In October, Sports Garage was among the first U.S. dealers invited to an event at the Mondraker’s Alicante headquarters, joining fantastic dealer colleagues like 2nd Ave. Sports from Durango, The BackCountry from Truckee, Fat Tire Farm from Hood River, and others. Our Co-owners Brad James and Elorie Slater had already done a lot of due diligence with Mondraker thanks to a growing relationship with their new North American HQ recently opened in Boulder. The itinerary for the visit included education, food, facilities tours, food, product testing, more food, more product testing and lots of time for personal interaction with the Mondraker design and engineering team.Photo courtesy of MondrakerBrad and Elorie’s first report back to the shop came in a text that said “These guys’ passion is the real deal”. The company was founded at the turn of the twenty-first century by Paco Sanchez and Miguel Pina, a downhill racer. They were committed to racing, and specifically gravity racing.   In 2001 they released their first model, the Petrol, a DH race bike made with a modern Horst Link and (a nod to the future) adjustable geometry.   Miguel walked us through his ideas about this first bike, and it was clear he was already experimenting with ideas the broader mountain bike world would embrace years later.Fast forward through growing pains, successes, wins, and setbacks: Mondraker athletes swept the podium in a 1-2-3 finish at the World Championships at Val di Sole and finished the season as the top-ranked team. Mondraker’s racing history includes plenty of fairytale moments.

“It started a geometry revolution”

Experimentation paid well.  In May 2017, a Mondraker graced the cover of Mountain Bike Action with the headline “It started a geometry revolution”. MBA was right. With the Foxy XR (XR stands for “Extreme Racing”) Mondraker was the first high-performance mountain bike design team to dramatically push top tube lengths, shorten stems, and rebalance weight distribution.      The cover story Foxy XR (160mm / 140mm) top tube was a full 6cm (2”) longer than the Foxy RR frame. It was a big risk. If you’ve even remotely noticed what has happened to mountain bike geometry since then, you know the end of the story: everyone followed the path of “modern, longer, slower, slacker”.We learned a lot about the Mondraker origin story and technology evolution; it fueled our growing excitement. But it was the warm welcome and incredible hospitality of the Mondraker leadership team that truly cemented our confidence in the brand. Everyone, starting with the CEO Miguel, uses the phrase “DNA”…often. In so many ways, we did get the feeling Mondraker created their own mountain bike gene code.  During the presentation, Miguel shared the story of how the name was chosen. After many failed brainstorming attempts, Miguel ran home and grabbed a pile of his comic books. Mandrake the Magician, a protagonist that made things appear out of thin air, became the inspiration. Miguel and Paco were going to build something new, from nothing.The camaraderie of the other dealers, the demo crew, and the design team made for outstanding product tests, all within arm’s length of the sea. A whole day on the then-under-embargo 2025 Crafty Carbon, Mondraker’s best-selling e-MTB in Europe, was a riot.From Forward Geometry to chip-proof proprietary paint formulations to Stealth carbon that performs 20% over industry ISO standards, Mondraker is checking all the right boxes, and then some. Attention those for whom aesthetics is most important: we find Mondraker swoon-worthy, if not downright sexy. The easily recognizable frame window mirrors the logo design, top tubes align with seat stays, and their in-house color formulation rivals Europe’s best fashion houses.We’ll end on a sweet note; Brad’s favorite dessert from our last evening spent around the tapas table with new friends. He described it as a “monogrammed sweet fritter waffle with delicious ice cream.” In true Mondraker style, the details mattered in every moment. Look out 2025 – this Spanish brand is coming for you, and the Mondraker U.S. dealers think it’s gonna be sweet.