationship between its founders. Hermansen and Winefordner were not biological brothers but business partners and friends who met through the scuba industry.[2] The name contributes to the brand’s deliberately informal and unconventional personality.

In 2008, Crank Brothers became part of the Selle Royal Group, an Italian cycling products company.[4] While Selle Royal is historically known for saddles, it has expanded into a broader portfolio. Crank Brothers retained its distinctive brand identity and product development focus after the acquisition. The official website identifies the brand as part of Selle Royal Group S.p.A.[1]

Crank Brothers has historically used professional and elite riders for product development and validation. Products have appeared in cross-country racing, cyclocross, enduro, downhill, trail riding, and gravel racing. Current positioning continues to emphasise products tested by world-class athletes,[1] which is significant given that pedal design directly affects the rider-bicycle interface.

The company continues to expand these categories. Its 2026 catalogue includes new pedal, wheel, footwear, pump, tool, and handguard products.[1]

Crank Brothers is not marketed as a traditional mass-market component manufacturer. Instead, it positions itself around innovation, design, performance, and individuality. Products feature a recognisable aesthetic characterised by minimalist structures, sculpted shapes, distinctive colourways, compact mechanisms, visible engineering, and premium finishes. This allows many cyclists to identify the brand visually without seeing a logo.

Crank Brothers frequently approaches established components from a different direction. Where a traditional approach asks how to improve an existing pedal, Crank Brothers asks what a pedal would look like if designed from scratch. This distinction is evident in the Eggbeater. R&D materials reinforce this clean-sheet approach, emphasising rider experience, product quality, and iterative testing.[1]

• Strong product identity: The Eggbeater is one of the most recognisable pedal designs in mountain biking.
• Engineering innovation: The company repeatedly challenges conventional component designs.
• Distinctive aesthetics: Products share a recognisable industrial design language.
• Mountain bike heritage: Deep connections with XC, trail, enduro, and downhill riding.
• Broadening ecosystem: Expansion into shoes, wheels, tools, pumps, and dropper posts creates an integrated product ecosystem.[1]

Crank Brothers has faced criticism regarding the long-term reliability of some products. Early dropper posts developed a reputation for reliability issues, and the company faced warranty and customer service challenges during certain periods.[5] This has created a divided reputation between being “innovative and beautifully engineered” and “innovative but sometimes mechanically complicated or reliability-sensitive.” The company has since emphasised testing, durability, and iterative development in its R&D process.[1]

As of 2026, Crank Brothers is a global cycling brand with a portfolio far exceeding its 1997 origins. The official catalogue encompasses pedals, shoes, wheels, dropper posts, tools, pumps, handguards, apparel, and accessories. The brand continues to emphasise mountain biking while developing products for gravel and other off-road disciplines.[1] The company remains based in Southern California and operates as part of the Selle Royal Group.[6]

• 1997 — Foundation: Frank Hermansen and Carl Winefordner establish Crank Brothers in Southern California; the Speed Lever becomes the first product.[2]
• 2001 — Eggbeater: Introduction of the Eggbeater clipless pedal, the breakthrough product.[3]
• 2000s — Pedal expansion: Expansion of the pedal system into additional models and riding categories.
• 2008 — Selle Royal: Crank Brothers becomes part of the Selle Royal Group.[4]
• 2010s — Component diversification: Expansion into dropper posts, wheels, tools, pumps, and other equipment.
• 2020s — Complete riding ecosystem: Development of pedals, footwear, wheels, tools, pumps, dropper posts, handguards, and apparel as a connected ecosystem.[1]
• 2026 — Current era: Continued operation as a performance-oriented cycling brand under Selle Royal Group, with mountain biking at its core.[1]

The historical importance of Crank Brothers lies in challenging established bicycle component design. The Eggbeater reconsidered pedal architecture rather than incrementally improving existing designs. This philosophy influenced subsequent products, creating a progression from the Speed Lever to the Eggbeater, then to a pedal ecosystem, MTB components, and finally a complete off-road cycling ecosystem. The underlying concept remains consistent: identifying a cycling problem, discarding conventional assumptions, and designing a new solution around the rider.

1. About Crankbrothers
2. Q&A: Crank Brothers founders talk genesis, haters, and having a boss
3. About
4. “The thing I love the most about Crankbrothers is that it unites passionate people, who love the sport and make an effort every day to be the best version of themselves”
5. Crank Brothers – 25 Years Down the Trail
6. crankbrothers | LinkedIn