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Goodbye, Steve.

Sunday, 30 November 2014 00:10

By Triathlete.com (November 26, 2014)

Steve Hed, a relentless tinkerer whose innovations in aerodynamics and wheel design set industry trends for three decades, died Wednesday. He was 59.

Hed collapsed outside one of the HED facilities, the company he founded, last Thursday. CPR was administered on the scene and as he was rushed to the hospital. He was removed from life-support on Tuesday night and passed away Wednesday morning.

The all-caps HED logo became an icon of the cycling industry over the course of three decades. Hed’s toroidal rim shape set a new standard for wheel aerodynamics; his wider rims changed the trajectory of the entire industry; his one-piece aero bars were revolutionary....

Hed’s life was centered on and around the bicycle. In grade school and high school, Hed was a cyclist and a model airplane enthusiast. He cited the Wright brothers as an inspiration, when asked about his education in an interview from earlier this year with the Greater MSP Business television show on KSTP Channel 5.

During the early 1980s he owned a small bike shop in the Twin Cities area called Grand Performance. His curious and generous nature was naturally attractive. READ MORE