2013

Pole was founded in September 2013 in a basmenet of an old bakery by Leo Kokkonen and Patric Palonen. Soon after we moved to downtown Jyväskylä as a brick-and-mortar store that we renovated ourselves as the first base of Pole Bicycle Company. We shared the office space with Komia Design that was Leo's first business he founded 2014.

Pole was based on Leo's vision. His vision was to offer high quality mountain bikes that were designed to go up and down the mountain as an XC bike and DH bike would go. Leo believed that by changing the bike geometry and kinematics radically a such bike could be a game changer. Little did he know how much impact a such idea could have.

Design mule to test the Pole's geometry

Leo tested his ideas with K9's DH001-S. This Luis Arraiz's designed frame was ideal to modify. First, Leo changed the fork from 200mm travel to 140mm travel. Then he changed the headset to -2° and shortened the chainstays to balance the geometry. Later he added a dropper post and 11 speed cassette. Leo found that this concept was ground breaking.

We need to remember that 12-speed casssettes were introduced three years later at 2016. Also having a dropper post was a rather new invention. Although the concept worked out brilliantly, Leo found out that he would need to increase the reach by several centimeters.

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