In its 120 years of existence, Goodyear has manufactured tires for everything from
Henry Ford’s Model T to Formula 1 race cars and NASA’s Mars rover. But the company’s very
first product was a bicycle tire back in 1898.
Goodyear returns to those roots now with a new line of performance bicycle tires developed over
the past two years with Rubber Kinetics LLC, a company led by industry veteran Luke
Musselman with a team based at Goodyear’s headquarters in Akron, Ohio.
“The inventions and technologies that have come out of Goodyear allow us to bring a premium
line of bicycle tires to market,” Musselman said during a recent media launch at the Southern
California facility housing Goodyear’s iconic blimp.
(Goodyear also continues to license its name for a separate line of tires and tubes designed by
Kent International for the mass market.)
All of the rubber compounds for the new performance line are developed in-house — no other
tire brand has them. And the compounds are made specifically for each tread pattern.
“We can design a great-looking tread pattern, but if the compound doesn’t work with the knob
size and doesn’t interact with the ground the way it’s supposed to, that tread pattern will not
work,” said Musselman, Rubber Kinetics’ president.
The line launches with more than 100 SKUs spanning four categories: road, transit, all-
terrain/gravel and mountain, plus Goodyear’s own tubes and tubeless sealant. Musselman said
he expects the line to grow to three times that size in the next 18 to 24 months.
In the U.S. and Canada, the Goodyear line is being distributed exclusively by Hawley-Lambert.
Goodyear will also sell direct to consumers online at full MSRP starting later this year at
GoodyearBike.com.
