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KHE's History
We produced a t-shirt with the print "Kinky Huge Elephant" on it because everybody asks us what "KHE" means:
KHE is just the short name of our city Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe (KHE) is a city with 300.000 inhabitants and a lot of big history.
In 1817 the first bicycle was invented from "Freiherr von Drais" and it was called the "Draisine". The first car was built in Karlsruhe, too. It was in the year 1886 and Carl Benz (from Daimler-Benz) manufactured the first automobile.
The KHE factory is now 16 years old (founded in 1988) and we are making BMX-Freestyle bikes and parts. All of the parts, frames and bikes are developed by ourself and tested by our team riders.
In 1990 we invented the Grinddisc in cooperation with Albert Retey. The next invention was the first bmx clamp fork without welding. After that came the first two bolt seatclamp and the 10mm and 14mm freecoaster with sealed bearing hub following.
In 1993 Albert Retey designed our first frame, and it was called the Catweasle. The next two frames were the "Beater" and the " Premium Lagger".
Jason Davies designed the "Beater" and the "Premium Lagger" was designed by Jesse Puente. The "Premium Lagger" was a new generation of a flatland frame.
In 1999 we created a signature bike with the German porn star "Dolly Buster"
called the "Dirty Buster".
In 2000 we came out with many new light weight parts like the "Easy Rider" frame, alloy flat fork and the alloy Phil Dolan bar.
The biggest move in our over 16 years history was for sure the new System Diatech rotor system. KHE and Dia Compe / Diatech developed this revolutionary new rotor system in the last four years which offers possibilities for new ideas and designs.
Today, the internal system is made by VPcomponents, one of the biggest headset makers, and Jagwire, the producer of the cables and the rotor.
For 2002 frames we designed special new top and down tubes. These new CrMo CONE tubes make our bikes lighter and much stronger on the front of the bike, where it is needed.
For 2003 we have been working on a lot new parts like cranks, alloy stem\bar combo, seatclamp, pedals, alloy T6 flat pegs, seat post, new frames like our new "Goldfinger" flatland CrMo frame. After a really long time period we cancelled our "Beater" and "Dirty Harry" bikes and filled it up with our new high end Street bike "Mad Max". For our old "Cosmic" comes the new "Derrick" entry level Street model equipped with a Grindguard CD. Also you can find the CD on the 2003 "Dirty Buster" Street bike.
The Easy Rider was more a high end image flat bike special made for our team riders. But we did not expect the Easy Rider being a big seller like in 2002, for this reason we topped the 2002 model and made many new own KHE
parts we also sell separately in our new part line.
In 2004 we build up our World team. In the US, we're sponsoring Shaun Butler, Cory Walters and Jesse Puente.
For 2005, we build up a nearly complete new highend part and bike line where the technique, stability and weight were the most important.
Our Pro bike models called the BUTLER Pro, MIDGET Pro and "The Equilibrium" (Jesse Puente's signature Pro model)
On all our Pro bikes are equipped with the new "F-SET Pro" rotor system.
More info about F-SET you can find on the web page www.F-SET.com
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