In 1986, Paul Brodie left a frame-building job at Rocky Mountain Bicycles and started welding his own steel hardtails in Burnaby, BC. He's credited as the designer and builder of the first sloping top tube — the geometry basically every mountain bike still borrows from. This is the real, unembellished history.
Paul Brodie leaves his frame-building post at Rocky Mountain Bicycles and starts building custom steel hardtail mountain bikes under his own name in Burnaby, BC. Early frames: the climbMax, Sovereign, eXpresso, and Romax.
CyberSport Ltd. takes on worldwide distribution. The lineup grows to five production models.
Brodie adds aluminum frame production alongside its steel roots.
Redesigned as one of the first true free-ride hardtails — hydraulic disc brakes and a long-travel fork, well ahead of where the rest of the category was.
Paul Brodie sells the company to longtime distributor CyberSport Ltd., who keep it running under the Brodie name.
Paul Brodie is inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame on September 29 — recognition for the sloping-top-tube geometry that reshaped how hardtails are built.
A reproduction of the 1888 Whippet — Brodie's nod to cycling's own history — takes People's Choice at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
The lineup expands to its widest point yet: 36 complete bicycles and five titanium frame options.
Brodie runs lean — around seven full-time staff. Frame geometry today is handled by Bruce Spicer, a 13-time Canadian National Championship titleholder. ChainLine is proud to carry the lineup that grew out of one guy's garage in Burnaby.
Either way, ChainLine has the current lineup in stock and can walk you through sizing, geometry, and what's changed since 1986.