Saris. This five-letter word derived from a mash-up of our owners, Sara and Chris Fortune is what makes us, us. Twenty-seven years ago employees gathered in the Fortune's house to brainstorm, over Wisconsin beer, to figure out what the recently purchased Graber Products should be named. Hours later, after sifting through the all the options, Saris and fifteen other names were submitted to the trademark office. Only one of those names came back with a thumbs-up – and we're so happy it did.
The name "Saris" (pronounced SAIR-iss) has come to mean so many different things to many different people. For those who work here, Saris Cycling Group is a community. A family. A livelihood. For our bike shops and distributors, we're a reliable manufacturer who can build racks in a moment's notice. For our customers, Saris is a trusted name of Made in the USA bike racks backed with a lifetime warranty.
For one family, Saris is the inspiration for their daughter's name. And much like our moniker, the name Saris Reneé was determined over a few beers. We'll let Jaime tell the story.
"I had only been riding for a year or so at this point, and was introduced to it in El Paso by accident. I didn't have a car for a bit due to an uninsured motorist, so I got my first mountain bike and fell in love from there. One night, I met the guy that got me into riding, Adrian Gutierrez from Crazy Cat Cyclery, at a local dive bar downstairs from my apartment. Saris' mom accompanied me and we got on the discussion of names. We had agreed we didn't want standard names for our soon-to-arrive daughter and it needed to be something we just loved. That's when we talked about cycling and Adrian started throwing out brand names and those of riders. It was funny for a bit, from Tinker to even touching on competitors like Thule and Yakima, but the laughter stopped at Saris. We both loved it, thought it was simple, yet unique and the rest is history."
Double the Saris, double the awesomeness. Saris regularly sends her dad photos of herself with Saris-branded bike racks found out in the wild.
Jaime's family is one that completely embodies the absolute love of the bicycle. Saris' younger sister, Easton Allie was named after the component group, and her younger brother, Baden Anthony, is named after Baden Cooke – the winner of the green jersey at the 2003 Tour de France.
Their love of the bike doesn't stop at the homage to the cycling community. In the Arrieta family, everyone rides in some way – or in the case of the 20 month old, comes along for the ride. Jaime alone has participated in BMX, Cross, Track, MTB, road and triathlons, and the family is loving that their town of New Braunfels is becoming more and more of a cycling community.
