Renthal – Bandage manufacturer – china waist seal and girdle
www.renthal.com
Renthal is a manufacter and designer of motorcycle handlebars, chainwheels, grips and accessories for the off-road, street, and ATV markets. Currently, Honda, Kawasaki, KTM, and Suzuki all specify Renthal handlebars as stock for their performance off-road motorcycles. Renthal’s manufacturing and engineering facility is located in Stockport, England. Renthal is unique in that it’s one of the few companies that manufactures product in-house in this market segment.
Contents
1 History
2 Products
3 OEM Involvement
4 Racing
5 References
6 External links
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History
Renthal was formed in 1969 by friends and motorcycle enthusiasts Andrew Renshaw and Henry Rosenthal, who are today, still the company’s Technical and Commercial Directors respectively. The very first handlebars were based upon a prototype that Rosenthal made for his trials bike from H14 aircraft aluminum that was World War 2 surplus material. These handlebars performed quite well when compared to the steel bars they replaced. In fact, when building the first set, they broke the tube bending machine while being formed. With a great deal of effort, the two founders made their own specialized tube bending machine to handle the aluminum and started small scale production.
When trying to figure out a name for their new venture, the two founders decided to combine parts of their surnames. They took “Ren” from Renshaw and “thal” from “Rosenthal” to make Renthal. Making motorcycle handlebars was initially a part time job while Andrew studied for a degree in mechanical engineering and Henry finished his business studies at a local university. Initially Renthal only produced handlebars for the trials market, but the two soon realized there was much more demand for this type of product in the ever emerging motocross market. With increasing sales and demand, full time production began in 1975 in Stockport England, the very same place where the company resides today in Northern England.
Growth was steady through the 70’s and 80’s and in 1990, Renthal opened its first US office and warehouse for sales / marketing with the help of a young American entrepreneur by the name of Jim Hale. Armed with a new US office and a factory working at full tilt, the Renthal brand gained popularity through the 1990s along with the popularity of motocross. Just about every professional motocross race team in the 90’s had used, or was using Renthal products to help them secure championships in their respective classes worldwide.
In October 2000, Renthal suffered a major setback when its factory in Stockport England was burned to the ground by a faulty machine. The machine at fault was an aluminum particle extractor which acts a huge vacuum to remove particles from the air during the machining process. A spark within this machine had caused it to catch fire and act as giant blowtorch straight through the roof of the factory. Before the machine could be shut down, the entire factory had burned almost beyond recognition. Some parts of the fire were so hot that it melted stacks of handlebars and sprockets into unrecognizable piles of metal. Fortunately nobody was hurt during this incident and plans were made to immediately start rebuilding the facility in the same exact location. With a huge effort from employees, the goodwill of the suppliers, and even support from some of its competitors, the company was still able to meet their responsibilities to clients and race teams that year. What replaced the original factory was a completely new, state of the art manufacturing and design facility. Renthal’s 41,000 sq. ft. factory now houses machinery available for manufacturing, quality control, R&D, and storage. This includes five Yamazaki two and three axis CNC turning centers, seven Kitamura machining centers, one Kardex Shuttle 500NT automated vertical storage system, and a number of other custom specification machines. These custom spec machines include bar bending machines, a fatigue tester and drop test rig created to fatigue aluminum handlebars.
In 2004, Renthal began supplying the first aluminum 7/8″ handlebars to be fitted as OEM equipment on a Japanese manufactured off-road motorcycle. For the 2004 model year, every Honda CR and CRF motocross bike came with the Renthal 971 “RC” bend handlebar. Soon after this, many of the other manufactures followed suit and began fitting Renthal handlebars as stock on their off-road models.
Products
Renthal also produces chains, sprockets and grips. The Intellilever unbreakable clutch and brake levers for current motocross bikes along with brake pads are just a few new items added in 2008. Also new is a hybrid bi-metal rear sprocket called the Twinring Rear Chainwheel which utilizes an aluminum center section mated with a steel outer ring. By combining these two materials, you get a chainwheel which is lighter than an all steel construction but is more durable than the traditional all aluminum rear sprocket.
In 2009, Renthal introduced new products for the road racing market such as adjustable clip on handlebars and Kevlar infused dual compound road race grips. The road race Kevlar grips utilize a unique mold from the MX grips in that they have open ends for bar end weights and a smaller inner flange.
OEM Involvement
Renthal has always had very strong ties with the manufacturers of motocross motorcycles and ATV’s such as Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, and KTM. In 2004, Honda became the first manufacturer to fit Renthal 7/8″ aluminum handlebars to their motocross bikes. This was also the first time that aluminum 7/8″ handlebars had been fitted to a motocross bike which typically came with very cheap to produce steel handlebars. The benefits of using aluminum over steel were numerous for motocross use. The two most important benefits were greater strength and greater flexibility which helped reduce vibration and fatigue.
In 2005, Yamaha followed suit and decided to also fit Renthal 7/8″ handlebars to their motocross model range of YZ’s, YZ-F’s and WR off-road models. By 2006, every manufacturer had chosen Renthal handlebars over the steel handlebar which they replaced. Kawasaki’s line up of motocross bikes from 2006 include a Renthal 7/8″ handlebar. Since 2006 Suzuki have been fitting their motocross models with a Renthal 1 1/8″ Fatbar which is an oversized tapered handlebar. The Austrian manufacturer KTM has been using the oversized Renthal Fatbar on their motocross bikes since 2002. For 2008, Kawasaki has chosen to fit the Renthal Fatbar on every one of its new KFX450R’s, an all-terrain vehicle.
In addition to supplying the OEM’s with alloy handlebars for many years, Renthal also supplies a few select manufacturers with its grips and chainwheels for various applications and uses.
Racing
Renthal has always had very strong ties to professional and amateur racing since the early days of the company. It is a company philosophy that believes through racing involvement at the highest level, product R&D and evolution will continually move forward. This technology will eventually trickle down through the product range and end up in the hands of the consumer.
References
Renthal Ltd. business data, Manta.com (http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_kzkscy)
ISOQAR Quality Assured Firm, ISO 9001 Certified Company, Certificate #4229/04 (http://www.isoqar.com/uk/index.asp)
International Dealernews, Al Franck – International Editor (http://www.dealer-world.com)
External links
Renthal official site
Renthal at the Open Directory Project
Categories: Motorcycle technologyHidden categories: Articles with a promotional tone from July 2009 | All articles with a promotional tone | Articles that may be too long from July 2009 | Too long article | Articles needing additional references from July 2009 | All articles needing additional references
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