An employee puts finishing touches on a Cielo frame at the factory in 2013.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

If you were waiting to order a Cielo, it’s too late.

Portland-based Chris King Precision Components (CKPC) announced yesterday that they’ve ceased production of all Cielo frames, forks and stems effective immediately.

In a statement, the company said, “After reevaluating marketing and sales goals for the coming years, Cielo unfortunately did not fit into our plans. We are quite proud of the product that the brand has produced over the years, but will be focusing our attention and resources on our core product families (headsets, bottom brackets, and hubs).”

Cielo was started by Chris King in Santa Barbara California 1978. By the mid 1980s King’s headsets had become so popular that he stopped making bikes to keep up with the demands of his fast-growing company. As his headset (and later hubset and bottom bracket) business grew he added staff and moved his business from Santa Barbara to Redding (CA) and then ultimately to Portland in 2003. Once settled into a large manufacturing facility in the northwest industrial district and with a healthy business (the company now employs over 130 people), King rekindled the Cielo brand in 2008.
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Riders dove into freshly prepared Mexican
food from Verde Cocina during the lunch
stop at Banks Elementary School.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Chris King, the man who founded one of the world’s leading bike companies back in 1976, has always been a gourmet. I can recall, as an employee of Chris King Precision Components back in the late 1990s, prepping food for one of King’s “Trail Daze” events in Santa Barbara. On the menu for the mountain bike trail volunteers that day were roasted red pepper sandwiches. As King blackened the peppers in his personal, professional-grade range, myself and several other volunteers were tasked with peeling away the blackened parts and artfully laying the peppers onto artisan rolls as King peered over our shoulders doing quality control.

All the prep was done with an attention to detail and eye for quality that seemed over-the-top for some trailside grub. But to Chris King, food is deserving of the same respect and exacting treatment he gives his eponymous bicycle components.
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