Author history

History of Universe Agency

1990 Universe Agency company was established.

1991 Universe Agency became the largest importer and distributor of bicycle components in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

1992 The company runs three wholesale stores and establishes an independent company of Universe Slovakia.

1993 The import of mountain bikes from Asia started under the Author brand. In this year, Author became the best selling brand in the Czech and Slovakian markets.

MTB Team

1994 Universe Agency Hong Kong was established. A qualitatively higher line of AUTHOR Equipe gets separated from the AUTHOR model line. In this year, MTB bikers of the AUTHOR Bike Team appeared for the first time in the racing tracks.

1995 The first year of selling the AUTHOR Equipe bikes in 9 models – in the total quantity of 3,500 units sold in the Czech market. A unique event of AUTHOR RACING PROGRAM (ARP) was prepared.

1996 14,000 "Equips" in sixteen models was sold in our market. A strictly regulated distribution network of AUTHOR Equipe was created through the Universe Group distribution warehouses. The second year of ARP is on. The AUTHOR Expandia Praha MTB Team expanded to include 5 racers. The company changes its registered office and enlarges the team of employees.

1997 The AUTHOR Equipe line includes already 23 models of mountain and cross bikes. Out of this collection, 31,000 bikes were sold, of which 2/3 were sold in the domestic market. The AUTHOR Equipe distribution network was established. This was the most successful season for the AUTHOR Expandia MTB Team in its history.

Author plus accessories

1998 The AUTHOR sale network is becoming stabilised, sales of components and bike accessories significantly increased. A complete line of AUTHOR plus accessories was created.

Madison bikes

1999 AUTHOR Equipe and higher models by AUTHOR were included under common and unified brand name of AUTHOR. The lower lines of bikes for adults are offered under the new brand of MADISON. For the first time in history, the yearly domestic sales exceeded the level of 100,000 bikes. 1999 was the first year of successful sale of AUTHOR PLUS components and accessories.


2000 A downhill team of AUTHOR RB ŠKODA AUTO was established . Preparation of presentation of the new AUTHOR logo related to the AUTHOR 2001 model line collection. First 500 members were registered in the AUTHOR CLAN program.

2001 During the Cyclo-Cross World Championship 2001 in Tábor, Petr Dlask and Tomáš Trunschka won silver medals. Other members of the Author team won places in the top 10. Filip Polc from the AUTHOR downhill team became the European Champion in mountain bike downhill race in the Elite category. His colleague Michal Maroši became the Czech Republic Champion in mountain bike downhill race in the Elite category.

2002 A new group of bikes was added to the 2002 model line collection – Dirt Street Series. This group includes the A-Gang trial models, which are constructed and designed in cooperation with Jaromír Spěšný (“Spaceman”), a world-class trial biker

10^th collection

2003 The AUTHOR brands celebrated the 10^th jubilee model collection. New BMX bikes were added to the Dirt Street Series section. ASL (Author Sport Lady) was created – a conception of designing the ladies’ sports bikes, bicycling accessories and clothes, exclusively designed for the sports-orientated female cyclists. The downhill racing team was dissolved and a new BMX and 4cross teams were established led by the world-class biker Michal Prokop. Another newly established team was the Author Praha Triathlon Team. The bike marathons organised until now under Author name were consolidated in the Author Marathon Tour series .

2004 The place in the Author cyclo-cross team vacated by Jiří Pospíšil was taken by Radomír Šimůnek jun. A spring advertising billboard campaign was running supported by advertising in the press and social magazines and in internet. The motto: AUTHOR Above-standard service was communicated in the campaign.

Author of bikes

2005 The spring advertising campaign continued (billboards, press, internet) and the motto Author of bikes was communicated . Petr Dlask, Václav Ježek and Radomír Šimůnek left the Author cycle-cross team and Martin Zlámalík became a new member joining Martin Bína and František Klouček. Author started cooperating with the PSK Whirlpool Hradec Králové cycling team, which members train and race with Author bikes. František Raboň, the greatest hope of the team, became the European Champion with the Author road bike. Two new conceptions of Author A-RH free-ride bikes were created as well as the ERA – a special Marathon bike . BMX, 4X and DIRT team bikers were combined into a common team named AUTHOR GANG with the following members: Jaromír “Spaceman” Spěšný, Damjan Siriški, Petr Kraus (freestyle MTB), Michal Prokop, Lukáš Tamme (4X, BMX), Jan Valenta and David Pánka (freestyle BMX).

All-carbon road bikes

2006 The spring advertising campaign continued again (billboards, press, internet) and the motto Author of bikes was communicated . All-carbon road bikes of CA7706 and CA6606 models were the new products in the bike assortment, as well as the A-Gang d.m. and n.m. specialised enduro mountain bikes, which conception and frame are based on the freestyle A-Gang models. The Author Marathon Tour consists of as many as 8 cyclo-Marathons, including the most famous ones (Author Král Šumavy, Nova Author Cup, Author Šela Marathon...). Lenka Radová and Jan Čelůstka became the new members of the Author triathlon team. Lukáš Bauer, the cross-country skier, who trains with Author bike, won a silver medal in a cross-country race in the Winter Olympic Games in Italy. A new website www.author-gang.cz was put into operation to map the activities related to the Author Gang (Michal Prokop, Lukáš Tamme, Spaceman, Damjan Siriški, Petr Kraus, Jan Valenta, David Pánka).

2007 Author concentrated on development of additional components of its own, like stems, handlebars, wheel rims and wheel sets. Our cooperation with the Technical University of Liberec brought completely new conception of the A-Rh and Era full suspension bikes and also the XC and the Marathon bikes named A-ray were introduced.

Author brand terminated the existence of the Author Praha Cyclo-Cross Team.

2008 New website www.author-technologies.cz was created to be devoted much in detail to description and explanation of the technologies applied in producing the frames and components.

Author had five racers in total participating in the Olympic games – Benčík, Radová, Prokop,
Kaňkovský and Kadlec.
A carbon program for frames and accessories was developing. Author is active in 22 markets, mostly in Europe.

2009 AUTHOR bikes line up has been extended by 29ers. Particularaly by models Instinct 29 and Traction 29. By us sponsored Pro Continental team PSK Whirlpool Author is joined by two former members of the German ProTour T-Mobile squad: Patrik Sinkewitz and Danilo Hondo; and achieve many great results thanks to them. Peter Vabroušek regularly appears on the podium in the triathlon Ironman series.

2010 MTB models Magnum, Introvert and Master use carbon frame 2nd generation. The advantage of them is weight reduction of about 300 g and increase rigidity.

2011 We introduce new carbon full suspension frame platforms A-RAY and ERA.

2012 20th collection of Author bicycles.