Some Color Might be Nice 1980 - 1989
1980 COLOR
Colored headsets were introduced in black, navy, and bronze (shown). Note: Navy was used by the Nishiki road race team.
1982 2 EMPLOYEES
Left to right: Tony Williams, Chris, and Pablo Morales. Tony and Pablo were full time employees.
1978-1982 CIELO MOUNTAIN BIKES
Approximately 25 Cielo Mountain Bikes were produced during this time. In the early days of mountain biking there were no standard mountain bikes available in bike stores. Geometry was shared among a handful of builders. Early mountain bikes had slack angles, short head tubes, and long chain stays.
1978-1982 CIELO ROAD BIKES
Approximately 200 Cielo Road Bikes were built during this time. Half of these were built for road racing teams.
1982 NO BEARINGS = NO SALES
The small SoCal shop that had manufactured the CK designed bearing went out of business, along with most domestic bearing manufacturers, forcing Chris to take the process in-house.
1983 START OF CK SEALED BEARING PRODUCTION
1983 2NUT™ HEADSET WITH SEALED BEARINGS
Shown with its original packaging, the 2Nut was the first headset to feature the now legendary CK sealed bearings.
1986 CK / WTB GREASE-GUARD HEADSET COLLABORATION
Charlie Cunningham asked CK to build a grease-guard version of the 2Nut 1” headset that they would co-brand. Unique to the headset, the grease-guard patented design incorporated custom inner seals, bearing races and cups. An Orange O-ring covered the greasing ports.
1987 1 ¼” HEADSET
Gary Fisher approached CK to make the Evolution designed headset as mountain biking became more rugged.
1988 3-D VIOLET INTRODUCED
1989 1 1/8” HEADSET
11/8”Headset Short Stack cups used 11/4” bearings. Chuck Ibis and others felt the jump from 1” to 11/4” was excessive so Chuck requested 1 1/8” for mountain bikes. Both headsets were equally durable because they both used the same 11/4” CK sealed bearing.