Ideal Bikes is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

bicycle manufacturer located in Agios Vassileios, near Patras. With over 190,000 bicycles a year, it is one of the largest producers in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

History

The company ''Maniatopoulos Bros S.A.'' was founded in Patras in 1926, originally as an importer of bicycles and (later) motorbikes. In 1987 it was renamed ''Nikos Maniatopoulos S.A.'' The brand ''Ideal'' is used since 1977; in 1991 production moved to its present modern factory in ''Agios Vassileios'', while an aggressive export campaign established the brand in over 20 countries. The company maintains very advanced Design, Development and production technology infrastructure and ''Ideal Bikes'' is an extremely popular brand, especially in Europe, with a network of distributors throughout the continent. Other branches of the Maniatopoulos family have been involved in the automotive sector, like the owners of ''MAVA'' (the

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufacture ...

importer in Greece, who designed and produced the

MAVA-Renault MAVA Company was the Greek importer of Renault automobiles. In 1979, it decided to enter the car-production business introducing a passenger-utility car, a type then very popular in Greece for tax cetagorization reasons. MAVA assigned the crea ...

Farma automobile).

Teams

In its first year as a professional team the Team Volksbank started as ''Volksbank-Ideal''. The Swiss/Latvian team Rietumu Bank-Riga is sponsored by Ideal and begun as ''Rietumu Bank-Riga-Ideal''. Several mountain-bike teams have won international titles on Ideal bikes:See also "Teams" on: http://www.idealcyklar.se/

References

External links

Official website

The "Ideal Bikes Team" (based in Varese/Italy)
Sport in Patras Cycle manufacturers Cycling in Greece Manufacturing companies of Greece Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1926 Mountain bike manufacturers Greek brands Companies based in Patras Greek companies established in 1926 {{Greece-company-stub