Bob Parlee went from boats into bikes. It wasn’t a huge leap as his job remained essentially the same: composites engineer. Having made boats from carbon fibre, he decided to apply his knowledge to his passion for cycling, founding his eponymous bike company in 2000. And the Z-series was where it all started.
‘Bob was one of the first to make a high-performance composite bicycle frame,’ says Parlee product manager Tom Rodi. ‘He was an active cyclist, and as composites entered boats in the 1980s he gained a lot of experience and appreciation for the material and its potential. His speciality in boats was developing foil shapes such as rudders and dagger boards.’