In almost any sport, the greatest honor that athletes can achieve is to stand on the winner‘s podium with a gold medal hanging from their neck at the Olympic Games. Jolanda Neff, a 28-year-old Swiss woman, ascended to these lofty Olympian heights on her mountain bike in Tokyo during the summer. She finished the race more than one minute ahead of her rivals from around the world, riding a mountain bike built by the U.S. manufacturer Trek Bicycle.
Trek Bicycle’s Supercaliber model is equipped with two specially developed, high-tech sealing rings from Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST) in its shock absorber. The two seals make sure that the oil remains in the shock absorber and that no dirt or spray from the muddy Olympic cross-country course penetrates it.
“Feeling proud.” That’s how Simon Watling, a seal developer at FST’s facility in North Shields in northern England, described the thrill of seeing Freudenberg contribute to the Swiss champion’s success. “The suspension is integrated into the bicycle frame. Just 3 millimeters were available to us as the installation space,” he said. He met that challenge with his own design made of nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR).
The Olympic motto inscribed in the games’ charter is “faster, higher, stronger,” but a modified version of the phrase applies to the advanced development work that Watling is pursuing jointly with Trek Bicycle. The goal is “lighter, smaller and more compact,” to allow higher speeds off-road.
Here is something for fans of road events: Riders of Trek Bicycle’s products have finished the Tour de France wearing the yellow jersey, and have won major tours such as the Giro d’Italia and Spain’s Vuelta. The Waterloo, Wisconsin-based company designed the bikes for paved courses and dispensed with shock absorbers, however.
