STAY TRUE!
1979 Szymon, founder and CEO of NS Bikes spends his whole childhood in London, killing it every day on a Raleigh Chopper.
1988 Back to Poland. Body armour and suspension was unheard of then, but already Szymon knows the best way to make good use of two wheels.
1991 Szymon starts a band called Blenders. They become one of the most popular rock groups in Poland and in the course of 10 years they play over 700 live shows. Albums go gold and platinum.
1991 - 1999 Szymon usually takes his bike on tour, and on many occasions travels from one venue to another on his bike. Not an easy task bearing in mind that the the after parties usually end at 7 am.
1991 - 1999 In between shows, Szymon manages to sneak out and win some major national downhill races.
1999 With no proper DH equipment available in Poland, Szymon has to import stuff from the USA. This gear helps him win more races, but also sparks an idea for a business.
2000 Szymon decides to change his hobby into a business, and opens a bicycle imports company with his wife Anna. Today he admits that it was the most scary day of his life. They take off with a tiny booth at a Polish trade show.
2000 - 2003 7ANNA starts it's stable growth, acquiring new brands, new employees. Things start rolling in the right direction.
2003 Not quite happy with the equipment available on the market, 7ANNA starts it's own brand. They call in Northshore Extreme. The first production contained a pick of some nice handlebars, stems and pedals.
2004 Everyone in Poland seems to go crazy about Northshore. It is the only product at the market at that time to have the right combination of good quality, nice price and great image. The first official presentation at a bike festival is a great success.
2004 Northshore is rebranded to become NS Bikes. The company signs it's first team riders, Waldo Kiebasinski and Greg Konwicki. Both work very closely with the company in the following years, helping with marketing and product development.
2004 NS Bikes starts co-operating closely with a crazy street rider called Erenes. Three years later he joins the company to become Product Manager.
2004 Erenes has ideas that lead the company to manufacture one of the most crazy hardtails ever made. Compatible with 24 and 26”, MTB or BMX hubs, pegs, rigid or double crown forks. Crazy... but everyone was talking about it.
2004 NS becomes available in 3 European countries thanks to distributors in Germany, Holland and Sweden. More and more custom designed products are added to the line.
2005 NS Trip 1: the whole team and their friends head out in a bus and travel the country. An amazing experience that all riders will remember for a long time. A second trip takes place 2 years later.
2006 The 2006 Suburban frame. It sets out a new direction for product design at NS. Simple and beautiful with no unnecessary features.
2006 For the first time NS has it's own booth at Eurobike - the most important international bike tradeshow. NS is now distributed in most European countries, as well as Japan and Australia.
2006 The company moves into a new office and warehouse. Nothing really fancy but it's located on the edge of a forest with some really good trails nearby.
2006 7ANNA starts NS Bikes sister brand - Octane One.
2007 The first NS complete bikes become available - the Core and Metropolis. The launch of the bikes is supported by a unique interactive internet campaign.
2007 Waldo retires from competition and takes the position of Art Director at NS.
2008 NS picks up Swedish rider Martin Soderstrom. This super talented rider was already using NS gear for some time, and within one years of signing with NS goes to win just about every international contest.
2009 The Majesty frame is launched. It's the lightest, strongest and most advanced hardtail on the market. It becomes the choice of many top riders around the world.
2009 On many occasions, two or even three riders standing on a podium would be on the Majesty. Like at AKOD - where besides NS pro rider Bartek Obukowicz (on the photo), there were two other Majesty riders - Martin Soderstrom and Jan Toth.
2010 With an incredible winning streak Martin and NS jump on the covers of mountain bike magazines around the world.
2010 Prototypes of the first NS full suspension are shown at Eurobike. The company has been working on this frame for 2 years, but production will not start until 2011.
2010 The assembly and painting of complete bikes is moved to Europe. The whole process was very complicated but it was worth it as the production is now easier to control.
2010 Dirt Magazine publishes a 6 page story about Szymon and NS Bikes.
2011 NS signs a two year contract with Sam Pilgrim who at the moment is one of the highest ranking freestyle mountain bike riders in the world.
2011 Sam Pilgrims goes to win just about every major contest in 2011. His winning streak is simply unbelievable.
2012 The NS Soda hits the market. This is a milestone moment for NS Bike and the premiere is accompanied by a video that tells the story of this project.
2013 NS Bikes introduces the Fuzz frame, backed up by a new DH racing and R&D team
2013 Sam Pilgrim wins the FMB World Tour for NS Bikes and is the first European to win the Champion title!
ABOVE:

THE STORY BEHIND NS

Forward thinking.
Open minds.
Caring about what we do.
Listening to our riders.
Working hard to achieve the results that we planned.
Not giving up somewhere in the middle of the road.
Doing only what we can do best.
Doing things differently.

 

These are just a few of the leading thoughts that have been with us since the beginning of NS Bikes.

 

When we started working on our first frame, the Streetlegal, pretty much everyone was shaking their heads in disbelief. Sure, it was a crazy project. At that time no one believed that we could go anywhere with that one. But we took the risk. We pushed the project through and built the frames. And guess what? We sold all of them much faster than we planned. How come? Well, probably because the frame was designed and developed by REAL progressive riders, and there happened to be a few other REAL progressive riders out there who needed that kind of product. Not many, but enough to inspire us and give us a feeling that someone appreciates what we do.

 

The same story repeated with several other products... we always heard voices doubting if what we were doing had any chance on the market. But in the end, the most crazy concepts always proved to be successful.

 

What’s interesting is that some companies are actually making their brand new frames based on our 2003 design - but so what? Since then our frames have gone through something like 10 evolutions. Riders evolve, the sport evolves, so our products are always up on the frontline. Always changing, adapting.

 

Our new products have gone a long way in the last few years. And we are not ashamed to admit that something can be changed, something can be improved. In fact, no matter how hard we try, we can't keep ourselves from redesigning everything each year. If something can be improved - we just have to do it.

 

I think that another thing that defines NS is that it's a company dedicated to making highly specialised products for a narrow group of customers. That means that we doubt whether NS will ever be the choice of the “Hey, I want to buy a mountain bike because it’s cool” customer. The beginner rider probably won't appreciate the details that make our products special either. And it means that you can be pretty sure that if you meet someone on an NS, they will speak the same language as you do, no matter what country they come from.

 

In the future, we hope that people will shake their heads the next time we show them our new design. It means that we are still thinking different. And that’s good.

 

Szymon Kobylinski

NS Bikes

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